Isador

• wrote Gospel of Matthew in A.D. 71

121:8.5The Apos­tle Mat­thew did not write this Gospel. It was writ­ten by Isador, one of his dis­ci­ples, who had as a help in his work not only Mat­thew’s per­sonal re­mem­brance of these events but also a cer­tain rec­ord which the lat­ter had made of the say­ings of Je­sus di­rectly af­ter the cru­ci­fix­ion. This rec­ord by Mat­thew was writ­ten in Ara­maic; Isador wrote in Greek. There was no in­tent to de­ceive in ac­cred­it­ing the pro­duc­tion to Mat­thew. It was the cus­tom in those days for pupils thus to honor their teach­ers.

121:8.6Mat­thew’s orig­i­nal rec­ord was edited and added to in A.D. 40 just be­fore he left Je­ru­sa­lem to en­gage in evan­ge­lis­tic preach­ing. It was a pri­vate rec­ord, the last copy hav­ing been de­stroyed in the burn­ing of a Syr­ian monastery in A.D. 416.

121:8.7Isador es­caped from Je­ru­sa­lem in A.D. 70 af­ter the in­vest­ment of the city by the armies of Ti­tus, tak­ing with him to Pella a copy of Mat­thew’s notes. In the year 71, while liv­ing at Pella, Isador wrote the Gospel ac­cord­ing to Mat­thew. He also had with him the first four fifths of Mark’s nar­ra­tive.

• wrote Gospel of Matthew in A.D. 71

139:7.5Though Mat­thew was a man with a past, he gave an ex­cel­lent ac­count of him­self, and as time went on, his as­so­ciates be­came proud of the pub­li­can’s per­for­mances. He was one of the apos­tles who made ex­ten­sive notes on the say­ings of Je­sus, and these notes were used as the ba­sis of Isador’s sub­se­quent nar­ra­tive of the say­ings and do­ings of Je­sus, which has be­come known as the Gospel ac­cord­ing to Mat­thew.