St. Matthew writes, inspired by the angel at his shoulder. Rembrandt does not show us, on the pages of the open book, the language in which Matthew wrote. Perhaps he shared the uncertainties of today’s scholars. For decades scholars have disputed whether the Gospels were originally written in Hebrew, in Aramaic—a close cognate of Hebrew—or in Greek, the language of the oldest known Gospel manuscripts. George Howard’s recent linguistic “excavations” now provide evidence that possibly Matthew should be portrayed here as writing in Hebrew.