Matthew 26
Gospel according to Matthew, chapter 26
Matthew 26 is the 26th chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, part of the New Testament of the Christian Bible. This chapter covers the beginning of the Passion of Jesus narrative, which continues to Matthew 28; it contains the narratives of the Jewish leaders' plot to kill Jesus, Judas Iscariot's agreement to betray Jesus to Caiphas, the Last Supper with the Twelve Apostles and institution of the Eucharist, the Agony in the Garden of Gethsemane and the subsequent vindication of Jesus' predictions, of betrayal by one of the twelve Apostles, and that he will, in the Denial of Peter, be disowned by his closest follower, Saint Peter.
Text
The original text was written in Koine Greek. This chapter is divided into 75 verses, more than any other chapter in this gospel. Protestant theologian Heinrich Meyer identifies 32 verses in which there are critical variations between different early manuscripts and critical editions.
Textual witnesses
Some early manuscripts containing the text of this chapter are:
Papyrus 64 (Magdalen Papyrus) (late 2nd/3rd century; extant: verses 7–8, 10, 14–15)
Papyrus 37 (~260; extant verses 19–37)
Papyrus 53 (3rd century; extant verses 29–35)
Codex Vaticanus (325–50)
Codex Sinaiticus (330–60)
Codex Bezae (c. 400)
Codex Washingtonianus (c. 400)
Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus (c. 450)
Codex Purpureus Rossanensis (6th century)
Codex Petropolitanus Purpureus (6th century; extant verses 58–64).
Old Testament references
Matthew 26:38: Psalm 42:5.
“Matthew 26” enters the record as gospel according to Matthew, chapter 26. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Matthew, Gospel and according can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 29, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6789867. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Matthew 26” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.