V. H. STANTON.
HEBREWS, GOSPEL ACCORDING TO THE.—
Introduction.
i, Patristic and other evidence of existence. 1. Jerome.
. Epiphanius. . Eusebius (including Hegesippus). . Clement of Alexandria, and Origen. . Muratorian Canon (silent), Ireneus, Papias, Ignatius. . Nicephorus, and a minuscule codex of 9th or 10th
cent.
ii. Extant fragments.
iii. Theories of origin and character.
Literature.
_ Introduction.—Under the designation ‘accord- ing to the Hebrews’ several Church Fathers, from the 2nd to the 5th cent., speak of a Gospel which existed in their day, though to Greek - speaking Christians known but vaguely, if at all. Many of the statements made with regard to it are of ambiguous meaning, as if the writers themselves were but imperfectly acquainted with the subject ; and hence it is little wonder if the most divergent theories have been held about it. Was the Gospel
Do oo bo
HEBREWS, GOSPEL
HEBREWS, GOSPEL 339
a a RS
according to the Hebrews a particular book, or was it a type of tradition which was embodied in several different books? Did it exist in Greek as well asin a Semitic tongue? and was the Hebrew a transla- tion from Greek, or the original? Was it a source of the canonical Gospels or derived from them, or quite independent of, and parallel to, them? In the absence of any certain answer to these ques- tions, some of which may never be finally disposed of, the Gospel according to the Hebrews has been made to fill a place in connexion with each succes- sive theory of the origin of the Gospels; some, as Lessing, and more recently Hilgenfeld, regarding it as the primary root of the whole of the Gospel literature; the Tiibingen school seeing in it the earliest written expression of the Jewish-Christian position ; while others hold that it was never im- portant, and that, while it may have contained some true reminiscences, its tradition on the whole was secondary and derived. Recent discussions, however, by Hilgenfeld,* Zahn,+ Handmann, + Harnack,§ and Nicholson,|| have rendered the subject less shadowy. While there is still much difference of opinion on special points, the Gospel ’ according to the Hebrews is coming into view as it actually existed in the early centuries.
i. PATRISTIC AND OTHER EVIDENCE OF EXIST- ENCE.—1l. More facts are to be learned on the subject from Jerome than from any other Father ; and it is best to begin with what he tells us, re- ferring afterwards to the statements before him and after him. What is here said about Jerome is based on the admirable discussion by Zahn, in which the passages are collected.
Jerome went twice to the East. He lived 374- 379 a hermit life at Chalcis in Northern Syria, and in 385 he was at Antioch on his way to Palestine, to spend the rest of his life in the monastery he founded at Bethlehem. He was much in contact with Syrian Christians, who helped him to learn Hebrew, and told him many interesting things. In particular, he gathered from them much informa- tion as to the Gospel they used. This he describes by various phrases which at first sight seem some- what inconsistent with each other. At one time he calls it ‘the Hebrew Gospel’; at others, and most frequently, ‘the Gospel according to the Hebrews’ (juata or secundum Hebreos). ‘These words may be a description, not a title, and do not of themselves require us to think of a written work ; they might refer to the Evangelical tradi- tion current in the East, which might exist in more than one form. Jerome frequently says that the Nazarenes use this Gospel, or are in the habit of reading it. If the ‘Nazarenes’ of Jerome were a particular sect, their Gospel would be a particular book. But the name is more probably, in most of the passages where he uses it, a general one for the Jewish Christians of the East; so that the Gospel they used might have various forms. In one pas- sage (ad Mt 12"; No. 81) Jerome says the Nazarenes and the Ebionites used this Gospel. Here he must be held to be speaking very loosely. ‘There were Ebionites who were, to the eye of the Churchman, heretics, and they had a Gospel of heretical ten- dency of which fragments are preserved, though not by Jerome. But the term ‘ Ebionite’ was also used as a general designation of the Christians of Pales- tine who kept up a Jewish form of belief in Christ. It is not therefore to be inferred from this expres- sion of Jerome that he identified the heretical
* NT extra Can. Rec., Fasc. 1. Evangeliorwm sec. Hebreos, etc., 1884. si
+ Geschichte des NT Kanons, ii. 642-723.
¢ Teate und Untersuchungen, v. 3.
§ Chronologie, ii. 1, pp. 625-651. e
|| Lhe Gospel according to the Hebrews, 1879. ,
“| The numbering of the Fragments in this article is that of Preuschen’s Antilegomena.
Gospel of the Ebionites with that according to the Hebrews, which he does not elsewhere regard as heretical. More probably he is guilty of a con- fusion, and adds the Ebionites to the Nazarenes, though the two were identical: if this is so, his expression need not point to more than one book. But all doubts as to what he means by his ‘ Gospel according to the Hebrews’ are set at rest by ire other statements. In his de Viris Illustribus (ii. 3) of the year 392 he speaks of a book which existed at that day in the library at Czsarea, which the martyr Pamphilus took such pains to form ; and he says that the Nazarenes at Bercea (Aleppo) showed him the same work, and allowed him to copy it (No. 2). Here we come to another puzzle. In this passage he calls the book, of which he knew two copies, ipsum Hebraicum, ‘the original Hebrew.’ Now, he is speaking in this passage of the Gospel. according to Matthew, so that he appears to think, like Cureton in later days, that what he had copied out was the original Hebrew of Matthew, of which the canonical First Gospel in Greek was a transla- tion. In his commentary on Mt 12" (the passage cited above) he says that the Gospel used by the Nazarenes and Ebionites was called by many ‘the original of Matthew’ (Matthwi authenticum). And in his work against the Pelagians he speaks of ‘ the Gospel according to the Hebrews, which is written in the Chaldean and Syrian tongue [t.c. Aramaic, ef. Zahn, p. 659. It is Chaldaic as appearing in the OT, Syriac as a living language], but in Hebrew letters, which the Nazarenes use to this day; ac- cording to the Apostles, or, as many are of opinion, according to Matthew, which has a place in the library at Czesarea (No. 3).? And this book, he tells us, he had translated into Greek and Latin. To these translations of his own he frequently refers. There can be no doubt that he made them ; there is evidence, indeed, that they occasioned some little scandal in the Church, and were regarded as an indiscretion on his part, as if he had sought to add a fifth Gospel to the sacred four acknowledged by the Church.