Jewish-Christian Gospels: Patristic Citations

Papias

Papias wrote some time in the early second century. His work is lost, but Eusebius quoted him:

:Of Matthew he has stated as follows: "Matthew composed his history in the Hebrew dialect, and every one translated it as he was able."

Irenaeus

:Matthew also issued a written gospel among the Hebrews in their own dialect, while Peter and Paul were preaching at Rome, and laying the foundations of the church.

: use the gospel according to Matthew only, and repudiate the apostle Paul, maintaining that he was an apostate from the law.

Clement of Alexandria

:So also in the gospel to the Hebrews it is written, "He that wonders shall reign, and he that has reigned shall rest."

:He who seeks will not stop till he find; and having found, he will wonder; and wondering, he will reign; and reigning, he will rest.

There is also a parallel in the Gospel of Thomas:

:Jesus said: Let not the seeker stop seeking until he finds, and when he finds he will be disturbed, and when he is disturbed, he will be amazed, and he will rule over the All.

And the Traditions of Matthias:

:The beginning of knowledge is wondering at objects, as Plato says in the Theaetetus; and Matthias exhorting in the Traditions, says, "Wonder at what is before you;" laying this down first as the foundation of further knowledge.

Origen

:As I have understood from tradition, respecting the four Gospels, which are the only undisputed ones in the whole church of God throughout the world. The first is written according to Matthew, the same that was once a publican, but afterwards an apostle of Jesus Christ, who having published it for the Jewish converts, wrote it in Hebrew.

:If any one should lend credence to the Gospel according to the Hebrews, where the Saviour Himself says, "My mother, the Holy Spirit took me just now by one of my hairs and carried me off to the great mount Tabor," he will have to face the difficulty of explaining how the Holy Spirit can be the mother of Christ when it was itself brought into existence through the Word.

:It is written in a certain gospel, which is called "according to the Hebrews," if, however, anyone is pleased to take that not as authoritative, but as throwing light on the question before us. The other of the rich men said to him "Master, what good thing shall I do and live.?" He said unto him "Man, perform the law and the prophets." He answered him "I have performed them." He said unto him "Go, sell all that thou hast and divide it to the poor, and come, follow me."

:But the rich man began to scratch his head, and it pleased him not. And the Lord said unto him "How sayest thou 'I have performed the law and the prophets'? seeing that it is written in the law 'Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself,' and behold many of thy brethren, sons of Abraham, are clad with dung, dying for hunger, and thy house is full of much goods, and there goeth out therefrom nought at all unto them."

:And he turned and said to Simon his disciple, sitting by him, "Simon, son of John, it is easier for a camel to enter through the eye of a needle than a rich man into the kingdom of the heavens."

Eusebius

Eusebius places a "gospel according to the Hebrews" among the "disputed" scriptures:

:But there are also some who number among these , the Gospel according to the Hebrews, with which those of the Hebrews that have received Christ are particularly delighted.

And makes other references:

:These , indeed, thought, on the one hand, that all the epistles of (Paul) the apostle ought to be rejected, calling him an apostate from the law; but on the other, only using the Gospel according to the Hebrews, they esteem the others as of but little value.

:The same author (Papias) made use of testimonies from the First Epistle of John, and likewise from that of Peter. He also gives another history of a woman, who had been acused of many sins before the Lord, which is also contained in the Gospel according to the Hebrews. And this may be noted as a necessary addition to what we have before stated.

: also states some particulars from the Gospel of the Hebrews and from the Syriac, and particularly from the Hebrew language, showing that he himself was a convert from the Hebrews. Other matters he also records as taken from the unwritten tradition of the Jews. And not only he, but Irenaeus also, and the whole body of the ancients, called the Proverbs of Solomon, "Wisdom, comprehending every virtue."

:Of these Pantaenus is said to have been one, and to have come as far as the Indies. And the report is, that he there found his own arrival anticipated by some who there were acquainted with the Gospel of Matthew, to whom Bartholomew, one of the apostles, had preached, and had left them the Gospel of Matthew in the Hebrew,which was also preserved until this time.

:The Gospel which comes to us in Hebrew characters has directed the threat not against the hider, but against the abandoned liver. For it has inluded three servants, one which devoured the substance with harlots and flute-women, and one which multiplied, and one which hid the talent: then that one was accepted, one only blamed, and one shut up in prison.

:I will select to myself these things: very very excellent are those whom my Father, who is in heaven, has given to me.

Cyril of Jerusalem

:And that monk replied, "It is written in the to the Hebrews that when Christ wished to come upon the earth to men the Good Father called a mighty 'power' in the heavens which was called 'Michael', and committed Christ to the care thereof. And the 'power' came down into the world, and it was called Mary, and was in her womb for seven months. Afterwards she gave birth to Him, and He increased in stature, and He chose the Apostles, who preached Him in every place. He fulfilled the appointed time that was decreed for Him. And the Jews became envious of Him, they hated Him, they changed the custom of their Law, and they rose up against Him and laid a trap and caught Him, and they delivered Him to the governor, and he gave Him to them to crucify Him. And after they had raised Him up on the Cross the Father took Him up into heaven unto Himself."

:And the archbishop answered and said, "Where in the Four Gospels is it said that the holy Virgin Mary, the mother of God, is a 'force'?"

:And the monk answered and said, "In the to the Hebrews."

:And Apa Cyril answered and said, "Then, according to thy words, there are Five Gospels?"

:And that monk replied, "Yea, there are."

:And Apa Cyril answered and said, "What is the name of the fifth Gospel? for I should like to know whence this doctrine concerning Christ is derived, and to understand it. The Four Gospels have written above them: ' according to Matthew'; ' according to Mark'; ' according to Luke'; ' according John.' Whose is the fifth Gospel?"

:And that monk said unto him, "It is that was written to the Hebrews."

Didymus the Blind

:It looks as though Matthew is named Levi in the according to Luke, but he is not the same one. Rather, it is Matthias, who was put in instead of Judas, who is the same as Levi, and has two names. This turns up in the Gospel according to the Hebrews.

Epiphanius

:And have the gospel according to Matthew, very full, in Hebrew. For assuredly this is still kept among them, as it was at outset written, in Hebrew letters. But I do not know whether, at the same time, they have taken away the genealogies from Abraham to Christ.

:And they only accept the gospel of Matthew. This alone they use, as do also the followers of Cerinthus and Merinthus. They call it the gospel of the Hebrews. To tell the truth, Matthew wrote only in Hebrew and in Hebrew letters the narrative and preaching of the Gospel in the New Testament.

:In the Gospel of Matthew used by them—not in the perfect, but in a mutilated and castrated form—they call it gospel of the Hebrews—it is recorded: "and there was a man, named Jesus, and he was about thirty years old; he has chosen us. And He came into Capernaum and entered into the house of Simon, surnamed Peter, and He opened His mouth and said, 'As I walked by the sea of Tiberias, I chose John and James, the sons of Zebedee, and Simon and Andrew and Thaddaeus and Simon Zelotes, and Judas Iscariot; thee also, Matthew, when thou wast sitting at the receipt of custom, did I call and thou didst follow me. According to my intention ye shall be twelve apostles for a testimony unto Israel.'"

:And it came to pass when John baptized, that the Pharisees came to him and were baptized, and all Jerusalem also. He had a garment of camels' hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins. And his meat was wild honey, which tasted like manna, formed like cakes of oil.

:The beginning of their gospel reads thus: "It came to pass in the days of Herod, King of Judaea, that John came and baptized with the baptism of repentance in the river Jordan; he is said to be from the tribe of Aaron and a son of Zacharias the priest and of Elizabeth, and all went out to him."

:And after many other words it goes on: "The people having been baptized, Jesus came also, and was baptized by John. And as he came out of the water, the heavens opened, and he saw the Holy Spirit descending under the form of a dove, and entering into him. And a voice was heard from heaven: ' Thou art my beloved Son, and in thee am I well pleased.' And again: ' This day have I begotten thee.' And suddenly shone a great light in that place. And John seeing him, said, Who art thou, Lord? Then a voice was heard from heaven: ' This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.' Thereat John fell at his feet and said: I pray thee, Lord, baptize me. But he would not, saying, ' Suffer it, for so it behoveth that all should be accomplished.'"

:They also deny that He is a man, basing their assertion on the word which He said when He was told: "Behold thy mother and thy brethren stand without." "Who is my mother and who are my brethren?" "And He stretched forth His hand toward His disciples and said: 'These are my brethren and my mother and sisters, which do the will of my Father.'"

:They say that He is not begotten by God the Father, but created like one of the archangels, being greater than they. He rules over the angels and the beings created by God and He came and declared as the gospel used by them records: "I am come to abolish the sacrifices: if ye cease not from sacrificing, the wrath (of God) will not cease from weighing upon you."

:Those who rejected the meat have inconsiderately fallen into the error and said: "I have no desire to eat the flesh of this Paschal Lamb with you." (They leave the true order of words and distort the word which is clear to all from the connection of the words and make the disciples say: "Where wilt Thou that we prepare for Thee to eat the Passover?" To which He replied: "I have no desire to eat the flesh of this Paschal Lamb with you.")

Epiphanius also describes Tatian's Diatessaron, a sort of harmony of the four gospels, as the Gospel according to the Hebrews. (Panarion 46.1)

Jerome

:In the so-called gospel according to the Hebrews for "life-sustaining" bread I found "mahar," meaning "the next day," so the sense is "Our bread of the next day—that is the future—give us today."

:Ignatius … wrote … to the Smyrneans and specifically to Polycarp, recommending the church of Antioch to him, in which he also put the testimony of the gospel that I recently translated about the person of Christ, saying: "I actually saw him in the flesh after the resurrection, and believe that he exists, and when he came to Peter and to the people with Peter, said to them, "See, touch me and see that I'm not a bodiless demon." And right away they felt him and believed."

:But according to the gospel written in Hebrew words, which the Nazaraeans read, "The entire fountain of the holy spirit will come down on him…." Later on in the gospel we mentioned above we find the following written: "But it came about that, when the Lord came up out of the water, the entire fountain of the holy spirit came down and rested on him, and said to him, 'My son, in all the prophets I was waiting for you to come so that I could rest in you. In fact you are my rest. You are my firstborn son, who will reign forever.'"

:And in the gospel according to the Hebrews that the Nazaraeans habitually read, among the greatest crimes is placed depressing the spirit of a brother.

: the gospel put out as according to the Hebrews, which we recently translated, says in the person of the savior, "My mother, the holy spirit, a moment ago carried me by a single hair"…

:In Bethlehem of Judaea: This is a scribal error. That is to say we think it was first put out by the evangelist just as we read in the Hebrew itself, "Judah," not "Judaea."

:In the gospel used by the Nazaraeans and Ebionites, that not long ago we translated from Hebrew into Greek, which many people call the authentic Matthew, it's written that this man with the withered hand was a mason, pleading for help in these words: "I was a mason seeking a living with my hands. I beg you, Jesus, to give me back my health, so I don't have to beg for food in shame."

:In the gospel that the Nazaraeans use, instead of "son of Barachias", we find "son of Joiada."

:In the gospel written according to the Hebrews is interpreted as the son of their master, condemned for sedition and murder.

:In the gospel we're always mentioning we read that a massive lintel of the temple broke and split apart.

:Likewise as we read in the Hebrew gospel, the Lord says to the disciples, "Don't ever be happy unless you're looking upon your brother with charity."

:Likewise the gospel called "according to the Hebrews" which I translated into Greek and Latin not long ago, that Origen also uses a lot, after the Savior's resurrection reports: "But the Lord when he had given the shroud to the priest's servant, went to James and appeared to him. James had actually sworn not to eat bread from the hour he'd drunk from the Lord's cup until he saw him rise from the sleeping.

:Then after a bit: "'Carry out,' said the Lord, 'a table and some bread.'" And right after it adds: "He brought bread and blessed it, and gave it to James the Just, and said to him, "My brother, eat your bread, since the son of man has risen from the sleeping."

:The Apostle Matthew, a.k.a. Levi, former tax-collector, first compiled the gospel of Christ in Hebrew words and letters in Judaea, on behalf of those out of the circumcision who had believed; it's not clear who later on translated it into Greek. Further the Hebrew itself is still kept today in the Caesarean library assiduously collected by the martyr Pamphilus. I have also had the opportunity of having the volume described to me by the Nazaraeans in Beroea, a Syrian city, who use it. In this it should be noted that the evangelist, wherever he uses the testimonies of the Old Testament, whether on his own or in the person of our lord and savior, doesn't follow the text of the Septuagint, but of the Hebrew. Two examples are: "Out of Egypt I called my son," and, "For he shall be called a Nazarene."

:In the gospel according to the Hebrews, which is actually written in the Chaldean and Syrian language, but Hebrew letters, and which the Nazaraeans use till today as "according to the apostles," but most call "according to Matthew," and which is kept by the Caesarean library, the story goes: "See, the Lord's mother and his brothers were saying to him, 'John the Baptist is baptizing for removing sins; let's go and get baptized by him too.' He said to them: "How have I sinned, so that I need him to baptize me? Unless maybe what I've just said is ignorance.'"

:And in the same volume: "If your brother," he says, "sins verbally against you, and gives you satisfaction, receive him seven times in a day." His disciple Simon said to him, "Seven times in a day?" The Lord answered him, saying, "I say again to you, up till seventy times seven. For even in the prophets, even after the holy spirit anointed them, sinful speech turned up."

:Finally Matthew, who wrote the gospel in the Hebrew language, puts it like this: "Hosanna barrama," that is, "Hosanna in the highest."

Philip of Side

:On the other hand they completely reject the gospel of the Hebrews, along with those attributed to Peter and Thomas, claiming they were written by heretics.

Sedulius Scotus

:The gospel titled "According to the Hebrews" reports:
::Joseph stared out and saw a crowd of travelers coming together to the cave and said: "I'm going to get up and go out to meet them." As he was leaving, he said to Simon, "It looks to me like these people coming are prophets. See how they keep on looking up at the sky and holding discussions with one another. And they also look like foreigners, since their clothing is different from our clothing. For example, their robes are larger than ours, and they're extremely swarthy in complexion; they're wearing felt caps on their heads and their robes look soft to me, and they have wide trousers on their feet. And look, now they've stopped and are staring at me, and see, now they've started up again and are coming over here."
:So it's obvious from this passage that it wasn't only three men that came to the Lord, but a whole crowd of travellers, though according to some people the main leaders of the crowd were called by the specific names of Melchus, Caspar, and Phadizarda.

Haimo of Auxerre

:As the Nazaraeans' gospel has it, with this cry of the Lord many thousands of Jews standing around the cross believed..

The Historical Investigation of the Gospel According to Luke

:Bethsaida: where according to John he healed the paralytic. A lot of miracles were done in these cities; the gospel according to the Hebrews numbers the miracles done in them at fifty-three.

Nicephorus

:The gospel according to the Hebrews: 2200 lines.

Codex Vaticanus Reginae Latinus 49

:Similarly these eight days of Passover in which Christ the son of God rose again stand for eight days after the remission of Passover in which the whole seed of Adam will be judged, as the Hebrew Gospel states. This is why the wise believe that judgement day wil occur at Passover time; as Christ rose again on that day so the saints ought to rise up on that same day.

Marginal glosses

Some ancient manuscripts of the canonical gospel of Matthew provide readings from a text called the Judaic gospel in marginal notes.

:The Jewish Gospel doesn't have: "into the holy city," but "to Jerusalem."

:"Without a cause" doesn't occur in certain copies, nor in the Jewish Gospel.

:Here the Jewish Gospel reads: If you are in my bosom, and you do not do the will of my father in heaven, I will cast you away from my bosom.

:The Jewish Gospel: "more than serpents".

:The Jewish Gospel has "plunder."

:The Jewish Gospel: "I give you thanks." )

:The Jewish Gospel doesn't have "Three "

:The Jewish Gospel: "The corban you will be owed by us."

:The parts marked with an asterisk don't appear in other manuscripts, nor in the Jewish Gospel.

:The Jewish Gospel: "John's son."

:The Jewish Gospel has after "seventy times seven" "For in the prophets, even after their anointing in the holy spirit, the word of sin is found in them."

:The Jewish Gospel: "He denied and swore and cursed himself."

:The Jewish Gospel: "And he gave them armed men to sit right in front of the cave and guard it day and night."

Petrus de Riga

:It is read in the gospel books that the Nazaraeans use that rays shot forth from his eyes, which terrified them and made them flee.

The History of the Passion of the Lord

:And, just as the gospel of the Nazaraeans says, he had kissed the feet of each of them.

:But an angel from heaven appeared to him and comforted him. The angel comforted Christ in his agony of prayer, as the gospel of the Nazaraeans says.

:In the gospel of the Nazaraeans a reason for the priest having known John is put forth. It was because as the son of the poor fisherman Zebedee, he frequently carried fish to the courts of the high priests Annas and Caiaphus.

:It is read in the Nazaraeans' gospel that the Jews paid four soldiers to whip the Lord hard enough for blood to pour out over his entire body. They paid the same four soldiers to crucify him just as it says in John 19.

:Father, forgive them, since they don't know what they're doing. Note that in the Nazaraeans' gospel it reads that with Christ's virtuous speech eight thousand were converted to the faith afterward….

:Similarly the Nazaraeans' gospel reads that a massive lintel of the temple split apart at Christ's death. Josephus says the same and adds that horrible voices in the air were heard saying, "Let's get out of these parts."

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