Gospel of the Hebrews

Background

In the early church, a number of gospels were read in addition to the four Gospels of the New Testament. Some of these are known to have been written or read by Jewish Christians, believers who accepted Jesus as the Messiah while maintaining their Jewish identity and the traditions of the Law. The Gospel of the Hebrews is regarded as one of the principal Jewish-Christian gospels.

The complete work has not survived. All that remains are brief passages quoted by the Church Fathers, the leading theologians and leaders of the early church, between the second and fifth centuries. Many scholars date its composition to the first half of the second century and place its origin in Egypt, though neither point has been settled.

Development

• Second century: The church father Papias related a story about "a woman accused before the Lord of many sins." In the fourth century, Eusebius noted that this story also appears in the Gospel of the Hebrews. Some scholars connect it with the account of the woman taken in adultery. Eusebius also reports that Hegesippus, writing in the same century, quoted from this gospel.
• Late second to early third century: Clement of Alexandria quoted from this gospel the saying, "He who wonders shall reign, and he who reigns shall rest."
• Third century: Origen quoted a passage in which Jesus says, "My mother, the Holy Spirit, took me by one of my hairs and carried me away to the great mountain Tabor." Scholars interpret this expression in light of the fact that the Hebrew word for "spirit" (ruach) is grammatically feminine.
• Early fourth century: In his Ecclesiastical History, Eusebius classified the books the church should receive. He placed this gospel among the noncanonical books but added that it was especially favored by "those Hebrews who have accepted Christ."
• Late fourth century: In On Illustrious Men (c. 392), Jerome recounted how the risen Jesus appeared to James the brother of the Lord and broke bread and gave it to him. Jerome claimed to have translated this gospel himself and wrote that many regarded it as the original of the Gospel of Matthew. He also quoted a passage stating that at the baptism of Jesus "the whole fount of the Holy Spirit" descended and rested upon him.

Outcome and Influence

Over the course of the fourth century, the list of twenty-seven New Testament books became established. Thereafter this gospel fell out of the church's public use, and its manuscripts disappeared. In the modern era, the surviving quotations have served as research material through which scholars examine the faith of Jewish-Christian communities and the diversity of early traditions about Jesus.

The scene in which the risen Jesus appears to James is cited with particular frequency. Together with 1 Corinthians 15:7 ("After that, he was seen of James"), it is used as evidence of the standing James held in the early church.

Assessment

The principal point of debate is whether the work the Church Fathers called the "Gospel of the Hebrews" was a single book or several. A view widely accepted in twentieth-century German scholarship divides the Jewish-Christian gospels into three:

• the Gospel of the Hebrews
• the Gospel of the Nazarenes
• the Gospel of the Ebionites

The latter two names were assigned by modern scholars. Some scholars group these works into two gospels or even one. Many scholars also doubt whether Jerome actually saw and translated this gospel, and whether his claim that it was the Hebrew original of Matthew is correct.

The Catholic and Orthodox churches do not include this gospel in the canon. In Korea, all Protestant denominations likewise accept the twenty-seven books of the New Testament as canon. Consequently, in Korean churches this gospel is not used in worship or preaching and is mentioned chiefly in discussions of the formation of the canon or of the New Testament apocrypha.