Secondly, That Epiphanius contradicts Jerome; in asserting, what “Jerome does not admit,” the identity of the Ebionite Gospel with that of St. Matthew.
Premising that one and the same work is to be understood as described, by the several titles, “Nazarene Gospel,” “Ebionite Gospel,” “Gospel according to the Hebrews,” “Gospel according to the Twelve Apostles,” I would submit that the first of these allegations is more plausible than true, and that the second is wholly untenable.
The contradictory statements of Epiphanius are the following:
(a.) “They (i.e. the Nazarenes) have the Gospel of Matthew most entire in the Hebrew language among them; for this, truly, is still preserved among them, as it was at first, in Hebrew characters. But I know not whether they have taken away the genealogy from Abraham to Christ.”[[123]]
(b.) “In that Gospel which they (i.e. the Ebionites) have called the Gospel according to St. Matthew, which is not entire and perfect, but corrupted and curtailed, and which they call the Hebrew Gospel,” &c.[[124]]
The verbal contradiction between these two passages, is no doubt manifest enough; and in a writer of more accuracy than Epiphanius, might have justified the proposal of Casaubon (approved by Jones) to effect a violent reconciliation, by the conjectural insertion of the negative adverb in the former sentence, which would then describe the document as not wholly perfect. But the looseness of this author’s style appears to me sufficient to explain the opposition between the statements; which seem indeed, to look defiance at each other, when brought by force, face to face; but which at the intervals of separate composition, may be, by no means, irreconcilable. That in the first, Epiphanius designed the phrase “most entire,” to be understood with considerable latitude, is evident from the expression of suspicion which instantly follows, that the genealogy might probably be absent. And if the work in question contained a quantity of matter additional to Matthew’s Gospel, whilst it also omitted some of its integral parts; it seems not unnatural that the same writer, who with his thoughts running on its redundancies, had at one time called it a most full copy, should at another, when dwelling on its deficiencies, style it an incomplete edition of the first Evangelist. But it is more important to observe, that on the points for which the Editors of the Improved Version adduce the testimony of Epiphanius, viz., to identify the Gospel of Matthew with that of the Nazarenes and Ebionites, and to attest the absence from this book of the story of the miraculous conception, there is here no contradiction whatever. In both passages he states the work to be Matthew’s, and in neither, according to Dr. Tattershall, does he say that the first two chapters were wanting. The harmony then, on these, the only points in dispute, is complete.
(2.) “Jerome,” it is said, “does not admit the work in question to be the Gospel of St. Matthew;” which puts him at issue with Epiphanius. Will Dr. Tattershall permit me to lay before him a passage of Jerome, which has been under his eye recently, for he has quoted a sentence from Jones which occurs on the adjacent page; it runs thus. “Matthew, also called Levi, who became from a publican an Apostle, was the first who composed a gospel of Christ; and for the sake of those who believed in Christ among the Jews, wrote it in the Hebrew language and letters; but it is uncertain who it was that translated it into Greek. Moreover the Hebrew (copy) itself is to this time preserved in the library of Cæsarea, which Pamphilus, the martyr, with much diligence collected. The Nazarenes, who live in Beræa, a city of Syria, and make use of this volume, granted me the favour of writing it out; in which (Gospel) there is this observable, that wherever the Evangelist either himself cites, or introduces our Saviour as citing, any passage out of the Old Testament, he does not follow the translation of the Seventy, but the Hebrew copies: of which there are these two instances, viz., that ‘Out of Egypt I have called my son;’[[125]] and that, ‘He[[126]] shall be called a Nazarene.’”[[127]]
Here Jerome, I presume, does admit the Nazarene Gospel to be that of Matthew; and the harmony on this point, between him and Epiphanius, is complete.
Besides alleging the above contradiction, Dr. Tattershall notices a supposed variance (not amounting to inconsistency) between these two Fathers on another point. From a statement of Jerome, he “thinks it may be fairly inferred,” that he knew the first two chapters of Matthew’s Gospel to be wanting in the Nazarene record. But it is denied that Epiphanius gives any countenance to the notion of their absence. Now I conceive that if this statement be precisely reversed, we shall have the true state of the case before us. Epiphanius gives us testimony to the absence, Jerome to the presence, of these chapters in the Nazarene Gospel.
First, as to Epiphanius: he makes the following statements bearing on this point: