THE VIRGIN BIRTH IN THE SECOND CENTURY a5
other category than that of the decidedly spurious books. It is quite certain, therefore, that if the Gospel according to the Hebrews contained no mention of the virgin birth, it also contained no genealogy. But if it contained no genealogy, it must have had a very different appearance at the very beginning from the Gospel of Matthew, and could hardly have been brought into such close connection with that Gospel by Epiphanius and Jerome.*”*
In the second place, the character of the readers of the Gospel is favorable to the supposition that it contained an account of the virgin birth. Jerome found it in use among the Nazarenes, who accepted the virgin birth.17* Apparently Epiphanius did ot find it in use among the Ebionites, who denied the virgin birth; they used the very different Gospel of which Epiphanius has preserved fragments. Eusebius?”° assigns it to the less unorthodox of his two classes of Ebionites—the class that accepted the virgin birth. In fact, there is no clear evidence that this Gospel ever was used by men who held Jesus to have been the son, by ordinary generation, of Joseph and Mary.
The only possible argument against this assertion is to be found in the testimony of Irenzus. In the passage which we have already quoted,’** Irenzus says that the Ebionites who did not accept the virgin birth used only the Gospel according to Matthew. But what was this “Gospel according to Matthew”? A process of elimination might seem to point to an identification of it with the Gospel according to the Hebrews. The only two specifically Jewish Christian Gospels that we know—at least the only two that are known to have been called by the name of Matthew—are the Gospel according to the Hebrews and the Gospel of the Ebionites that is described by Epiphanius. Therefore, it might be argued, since the Gospel used by the Ebionites of Irenzus cannot possibly have been the Gospel of the Ebionites of Epiphanius, it must have been the Gospel according to the Hebrews.
But this reasoning is by no means conclusive. In the first place, the other horn of the dilemma is perhaps not so terrifying as is sometimes supposed. Is it so certain that the Gospel in question was not the one used by the Ebionites of Epiphanius? The prejudice against this view is due to the assumption that the Ebionites of Irenzus were at bottom simply conservative, Pharisaic Jews, and therefore were quite distinct from the curious sect described by Epiphanius. But this assumption is by no means certainly correct. If the considerations
219 In one passage (on Mt. xii.13, ed. Vall. et Maff., vii, col. 78), indeed, he speaks of it as the Gospel which the Nazarenes and Ebionites use; but here he is probably inaccurate. Compare Schmidtke, op. cit., p. 267. Jerome seems never to have come into close relations with the Ebionites.
adduced above 12? have any weight whatever, then the purely Pharisaic and non-Gnostic or non-syncretistic character of the Ebionites of Irenzus is not so certain as is usually assumed. And if their teaching contained the germs of the Gnostic doctrines professed by the Ebionites of Epiphanius, then they may already have possessed that same Ebionite Gospel.
This identification of the “Matthew” used by the Ebionites of Irenzus with the Ebionite Gospel from which Epiphanius gives extracts has been gaining ground in recent years. It is adopted by Schmidtke,!22 Waitz,!24 Moffatt,” and Findlay.!*° If it is correct,*” then the Ebionites of Irenzus, who denied the virgin birth, did not use the Gospel according to the Hebrews, so that they can no longer be used as a witness to the absence of a narrative of the virgin birth from that Gospel.
But, in the second place, even if the identification of the Gospel of Irenzus’ Ebionites with the Gospel of Epiphanius’ Ebionites be abandoned, the identification of the former Gospel with the Gospel according to the Hebrews does not necessarily follow. For these Ebionites of Irenzus may have used some Gospel which has been lost (the connection of which with Matthew is obscure); or they may have adapted the canonical Matthew in some such manner as Marcion adapted Luke. The assertion of Irenzus remains puzzling. But manifestly he is guilty, in any case, of error or incompleteness of one kind or another, since the Ebionites could not possibly, with their rejection of the virgin birth, have received the Gospel of Matthew as we know it (and as Irenzus knew it); and inferences drawn from such an erroneous assertion cannot be allowed to nullify clearer evidence.’”*
In the third place, there is some positive evidence to the effect that the Gospel according to the Hebrews, as it was known to Jerome, did contain a narrative corresponding to the second chapter of Matthew: for in several places +?° Jerome seems actually to cite such a narrative; he appeals to the
125 Art, “Gospels (Uncanonical),” in Hastings, Dictionary of the Apostolic Church, i, 1916, p. 490. Moffatt uses the word “apparently” in referring to the identification.
126 Byways in Early Christian Literature, 1923, p. 47. Findlay says that the identification is “probably” to be made.
128 What Gospel was used by the Jewish Christian opponents of the virgin birth mentioned by Justin Martyr and by Origen? It would be over-bold to answer that it was the Gospel according to the Hebrews, simply because no other definite answer can be given. In view of the scantiness of the sources, no definite answer can reasonably be expected. There is really no decisive objection against supposing that it was the Gospel of the Ebionites of Epiphanius.
“Hebrew” #° in the elucidation of Mt. ii.6, 15, 23 in a way that seems to show that what he means is his Aramaic “Matthew,” or, in other words, the Gospel according to the Hebrews.’** But if the Gospel according to the Hebrews contained the substance of Mt. ii, it was not altogether without an infancy section. And if it contained an infancy section, that section probably mentioned the virgin birth, since the users of the Gospel were not those who denied the virgin birth, but those who accepted it. A Gospel that contained no account of the birth of Jesus at all might conceivably have been used by believers in the virgin birth, but hardly a Gospel that contained an account of the birth and yet made no reference to the central miracle. The most natural inference to be drawn from Jerome’s citations is that the Gospel according to the Hebrews had in it material corresponding to the whole of Mt. i-ti.
Two objections may be urged against our conclusion that the Gospel according to the Hebrews contained an account of the virgin birth.
In the first place, a stichometric list 182 of canonical, disputed, and apocryphal books attached to the “Chronography” of Nicephorus*** makes the Gospel according to the Hebrews, with 2,200 stichoi, considerably shorter than the canonical Matthew, with 2,500 stichoi.!** But the extant fragments of the Gospel according to the Hebrews appear to be longer rather than shorter than the corresponding passages of Matthew. Therefore—so the argument runs—the difference in length may best be accounted for by the absence from the Gospel according to the Hebrews of a narrative of the birth. But this argument, ingenious though it is, is by no means convincing; certainly it should not be allowed to discredit the far more definite evidence which we have adduced on the other side. The figure 2,200 may be incorrect,!®> or the greater length of Matthew may be accounted for by omissions in the Gospel according to the Hebrews other than the omission of the birth narrative.’*°
In the second place, the extant fragments of the Gospel are sometimes thought +o be contradictory to the virgin birth, which, therefore, it is said,
181 For a discussion of this question, see “ The Virgin Birth in the Second Century,” in Princeton Theological Review, x, 1912, pp. 565-568.
132 That is, a list giving the number of “stichoi” (the ozlxos being a conventional measure of length) that various books contained.
136 So Zahn, op. cit., ii, p. 717, who appeals to other ancient errors in the figures of the St chometry.
136 Long stretches in the central part of Matthew are unrepresented in the extant fragments of the Gospel according to the Hebrews. See Zahn, Joc. cit. It has been observed above (p. 29) that a great difference in the middle would affect the Matthzan appearance of the Gospel less unfavorably than a much smaller difference at the beginning.
could not well have been narrated in the same book. But this argument has little weight. In the account of the baptism, it is true, the Gospel according to the Hebrews says (in words attributed to the Spirit):
My son, in all the prophets I was awaiting thee, that thou shouldst come and that I should rest in thee. Thou art my rest, thou art my firstborn Son who reignest to eternity.
But these words certainly do not mean that the divine sonship of Jesus did not exist prior to the baptism. The fragment in which Jesus speaks of the Spirit as “my Mother” 87 deserves somewhat closer attention; for in Mt. i.18-25 the activity of the Spirit may seem to take the place not of the mother, but of the father. But the designation of the Spirit as Mother contradicts not the canonical narratives themselves, but a crassly materialistic misinterpretation of them. The predominantly feminine gender of the Semitic word for “Spirit,” which has probably given rise to the “my Mother” 188 of the fragment, was in the original Aramaic written or oral sources simply an additional safeguard (if, indeed, one was needed) of the lofty spiritual meaning of the birth story. As Jerome well says, “in the Godhead there is no sex.” **
The preceding argument, though it does not make the presence of an account of the virgin birth in the Gospel according to the Hebrews altogether certain, at least makes it highly probable. The importance of this conclusion depends, to a considerable extent, upon the antiquity and value that are to be attributed to the book. If the book was written in the first century, as Harnack supposes, then its testimony becomes exceedingly valuable. But even if the dating of Zahn (for example)—after a.v. 135—is to be adopted, still the Gospel provides a valuable supplement of other evidence. The special importance of the testimony of the Gospel according to the Hebrews is that it is a testimony by Jewish Christians—indeed, even by schismatic Jewish Christians who did not accept without question the tradition of the Catholic Church. If not only Gentile Christians, but even Jewish Christians of this schismatic type, accepted the virgin birth before the close of the first century, then the legendary. or mythical explanation of the origin of the doctrine becomes very difficult.
The foregoing discussion of the Jewish Christian Gospels has followed for
139 “Tn divinitate enim nullus est sexus,” Jerome, on Isa. xl.11 (ed. Vall. et Maff., iv, col. 405). Compare ep., xviii. 17 (ed. Hilberg I, i, 1910, p. 98): “... quando de superioribus disputatur, et masculinum aliquid, seu femininum ponitur, non tam sexum significari, quam idioma sonare linguae.” Origen (in Ioh., ii. 12, ed. Preuschen, iv, 1903, p. 67) compares the figurative use of the term “mother” in Jesus’ words about him who does the will of God. All three passages are cited by Nicholson, The Gospel according to the Hebrews, 1879, pp. 80 f. (Nicholson’s reference seems to be wrong in the case of the last passage).
the most part the trend of modern opinion prior to 1911, as influenced by Zahn, Handmann and Harnack. Despite important differences in detail, a considerable measure of unanimity had been attained. But in 1911 the whole question was reopened by the elaborate work of Schmidtke.’*° Schmidtke’s investigations, which were exceedingly thorough and were based partly upon new materials, led him to an entirely new conception of the Jewish Christian Gospels and of their readers. It is an important question, therefore, whether Schmidtke is right, or whether the older view may still be held. That question cannot be answered here. All that can now be attempted is (1) a brief exposition of Schmidtke’s view, (2) some estimate of its bearing upon the question of the virgin birth, and (3) some account of the way in which Schmidtke has influenced recent opinion.
At an early date, Schmidtke thinks, the Jewish Christians at Bercea in Syria, who had before simply formed part of the mixed church of that city, drifted apart, owing to the force of circumstances, from the Gentile Christians, and formed a separate community. These Jewish Christians of Bercea came to be designated as “Nazarenes.” The assertion of Jerome that the Nazarenes were spread abroad through the synagogues of the East is entirely valueless; there never were Nazarenes outside of Bercea. The Nazarenes had formed part of the Catholic Church, and even after their separation differed from the Gentile Christians in little more than in their own devotion to Jewish customs. For example, they recognized the work of Paul with enthusiasm, and accepted the doctrine of the virgin birth. At some time after the writing of Ignatius’ Epistle to the Smyrnzans, but before av. 150, the Nazarenes of Bercea translated the Greek Gospel of Matthew into their own language, the Aramaic. It was not a perfectly literal translation, being somewhat like a targum. But it did not differ from Matthew sufficiently to be regarded as a separate book. There is every reason to suppose, for example, that it contained Mt. i-ii.”** This Aramaic Matthew of Bercea, though it was really a translation of the canonical Greek Matthew, came to be regarded as the original from which the Greek Matthew had been translated, and thus gave rise to the tradition of the “Hebrew” original of Matthew, which is attested by Papias in the middle of the second century and played a large rdle in Irenzus and subsequent writers. The Nazarene Gospel was used by Hegesippus (about.. 180), but was unknown except by hearsay to other writers prior to Eusebius. Eusebius had not
140 Neue Fragmente und Untersuchungen zu den judenchristlichen Evangelien,” in Texte und Untersuchungen, xxxvii, I, 1911. M1 Schmidtke adduces evidence to show that the Nazarene Gospel could be quoted at Mt, 1.6, 20 f. (op. cit., pp. 24, 287). This evidence is to be added to the evidence for the presence of Mt.
ii in the Nazarene Gospel, which has been discussed above.
seen the Gospel when he wrote his “Church History,” but secured a copy before the appearance of his “Theophany.” He regards the book as the original of Matthew. His copy was added to the library at Czsarea, where it remained at the time of Jerome. But the author who brought the Gospel into prominence was Apollinaris of Laodicea. To him we owe the fragments which have been preserved by Jerome, and also those which have been preserved in the margin of certain Gospel manuscripts which are descendants of an edition of the Gospels that may be called the “Zion edition.” This Nazarene Gospel was never regarded by anyone who was really familiar with its contents as a work distinct from the Gospel of Matthew, but was regarded as the original from which the canonical Gospel had been translated. It has nothing whatever to do with the Gospel according to the Hebrews.
Such is Schmidtke’s view of the Nazarenes and of their Gospel. The Ebionites, Schmidtke thinks—to proceed to an exposition of his view about them— were a sect quite distinct from the Nazarenes. They were characterized by a denial of the virgin birth, though the name “Ebionites” was wrongly applied by Origen and Eusebius also to a sect that accepted the virgin birth, When Epiphanius wrote the first draught of his section on the Ebionites, he had no first-hand knowledge of them whatever. His description of the sect is vitiated by a confusion of the Ebionites with the Elkesaites, and by a wholesale employment of the material of the Clementine writings as the source of information about the Ebionites. All that he says about the Gnostic character of the Ebionites is based simply upon these groundless combinations. There never were any Gnostic Ebionites. But what Epiphanius says about the vegetarian principle of the Ebionites is correct. After writing the first draught of his chapter, Epiphanius received first-hand information about contemporary Ebionites on the island of Cyprus, and became acquainted with their Gospel. This later and correct information was simply added to the original draught of Epiphanius’ work, and the result is the confused account which we have before us. The Ebionite Gospel from which Epiphanius gives extracts is to be identified, not with the Gospel of the Twelve Apostles,'*? but with the Ebionite Gospel which is mentioned by Irenzus as a Gospel of Matthew and is also mentioned and cited by Origen and others under the title “Gospel according to the Hebrews.” The earliest trace of its use is in Hegesippus. ‘To this Gospel according to the Hebrews are to be assigned the fragments in Epiphanius which have usually been assigned to the Gospel of the Twelve Apostles,'“* and also
14 Compare above, p. 24. 13 Schmidtke removes, however, from the list of these fragments the one which refers to the abrogation of sacrifices, See above, p. 25, footnote go.