The Gospel Of The Nazaraeans

Synopsis
Refernced by the Church Fathers and various later footnotes and allusions, this gospel, not to be confused with the Gospel Of (According To) The Hebrews or the Gospel Of The Ebionites. According to Jerome, the one person who has given is the most information on it, it was seemingly the original version of Matthew, written in Hebrew. During his time, the Jewish-Christians used this gospel consistently as their main text. All our information comes from references and quotes made by writers and translators.

Canonicity
While not canon to the modern Churches, ancient Jewish-Christians regarded it as canon.

Text
To these (citations in which Matthew follows not the Septuagint but the Hebrew original text) belong the two: "Out of Egypt have I called my son" and "For he shall be called a Nazaraean." (Jerome, De viris inlustribus 3)

Behold, the mother of the Lord and his brethren said to him: John the Baptist baptizes unto the remission of sins, let us go and be baptized by him. But he said to them: Wherein have I sinned that I should go and be baptized by him? Unless what I have said is ignorance (a sin of ignorance). (Jerome, Adversus Pelagianos 3.2)

The Jewish Gospel has not "into the holy city" but "to Jerusalem." (Variant to Matthew 4:5 in the "Zion Gospel" Edition)

The phrase "without a cause" is lacking in some witnesses and in the Jewish Gospel. (Variant to Matthew 5:22, ibid.)

In the so-called Gospel according to the Hebrews instead of "essential to existence" I found "mahar," which means "of tomorrow, so that the sense is: "Our bread of tomorrow" - that is, of the future - "give us this day." (Jerome, Commentary on Matthew 1 [on Matthew 6:11])

The Jewish Gospel reads here as follows: "If ye be in my bosom and do not the will of my Father in heaven, I will cast you out of my bosom." (Variant to Matthew 7:5 - or better to Matthew 7:21-23 - in the "Zion Gospel" Edition)

The Jewish Gospel: (wise) more than serpents. (Variant to Matthew 10:16, ibid.)

The Jewish Gospel has: (the kingdom of heaven) is plundered. (Variant to Matthew 11:12, ibid.)

The Jewish Gospel has: I thank thee. (Variant to Matthew 11:25, ibid.)

In the Gospel which the Nazarenes and the Ebionites use, which we have recently translated out of Hebrew into Greek, and which is called by most people the authentic (Gospel) of Matthew, the man who had the withered hand is described as a mason who pleaded for help in the following words: "I was a mason and earned (my) livelihood with (my) hands; I beseech thee, Jesus, to restore me to my health that I may not with ignominy have to beg for my bread." (Jerome, Commentary on Matthew 2 [on Matthew 12:13])

The Jewish Gospel does not have: three d(ays and nights). (Variant to Matthew 12:40 in the "Zion Gospel" Edition)

The Jewish Gospel: corban is what you should obtain from us. (Variant to Matthew 15:5, ibid.)

What is marked with an asterisk (i.e., Matthew 16:2-3) is not found in other manuscripts, also it is not found in the Jewish Gospel. (Variant to Matthew 16:2-3, ibid.)

The Jewish Gospel: son of John. (Variant to Matthew 16:17, ibid.)

He (Jesus) said: If thy brother has sinned with a word and has made three reparations, receive him seven times in a day. Simon his disciple said to him: Seven times in a day? The Lord answered and said to him: Yea, I say unto thee, until seventy times seven times. For in the prophets also after they were anointed with the Holy Spirit, the ord of sin (sinful discourse?) was found. (Jerome, Adversus Pelagianos 3.2)

Variant:

The Jewish Gospel has after "seventy times seven times": For in the prophets also, after they were anointed with the Holy Spirit, the ord of sin (sinful discourse?) was found.

(Variant to Matthew 18:22 in the "Zion Gospel" Edition)

The other of the two rich men said to him: Master, what good thing must I do that I may live? He said to him: Man, fulfil the law and the prophets. He answered him: That have I done. He said to him: Go and sell all that thou possessest and distribute it among the poor, and then come and follow me. But the rich man then began to scratch his head and it (the saying) pleased him not. And the Lord said to him: How canst though say, I have fulfilled the law and the prophets? For it stands written in the law: Love thy neighbor as thyself; and behold, many of the brethren, sons of Abraham, are begrimed with dirt and die of hunger - and thy house is full of many good things and nothing at all comes forth from it to them! And he turned and said to Simon, his disciple, who was sitting by him: Simon, son of Jona, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven. (Origen, Commentary on Matthew 15.14 [on Matthew 19:16-30])

In the Gospel which the Nazarenes use, instead of "son of Barachias" we have found written "son of Joiada." (Jerome, Commentary on Matthew 4 [on Matthew 23:35])

But since the Gospel (written) in Hebrew characters which has come into our hands enters the threat not against the man who had hid (the talent), but against him who had lived dissolutely - for he (the master) had three servants: one who squandered his master's substance with harlots and flute-girls, one who multiplied the gain, and one who hid the talent; and accordingly one was accepted (with joy), another merely rebuked, and another cast into prison - I wonder whether in Matthew the threat which is uttered after the word against the man who did nothing may not refer to him, but by epanalepsis to the first who had feasted and drunk with the drunken. (Eusebius, Theophania 22 [on Matthew 25:14-15])

The Jewish Gospel: And he denied and swore and damned himself. (Variant to Matthew 26:74 in the "Zion Gospel" Edition)

Barabbas. . . is interpreted in the so-called Gospel according to the Hebrews as "son of their teacher." (Jerome, Commentary on Matthew 4 [on Matthew 27:16])

But in the Gospel which is written in Hebrew characters we read not that the veil of the temple was rent, but that the lintel of the temple of wondrous size collapsed. (Jerome, Epistula ad Hedybiam 120.8)

The Jewish Gospel: And he delivered to them armed men that they might sit over against the cave and guard it day and night. (Variant to Matthew 27:65 in the "Zion Gospel" Edition)

He (Christ) himself taught the reason for the separations of souls that take place in houses, as we have found somewhere in the Gospel that is spread abroad among the Jews in the Hebrew tongue, in which it is said: "I choose for myself the most worthy: the most worthy are those whom my Father in heaven has given me." (Eusebius, Theophania 4.12 [on Matthew 10:34-36])

Fragments from the Middle Ages:

As it is said in the Gospel of the Nazaraeans:

At this word of the Lord 30 many thousands of the Jews who were standing round the cross became believers. 31

(Haimo of Auxerrc, Com. on Is. on 53:12)

In the Gospel books which the Nazarenes use we read:

Rays went forth from his eyes, by which they were affrighted and fled. 32

(Marginal note in a manuscript of the Aurora of Peter of Riga)

On Mt. 9:20 (a woman with an issue of blood) named Mariosa on Mt. 12:10 ‘a man’ by name Malchus and he was a mason.

on Mt. 12:42 ‘the queen’, namely Meroe, 'of the south’, that is Aethiopia.

(Com. on Mt.; MS: Wurzburg. M. p. th. fol. 61,8th-9th cent., cited in Bischoff, op. cit. p. 252)

On Lk. 8:42 'the daughter’, that is the synagogue, whose name is Mariossa.

on Lk. 11:31 ’the queen of the south’ whose name is Meruae.

(’Historical Com. on Lk.’; MS: Clm. 6235 fol. 55” and 57’, cited in Bischoff, op. cit. p. 262) From the Historia passionis Domini, MS: Theolog. Sammelhandschrift, 14th- 15th cent., foil. 8-71 (14th cent.)

(And he wiped their feet.) And as it is said in the Gospel of the Nazaraeans: He kissed the feet of each one of them. 61

(fol. 25*)

And how the angel strengthened Christ in his struggle in prayer, 62 is told in the Gospel of the Nazaraeans. And the same is also adduced by Anselm in his lamentation: Be constant, Lord, for now comes the time in which through thy passion mankind sold in Adam will be ransomed.

(fol. 32 r )

In the Gospel of the Nazaraeans the reason is given why John was known to the high priest. 44 As he was the son of the poor fisherman Zebedee, 45 he had often brought fish to the palace of the high priests Annas and Caiaphas. And John went out to the damsel that kept the door and secured from her permission for his companion Peter, who stood weeping loudly before the door, to come in.

(fol. 35')

We read in the Gospel of the Nazaraeans that the Jews bribed four soldiers to scourge the Lord 46 so severely that the blood might flow from every part of his body. They had also bribed the same soldiers to the end that they crucified him, as it is said in Jn. 19...

(fol. 44')

(Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.) Note that in the Gospel of the Nazaraeans we have to read that at this virtuous discourse of Christ eight thousand were later converted to the faith; namely three thousand on the day of Pentecost as stated in the Acts of the Apostles 2, and subsequently five thousand about whom we are informed in the Acts of the Apostles 10 (?)

(fol. 550')

Also in the Gospel of the Nazaraeans we read that at the time of Christ’s death the lintel of the Temple, of immense size, had split 50 (Josephus says the same and adds that overhead awful voices were heard which said: Let us depart from this abode).

(fol. 65')