jewish-christian gospels recovered and become their spiritual tutor. One of them, Paula, was to become his
lifelong companion.
Jerome’s letter answers the pope’s question about the meaning of the
Hebrew acclamation “Hosanna,” with which Jesus is welcomed by people
in Jerusalem:
Finally Matthew, who wrote the Gospel in the Hebrew language, put it in
the following way ‘osianna barrama’ which means ‘ossanna in excelsis.’
(Epist. .; trans. Klijn ).
The source of this citation has been contested. Vielhauer argues, on the
basis of chronology, that the citation cannot be from a Jewish-Christian
gospel. According to him, Jerome’s letter to the pope was composed
in , and Jerome mentions a Jewish-Christian gospel for the first
time in – and speaks of a Hebrew Jewish-Christian gospel first
in –.^31 He also suggests that Jerome’s “retranslation” presents an
incorrect form “for ‘height of heaven’ isramaneither in Hebrew nor in
Aramaic, but in Hebrewmaromormeromimand in Aramaicmarom
ormeromaand therefore the information that passage gives about the
original language of the “Gospel of the Nazarenes,” is useless.^32 However,
as Vielhauer himself notes, the Hebrew/Syriac wordrama( )which
usually means “high” or “higher place” is documented in Ephrem’s Syriac
in the sense of “heaven.”^33 Ephrem was Jerome’s contemporary^34 and he
was held in high regard among the Christians of Edessa. Even Jerome
knew that in some churches Ephrem’s Syriac writings were publicly read
after the Scriptures (Vir. ill. ), and his hymns were used in the liturgy.^35
Thus, it is likely that by the time of Jerome, the wordramawas also used
(^31) In my opinion, Vielhauer’s reasoning would be valid only if Jerome really possessed
an entire Jewish-Christian gospel. But this is not what Vielhauer suggests. If Jerome was
only working with fragments, then the question must be: When and why Jerome started
to claim that he had the entire gospel in his hands and that he had translated it? This
did not happen when he was still in Rome. However, there are things which make claims
like this understandable later, when Jerome was in Jerusalem (cf. below). Thus, Jerome
may quite well have already possessed some fragments in Rome but he did not find it
necessary to claim that he had the entire gospel available.
(^32) Vielhauer & Strecker (^2) ( (^1) ), . Similarly, Nautin , , argues that
when Jerome is not following Origen, he presents a totally wild (“völlig abenteuerliche”)
orthography.
(^33) Vielhauer points to this in an endnote (Vielhauer & Strecker (^2) ( (^1) ),
n. ). See, Brockelmann , b. Klijn , , –, also thinks thatEpist. .
was not from a Jewish-Christian gospel.
(^34) According to Jerome, Ephrem died during the reign of the emperor Valens (–
). SeeVir. ill. .
(^35) Halton , , n. .