chapter three
Jerome is here using Eusebius’EcclesiasticalHistory(..). Eusebius
discusses the passage in connection with Ignatius of Antioch who seems
to cite an unknown gospel in hisLetter to the Smyrnaeans(Ign.Smyrn.
) but Eusebius does not know Ignatius’ source. Although Jerome claims
that the same passage is in the “Gospel of the Hebrews that the Nazarenes
use,” it is clear that he knows the passage only through Eusebius’Ecclesias-
tical History.JeromequotesIgnatius’passageasitisrecordedbyEusebius
but he does not realize that the beginning of Eusebius’ quotation repeats
Ignatius’ own words in hisLetter to the Smyrnaeans.Thus,Jeromeends
up attributing Ignatius’ own words to the apocryphal source that Ignatius
was quoting. Furthermore, Jerome erroneously attributes the passages to
Ignatius’Letter to Polycarpbecause Eusebius discusses Polycarp imme-
diately above the quoted passage.^40
Commentary on Matthew
Jerome refers once more to his translation work in hisCommentary on
Matthewwhich he wrote six years later (). He wrote the commentary
after a serious illness which had confined him to bed for three months.
According to Jerome, the exposition was prepared in haste, in only two
weeks in March, because the commentary was meant to be reading for
Eusebius of Cremona’s trip to Italy. Probably Jerome does not exaggerate
very much—the book is filled with minor historical errors and the com-
mentary is quite short. It is quite believable that it was finished in haste.
Jerome gives a long list of previous commentaries that he had read earlier
but which he had not had time to consult afresh. However, a comparison
(^40) The validity of the passage as a witness to a Jewish-Christian gospel is denied by
Vielhauer & Strecker ^2 (^1 ), –, –, and Klijn , . Schmidtke
, , , and Waitz , –, already thought that Jerome derived his infor-
mation from Eusebius but they still assumed that Ignatius’ original source was one of
the Jewish-Christian gospels. Vielhauer also contends (p. ) that the passage cannot
be based on a Semitic original because the word “bodyless” is impossible in Semitic lan-
guage. However, Vielhauer records, in an endnote (, n. ) that in Syriac the expression
is a Greek loan word, and that it is attested for the first time by Ephrem. Thus, just as in
the case of Hosanna (see above), it is possible that by the time of Jerome, there may have
been a Syriac gospel that did include the saying about a “bodyless” demon. In this con-
nection, we may also note that the saying has parallels in Diatessaronic witnesses and
that it has played a major role in discussions about the possible relationship between the
Diatessaronand Jewish-Christian gospels. Be that as may, the fact that Origen knows the
saying from theTeaching of Peter(de Princ. I, praef. ) shows that by Jerome’s time, it
already had established its status as a saying of Jesus and that it was circulating around.
Nevertheless, Jerome clearly seems to have received it from Eusebius.