chapter three
of Jerome’s Nazarene collection. I will come back to this problem after
having delineated the nature of the collection on the basis of other
fragments, and then discuss whether it is possible that Jerome received
either a or b from the Nazarenes.
It is often noted that Jerome started to refer to the Nazarenes in –
ce when he wrote hisCommentary on Micahand his encomium
of the Christian teachers,On Illustrious Men.Inbothofthesewrit-
ings, which he probably prepared simultaneously, he claims that he had
recently translated the gospel that was used by the Nazarenes.^59 Because
fragments and were written before that time and Jerome does not
refer to the Nazarenes or his own translation work in them, the frag-
ments are not usually attributed to the Nazarenes. For instance, Klijn
lists the first fragment in the category of “spurious and doubtful texts.”
In his view, Jerome got the explanation from a translation that was in
circulation. This is corroborated by the fact that the explanation does not
explicitly refer to any gospel but only gives the supposed original Hebrew
text of Matthew.^60 Vielhauer and Strecker, followed by Klijn, attribute the
second fragment (Comm. Eph. .; /ce) to theGospel of the Hebrews
of the GH.^61
The fifth fragment (together with ) is also considered spurious. As
we have seen above, Jerome quotes Ignatius’ passage as it is recorded by
Eusebius but he does not realize that the beginning of Eusebius’ quota-
tion repeats Ignatius’ own words in hisLetter to the Smyrnaeans.Thus,
Jerome ends 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 immediately above the quoted passage. Thus, Jerome has clearly
taken the passage from Eusebius.
When fragments –, and are also excluded from the materials
that Jerome received from the Nazarenes, the Nazarene collection can be
reconstructed from the following fragments:
(^59) As was noted above, by that time Jerome had lived in Palestine almost ten years
and he had advanced his skills in Hebrew so that he was able to start preparing Latin
translations directly from the Hebrew. He was eagerly defending his program ofHebraica
veritasand therefore pictured himself inOn Illustrious Menas a man who was very
competent in Hebrew. See Kelly , –. This makes it understandable why he
exaggerated the work he had done with the Nazarene fragments. The limited number of
fragments shows that Jerome did not have an entire gospel available. See above.
(^60) Klijn , –. Similarly, Vielhauer & Strecker (^2) ( (^1) ), . However,
as was noted above (Chapter ..), the fragment seems to be based on a Syriac source.
(^61) Vielhauer & Strecker (^2) ( (^1) ), ; Klijn , –.