jewish-christian gospels recovered Among those some have placed also the Gospel according to the Hebrews
with which those of the Hebrews that have accepted Christ are especially
pleased.. The writings used by the heretics but not quoted by any church writers:
“the Gospels of Peter, Thomas, Matthias and others, the Acts of Andrew,
John and other apostles.”TheGospel of the Hebrewsprovides an interesting—but seldom dis-
cussed—example of a writing whose canonical status was not perfectly
clear. Notably, Eusebius places theGospel of the Hebrewsin the same
category as the Revelation of John, which was later on able to secure
its canonical status. Moreover, many of the other writings named in
the same category were well received among mainstream Christians
although they were not able to make their way into the core of the canon.
However, in addition to Eusebius’ list, there are no other early lists of
canonical writings that deal with theGospel of the Hebrews.^80
In this chapter, I will discuss the reasons why Eusebius included the
Gospel of the Hebrewsin the category of the “disputed writings.” I will
focus on two sets of questions: ) Was Eusebius merely listing theGospel
of the Hebrewsamong the disputed writings because “some” had done
that before him or was he also able to draw his own conclusions about
the character of the gospel? What kind of information did Eusebius have
about theGospel of the Hebrews? Had he seen it or did he only have second
hand information available? ) What kind of gospel was theGospel of the
Hebrewson the basis of Eusebius’ references? Do his references reveal
somethingofthecharacteroftheGospel of the Hebrewswhich would
explain why it was not able to retain its position in the “second category”
of not strictly canonical writings but seems to have sunk into oblivion
like the gospels of Peter, Thomas and Matthias of the third category?^81(^80) For instance, Clement of Alexandria, accepts as authoritative (in addition to others)
James, and John, Peter, Jude, theLetter of Barnabas,andtheApocalypse of Peter,that
Eusebius lists in his category of disputed writings. The Muratorian Canon also refers to
theShepherd of Hermasas worthy of being read. However, Origen only accepts as clearly
canonical the same writings that Eusebius lists in his first category. Thus, from Eusebius’
second category, only theGospel of the Hebrews,theActs of Pauland theTeachings of the
Apostlesare ignored in these other discussions of canonical writings by Clement, Origen
and the Muratorian Canon. For an overview of the contents of the canonical lists, see Kee
, – and Metzger , –.
(^81) For instance, Metzger suggests that theGospel of the Hebrewswas excluded from the
canon because it was written in a Semitic language and because it “differed considerably
in substance and in character” from the gospels that were finally regarded as the canonical