jewish-christian gospels recovered Admittedly, the GH’s assumption that a Semitic basis would sug-
gest a connection to the “Gospel of the Nazarenes” seems to be partly
valid since it coheres with observations about the language of the frag-
ments that Jerome derived from the Nazarenes’Commentary on Isaiah
(see above). In spite of this, traces of Semitic language in the fragments
cannot prove that Jerome must have received the passage in question
from the Nazarenes, as the GH suggests, since there may also have
been other Semitic gospels around.^26 Nevertheless, the criterion can be
applied the other way around:if there are indications that the fragment
was excerpted from a Greek writing, it is unlikely that Jerome got it from
the Nazarenes. This observation will be used as the starting point in
the following new reconstruction but, before moving on to the recon-
struction itself, a short overview of Jerome and his literary activity is
needed.
.. Jerome’s Life and Quotations from Jewish-Christian Gospels
... The Setting of the Quotations in Jerome’s Biography
The Three Gospel Hypothesis’ (the GH) use of Jerome’s testimony is
quite arbitrary. Jerome is sometimes trusted and sometimes not. The
decision whether or not Jerome is trustworthy is made on the basis of
hypothesized gospel categories, not on the basis of the study of Jerome’s
own situation and motives. The categories of “canonical” and “non-
canonical” determine the origin of the passages and the quality of Je-
rome’s attributions.
Although Jerome made extensive use of Origen in many of his writ-
ings, Origen was not his only source because Jerome also used many
other commentators. Therefore, the simple sorting out of materials into
two categories of “Origenistic” and “Nazarene” in accordance with the
GH, will also lead to the wrong conclusion.
In the following, Jerome’s citations will be discussed in chronological
order and with special emphasis on the situation in which they were
presented. This should help finding answers to some of the questions the
Three Gospel Hypothesis has left unanswered. Although Jerome might be
an unreliable witness, he probably had his reasons for doing what he did.
(^26) See below Chapter ..