jewish-christian gospels recovered Because Eusebius only includes short notes about the Jewish(-Chris-
tian) traditions quoted by Hegesippus, it is impossible to say how long
the quotations were in Hegesippus’ writings and whether or not Eusebius
himself was able to draw some conclusions about the character of these
writings.
Nevertheless, Eusebius’ own view of Hegesippus is very positive; in
Hist. Eccl. Hegesippus is presented as one of the guarantors of the correct
apostolic faith (for instance,Hist. Eccl. ., ., .). Thus, the mere
fact that Eusebius knew Hegesippus quoted theGospel of the Hebrews
would have been enough to convince Eusebius that theGospel of the
Hebrewswas not a totally heretical writing.
Eusebius’ Own Quotations
Eusebius’ own quotations from the “Hebrew” gospel are usually read in
the light of Jerome’s information according to which the gospel that was
used by the Nazarenes was also to be found in the library of Caesarea
(Jerome,Vir. ill. ). Therefore, it is assumed that Eusebius also must
have known this Aramaic gospel.^90 However, as was noted above (see
Chapter ..) Jerome himself does not say that he has seen the gospel in
Caesarea. Instead, he relates that the Nazarenes themselves who lived in
Beroea let him copy or describe their gospel. Thus, Jerome’s information
about the gospel in the library of Caesarea was probably based only on
the conclusions he was able to draw on the basis of Eusebius’Ecclesiastical
HistoryandTheophania(see below). On the basis of these writings, he
concluded that there must have been an Aramaic gospel in the library of
Caesarea.
must here refer to (West) Aramaic, which would give an archaic slant to Hegesippus’
tradition. Because Hegesippus was Tatian’s contemporary, he may already have known
some (Diatessaronic) gospel traditions in the Syriac alphabet (East Aramaic). In contrast
to Klijn , n. , Schmidtke , , n. also rejects the possibility that the “Syriac
(gospel)” might refer to theDiatessaronon the grounds that it did not belong to the
special literature of Jewish Christians. However, there are many connections between the
readings of theDiatessaronand the fragments from the Jewish-Christian gospels, which
proves that at some point, either theDiatessaronwas influenced by a Jewish-Christian
gospel, or the Jewish-Christian gospel(s) by theDiatessaron. Usually it is assumed that the
Diatessaronwas the first gospel in Syriac (writing). I deal with the Diatessaronic traditions
in Chapter , arguing that theGospel of the Hebrewswas translated into Syriac some time
during the third or fourth century. Thus, by the time of Hegesippus, it would probably
have been known only in Greek.
(^90) Klijn , ; Vielhauer & Strecker (^2) ( (^1) ), .