and blessed and brake and gave it unto James the Just and said unto him: My brother, eat thy bread, for the Son of Man is risen from among them that sleep'.
This is a famous passage. One interesting clause is apt to escape notice, about the- giving of the shroud to the servant of the (high) priest, which implies that the priests must have been apprised of the resurrection as soon as the apostles. Was the servant of the priest Malchus ? Presumably the servant was at the sepulchre : if so, it was being guarded by the Jews as well as the Roman soldiers (as in the Gospel of Peter).
ibid. 3. Further, the Hebrew itself (or original) is preserved to this day in the library at Caesarea which was collected with such care by the martyr Pamphilus. I also had an opportunity of copying it afforded me by the Nazarenes who use the book, at Beroea, a city of Syria.
This Beroea is Aleppo. In later years Jerome ceased to regard this Hebrew Gospel as the original Matthew.
ibid. 16. Of the Epistle of Ignatius 'to Polycarp' (really to Smyrna). In it he also inserts a testimony about the person of Christ, from the Gospel which was lately translated by me; his words are: But I both saw him (this is wrongly quoted) in the flesh after the resurrection, and believe that he is in the flesh: and when he came to Peter and those who were with Peter, he said to them: Lo, feel me and see that I am not a bodiless spirit (demon). And forthwith they touched him and believed.
Ignatius, to the Smyrnaeans, iii. 1, really says: For I know, and I believe that he is in the flesh even after his resurrection.
Another citation of these words of Christ is given by Origen as from the Doctrine of Peter: see p. 18.
On Matt. ii. Bethlehem of Judaea. This is a mistake of the scribes: for I think it was originally expressed by the Evangelist as we read in the Hebrew, 'of Judah', not Judaea.
On Matt. vi. 11 (the Lord's prayer).
In the Gospel called according to the Hebrews for 'super-substantial' bread I found mahar, which means 'of the morrow', so that the sense is: Our bread of the morrow, that is, of the future, give us this day.
The word supersubstantial is meant to render literally the difficult word epiousios which we translate 'daily'.
On Ps. cxxxv. In the Hebrew Gospel according to Matthew it is thus: Our bread of the morrow give us this day; that is, 'the bread which thou wilt give us in thy kingdom, give us this day'.
On Matt. xii. 13. In the Gospel which the Nazarenes and Ebionites use (which I have lately translated into Greek from the Hebrew, and which is called by many (or most) people the original of Matthew), this man who has the withered hand is
