described as a mason, who prays for help in such words as these: 'I was a mason seeking a livelihood with my hands: I pray thee, Jesu, to restore me mine health, that I may not beg meanly for my food.'
The mention of the Ebionites here is gratuitous. Jerome nowhere else speaks of them as using the Gospel, and everything goes to show that, in his time, they did not.
Letter to Damasus (20) on Matt. xxi. 9. Matthew, who wrote his Gospel in the Hebrew speech, put it thus: Osanna barrama, i.e. Osanna in the highest.
On Matt. xxiii. 35. In the Gospel which the Nazarenes use, for 'son of Barachias' I find 'of Joiada' written.
This reading avoids an historical difficulty, and is doubtless secondary.
On Matt. xxvii. 16. This Barabbas, in the Gospel entitled (written) according to the Hebrews, is interpreted 'son of their master' (teacher).
By 'interpreted', says Lagrange, it is not meant that the Gospel translated the name, but that it used a form of it which suggested the meaning—Bar-rabban.
On Matt. xxvii. 51. In the Gospel I so often mention we read that a lintel of the temple of immense size was broken and divided.
Letter to Hedibia (ep. 120) 8. But in the Gospel that is written in Hebrew letters we read, not that the veil of the temple was rent, but that a lintel of the temple of wondrous size fell.
This was probably a change made under the influence of Isa. vi. 4, 'the posts of the door moved at the voice of him that cried'.
On Isa. xi. 2. (The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him) not partially as in the case of other holy men: but, according to the Gospel written in the Hebrew speech, which the Nazarenes read, 'There shall descend upon him the whole fount of the Holy Spirit'. . . . In the Gospel I mentioned above, I find this written: And it came to pass when the Lord was come up out of the water, the whole fount of the Holy Spirit descended and rested upon him, and said unto him: My son, in all the prophets was I waiting for thee that thou shouldst come, and I might rest in thee. For thou art my rest, thou art my first begotten son, that reignest for ever.
On Isa. xi. 9, My mother the Holy Spirit.
On Isa., preface to bk. xviii. For when the Apostles thought him to be a spirit, or, in the words of the Gospel which is of the Hebrews which the Nazarenes are wont to read, 'a bodiless demon', he said to them (Luke xxiv. 38).
On Ezek. xvi. 13. My mother, the Holy Spirit.
On Ezek. xviii. 7. And in the Gospel according to the Hebrews which the Nazarenes are accustomed to read, it is placed among the greatest sins 'if a man have grieved the spirit of his brother'.
