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Gospel of the Hebrews


The Gospel of the Hebrews (Greek: τὸ καθ' Ἑβραίους εὐαγγέλιον), or Gospel according to the Hebrews, was a syncretic Jewish–Christian gospel, the text of which is lost; only fragments of it survive as brief quotations by the early Church Fathers and in apocryphal writings. The fragments contain traditions of Jesus' pre-existence, incarnation, baptism, and probable temptation, along with some of his sayings. Distinctive features include a Christology characterized by the belief that the Holy Spirit is Jesus' Divine Mother and a first resurrection appearance to James, the brother of Jesus, showing a high regard for James as the leader of the Jewish Christian church in Jerusalem. It was probably composed in Greek in the first decades of the 2nd century, and is believed to have been used by Greek-speaking Jewish Christians in Egypt during that century.

It is the only Jewish–Christian gospel which the Church Fathers referred to by name, believing there was only one Hebrew Gospel, perhaps in different versions. Passages from the gospel were quoted or summarized by three Alexandrian FathersClement, Origen and Didymus the Blind; it was also quoted by Jerome, either directly or through the commentaries of Origen. The gospel was used as a supplement to the canonical gospels to provide source material for their commentaries based on scripture.Eusebius included it in his list of disputed writings known as the Antilegomena, noting that it was used by "Hebrews" within the Church; it fell out of use when the New Testament canon was codified at the end of the 4th century. The original Aramaic/Hebrew gospel used by the Jewish sect of Ebionites did not contain the genealogical records now appended to the Greek gospels, which omission is explained by Epiphanius as being because "they insist that Jesus was really man."


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