Hegesippus, Stephen Gobar, and Paul (for John2).

[Ben C. Smith]

Ben wrote:

No way. We know Epiphanius' canon (Panarion 76.22), and we know his temperament. There is no way that he attributed the NT to the Nazarenes if he knew they did not accept Paul, exactly as his treatment of the Ebionites demonstrates. Zero chance.

I haven't been able to find Pan. 76 online, but in what I've been able to find of it Epiphanius does not call his list of books the New Testament but rather (along with the OT books) "the divine writings," of which he includes the Wisdom of Solomon and Ben Sira, which he elsewhere says (Pan. 8.6) were "of disputed canonicity," again illustrating the fluidity of what were considered to be "divine writings" in his time.

That fluidity did not extend to the Pauline epistles. Epiphanius clearly regards them as part of the New Testament, as his section on the Marcionites makes clear, as when in the context of the injunction for women to keep silent in 1 Corinthians 14 he writes that both Testaments subject wife to husband, just for starters. Against the Bardesianists, after affirming that they accept both Testaments, he cites passages both from the gospels and from Paul. He even accepts Hebrews as written by Paul and says that it belongs to the New Testament: "And to show that this is so, and the Spirit of the Old and the New Testaments is the same, see the apostle say of the ancient prophets, 'The time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephtha, David and the other prophets who wandered about in sheepskins, in goatskins, being tormented, straitened, afflicted, of whom the world was not worthy'" (Hebrews 11.32, 37). In one spot he describes the Old and New Testament as "the Law, the Prophets, the Gospels, and the Apostles." Do you really think he excused Paul from the category of apostles? He calls Paul "the apostle" on numerous occasions. Why would that not count here? Epiphanius also appears to equate the scriptures with both Testaments: "But there are a million and more like them in the sacred scriptures of the Old and the New Testaments."

And if Eusebius can similarly say on one hand that the letters of Paul were "well known and undisputed" but on the other that the Ebionites "thought that it was necessary to reject all the epistles of the apostle," ....

He, like Eusebius, means undisputed in the Catholic church. Nobody thought the Ebionites were Catholic.

[Ben C. Smith]

BTW, I'm going to leave the discussion here for now. I'm falling behind at work and I'm starting to get a head ache, but you are giving me a lot to think about.

No problem. Get some rest.

[John2]

Okay, new day.

As I look at Pan. 29 again I'm inclined to just accept that the Nazarenes used the New Testament, including the letters of Paul. This would be in keeping with what Jerome says about them in On Is. 9:1-4 (this translation is from a modern Nazarene website).

On Is. 9:1-4

The Nazarenes, whose opinion I have set forth above, try to explain this passage in the following way: When Messiah came and his proclaiming shone out, the land of Zebulon and Naphtali first of all were freed from the errors
of the Scribes and Pharisees and he shook off their shoulders the very heavy yoke of the Jewish traditions. Later, however, the proclaiming became more dominant, that means the proclaiming was multiplied, through the good news of the emissary Paul who was the last of all the emissaries. And the good news of Messiah shone to the most distant tribes and the way of the whole sea. Finally the whole world, which earlier walked or sat in darkness and was imprisoned in the bonds of idolatry and death, has seen the clear light of the good news.

http://nazarenespace.com/group/church-f ... Redirect=1

So that seems like the easiest way to look at it. Fine.

However, I stumbled upon someone else who sees it the way I was initially thinking (Sim) and it's worth looking at.

According to their exegesis of Is. 9:1-4, the Nazarenes had a very positive attitude towards Paul and his law-free mission to the Gentiles; the law was seemingly only to be observed by Christian Jews [there's that term again!] and not by Gentile Christians. If this information is correct, then again an identification of the anti-Pauline Matthean community and the Nazarenes is not very likely. A number of points, however, can be made in relation to this information of Jerome. The first is that this tradition finds no support in the account of the Nazarenes by Epiphanius. At no point does that church father attribute a pro-Pauline stance to that sect. R.A. Pritz argues that Epiphanius does in fact imply such an attitude when he writes that the Nazarenes used both the Old and the New Testaments ... This probably means, according to Pritz, that they made use of the canonical Pauline literature. But this is to infer too much from this comment. Epiphanius is clearly using the term 'the New Testament' very loosely here. We know that the Nazarenes used only Matthew of all the Gospels, so Epiphanius cannot be referring to the whole canon at this point. The probability is that he is referring to the Gospel of Matthew alone; by using this one document from the New Testament corpus, the Nazarenes can be said to read the New Testament. Had this group used the Pauline literature, as Pritz assumes, then we should expect some concrete statement to this effect. Epiphanius in fact seems to rule out any Pauline influence in the theology of the Nazarenes. When he discusses their observance of the law ... he attacks them in a very Pauline fashion and even quotes Paul at one point.

https://books.google.com/books?id=mxPUA ... ul&f=false

Geez, those were the same points I made yesterday. And I would still buy this if it wasn't for Jerome's comment (Sim's argument about that cuts off at that point on Google books for me, beyond the statement that "it is not certain how much weight should be attributed to it," so I wonder what else he says about that).

Anyway, that's all I have time for at the library and I'll check the forum and do some more research later when I get to work.

[John2]

Sim reminds me in the above that the Nazarenes only used Matthew, and as I reexamine Pan. 29 now it appears to me that they only used a Hebrew version of Matthew, spoke Hebrew and did not know Greek. This is all taken from this modern Nazarene website.

http://nazarenespace.com/page/panarion-29-the-nazarenes

7.4 They are trained to a nicety in Hebrew. For among them the entire Law, the prophets, and the so-called Writings- I mean the poetic books, Kings, Chronicles, Esther and all the rest-are read in Hebrew, as they surely are by Jews.

That they spoke Hebrew and not Greek (even Josephus needed translators and the first edition of the Jewish War was in Hebrew, if I recall correctly) would make sense given that they originally came from Jerusalem, as Epiphanius mentions in 7.7

7.7 Today this sect of the Nazoraeans is found in Beroea near Coelesyria, in the Decapolis near Pella, and in Bashanitis at the place called Cocabe-Khokhabe in Hebrew. For that was its place of origin, since all the disciples had settled in Pella after they left Jerusalem- Christ told them to abandon Jerusalem and withdraw from it because of its coming siege. And they settled in Peraea for this reason and, as I said, spent their lives there. That was where the Nazoraean sect began.

And then in 9.4 he says:

9.4 They have the Gospel according to Matthew in its entirety in Hebrew. For it is clear that they still preserve this, in the Hebrew alphabet, as it was originally written. But I do not know whether they have removed just the genealogies from Abraham to Christ.

So if they only knew Hebrew (and that's how it looks to me), then if they did use other NT books they must have been in Hebrew, which I presume, unlike their Matthew, would have been translated from Greek.

And Epiphanius' reference to other gospels and Acts only says that orthodox Christians called them "Nazoraeans" because Jesus is called this in the gospels and Acts. I'm not getting the impression from this that the Nazarenes used the other NT gospels and Acts. They were just cool with the orthodox using them and consequently calling them "Nazoraeans."

6.7 Thus Christ's holy disciples called themselves "disciples of Jesus" then, as indeed they were. But they were not rude when others called them Nazoraeans, since they saw the intent of those who called them this. They did it because of Christ, since our Lord Jesus was called "Nazoraean" himself-so say the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles- because of his upbringing in Joseph's home in the city of Nazareth, which is now a village. (Though he was born in the flesh at Bethlehem, of the ever-virgin Mary, Joseph's betrothed. Joseph had settled in Nazareth after leaving Bethlehem and taking up residence in Galilee.)

So the Nazarenes in Epiphanius appear to me to have only spoken and used writings that were in Hebrew, so if they did use other NT writings I would assume they were translated from Greek.

[John2]

And I notice in Pan. 29 1.1 that Epiphanius compares the Nazarenes (it's easier for me to type "Nazarenes" than "Nazoraeans") to the Cerinthians.

For, as I said, these were contemporary with each other, and had ideas similar to each other's.

And then in Pan. 30.3.7 he says about the Ebionites:

3:7 They too accept the Gospel according to Matthew. Like the Cerinthians and Merinthians, they too use it alone. They call it, 'According to the Hebrews,' and it is true to say that only Matthew expounded and preached the Gospel in the Hebrew language and alphabet in the New Testament.

So if the Nazarenes were like the Cerinthians and the Cerinthians only used Matthew, then maybe the Nazarenes did too. And notice what Epiphanius says regarding the situation about the Gospel of John and Acts in Pan. 30.8-9 (just as I was expecting).

3:8 But some may already have replied that the Gospel of John too, translated from Greek to Hebrew, is in the Jewish treasuries, I mean the treasuries at Tiberias, and is stored there secretly, as certain Jewish converts have described to me in detail.

3:9 And not only that, but it is said that the book of the Acts of the Apostles, also translated from Greek to Hebrew, is there in the treasuries, so that the Jews who have read it, the ones who told me about it, have been converted to Christ from this.

So it looks to me like the only other NT books that some Jewish Christians used or even had access to were the Gospel of John and Acts, which were translated from Greek and stored secretly.

[John2]

And as I reexamine Jerome's comment above, it doesn't appear that he is necessarily saying that the Nazarenes had canonized the letters of Paul, only that they were aware that he was an apostle. Let's look at it again.

On Is. 9:1-4

The Nazarenes, whose opinion I have set forth above, try to explain this passage in the following way: When Messiah came and his proclaiming shone out, the land of Zebulon and Naphtali first of all were freed from the errors of the Scribes and Pharisees and he shook off their shoulders the very heavy yoke of the Jewish traditions. Later, however, the proclaiming became more dominant, that means the proclaiming was multiplied, through the good news of the emissary Paul who was the last of all the emissaries. And the good news of Messiah shone to the most distant tribes and the way of the whole sea. Finally the whole world, which earlier walked or sat in darkness and was imprisoned in the bonds of idolatry and death, has seen the clear light of the good news.

Maybe they were just aware of him like Jewish Christians are said to have been in Gal. 1:22-24:

I was personally unknown to the churches of Judea that are in Christ. They only heard the report: “The man who formerly persecuted us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy. And they praised God because of me.

[John2]

And the pillars were aware of Paul's status as an apostle in Gal 2:7-9 (assuming it is not an interpolation):

On the contrary, they recognized that I had been entrusted with the task of preaching the gospel to the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been to the circumcised. For God, who was at work in Peter as an apostle to the circumcised, was also at work in me as an apostle to the Gentiles. James, Cephas and John, those esteemed as pillars, gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship when they recognized the grace given to me. They agreed that we should go to the Gentiles, and they to the circumcised.

But the idea that they approved of his law-free ideology for the Gentiles is disproven by Paul himself in Gal. 2:11-13:

When Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. For before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group. The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray.

[Ben C. Smith]

Hegesippus would have to be aware that Paul wrote at least one letter, if he knew 1 Clement, correct?

[John2]

Hegesippus would have to be aware that Paul wrote at least one letter, if he knew 1 Clement, correct?

Well, sure, but I reckon the fact that Paul wrote letters was common knowledge. It doesn't necessarily follow that they were canonized by Jewish Christians.

[Ben C. Smith]

Sim reminds me in the above that the Nazarenes only used Matthew....

Where does this datum come from? (Using a Hebrew Matthew is not the same thing as using only a Hebrew Matthew.)

By the way, I am not always thrilled with Epiphanius' reliability, and am going along with this only for the sake of argument; my bank roll would be on Jerome, not on Epiphanius here. For example, the bit in the section about the Ebionites where Epiphanius says that the Ebionites used the gospel of Matthew alone, just like Cerinthus, is a known misunderstanding of Irenaeus, who writes in Against Heresies 1.26.2: "Those who are called Ebionites agree that the world was made by God; but their opinions with respect to the Lord are similar to those of Cerinthus and Carpocrates. They use the gospel according to Matthew only, and repudiate the apostle Paul, maintaining that he was an apostate from the law." Epiphanius got the part about the Ebionites right, but brought Cerinthus in for the wrong reason (issues of canon rather than of kuriology).

So if they only knew Hebrew (and that's how it looks to me), then if they did use other NT books they must have been in Hebrew, which I presume, unlike their Matthew, would have been translated from Greek.

I can easily live with a scenario in which their access to the New Testament, in Epiphanius' eyes, is limited by their language skills. Sure. But that is very different than what the Ebionites do, since they openly repudiate Paul.

I reckon the fact that Paul wrote letters was common knowledge. It doesn't necessarily follow that they were canonized by Jewish Christians.

Surely there has to be a reason for Epiphanius' very different ways of describing the Nazoreans and the Ebionites:

[The Ebionites] too accept the Gospel according to Matthew. Like the Cerinthians and Merinthians, they too use it alone.

[The Nazoreans] use not only the New Testament but the Old Testament as well, as the Jews do.

And it surely cannot be a coincidence that Jerome ascribes to the Nazoreans a respect for the apostle Paul. At the very least, even if most of them cannot read the Pauline letters in Greek, it would seem that they do not share the Ebionite distaste for Paul.

All of this has been about the Nazoreans or Nazarenes so far. I brought them up as an analogy, but you are going so far into it that I have to ask: do you think that Hegesippus was one?