Jerome, On Famous Men 2: § Also the gospel which is named according to the Hebrews, and which was recently translated by me into Greek and Latin, which also Origen often used, refers after the resurrection of the Savior, “But the Lord, when He had given the shroud to the servant of the priest, went to James and appeared to him.” James indeed had sworn that he would not eat bread from that hour when he had drunk the chalice of the Lord until he saw Him risen from among those who sleep. And again after a little bit, “‘Bear forth,’ said the Lord, ‘a table and bread.’” And immediately is added, “He bore bread, and He blessed it, and He broke it, and He gave it to James the Just, and He said to him, ‘My brother, eat your bread, because the Son of Man has resurrected from among those who sleep.’” / § Evangelium quoque quod appellatur secundum Hebraeos, et a me nuper in Graecum Latinumque sermonem translatum est, quo et Origenes saepe utitur, post resurrectionem salvatoris refert, «Dominus autem cum dedisset sindonem servo sacerdotis, ivit ad Iacobum et apparuit ei.» iuraverat enim Iacobus se non comesturum panem ab illa hora quia biberat calicem domini donec videret eum resurgentem a dormientibus. rursusque post paululum, «‹Afferte,› ait dominus, ‹mensam et panem.›» statimque additur, «Tulit panem, et benedixit, ac fregit, et dedit Iacobo iusto, et dixit ei, ‹Frater mi, comede panem tuum, quia resurrexit filius hominis a dormientibus.›» / § Καὶ τὸ εὐαγγέλιον δὲ τὸ ἐπιγραφέν καθ' Ἑβραίους, ὅπερ ὑπ´ ἐμοῦ νῦν εἰς τὴν Ἑλληνικήν καὶ Ῥωμαῖκὴν γλῶτταν μετεβλήθη, ᾧ καὶ Ὠριγένης πολλάκις κέχρηται, μετὰ τὴν ἀνάστασιν τοῦ Σωτῆρος λέγει, «Ὁ δὲ κύριος δεδωκὼς σινδόνα τῷ δούλῳ τοῦ ἱερέως ἀπελθών πρὸς Ἰάκωβον, ἤνοιξεν αὐτῷ.» ὀμωμόκει γὰρ Ἰάκωβος μὴ γεύσασθαι ἄρτου ἐξ ἐκείνης τῆς ὣρας ἀφ´ ἧς πεπώκει τὸ ποτήριον ὁ κύριος ἕως οὗ ἴδῃ αὐτὸν ἀναστάσαντα ἐκ νεκρῶν. αὔθις δὲ μικρὸν ὕστερον, «‹Δότε,› φησὶν ὁ κύριος, ‹τράπεζαν καὶ ἄρτον.›» εὐθυς δὲ προστίθεται, «Λαβὼν ἄρτον εὐχαριστήσας ἔκλασε καὶ δεδωκὼς Ἰακώβῳ τῷ δικαίῳ λέγει αὐτῷ, ‹Ἀδελφέ μου, ἔσθιε τὸν ἄρτον τόν σόν, ἠγέρθη γὰρ ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ἐκ νεκρῶν.›»
Now, it has been often observed that, in On Famous Men, Jerome heavily depends upon proximate sources, especially Eusebius, for his ultimate quotations from Josephus and other writers. Also, in chapter 3 of Recovering Jewish-Christian Sects and Gospels, Petri Luomanen argues that, in the case of the Gospel of the Hebrews in particular, throughout his writings, Jerome had good reason to claim, inaccurately, that he had translated that text into Greek and Latin, when in fact he drew his citations of it from earlier writers, especially from Origen. We note that Origen is, in fact, named in the excerpt at hand as having often used the Gospel of the Hebrews; Luomanen argues that Jerome did not quote from the Gospel of the Hebrews directly, but rather quoted (part of) this pericope from Origen, most of whose works have been lost to us.
My observations here and now will tend, I think, to help justify such a conclusion.
I begin by noting a disagreement between the Latin and the Greek of this passage from Jerome. In the Latin, James swears not to eat bread "from that hour when he," James, "had drunk the cup/chalice of the Lord" (ab illa hora quia biberat calicem domini), which leads one to believe that James had participated in the Last Supper, drinking from the cup which Jesus passed around, calix domini being a common way to refer to the cup of the Lord, also known in the medieval period as the holy grail. In the Greek translation, however, of uncertain date, James swears not to eat bread "from that hour when the Lord had drunk the cup/chalice" (ἐξ ἐκείνης τῆς ὣρας ἀφ´ ἧς πεπώκει τὸ ποτήριον ὁ κύριος), thus referring to the many times in the gospels in which Jesus used the metaphor of drinking from a cup for his impending death.
It turns out that most of the medieval writers who seem to use this passage from Jerome (more on that later) stand in agreement with the Greek translation that James made his vow, not at the Last Supper, but rather after the crucifixion:
Gregory of Tours, Book of Ten Histories 1.22 (century VI): 22 It is said that James the apostle, when he had seen the Lord already dead on the cross, cursed and sword never to eat bread unless he should discern the Lord rising. When on the third day the Lord returned, having despoiled Tartarus with his triumph, he showed himself to James and said, “Rise, James. Eat, because I have already resurrected from the dead.” This is James the Just, whom they call the brother of the Lord, since he was the son of Joseph born from another wife. / 22 Fertur Iacobus apostolus, cum domino iam mortuum vidisset in cruce, detestasse atque iurasse numquam se comisurum panem nisi dominum cerneret resurgentem. tertia denum die rediens dominus, spoliato Tartaro cum triumpho, Iacobo se ostendens ait, «Surge, Iacobe, comede, quia iam a mortuis resurrexi. hic est Iacobus iustus, quem fratrem domini nuncupant, pro eo quod Ioseph fuerit filius ex alia uxore progenitus.»
Pseudo-Abdias, Apostolic Histories 6.1 (century VI): 1 Of those James the Lesser by birth was always first beloved by Christ the Savior and in turn burned with such desire for the Master that after he was crucified he wished not to take food until he saw him rising from the dead, which he and his brothers remembered was predicted while he was active among the living. Therefore, he wished first of all to appear to him and to both Mary Magdalene and Peter to confirm the disciple in faith and not to allow him to suffer from fasting any longer, and he offered him a honeycomb and invited James to eat. / 1 Quorum minor natu Iacobus Christo salvatore in primis semper dilectus tanto rursus desiderio in magistrum flagrabat ut crucifixo eo cibum capere noluerit, priusquam a mortuis resurgentem videret, quod meminerit sibi et fratribus a Christo agente in vivis fuisse praedictum. quare ei primum omnium ut et Mariae Magdalenae et Petro apparere voluit ut discipulum in fide confirmaret et ne diutinum ieiunium toleraret, favo mellis oblato ad comedendum insuper Iacobum invitavit.
Jacobus a Voragine, Legenda Aurea 67 (century XIII): 67 On the Preparation, however, when the Lord had died, just as Josephus and Jerome say in a book of Illustrious Men, James took an oath not to eat until he saw the Lord rise from the dead. On that same day of the resurrection, however, since right up until that day James had not enjoyed food, the Lord appeared to him and to those who were with him. He said, “Put up a table and bread.” Next he accepted bread and blessed it and gave it to James the just, saying, “Rise, my brother; eat, because the son of man has risen from the dead.” / 67 In parasceue autem, mortuo domino, sicut dicit Iosephus et Hieronymus in libro de viris illustribus, Iacobus votum vovit se non comesurum donec videret dominum a mortuis surrexisse. in ipsa autem die resurrectionis, cum usque ad diem illam Iacobus non gustasset cibum, eidem dominus apparuit ac eis qui cum eo erant. dixit, «Ponite mensam et panem.» deinde panem accipiens benedixit et dedit Iacobo iusto, dicens, «Surge, frater mi. comede, quia filius hominis a mortuis resurrexit.»
Pseudo-Abdias, Apostolic Histories 6.1 (century VI): 1 Of those James the Lesser by birth was always first beloved by Christ the Savior and in turn burned with such desire for the Master that after he was crucified he wished not to take food until he saw him rising from the dead, which he and his brothers remembered was predicted while he was active among the living. Therefore, he wished first of all to appear to him and to both Mary Magdalene and Peter to confirm the disciple in faith and not to allow him to suffer from fasting any longer, and he offered him a honeycomb and invited James to eat. / 1 Quorum minor natu Iacobus Christo salvatore in primis semper dilectus tanto rursus desiderio in magistrum flagrabat ut crucifixo eo cibum capere noluerit, priusquam a mortuis resurgentem videret, quod meminerit sibi et fratribus a Christo agente in vivis fuisse praedictum. quare ei primum omnium ut et Mariae Magdalenae et Petro apparere voluit ut discipulum in fide confirmaret et ne diutinum ieiunium toleraret, favo mellis oblato ad comedendum insuper Iacobum invitavit.
Jacobus a Voragine, Legenda Aurea 67 (century XIII): 67 On the Preparation, however, when the Lord had died, just as Josephus and Jerome say in a book of Illustrious Men, James took an oath not to eat until he saw the Lord rise from the dead. On that same day of the resurrection, however, since right up until that day James had not enjoyed food, the Lord appeared to him and to those who were with him. He said, “Put up a table and bread.” Next he accepted bread and blessed it and gave it to James the just, saying, “Rise, my brother; eat, because the son of man has risen from the dead.” / 67 In parasceue autem, mortuo domino, sicut dicit Iosephus et Hieronymus in libro de viris illustribus, Iacobus votum vovit se non comesurum donec videret dominum a mortuis surrexisse. in ipsa autem die resurrectionis, cum usque ad diem illam Iacobus non gustasset cibum, eidem dominus apparuit ac eis qui cum eo erant. dixit, «Ponite mensam et panem.» deinde panem accipiens benedixit et dedit Iacobo iusto, dicens, «Surge, frater mi. comede, quia filius hominis a mortuis resurrexit.»
Two of these authors are our earliest after Jerome, from century VI. There is another work which offers a mixed testimony:
Irish Reference Bible apud Munich codex latinus monacensis 14277, folio 285 recto (about 800): § Josephus says that it was on account of his murder that Jerusalem was overthrown. About him his Gospel according to the Hebrews testifies, and it has been translated by me into Greek and Latin, which also Origen used when it says after the resurrection of the Lord, “The Lord when he had given a shroud to the servant of the priest went to James and appeared to him.” For James had sworn that he would not eat bread from that hour in which the Lord drank the cup until he saw his resurrection from the dead. Then after this the Lord blessed the bread and broke it and gave it to James, saying to him, “My brother, eat your bread, because the Son of Man has arisen.” / § Iosepus dicet quod propter necem eius subversa est Hierusalem. de eo testatur euangelium eius secundum Ebreos et a me nuper in Graecum et Latinum sermonem translatum, quod et Ori{g}enes uti{tur} post resurrectionem domini refert, «Dominus cum dedisset sindonem servo sacerdoti ibit ad Iacobum et apparuit ei.» iuraverit enim Iacobus se non commessurum panem ab illa hora qua biberet1 calicem dominus2 donec videret eius resurrectionem a mortuis. inde dominus post benedixit panem et fregit et dedit Iacobo, dicens ei, «Frater mi, comede panem tuum, quia surrexit filius hominis.» [Link 1, 2.]
1 Corrected to biberat.
2 Corrected to domini.
Refer also to Paris manuscriptus latinus 11561, folio 187 recto, bottom of first column and top of second. [Link 1, 2.]
1 Corrected to biberat.
2 Corrected to domini.
Refer also to Paris manuscriptus latinus 11561, folio 187 recto, bottom of first column and top of second. [Link 1, 2.]
- Munich CLM 14277, Folio 285 Recto, Lines 12-20, & Paris ML 11561, Folio 187 Recto, Split.png (1.21 MiB) Viewed 2867 times
I had to look these passages up for myself in the online scans because Klijn, in Jewish-Christian Gospel Tradition, records the presence of a correction in the Munich manuscript. I have to admit that it almost looks to me as if the second correction is going in the way opposite to what Klijn records (it is his corrections which my footnotes are capturing), with domini being corrected to dominus, but working from an online image can be deceptive (and my eye may be influenced by the letter s being so much bigger than the letter i in the text), and in either case we have, at around 800, evidence for both readings: (A) James drinking from the cup of the Lord and (B) the Lord himself drinking from the cup.
Finally, Sedulius seems to testify in agreement with the Latin:
Sedulius Scotus, comment on 1 Corinthians 15.7 (century X): § Next, James the son of Alphaeus, who testified that he would not eat bread from the table of the Lord until he saw Christ rising, just as we read in the gospel according to the Hebrews. / § Deinde Iacobo, Alphaei filio, qui se testatus est a coena domini non cemesurum panem usquequo videret Christum resurgentem, sicut in evangelio secundum Hebraeos legimus.
J. B. Lightfoot had stated on page 274 of Galatians that he accepted dominus as the original reading in Jerome. Against this hypothesis stands the combined weight, apparently, of all the Latin manuscripts. In its favor stands the Greek translation and the earliest witnesses from outside that manuscript tradition. The manuscripts seem to date to century VII and later. Call me crazy, but I think that Lightfoot was probably right: the original was ab illa hora quia biberat calicem dominus, not ab illa hora quia biberat calicem domini, and our extant Latin manuscripts must all descend from the same corrupted copy.
There is more. Both Gregory of Tours and Jacobus a Voragine agree in having Jesus speak the word surge to James, a detail found neither in the Latin nor in the Greek of Jerome. Possibly, then, this detail, too, once stood in Jerome but dropped out of the manuscript history, being preserved only in these quotations. Or, possibly, Jacobus conflated both Gregory and Jerome. (Jacobus cannot be reliant solely upon Gregory, since his text is closer to Jerome's than Gregory's, and he also mentions On Famous Men by name, which Gregory does not.) But, on pages 64-65 of Gospel According to the Hebrews, Henry Hall-Houghton makes another suggestion, pointing out that Jacobus a Voragine attributes this pericope about James to Josephus. It is true that ancient and medieval Christian authors attributed many things to Josephus which the Jewish historian did not write, but it is also true that some of the things so attributed to him actually owe their origin to Hegesippus, whose name was sometimes confused with that of Josephus. Thus, Hall-Houghton suggests that Jacobus means Hegesippus when he writes Josephus, and that Jacobus is claiming both Hegesippus and Jerome as the source for this pericope about James from the Gospel of the Hebrews; Hegesippus, therefore, is the other source besides Jerome, and presumably responsible for Jesus' command to rise (surge).
And I will add something which I noticed while examining the pages in the Irish Reference Bible. Immediately before the part quoted by Klijn, we find this sentence: "Josephus says that it was on account of his murder that Jerusalem was overthrown." This exact claim stands, of course, as the most probable confusion of Hegesippus with Josephus; but then the passage continues with what Klijn quotes: "About him (eo) his (eius) Gospel according to the Hebrews testifies...." I have translated eo with "him" rather than with "this," as Klijn has it, because I do not see how the pericope about Jesus appearing to James is "about" the fall of Jerusalem, at least not in any way explained in the passage. But to whom are the pronouns, eo and eius, referring? The former has to be James; Jesus' appearance to him, while not about his death and the fall of Jerusalem, is certainly about him as a person. The latter, though, if it is not some unprecedented claim that the Gospel of the Hebrews is of James (against the unified patristic testimony that it was attributed, if anything, to Matthew), must be Josephus, which then makes the most sense as the usual mistake for Hegesippus, thus claiming that the Gospel of the Hebrews is, in some way, "his" (Hegesippus') gospel, a claim which we can best understand (A) in the light of Eusebius' statements that Hegesippus both used the Gospel of the Hebrews and was a Hebrew himself and (B) in exactly the relationship which the very title, Gospel according to the Hebrews, suggests between the Hebrews and the gospel text itself; that is, Hegesippus himself counts, for the editor of the Reference Bible, as one of the Hebrews according to which the Gospel of the Hebrews was written. The sense of the sentence, then, would be that Hegesippus, in "his" most frequently cited gospel text as one from among the Hebrews, testified "about him," that is, about James, that he had received a resurrection appearance. If I am correct, then the Irish Reference Bible, too, attributes this pericope to Hegesippus, in the familiar guise of Josephus, despite going on to copy from Jerome so clumsily as to apparently assume the mantle of Jerome's own first person reference, a me nuper in Graecum et Latinum sermonem translatum.
Coherent with this suggestion that Hegesippus is our other source is our knowledge, independent of the hypothesis itself, that Hegesippus used the Gospel of the Hebrews; Eusebius both relates this detail and claims that Hegesippus was himself a Hebrew in History of the Church 4.22.8. And we know from Photius, in Bibliotheca 232, that Stephen Gobar cited Hegesippus in century VI, and Theodor Zahn has given reason to suspect that Hegesippus' fivefold work survived even into century XVII. So it could very well be that at least three of our authors (Gregory of Tours, Jacobus a Voragine, and the editor of the Irish Reference Bible) depended both on Jerome and on Hegesippus for the pericope about James.
I myself, however, happen to prefer a slight variation on this reconstruction. Origen is almost certain to have known and used Hegesippus, and Origen was, in Latin translation, very popular in the medieval period, despite the controversies over his theological viewpoints. The Irish Reference Bible quotes from him frequently, for example. And I have already mentioned Luomanen's hypothesis that Jerome gleaned his own citation(s) of the Gospel of the Hebrews from Origen, rather than from the gospel text itself. Thus, it seems to me even more likely that it was some now lost work of Origen's, rather than Hegesippus' Memoirs directly, which was being used to supplement Jerome.
The trajectory, then, would come out like so:
- Gospel of the Hebrews, James, Hegesippus, Origen, & Jerome.png (38.98 KiB) Viewed 2867 times
If my arguments for Origen over Hegesippus should seem deficient, then we would remove Origen from the chain.
At any rate, the net result of this inquiry would be that the Gospel of the Hebrews did not (necessarily) record that James the Just attended the Last Supper and drank of the eucharistic cup.
Ben.
PS: As to the periodic confusion of Hegesippus with Josephus, both Origen and Clement of Alexandria seem to have confused the two. The Chronicon Paschale records the following:
Chronicon Paschale:
Οὐεσπασιανοῦ Αὐγούστου τὸ βʹ καὶ Νερουᾶ. / The second of Vespasian Augustus and Nerva.
Ἰώσηππος ἱστορεῖ ἐν τῷ πέμπτῳ λόγῳ τῆς ἁλώσεως ὅτι ἔτους τρίτου Οὐεσπασιανοῦ ἡ ἅλωσις τῶν Ἰουδαίων γέγονεν, ὡς μετὰ μʹ ἔτη τῆς γενομένης παρ' αὐτῶν τόλμης κατὰ τοῦ Ἰησοῦ· ἐν ᾧ χρόνῳ, φησί, καὶ Ἰάκωβον τὸν ἀδελφὸν τοῦ κυρίου καὶ ἐπίσκοπον Ἱεροσολύμων γενόμενον ὑπ' αὐτῶν κρημνισθῆναι καὶ ὑπ' αὐτῶν ἀναιρεθῆναι λιθοβοληθέντα. / Josephus records in the fifth volume of the Capture [= another title for the War] that in the third year of Vespasian the capture of the Jews took place, as after 40 years from their daring deed against Jesus, at which time, he says, also James the brother of the Lord was thrown down and murdered by them by being stoned.
[Link.]
Οὐεσπασιανοῦ Αὐγούστου τὸ βʹ καὶ Νερουᾶ. / The second of Vespasian Augustus and Nerva.
Ἰώσηππος ἱστορεῖ ἐν τῷ πέμπτῳ λόγῳ τῆς ἁλώσεως ὅτι ἔτους τρίτου Οὐεσπασιανοῦ ἡ ἅλωσις τῶν Ἰουδαίων γέγονεν, ὡς μετὰ μʹ ἔτη τῆς γενομένης παρ' αὐτῶν τόλμης κατὰ τοῦ Ἰησοῦ· ἐν ᾧ χρόνῳ, φησί, καὶ Ἰάκωβον τὸν ἀδελφὸν τοῦ κυρίου καὶ ἐπίσκοπον Ἱεροσολύμων γενόμενον ὑπ' αὐτῶν κρημνισθῆναι καὶ ὑπ' αὐτῶν ἀναιρεθῆναι λιθοβοληθέντα. / Josephus records in the fifth volume of the Capture [= another title for the War] that in the third year of Vespasian the capture of the Jews took place, as after 40 years from their daring deed against Jesus, at which time, he says, also James the brother of the Lord was thrown down and murdered by them by being stoned.
[Link.]
This statement agrees with Origen in attributing to Josephus what we know from Eusebius, History of the Church 2.23.3-18, belongs to Hegesippus. And George Syncellus writes:
George Syncellus, Chronography (century VIII): § Ταῦτα μὲν Ἡγήσιππος τῶν τοῦ καθ' ἡμᾶς ὀρθοῦ λόγου ἀξιόπιστος συγγραφεὺς ὀρθῶς ἱστορεῖ, ᾧ καὶ Ἰώσηππος οὐκ ἀπᾴδοντα συμφωνεῖ γράφων ταύτην γενέσθαι τὴν αἰτίαν τῆς κατὰ Οὐεσπασιανὸν ἁλώσεως Ἰουδαίων. § Ἰωσήππου περὶ τῶν αὐτῶν. ταῦτα δὲ συμβέβηκεν Ἰουδαίοις κατ' ἐκδίκησιν Ἰακώβου τοῦ δικαίου, ὃς ἦν ἀδελφὸς Ἰησοῦ τοῦ λεγομένου Χριστοῦ, ἐπειδήπερ δικαιότατον αὐτὸν ὄντα Ἰουδαῖοι ἀπέκτειναν. / § These things Hegesippus, an historian worthy of credit, one of those [who is a follower] of the orthodox word among us, with whom also Josephus agrees, writing what is not in disagreement [with him], that this became the cause of the conquest of the Jews in the time of Vespasian. § Josephus concerning the same things. But these things happened to the Jews as vengeance for James the just, who was the brother of Jesus who is called Christ. For the Jews killed him even though he was a most just man.
Thus Syncellus, too, agrees with Origen in attributing to Josephus what we know belongs to Hegesippus.
De Excidio Urbis Hierosolymitanae, a Latin text regularly attributed either to Ambrose in the earlier manuscripts or to Hegesippus in the later ones, is a reworking in five books of Josephus' War in seven. Medieval churchmen sometimes quoted it as if it were by Josephus, the Jewish historian.
