Roger Pearse

I have had a curious email today, quoting a passage from Jerome about the Gospel of the Hebrews which I have never seen before. I attach it, with my quick reply which shows it to emanate from Blavatsky. Does anyone know anything of such a passage? Perhaps from the Commentary on Matthew?

I find no such passage referenced by Schneemelcher, and although interested in the GoH have not seen this passage before. The 'reference' ("V.445") is itself very odd: any normal reference to a letter by Jerome would give the letter number. It reads like a volume (5) and page number.

There are many 'quotes' going around the web which are bogus, and so I never trust these things, but always have a look to see if I can find various websites that host it and give info:

The appears to come from this site or one like it:

http://www.wisdomworld.org/additiona...Vs.Church.html

Now let us revisit the statement regarding the Hebrew original of the Gospel of Matthew written by St. Jerome to the Bishops Chromatius and Heliodorus: "A difficult work is enjoined, since this translation has been commanded me by your Felicities, which St. Matthew himself, the Apostle and Evangelist, did not wish to be openly written. For if it had not been Secret, he would have added to the evangel that which he gave forth was his; but he made up this book sealed up in the Hebrew characters, which he put forth even in such a way that the book, written in Hebrew letters and by the hand of himself, might be possessed by the men most religious, who also, in the course of time, received it from those who preceded them. But this very book they never gave to any one to be transcribed, and its text they related some one way and some another". (http://ebionite.com/torah_allegory.htm)

In the following site which is similar but not quite the same, it states that:

"Jerome seems to have been in contact with a "secret doctrine" of Jesus written by Matthew found in the library at Caesarea, which, as H. P. Blavatsky states, may have been identical to the Hebrew gospel. I quote Blavatsky from her magnum opus, Isis Unveiled;" (Blavatsky, Isis Unveiled, Vol II, pp. 181- 183.)

http://essenes.net/TheLostChristiani...inalSects.html

On this page we find much the same, but with the reference "(St. Jerome, V. 445; 'Sod, the Son of the Man', p. 44.)" which I would guess gives us a source for the 'reference'.

http://members.tripod.com/pc93/shadow.htm

Searching for "Sod the son of the man" and Jerome in google gives many results, including the text of "Isis Unveiled". This page (which includes our text) gives the author of "Sod...", as a certain Dunlap:

http://www.sacred-texts.com/the/iu/iu103.htm

It is stuffed with various evident falsehoods. What is certain is that no translation of Jerome's letters into English in many volumes existed in Blavatsky's time; and it sounds as if this too is merely hearsay.

Dunlap appears to be S.F.Dunlap, http://www.ecampus.com/book/0766192989.
$16 will tell you whether Blavatsky quoted him correctly.

I would suspect strongly that no such passage -- of obvious interest -- exists in the works of Jerome. A more comprehensive search would involve searching the Patrologia Latina database for some Latinised
version and seeing what comes out.

Jerome did translate the text into Latin and Greek (so De viris illustribus/on famous men ch.2) He quotes
it a lot in the Commentary on Matthew, apparently.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Ben C Smith

Hi, Roger.

I, too, as you may know, am interested in the Hebrew gospel of Matthew and such, and I have never run across this quote to my knowledge. I just reskimmed A. F. J. Klijn, Jewish-Christian Gospel Tradition, which has entire sections dedicated to Jerome, and cannot find anything like it.

One thing that strikes me as odd is the similarity to the secret gospel of Mark and the letter of Clement to Theodore, what with the talk of a secret text, written by an evangelist for only the most religious men, and all.

Ben.

Roger Pearse

I went through Schneemelcher, and found nothing; likewise J.K.Elliot's Apocryphal New Testament. I'm suspicious!

All standard conspiracy stuff, tho: since what Jesus taught is well-known to all, anyone who wants to use his name for some other theory must perforce invent a "secret tradition", and that he must do so shows that in fact Jesus was known by all of those who appeared in public as his followers to have taught no such thing.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Toto

I am under the impression that Madame Blavatsky and the Theosophists gained some "evidence" on the basis of what we would now call channeling, or supernatural revelation from spirits. This may be one of those cases.

S.C.Carlson

It could be from pseudo-Jerome. According to Wace's biographical dictionary's entry for Leucius, it reads:

Still on the trail,

Stephen

S.C.Carlson

According to Mary Clayton, The Apocryphal Gospels of Mary in Anglo-Saxon England (Cambridge, 1998), 18, this pseudo-Jerome letter is actually the prologue to a certain Pseudo-Matthew.

Stephen

S.C.Carlson

I found the text with prologue to Pseudo-Matthew here.

Here is the relevant part of pseudo-Jerome's reply:

Stephen

Toto

SOD: The Son of Man can be browsed on Google Books.

Roger Pearse

Stephen,

You are a hero!

It is in fact in the Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 8, here.

I'd never heard of this text, I must say. But sure enough it is in Eliot, p.84, and is also known as the "Infancy gospel of Matthew". It is mainly based on the Protevangelium of James, and popularised the latter and the Infancy Gospel of Thomas in the middle ages. The purpose of the work was to further veneration of Mary. It is preceded by fake letters of Jerome.

According to Elliot, the work seems to have been compiled in the 8-9th century in Latin. The oldest manuscript is 11th century, but there are over 130 mss.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Roger Pearse

Mary Clayton gives the age of the text as between 550-700, and seems to be by a monastic author. Annoyingly the PDF has copy to clipboard disabled.