EBREI, VANGELO secondo gli. — An apocryphon that arose in a Judeo-Christian milieu. It is debated whether it should be identified with other apocryphal gospels called those of the Nazareans (v.), of the Ebionites (v.), and of the Twelve Apostles (v. APOCRITI LIBRI).
The “classical” solution (so called by E. Amann), common until 1900 and still supported by G. Bonaccorsi, groups those apocrypha into two gospels: one orthodox (v. E., to be identified with the Gospel of the Nazareans); the other heterodox (the Gospel of the Ebionites, to be identified with the Gospel of the Twelve Apostles).
According to this solution, the V. E. would be the one that converted Jews simply called “the Gospel.” It would have been composed in Aramaic toward the end of the 1st century, and soon afterward translated into Greek. This Greek text was already known to s. Ignatius Martyr and cited by Clement of Alexandria and Origen. By the time of Eusebius, its Greek version was no longer known, but the Aramaic original was preserved in the library of Caesarea in Palestine. S. Jerome (whose assertions are called into question by G. Bardy in Melanger de science rel., 3 [1946], pp. 5–36) is said to have consulted it, to have found a copy also at Berei (Aleppo) among the Nazareans (the Gospel of the Nazareans), and to have produced a Greek and a Latin version of II. Some hold that these were partial versions made for personal use; Bardy maintains that s. Jerome merely intended to translate II. Fragments of the Latin version would be preserved in the commentaries and works of s. Jerome, while fragments of the Greek version would be preserved in the marginal notes of certain Greek codices of Matthew, with the rubric: τὸ Ἰωσδάκον.
S. Jerome (followed by Zahn and Hilgenfeld) even regarded it as the Aramaic original of Matthew. Harnack considers it independent of the Synoptics, whereas Lagrange maintains that it is dependent on them.
The few fragments that have come down to us (eleven in the edition of Bonaccorsi, pp. 1–7) do not permit the question to be adequately resolved.
Other solutions were proposed by A. Schmidtke (1912) and H. Waitz (1912). The former distinguishes three gospels:
a) that of the Nazareans (an Aramaic version (or Targöm) of our canonical Matthew = τὸ Ἰωσδάκον); b) V. E., to be identified with that of the Ebionites (heretical); c) that of the Twelve (ethnic-Christian, infected with parsimony).
H. Waitz likewise distinguishes three gospels, but differently: a) that of the Nazareans, orthodox Judeo-Christian, originally written in Greek and dependent on a pre-canonical Matthew (= τὸ Ἰωσδάκον); b) that of the Ebionites = Gospel of the Twelve, heterodox, which would have influenced the Pseudo-Clementine writings (II Clem.); c) V. E., mentioned by Clement of Alexandria (Strom., V, 14, 96), related to Ἰόγος Ἰησοῦ (of Oxyrhynchus papyrus 653, of which it would be the source); it would have been written in Greek by a Judeo-Christian around the middle of the 2nd century, in opposition to the heretical Gospel according to the Egyptians (v.).