Gospel of The Ebionites - Relationship To Other Texts

Relationship To Other Texts

Epiphanius mistakenly refers to the Gospel used by the Ebionites as the "Hebrew" gospel and the Gospel of Matthew, perhaps relying upon and conflating the testimony of the earlier Church Fathers. Jerome remarks that the Nazoraeans and Ebionites both used the Gospel of the Hebrews, which was considered the original Matthew by many of them. Jerome's report is consistent with the prior accounts of Irenaeus and Eusebius.

It is not clear if and how Gospel of the Ebionites is related to the Gospel of the Hebrews and the Gospel of the Nazoraeans. All the Jewish-Christian Gospels survive only as fragments in quotations, so it is difficult to tell if they are independent texts or variations of each other. Klijn concluded that the Gospel harmony composed in Greek appears to be a distinctive text known only to Epiphanius. Its putative relationship to the Gospel text known to Origen as the Gospel of the Twelve remains a speculation. as well as its relationship to a hypothetical original Gospel of Matthew.

The Recognitions of Clement contains a source document (Rec. 1.27–71), conventionally referred to by scholars as the Ascents of James, which is believed to be of Jewish-Christian origin. The Ascents shares a similarity to the Gospel of the Ebionites with regard to the command to abolish the Jewish sacrifices, adding that a Christian water baptism is to be substituted for the remission of sins.