Help wanted with St. Jerome’s comment on Matthew 2:15 and 2:23

[BartholomewB]

St. Matthew is the subject of Chapter 3 of St. Jerome’s De Viris Illustribus (“Illustrious Men”). Along with a few brief remarks by Papias, Irinaeus, Eusebius, and Origen, this passage in Jerome is one of the prime sources among the Church Fathers for all that is known about the “Hebrew Matthew”. What follows is the whole of Chapter 3:

• Matthew, also called Levi, apostle and aforetimes publican, composed a gospel of Christ at first published in Judea in Hebrew for the sake of those of the circumcision who believed, but this was afterwards translated into Greek, though by what author is uncertain. The Hebrew itself has been preserved until the present day in the library at Cæsarea which Pamphilus so diligently gathered. I have also had the opportunity of having the volume described to me by the Nazarenes of Berœa, a city of Syria, who use it. In this it is to be noted that wherever the Evangelist, whether on his own account or in the person of our Lord the Saviour quotes the testimony of the Old Testament, he does not follow the authority of the translators of the Septuagint but the Hebrew. Wherefore these two forms exist: Out of Egypt have I called my son, and for he shall be called a Nazarene.

My query has to do with that last sentence. “Out of Egypt have I called my son” (Matt 2:15) is a quotation from Hosea 1:11, while scholars have never been able to agree on the OT source of “for he shall be called a Nazarene” (Matt 2:23). The question is this:

What is Jerome trying to tell us here about the Hebrew or Aramaic Gospel of Matthew? What is the relevance of these quotations?

I’m baffled. I can’t make head or tail of this. Anybody?

http://newadvent.com/fathers/2708.htm

 

[Dan_Defender]

To me, this is a clear example of oral tradition. Matthew relies on the oral tradition of the time, where some prophet’s saying had not been put in writing, but it was common knowledge.

By the way, this passage is very much a great difficulty for sola scriptura Protestants. Bring this up to them, and they will contort themselves into a pretzel

 

[Gorgias]

What is Jerome trying to tell us here about the Hebrew or Aramaic Gospel of Matthew? What is the relevance of these quotations?

If we look at the Koine of Matthew 2:15, we see that the ‘quotation’ from Hosea is listed as

ἐξ Αἰγύπτου ἐκάλεσα τὸν υἱόν μου

but if we look at the Septuagint rendering of Hosea 11:1, we see

ἐξ Αἰγύπτου μετεκάλεσα τὰ τέκνα αὐτοῦ

I’m not great with Hebrew, so I’m taking this to mean that Jerome is saying “this isn’t the Septuagint version of Hosea 11:1…!” So, having only seen the Greek Matthew, he’s noting that they’re not using the Septuagint quote there, but seemingly the Hebrew quote. It tends to give credence to the “Matthew was first composed in Hebrew” notion.

Similarly, there’s no Septuagint quote “he shall be called a Nazarene”, although Matthew asserts that it’s a prophetic utterance.

So, Jerome seems to be saying “although I haven’t seen the putative ‘original Matthew in Hebrew’, there’s evidence to suggest that this notion is accurate.”

Is this what you were asking, or am I completely missing the boat here?

 

[BartholomewB]

Is this what you were asking, or am I completely missing the boat here?

Thank you, @Gorgias, that’s exactly what I’m asking! I get your point about the difference between Matthew’s Greek and the Septuagint. I took a quick look at Hosea’s verse in Hebrew but now I need to spend a little more time on it.

The trouble with the other verse is that it doesn’t seem to occur in that exact form anywhere at all in the OT, either in Greek or Hebrew.

 

[Pattylt]

I’ve always assumed there were variants of the OT (there are!) just as there are variants of the NT. It seems likely, to me, that Matthew had a variant that made this statement and we no longer have that variant. YMMV.

 

[Gorgias]

I took a quick look at Hosea’s verse in Hebrew but now I need to spend a little more time on it.

To my (admittedly-Greek-centric) mind, the differences are more “tekna” vs “huion” and “mou” vs “autou”, moreso than the verb prefix.

The trouble with the other verse is that it doesn’t seem to occur in that exact form anywhere at all in the OT, either in Greek or Hebrew.

Maybe I’m reading into Jerome, but I’m thinking that this is precisely his point: “If it were from the Greek, where’s he getting this? On the other hand, is he getting it from some source in Hebrew? Does this support the ‘Hebrew origin of Matthew’ theory?” Then again, I shouldn’t put myself in Jerome’s shoes…

 

[BartholomewB]

According to Matthew, the words “He will be called a Nazarene” were “spoken through the prophets.” ὅπως πληρωθῇ τὸ ῥηθὲν διὰ τῶν προφητῶν ὅτι Ναζωραῖος κληθήσεται.

I’m assuming that “spoken through the prophets” can only mean it’s a quotation from the OT, not from some non-Biblical source? Perhaps @Pattylt put her finger on it. Perhaps it’s a quotation that was in the Hebrew Bible in Matthew’s day but somehow got left out or altered at a later date.

 

[strita]

Does Judges 13:2-5 have any relevance here?

 

[SeraficLeo]

It could be an interpretative declaration. Jesus Himself sometimes appears to use the OT rather freely but He is obviously also interpeting it in some cases. “But a body have You prepared for Me…” whereas the OT text actually reads more like an ear rather than body (presumably for listening, learning [from God] and obeying). Sometimes also it appears in the NT that OT verses are interwoven together in a unique and surprising way, perhaps to give them fresh meaning and maybe also show the overall unity of scriptural teaching.

 

[Bithynian]

Jerome was a supporter of the Hebraica Veritas (“Hebrew Truth”), the idea that the Hebrew text of the OT was more original - and therefore superior - to the Greek Septuagint translation. This was a somewhat subversive and unusual idea in the early Church given the prevalence of the LXX.

In respect to this, I see the highlighted passage as an example of Jerome’s textual criticism to support his position. He’s underlining instances where he understands the NT to refer to the Hebrew text of OT: non sequatur Septuaginta translatorum auctoritatem, sed Hebraicam ([the evangelist] does not follow the authority of the Septuagint translators, but the Hebrew [authority]).

Jerome is not explicitly using the example of those two passages to support the existence of a Hebrew (or Aramaic) text of Matt. He believes that proposition to already be true based on other evidence (e.g. his correspondence with the Nazarenes). His line of argument is more “right, we have a Hebrew text of Matt’s Gospel, and in it he cites the Hebrew text of the OT rather than the Septuagint translation, so we ought to regard the Hebrew text as more authoritative”.

Insofar as “ἐξ Αἰγύπτου ἐκάλεσα τὸν υἱόν μου” is concerned, it is more faithful to the Hebrew text: the singular noun with the 1st person singular pronominal suffix ben-i (my son) is in the Hebrew rather than banay-w (his sons) as it is rendered in the LXX.

If we are to assume that the LXX has a similar Hebrew base text to our current critical edition (which may or may not be true), it is somewhat unclear as to why the LXX translated Hosea 11:1 in the way it did.

(1) It is perhaps that the LXX translators had difficulty deciding whether the clause “and out of Egypt I called my son” logically belonged to verse 1 or 2. The second verse “the more I called to them” is a recapitulation of the first verse “and out of Egypt I called my son”, except that in v 2 the direct object is plural (Hb: lahem). It may have seemed more logically consistent for the LXX translators to render “son” instead as “sons” to maintain connection with “the more I called to them”

(2) In addition, the LXX likely used τέκνα (rather than υἱοί) as it has a particular sense of “young children” in Greek, in keeping with the first verse’s description of Israel as a “na’ar”, a young child.

(3) As for why the possessive in the Hebrew text (and Matthew) is a 1st person possessive (my son) as opposed to the LXX’s third person possessive (its sons, i.e. Israel’s children), this is a head scratcher.

(4) Lastly, the decision of the LXX translators to render μετακαλέω rather than Matt’s καλέω: the Hebrew qara’ in Hos 11:1 has a wide semantic range. It includes ideas of “making a sound to call to someone” and “calling someone a particular name” as well as “calling someone to summon them” amongst many others. Most books in the LXX - including Hosea - vary their translation of qara’ to capture some particular nuance. For example, the LXX of Hos 7:11 translates qara’ with ἐπικαλέω to capture some idea of disputing or quarrelling.

 

[BartholomewB]

Thank you, @Bithynian. I’ll get back to you later, if I may, with one or two follow-up questions, but in the meantime I’d like to ask for your view on the other quotation, the “Nazarene” one.

@strita asks about the Samson episode in Judges, which some scholars think is the one Matthew must be referring to here, because of the word “Nazirite.” Other scholars who reject that identification cite two reasons, as far as I can see. First, they say the words “Nazirite” and “Nazarene” are too dissimilar in Hebrew – nezir and natsri, respectively – for the identification to be convincing. Second, they say the Nazirites were too well known for any association with a place name to make sense to Matthew’s readers. Is that a fair presentation of the arguments on both sides of the question?

Thanks

 

[BartholomewB]

This is my first follow-up question. It has to do with timing. As far as I can make out, Jerome lived in the Middle East in two separate periods. First, he spent five or six years in Syria in the 370s, until in 379 he returned to Rome where he held high office under Pope Damasus I, notably organizing the Council of Rome that, in 382, adopted the Biblical canon as we know it today. When Damasus died at the end of 384, Jerome left Rome and in the following year set out for the Middle East a second time, arriving in Bethlehem in 386. He seems to have lived there for the rest of his life and eventually died there in 420.

It was during his stay in Syria in the seventies that he learned from the Christian community in Beroea (present-day Aleppo) about the “Hebrew Matthew”. In De Viris Illustribus he writes, “The Hebrew itself has been preserved until the present day in the library at Cæsarea which Pamphilus so diligently gathered. I have also had the opportunity of having the volume described to me by the Nazarenes of Berœa, a city of Syria, who use it.”

Although he wrote De Viris Illustribus in Bethlehem, a few years after arriving in the Middle East for the second time, his wording in this sentence strongly suggests to me that, at the time of writing, Jerome had not yet visited Pamphilus’ library in Caesarea, and consequently had not yet set eyes on the actual manuscript known as “the Hebrew Matthew.” If he had already handled it and read it himself, he wouldn’t need to pass on to his readers second-hand information that he had been given, five years earlier or more, by one of the Christian communities in Syria. Does this make sense to you?

 

[Dovekin]

“ἐξ Αἰγύπτου ἐκάλεσα τὸν υἱόν μου”

I just want to point out that the verb here is the basis for the word ecclesia, Church. “Out of Egypt I have called my son” is being used to refer to an historical event about Jesus, but most would probably know it as a reference to the children called out to be the Church.

I have no idea if that is significant, or how.

 

[Bithynian]

Does this make sense to you?

That does seem logical, but I’m wary of making any certain judgements either way based on the circumstantial evidence and my own - admittedly - basic knowledge of Jerome’s life.

I don’t necessarily see his inclusion of the reference to the community at Beroea as mutually exclusive with him having sighted first-hand a Hebrew text of Matthew. He could have been supplying it for historical interest to indicate that the text was otherwise in currency amongst some Christians, rather than just being a dusty pseudepigraphical work stuffed in the back of the Caesarean library.

At the same time, in chapter 75 of De Viris Illustribus Jerome references Pamphilus’ copy of Origen’s works at Caesarea. Jerome further supplements this with the note that he has his own volumes penned by the very hand of Origen, which he “hugs and guards with such joy”. I have an inkling - as you do - that if he did see the Hebrew Matthrew, Jerome likely would’ve mentioned it: “I saw it, smelled it, even wrote my name on the back of it, very nearly stole it when no-one was looking.”

 

[BartholomewB]

“I saw it, smelled it, even wrote my name on the back of it, very nearly stole it when no-one was looking.”

Is it known when Jerome first learned Hebrew and Aramaic? In the 370s, in Syria, or not until the Bethlehem period? I would imagine that Aramaic had long ceased to be widely spoken in Syria, but I’m only guessing.