J. Atkinson, will make out the
truth of the proposition to the satisfaction of every fair and competent
judgment. If there be any book which may seem to form an exception to
the observation, it is a Hebrew Gospel, which was circulated under the
various titles of, the Gospel according to the Hebrews, the Gospel of
the Nazarenes, of the Ebionites, sometimes called of the Twelve, by some
ascribed to St Matthew. This Gospel is once, and only once, cited by
Clemeus Alexandrinus, who lived, the reader will remember, in the latter
part of the second century, and which same Clement quotes one or other
of our four Gospels in almost every page of his work. It is also twice
mentioned by Origen, A.D. 230; and both times with marks of diminution
and discredit. And this is the ground upon which the exception stands.
But what is still more material to observe is, that this Gospel, in the
main, agreed with our present Gospel of Saint Matthew. (In applying to
this Gospel what Jerome in the latter end of the fourth century has
mentioned of a Hebrew Gospel, I think it probable that we sometimes
confound it with a Hebrew copy of St.
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