The sign of the cross adopted by the Christians does not belong exclusively to them. It is kabalistic, and represents the oppositions and quaternary equilibrium of the elements. We see by the occult verse of the _Pater_, to which we have called attention in another work, that there were originally two ways of making it, or, at least, two very different formulas to express its meaning: one reserved for priests and initiates; the other given to neophytes and the profane.(259) One can understand now why the _Gospel of Matthew_, the Evangel of the Ebionites, has been for ever excluded in its Hebrew form from the world’s curious gaze. Jerome found the authentic and original Evangel written in Hebrew, by Matthew the Publican, at the library collected at Cæsarea by the martyr Pamphilius. “_I received permission from the Nazaræans_, who at Berœa of Syria used this (gospel) to translate it,” he writes toward the end of the fourth century.(260) “In the Evangel which the _Nazarenes_ and _Ebionites_ use,” said Jerome, “which recently I translated from Hebrew into Greek, and which is called by most persons the _genuine_ gospel of Matthew,” etc.(261) That the apostles had received a “secret doctrine” from Jesus, and that he himself taught one, is evident from the following words of Jerome, who confessed it in an unguarded moment. Writing to the Bishops Chromatius and Heliodorus, he complains that “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 this had not been _secret_, he (Matthew) would have added to the Evangel that what 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.”(262) And he adds further on the same page: “And it happened that this book, having been published by a disciple of Manichæus, named Seleucus, who also wrote falsely _The Acts of the Apostles_, exhibited matter not for edification, but for destruction; and that this (book) was _approved in a synod_ which the ears of the Church properly refused to listen to.”(263)