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Authentic Matthew is a name given, according to Jerome's Commentary on Matthew ch. 2 , to a gospel identical to the Gospel of the Hebrews: "In the Gospel which the Nazarenes and the Ebionites use which we have recently translated from Hebrew to Greek, and which most people call the Authentic Gospel of Matthew...". It was called Authentic Matthew because a tradition, reported by Jerome, asserted that it was actually written by the apostle Matthew. Authentic Matthew is a lost gospel that has been at least partially preserved in the works of some of the Church Fathers.
Background
In the early first century, a small group of people in and about Jerusalem started to claim that a young man named Jesus was the promised Jewish Messiah. They said that the Romans had executed Jesus, and Yahweh had raised him from the dead.
In the year 62, the province of Judaea rose in revolt against the Romans. According to some writers, during this period of instability, temple priests loyal to Herod murdered the group’s leader, James the Just. In the suppression of the rebellion, Roman troops depopulated and destroyed much of Judaea, including the city of Jerusalem.
One account of the life and teachings of Jesus perhaps dating from this time was written by a person named Matthew. According to the Church Fathers, he was the same person as the apostle Matthew, and his account was written in Aramaic. Although circulated among Jewish followers of Jesus, this Gospel of the Hebrews was little known among the churches founded by Paul of Tarsus, for even among Paul's literate followers few were fluent in Aramaic written in Hebrew script.
The Hebrew Text
According to the Church Fathers, the Gospel of the Hebrews or the Hebrew Gospel was authoritative and apostolic in nature. For example, Papias quoted by Irenaeus tells us that the Apostle Matthew wrote it in "Hebrew letters."
Eusebius adds that the reason Matthew wrote his version was that he was about to leave the religious community he established, and therefore put together an account of the life of Jesus for the people he left behind.
Epiphanius confirms the aforementioned, and goes on to say that Matthew alone of the New Testament writers composed a gospel in Hebrew script.
Some modern scholars contest this, arguing that Matthew also wrote the Canonical Matthean Gospel in Hebrew script. However, Higher Criticism suggests to some that the Canonical Matthean Gospel as recorded in the Bible was composed in Greek many years after the time of Matthew by an unknown redactor.
St. Jerome is most helpful in understanding the origins of the Gospel of the Hebrews. According to Jerome, the Gospel of the Hebrews was written in the Syriac language (Aramaic) and used Hebrew letters. Most people of Jerome’s day called it "Authentic Matthew", as they believed the Apostle of Jesus who was the tax collector composed it. The Aramaic original was preserved at the library in Caesarea, but copies existed in the Nazarene community in Beroea, Syria, as well as in the Ebionite community. The Nazarenes supposedly gave Jerome a copy that he translated into Greek.
Jerome believed the Gospel of the Hebrews was authoritative and wrote about it extensively, thus preserving much of the text.