A patch sewn onto clothing — used by Jesus in the parable of new cloth on old garments to teach the incompatibility of the gospel with the old covenant forms.
The Greek epiblēma (from epi, upon + ballō, to throw/put) is a patch or covering — specifically a piece of cloth placed over a tear. It appears in all three Synoptics in Jesus' parable of the patched garment: 'No one sews a patch (epiblēma) of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch will pull away from the garment, making the tear worse' (Matthew 9:16; Mark 2:21; Luke 5:36). This parable is paired with the new wine in old wineskins — both illustrating the radical newness of the kingdom.
The epiblēma parable is Jesus' own commentary on the relationship between the new covenant and the old. The issue is not that the old garment is bad — it is simply old, worn, established. The new cloth (the unshrunk, unbleached kingdom teaching) cannot simply be patched onto the old forms. The epiblēma would tear away and make things worse. This is not abolition but fulfillment — Jesus comes not to patch Judaism but to transfigure it from within. Hebrews unpacks this theologically: the old covenant was a 'shadow' (Hebrews 8:5; 10:1) and the new covenant replaces the obsolete with the eternal (Hebrews 8:13).