EBIONITES
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EBIONITES
Hser., Ill, as reflecting Hippolytus's lost "Syntagma"),
and Epiphanius (Hseres., xxx), derive the name of the
sect from a certain Ebion, its supposed founder. Epi-
phanius even mentions the place of his birth, a hamlet
called Cochabe in the district of Bashan, and relates
that he travelled through Asia and even came to
Rome. Of modern scholars Hilgenfeld has main-
tained the historical existence of this Ebion, mainly
on the ground of some passages ascribed to Ebion by
St. Jerome (Comm. in Gal., iii, 14) and by the author
of a compilation of patristic texts against the Mono-
thelites. But these passages are not likely to be
genuine, and Ebion, otherwise unknown to history, is
probably only an invention to account for the name
Ebionites. The name may have been self-imposed by
those who gladly claimed the beatitude of being poor
in spirit, or who claimed to live after the pattern of
the first Christians in Jerusalem, who laid their goods
at the feet of the Apostles. Perhaps, however, it was
first imposed by others and is to be connected with
the notorious poverty of the Christians in Palestine
(cf. Gal., ii, 10). Recent scholars have plausibly
maintained that the term did not originally designate
any heretical sect, but merely the orthodox Jewish
Christians of Palestine who continued to observe the
Mosaic Law. These, ceasing to be in touch with the
bulk of the Christian world, would gradually have
drifted away from the standard of orthodoxy and be-
come formal heretics. A stage in this development is
seen in St. Justin's " Dialogue with Trypho the Jew ",
chapter xlvii (about a.d. 140), where he .speaks of two
sects of Jewish Christians estranged from the Church:
those who observe the Mosaic Law for themselves,
but do not require observance thereof from others;
and those who hold it of universal obligation. The
latter are considered heretical by all; but with the
former St. Justin would hold communion, though not
all Christians would show them the same indulgence.
St. Justin, however, does not use the term Ebionites,
and when this term first occurs (about a.d. 175) it
designates a distinctly heretical sect.
The doctrines of this sect are said by Irenaeus to be like those of Cerinthus and Carpocrates. They de- nied the Divinity and the virginal birth of Christ; they clung to the observance of the Jewish Law; they regarded St. Paul as an apostate, and only used a Gospel according to St. Matthew (Adv. Haer., I, xxvi, 2; III, xxi, 2; IV, xxxiii, 4; V, i, 3). Their doc- trines are similarly described by Hippolytus (Philos., VIII, xxii, X, xviii) and Tertullian (De carne Chr., xiv, 18), but their observance of the Law seems no longer so prominent a feature of their system as in the account given by Iren^us. Origen is the first (C. Cels., V, lxi)to mark a distinction between two classes of Ebionites, a distinction which Eusebius also gives (Hist. Eccl., Ill, xxvii). Some Ebionites accept, but others reject, the virginal birth of Christ, though all reject His pre-existence and His Divinity. Those who accepted the virginal birth seem to have had more e.xalted views concerning Christ and, besides observing the Sabbath, to have kept the Sunday as a memorial of His Resurrection. The milder sort of Ebionites were probably fewer and less important than their stricter brethren, because the denial of the virgin birth was commonly attributed to all. (Origen, Hom. in Luc, xvii.) St. Epiphanius calls the more hereti- cal section Ebionites, and the more Catholic-minded, Nazarenes. But we do not know whence St. Epi- phanius obtained his information or how far it is reli- able. It is very hazardous, therefore, to maintain, as is sometimes done, that the distinction between Nazarenes and Ebionites goes back to the earliest days of Christianity.
Besides these merely Judaistic Ebionites, there ex- isted a later Gno.stic development of the same heresy. These Ebionite Gnostics difTered widely from the main schools of Gnosticism, in that they absolutely
rejected any distinction between Jehovah the Demi-
urge, and the Supreme Good God. Those who regard
this distinction as essential to Gnosticism would even
object to classing Ebionites as Gnostics. But on the
other hand the general character of their teaching is
unmistakably Gno.stic. This can be gathered from
the Pseudo-Clementines and may be summed up as
follows: Matter is eternal, and an emanation of the
Deity; nay it constitutes, as it were, God's body.
Creation, therefore, is but the transformation of pre-
existing material. God thus "creates" the Universe
by the instrumentality of His wisdom which is de-
scribed as a "demiurgic hand" (x"P S7;/«oi;/)7oOiTa)
producing the world. But this Logos, or Sophia,
does not constitute a different person, as in Christian
theology. Sophia produces the world by a successive
evolution of syzygies, the female in each case preced-
ing the male but being finally overcome by him.
This universe is, moreover, divided into two realms,
that of good and that of evil. The Son of God rules
over the realm of the good, and to him is given the
world to come, but the Prince of Evil is the prince of
this world (cf. John, xiv, 30; Eph., i, 21; vi, 12).
This Son of God is the Christ, a middle-being between
God and creation, not a creature, yet not equal to, nor
even to be compared with, the Father (avToyefvifiTif oi)
ffvyKplvcTat — " Hom.", xvi, 16). Adam was the bearer
of the first revelation, Moses of the second, Christ of
the third and perfect one. The union of Christ with
Jesus is involved in obscurity. Man is saved by
knowledge (gnosis), by believing in God the Teacher,
and by being baptized unto remission of sins. Thus
he receives knowledge and strength to observe all the
precepts of the law. Christ shall come again to tri-
umph over Antichrist as light dispels darkness. The
system is Pantheism, Persian Dualism, Judaism, and
Christianity fused together, and here and there re-
minds one of Mandaistic literature. The " Recogni-
tions", as given us in Rufinus's translation (revision?),
come nearer to Catholic teaching than do the " Homi-
lies".
Amongst the writings of the Ebionites must be mentioned (a) their Gospel. St. IrenEBUs only states that they used the Gospel of St. Matthew. Eusebius modifies this statement by speaking of the so-called Gospel according to the Hebrews, which was known to Hegesippus (Eus., Hist. Eccl., IV, xxii, 8), Origen (Jerome, Devir., ill., ii), and Clem. Alex. (Strom., II, ix, 45). This, probably, was the slightly modified Ara- maic original of St. Matthew, written in Hebrew char- acters. But St. Epiphanius attributes this to the Nazarenes, while the Ebionites proper only possessed an incomplete, falsified, and truncated copy thereof (Adv. Ha»r., xxix, 9). It is possibly identical with the Gospel of the Twelve.
(b) Their Apocrypha: "The Circuits of Peter" (ireploSoi nirpov) and Acts of the Apostles, amongst which the "Ascents of James" (afafiafffuil laKilipov). The first-named books are substantially contained in the Clementine Homilies under the title of Clement's "Compendium of Peter's itinerary sermons", and also in the "Recognitions" ascribed to the same. They form an early Christian didactic novel to propagate Ebionite views, i. e. their Gnostic doctrines, the su- premacy of James, their connexion with Rome, and their antagonism to Simon Magus. (See Clemen- tines.)
(c) The Works of Symmachus, i. e. his translation of the Old Testament (see Versions of the Bible ; Sym- machus THE Ebionite), and his "Hypomnemata" against the canonical Gospel of St. Matthew. The latter work, which is totally lost (Eu.sebius, Hist. Eccl. , VI, xvii ; Jerome, De vir. ill. , liv) , is probably iden- tical with " De distinctione praeceptorum ", mentioned by Ebed Jesu (Assemani, Bibl. Or., Ill, 1).
(d) The book of Elchesai.orof "The Hidden Power" ('D3 >n), purporting to have been written about a.d. 100
