Ebionites

The Ebionites (from Hebrew; ˈEbyonim, "the poor ones") were an early sect of mostly Hebrew followers of Jesus which flourished in the early centuries of the Common Era, one of several ancient "Jewish Christian" groups that existed during the Roman and Byzantine periods in the Levant.

The Ebionites were in theological conflict with other strands of early Christianity. While the Ebionites undoubtedly drew their doctrines from ideas circulating in the 1st century AD, Judeo-Christian origins scholar Robert H. Eisenman argues that they existed as a distinct group from Pauline Christians and Gnostic Christians before the destruction of Jerusalem.

Some modern scholars, including Hyam Maccoby, Robert Graves, Hugh J. Schonfield, Keith Akers, Benjamin Urrutia, and Joshua Podro, contend that the Ebionites were more faithful than Paul of Tarsus to the original and authentic teachings of Jesus.

History

Few writings of the Ebionites have survived, and in uncertain form (see below). There are two chief sources for our knowledge of the literature and ideas of the Ebionites:

Brief quotations from their writings in orthodox Christian theologians, such as Irenaeus, Hippolytus, Tertullian, and Epiphanius of Salamis, who considered the Ebionites to be heretics. The most complete of these comes from Epiphanius of Salamis, who wrote his "Panarion" in the fourth century, denouncing 80 heretical sects, among them the Ebionites, described in Panarion 30. In addition to quotations from their gospels, there are also general descriptions of their ideas and point of view.
The Recognitions of Clement and the Clementine Homilies, two third-century Christian works, are regarded by general scholarly consensus as largely or entirely Jewish-Christian, and possibly Ebionite, in origin. These can be found in volume 8 of the Ante-Nicene Fathers.

Orthodox writers sometimes distinguished the Ebionites from the Nazarenes, one patristic author often depending upon another for his assessment. In any event, there is far more information in the Church Fathers about Ebionites than about Nazoraeans, Nasaraeans, or Nazarenes (in any spelling). Jerome clearly thinks that the Nazoraeans and the Ebionites were a single group (Letter 112). Without surviving texts, it is even less easy now for us to establish exactly the basis for their distinction. The "Nazarenes" are spelled "Nazoraeans" by Epiphanius, a slight but clear difference in Greek from the terms used to refer to "Nazarenes" or "residents of Nazareth," and since this spelling is also found in the New Testament (though usually translated "Nazarene") it is likely the original spelling. Even more confusingly, Epiphanius also refers to yet another group, the "Nasaraeans," which has beliefs very close to the Ebionites.

All these sources within mainstream Christianity agree that the Ebionites denied the divinity of Jesus, the doctrine of the Trinity, the Virgin Birth and the death of Jesus as an atonement for the Original Sin. Epiphanius describes them as opposing animal sacrifice and as vegetarians. Epiphanius quotes their gospel as ascribing the words to Jesus, "I have come to destroy the sacrifices" (Panarion 30.16.5), and as ascribing to Jesus rejection of the Passover meat "Do I desire with desire at this Passover to eat flesh with you?"(Panarion 30.22.4).This is in agreement with numerous passages found in the Recognitions and Homilies (e.g. Recognitions 1.36, 1.54, Homilies 3.45, 7.4, 7.8). Quoting Epiphanius: The Ebionites "do not accept Moses' Pentateuch in its entirety; certain sayings they reject... stating Christ has revealed this to me, and will blespheme most of the legislation" (Panarion 30.18.7-9). "They are Jews. They use Gospels. Eating meat is abominable to them. They consider water to have sacred properties... they often baptize themselves in water, summer and winter, for sanctification..." (Panarion 19:28-30).

There is less agreement over the passages where Epiphanius describes the Ebionites as claiming that Jesus was neither human nor divine but rather an archangel, "Moreover, they deny that he was a man" (Panarion 30.14.5), "They say that Christ was not begotten of God the Father but created as one of the archangels ... that he rules over the angels" (Panarion 30.16.4). Whether this view was literal or metaphorical, the Ebionites emphasized the humanity of Jesus as the mortal son of Mary and Joseph, who became "a son of God" and "the prophet like Moses" when he was anointed with the Holy Spirit at his baptism. Since Jesus was believed to be a descendant of David, most assumed that he would eventually be inducted as the king who rules the Israelite people during the Messianic Age. However, in light of his death and non-return, many Ebionites interpretred or re-interpreted Jesus' messianic nature and role in different ways.

The Ebionites may have revered the Desposyni (a sacred name reserved only for Jesus' blood relatives), especially James the Just (Yakov or Jacob), as the legitimate apostolic successors of Jesus, rather than Peter. This claim is supported by passages in the Pauline epistles (Galatians 2), and portions of the Book of Acts (e.g. Acts 15) that supposedly present James as outranking Peter. The Gospel of the Ebionites, or Gospel of the Hebrews, tells how the resurrected Jesus appeared to his brother Jacob ("James") and persuaded him to eat bread. This visit is possibly mentioned in I Corinthians 15:7.

Epiphanius states (Panarion 16:9) that some Ebionites gossiped that Paul was a Greek who converted to Sadduceean Judaism in order to marry the High Priest's daughter, and then apostasized when she rejected him.

Ebionites believed that all Hebrews and Gentiles must rely on the Tanakh as scripture, and reject the Oral Law (the Mishnah and the Talmud) as halakha (legally binding, i.e. required religious practice). Of the books of the New Testament the Ebionites only accepted an Aramaic version of the Gospel of Matthew, referred to as the Gospel of the Hebrews, as scripture. This version of Matthew, Pauline Christian critics reported, omitted the first two chapters (on Jesus' virgin birth), and started with Jesus' baptism by John.

The influence of the Ebionites is debated. Hans-Joachim Schoeps argues that their primary influence on orthodox Christianity was to aid in the defeat of gnosticism. It has also been argued by Keith Akers that they had an influence on Islam and the Sufis. However, the Ebionites are represented in history as the sect encountered by the Muslim historian Abd al-Jabbar (c. 1000) almost 500 years later than most Christian historians admit for the survival of the Ebionites. An additional possible mention of surviving Ebionite communities existing in the lands of the east, Theyma and Thilmes, around the 11th century, is said to be in Sefer Ha'masaoth, the "Book of the Travels" of Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela, or Benyamin Bar-Yonnah, a sephardic rabbi of Spain.

In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, several small yet competing new religious movements have emerged claiming be the legitimate descendants in teaching and practice of the original Ebionites.

Ebionite writings

The Recognitions of Clement and the Clementine Homilies are the most expansive of the writings derived from the Ebionites. The exact relationship between the Ebionites and these writings is not clear, but the description of the Ebionites in Panarion 30 (by Epiphanius) bears repeated and striking similarity to the ideas in the Recognitions and Homilies. By scholarly consensus, these writings are Jewish Christian in origin and reflect Jewish Christian ideas and beliefs, though the exact relationship between the writings and the Ebionites is debated.

The Catholic Encyclopedia, 1908, mentions four classes of Ebionite writings:

Gospel of the Ebionites. The Ebionites used only the Gospel of Matthew (according to Irenaeus). Eusebius (Historia Ecclesiae IV, xxi, 8) mentions a Gospel of the Hebrews, which is often identified as the Aramaic original of Matthew, written with Hebrew letters. Such a work was known to Hegesippus ( according to Eusebius, Historia Eccl., ), Origen (according to Jerome, De vir., ill., ii), and to Clement of Alexandria (Strom., II, ix, 45). Epiphanius attributes this gospel to the Nazarenes, and claims that the Ebionites only possessed an incomplete, falsified, and truncated copy. (Adversus Haer., xxix, 9). The question remains whether or not Epiphanius was able to make a genuine distinction between Nazarenes and Ebionites.
Apocrypha: The Circuits of Peter (periodoi Petrou) and Acts of the Apostles, amongst which is the work usually titled the Ascents of James (anabathmoi Iakobou). The first-named books are substantially contained in the Homilies of Clement under the title of Clement's Compendium of Peter's itinerary sermons, and also in the Recognitions attributed to Clement. They form an early Christian didactic fiction to express Ebionite views, i.e. the supremacy of James, their connection with Rome, and their antagonism to Simon Magus, as well as Gnostic doctrines.
The Works of Symmachus the Ebionite, i.e. his elegant Greek translation of the Old Testament, used by Jerome, fragments of which exist, and his lost Hypomnemata which was written to counter the canonical Gospel of Matthew. The latter work, which is totally lost (Eusebius, Hist. Eccl., VI, xvii; Jerome, De vir. ill., liv), is probably identical with De distinctione præceptorum, mentioned by Ebed Jesu (Assemani, Bibl. Or., III, 1).
The Book of Elchesai (Elxai), or of "The Hidden power", claimed to have been written about AD 100 and brought to Rome about AD 217 by Alcibiades of Apamea. Those who accepted its doctrines and its new baptism were called Elkasites. (Hipp., Philos., IX, xiv-xvii; Epiphanius., Adv. Haer., xix, 1; liii, 1.)

It is also speculated that the core of the Gospel of Barnabas, beneath a polemical medieval Muslim overlay, may have been based upon an Ebionite document.

Notes

References

Akers, Keith. The Lost Religion of Jesus : Simple Living and Nonviolence in Early Christianity. New York: Lantern Books, 2000.
Cameron, Ron. The Other Gospels. Philadephia: Westminster Press, 1982, pp 103-106
Danielou, Jean. The Theology of Jewish Christianity. Chicago: The Henry Regnery Company, 1964.
Eisenman, Robert. James the Brother of Jesus: The Key to Unlocking the Secrets of Early Christianity and the Dead Sea Scrolls. New York: Viking, 1996.
Lüdemann, Gerd. Opposition to Paul in Jewish Christianity. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1989.
Schoeps, Hans-Joachim. Jewish Christianity: Factional Disputes in the Early Church. Trans. Douglas R. A. Hare. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1969.
Skriver, Carl Anders. The Forgotten Beginnings of Creation and Christianity. Denver: Vegetarian Press, 1990.
Vaclavik, Charles. The Origin of Christianity: The Pacifism, Communalism, and Vegeterianism of Primitive Christianity. Platteville, Wisconsin: Kaweah Publishing Company, 2004.

External links