Ebionites


Ebionites is a patristic term referring to a Jewish Christian sect that existed during the early centuries of the Common Era. Embracing a unitarian and adoptionist theology, they regarded Jesus of Nazareth as a righteous man chosen by God to be the Prophet of the Messianic Age, while rejecting beliefs in his pre-existence, divinity, virgin birth and atoning death. Ebionites insisted on the necessity of following Jewish law and rites; used only one of the Jewish–Christian gospels, the "Gospel of the Ebionites"; revered James the Just, brother of Jesus; and rejected Paul as a false apostle guilty of apostasy from the Law. Their name suggests that they placed a special value on voluntary poverty as a meritorious method of preparation for the Kingdom of God on Earth. Accordingly, Ebionites dispossessed themselves of all their goods and lived in religious communistic societies.
Since historical records by the Ebionites are scarce, fragmentary and disputed, much of what is known or conjectured about them derives from the Church Fathers who wrote polemics against the Ebionites, whom they deemed heretical Judaizers. Consequently, very little about the Ebionite sect or sects is known with certainty, and most, if not all, statements about them are speculative. While the Church Fathers consider the Ebionites identical with other Jewish Christian sects, such as the Nazarenes;Jeffrey Butz, The Secret Legacy of Jesus,, "In fact, the Ebionites and the Nazarenes are one and the same." pg. 124; "Following the devastation of the Jewish War, the Nazarenes took refuge in Pella, a community in exile, where they lay in anxious wait with their fellow Jews. From this point on it is preferable to call them the Ebionites. There was no clear demarcation or formal transition from Nazarene to Ebionite; there was no sudden change of theology or Christology.", pg. 137; "While the writings of later church fathers speak of Nazarenes and Ebionites as if they were different Jewish Christian groups, they are mistaken in that assessment. The Nazarenes and the Ebionites were one and the same group, but for clarity we will refer to the pre-70 group in Jerusalem as Nazarenes, and the post-70 group in Pella and elsewhere as Ebionites.", pg. 137; some modern scholars argue that the Ebionites and the Nazarenes were distinct sects.

Name

The term Ebionites derives from the common adjective for "poor" in Hebrew, which occurs fifteen times in the Psalms and was the self-given term of some pious Jewish circles. The term "Ebionim" was also a self description given by the Essene sect living in Qumran, as shown in the Dead Sea Scrolls. The term "the poor" was at first a common designation for all Christians, a reference to their material and voluntary poverty.
The hellenized Hebrew term "Ebionite" was first applied by Irenaeus in the second century without making mention of Nazarenes. Origen wrote "for Ebion signifies 'poor' among the Jews, and those Jews who have received Jesus as Christ are called by the name of Ebionites." Tertullian was the first to write against a heresiarch called Ebion; scholars believe he derived this name from a literal reading of Ebionaioi as "followers of Ebion", a derivation now considered mistaken for lack of any more substantial references to such a figure. The term "the poor" was still used in its original, more general sense. Modern Hebrew still uses the Biblical Hebrew term "the needy" both in histories of Christianity for "Ebionites" and for almsgiving to the needy at Purim.

History

Emergence

The earliest reference to a group that might fit the description of the later Ebionites appears in Justin Martyr's Dialogue with Trypho. Justin distinguishes between Jewish Christians who observe the Law of Moses but do not require its observance upon others and those who believe the Mosaic Law to be obligatory on all. Irenaeus was probably the first to use the term "Ebionites" to describe a heretical judaizing sect, which he regarded as stubbornly clinging to the Law. Origen remarks that the name derives from the Hebrew word "evyon," meaning "poor." Epiphanius of Salamis gives the most complete account in his heresiology called Panarion, denouncing eighty heretical sects, among them the Ebionites. Epiphanius mostly gives general descriptions of their religious beliefs and includes quotations from their gospels, which have not survived. According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, the Ebionite movement "may have arisen about the time of the destruction of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem." The tentative dating of the origins of this sect depends on Epiphanius writing three centuries later and relying on information for the Ebionites from the Book of Elchasai, which may not have had anything to do with the Ebionites.
Paul talks of his collection for the "poor among the saints" in the Jerusalem church, but this is generally taken as meaning the poorer members of the church rather than a schismatic group.
The actual number of groups described as Ebionites is difficult to ascertain, as the contradictory patristic accounts in their attempt to distinguish various sects sometimes confuse them with each other. Other groups mentioned are the Carpocratians, the Cerinthians, the Elcesaites, the fourth century Nazarenes and the Sampsaeans, most of whom were Jewish Christian sects who held gnostic or other views rejected by the Ebionites. Epiphanius, however, mentions that a group of Ebionites came to embrace some of these views despite keeping their name.
As the Ebionites are first mentioned as such in the second century, their earlier history and any relation to the first Jerusalem church remains obscure and a matter of contention. There is no evidence linking the origin of the later sect of the Ebionites with the First Jewish-Roman War of 66–70 CE or with the Jerusalem church led by James. Eusebius relates a tradition, probably based on Aristo of Pella, that the early Christians left Jerusalem just prior to the war and fled to Pella, Jordan beyond the Jordan River, but does not connect this with Ebionites. They were led by Simeon of Jerusalem and during the Second Jewish-Roman War of 115–117, they were persecuted by the Jewish followers of Bar Kochba for refusing to recognize his messianic claims. As late as Epiphanius of Salamis, members of the Ebionite sect resided in Nabatea, and Paneas, Moabitis, and Kochaba in the region of Bashan, near Adraa. From these places, they dispersed and went into Asia, Rome and Cyprus.
According to Harnack, the influence of Elchasaites places some Ebionites in the context of the gnostic movements widespread in Syria and the lands to the east.

Disappearance

After the end of the First Jewish–Roman War, the importance of the Jerusalem church began to fade. Jewish Christianity became dispersed throughout the Jewish diaspora in the Levant, where it was slowly eclipsed by gentile Christianity, which then spread throughout the Roman Empire without competition from "judaizing" Christian groups. Once the Jerusalem church was eliminated during the Bar Kokhba revolt in 135, the Ebionites gradually lost influence and followers. According to Hyam Maccoby, their decline was due to marginalization and "persecution" by both Jews and Christians. Following the defeat of the rebellion and the expulsion of all Jews from Judea, Jerusalem became the Gentile city of Aelia Capitolina. Many of the Jewish Christians residing at Pella renounced their Jewish practices at this time and joined to the mainstream Christian church. Those who remained at Pella and continued in obedience to the Law were deemed heretics. In 375, Epiphanius records the settlement of Ebionites on Cyprus, but by the fifth century, Theodoret of Cyrrhus reported that they were no longer present in the region.
The Ebionites are still attested, if as marginal communities, down to the 7th century. Some scholars argue that the Ebionites survived much longer and identify them with a sect encountered by the historian Abd al-Jabbar ibn Ahmad around the year 1000. There is another possible reference to Ebionite communities existing around the 11th century in northwestern Arabia in Sefer Ha'masaot, the "Book of the Travels" of Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela, a rabbi from Spain. These communities were located in two cities, Tayma and "Tilmas", possibly Sa`dah in Yemen. The 12th century Muslim historian Muhammad al-Shahrastani mentions Jews living in nearby Medina and Hejaz who accepted Jesus as a prophetic figure and followed traditional Judaism, rejecting mainstream Christian views. Some scholars argue that they contributed to the development of the Islamic view of Jesus due to exchanges of Ebionite remnants with the first Muslims.

Views and practices

Judaism, Gnosticism and Essenism

Most patristic sources portray the Ebionites as traditional Jews who zealously followed the Law of Moses, revered Jerusalem as the holiest city and restricted table fellowship only to Gentiles who converted to Judaism.
Some Church Fathers describe some Ebionites as departing from traditional Jewish principles of faith and practice. For example, Epiphanius of Salamis stated that the Ebionites engaged in excessive ritual bathing, possessed an angelology which claimed that the Christ is a great archangel who was incarnated in Jesus when he was adopted as the son of God during his baptism, opposed animal sacrifice, denied parts of the Law deemed obsolete or corrupt, practiced Jewish vegetarianism and celebrated a commemorative meal annually on or around Passover with unleavened bread and water only, in contrast to the daily Christian Eucharist.
The reliability of Epiphanius' account of the Ebionites is questioned by some scholars. Shlomo Pines, for example, argues that the heterodox views and practices he ascribes to some Ebionites originated in Gnostic Christianity rather than Jewish Christianity and are characteristics of the Elcesaite sect, which Epiphanius mistakenly attributed to the Ebionites.
Another Church Father who described the Ebionites as departing from Christian orthodoxy was Methodius of Olympus, who stated that the Ebionites believed that the prophets spoke only by their own power and not by the power of the Holy Spirit.
While mainstream biblical scholars do suppose some Essene influence on the nascent Jewish-Christian Church in some organizational, administrative and cultic respects, some scholars go beyond that assumption.
Regarding the Ebionites specifically, a number of scholars have different theories on how the Ebionites may have developed from an Essene Jewish messianic sect. Hans-Joachim Schoeps argues that the conversion of some Essenes to Jewish Christianity after the Siege of Jerusalem in 70 CE may be the source of some Ebionites adopting Essene views and practices, while some conclude that the Essenes did not become Jewish Christians, but still had an influence on the Ebionites.
Epiphanius of Salamis, in his book Panarion, 30:17:5, said, "But I already showed above that Ebion did not know these things, but later, his followers that associated with Elchasai had the circumcision, the Sabbath and the customs of Ebion, but the imagination of Elchasai." Epiphanius made it clear that the original Ebionites were different from those heterodox Ebionites that he described.

John the Baptist

In the Gospel of the Ebionites, as quoted by Epiphanius, John the Baptist and Jesus are portrayed as vegetarians. Epiphanius states that the Ebionites had amended "locusts" to "honey cake". This emendation is not found in any other New Testament manuscript or translation, though a different vegetarian reading is found in a late Slavonic version of Josephus' War of the Jews. Pines and others propose that the Ebionites were projecting their own vegetarianism onto John the Baptist.
The strict vegetarianism of the Ebionites may have been a reaction to the cessation of animal sacrifices after the destruction of Jerusalem Temple in 70 CE and a safeguard against the consumption of unclean meat in a pagan environment. Scholar James Tabor, however, argues that Ebionite disdain for eating meat and the Temple sacrifice of animals is due to their preference for the ideal pre-Flood diet and what they took to be the original form of worship. In this view, Ebionites had an interest in seeking the path reflected in the pre-Sinai revelation, especially the time from Enoch to Noah.

Jesus the Nazarene

The majority of Church Fathers agree that the Ebionites rejected many of the precepts central to Nicene orthodoxy, such as Jesus' pre-existence, divinity, virgin birth and atoning death. The Ebionites are described as emphasizing the oneness of God and the humanity of Jesus as the biological son of Mary and Joseph, who, by virtue of his righteousness, was adopted as the son of God to be the messianic "Prophet like Moses" when he was anointed with the Holy Spirit at his baptism. Origen and Eusebius recognize some variation in the christology of Ebionite groups; for example, that while all Ebionites denied Jesus' pre-existence, there was a sub-group which did not deny the virgin birth. Theodoret, while dependent on earlier writers, draws the conclusion that the two sub-groups would have used different gospels.
The Ebionites are said to have used only one of the Jewish–Christian gospels, the "Gospel of the Ebionites", as additional scripture to the Hebrew Bible. Interpreted as a radically revised version of the Gospel of Matthew written in Hebrew or Aramaic, Irenaeus reports this gospel omitted the first two chapters and started with the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist.
Ebionites understood Jesus as having come to abolish animal sacrifices, teach his followers to live immediately according to an ethic that will be standard in the future kingdom of God, and die as a moral exemplar of righteousness. Ebionites, therefore, believed all Jews and Gentiles must observe the remaining commandments in Mosaic Law — in order to become righteous and seek communion with God — but it must be understood through Jesus' expounding of the Law, which he taught during his sermons. They held a form of "inaugurated eschatology" which posited that the ministry of Jesus has ushered in the Messianic Age so that the kingdom of God on Earth may be understood as slowly becoming manifest, while at the same time awaiting consummation in the future world to come following the coming of the last Jewish messiah, to whom Jesus was only a forerunner.

James the Just

One of the popular primary connections of the Ebionites to James the Just, brother of Jesus is that noted by William Whiston in his edition of Josephus, where he notes regarding the murder of James "we must remember what we learn from the Ebionite fragments of Hegesippus, that these Ebionites interpreted a prophecy of Isaiah as foretelling this very murder." That Hegesippus made this connection from Isaiah is undisputed; however, Whiston's identification of Hegesippus as an Ebionite, while common in 18th and 19th century scholarship, is debatable.
The other popularly proposed connection is that the Ascents of James in the Pseudo-Clementine literature are related to the Ebionites.
The Book of Acts begins by showing Peter as leader of the Jerusalem church, the only church in existence immediately after the ascension, though several years later, Paul lists James prior to "Cephas" and John as those considered "pillars" of the Jerusalem Church. Eusebius records that Clement of Alexandria wrote that Peter, James and John chose James, the brother of Jesus, as bishop of Jerusalem, but Eusebius also subjects James to the authority of all the apostles. Peter baptised Cornelius the Centurion, introducing uncircumcised Gentiles into the church in Judea. Paul, Apostle to the Gentiles, established many churches and developed a Christian theology. At the Council of Jerusalem, Paul argued to abrogate Mosaic observances for non-Jewish converts. When Paul recounted the events to the Galatians, he referred only to the remembrance of the poor rather than conveying the four points of the Council of Jerusalem. James Dunn notes the conciliatory role of James as depicted in Acts in the tension between Paul and those urging the Law of Moses upon Gentiles.
According to Eusebius, the Jerusalem church fled to Pella, Jordan after the death of James to escape the siege of the future Emperor Titus. After the Bar Kokhba revolt, the Jerusalem church was permitted to remain in the renamed Aelia Capitolina, but notably from this point onward all bishops of Jerusalem bear Greek rather than evidently Jewish names.
Scholars such as Pierre-Antoine Bernheim, Robert Eisenman, Will Durant, Michael Goulder, Gerd Ludemann, John Painter and James Tabor argue for some form of continuity of the Jewish Jerusalem church into the second and third centuries and that the Ebionites regarded James as their leader.
Scholars, including Richard Bauckham, distinguish the high christology practiced by the Jerusalem church under James with the low christology later adopted by the Ebionites. Tabor argues that the Ebionites claimed a dynastic apostolic succession for the relatives of Jesus. Epiphanius relates that the Ebionites opposed the Paul, who they saw as responsible for the idea that gentile Christians did not have to be circumcised or follow the Law of Moses, and named him an apostate. Epiphanius further relates that some Ebionites alleged that Paul was a Greek who converted to Judaism in order to marry the daughter of a high priest of Israel, but apostatized when she rejected him.
As an alternative to the traditional view of Eusebius that the Jerusalem church simply became integrated with the Gentile church, other scholars, such as Richard Bauckham, suggest immediate successors to the Jerusalem church under James and the relatives of Jesus were the Nazoraeans who accepted Paul, while the Ebionites were a later offshoot of the early second century.
Robert Eisenman suggests that the Ebionites followed the Nazirite vow that was practiced by James.

Writings

Few writings of the Ebionites have survived and they are in uncertain form. 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 in origin and reflect Jewish Christian beliefs. The exact relationship between the Ebionites and these writings is debated, but Epiphanius's description of some Ebionites in Panarion 30 bears a striking similarity to the ideas in the Recognitions and Homilies. Scholar Glenn Alan Koch speculates that Epiphanius likely relied upon a version of the Homilies as a source document. Some scholars also speculate that the core of the Gospel of Barnabas, beneath a polemical medieval Muslim overlay, may have been based upon an Ebionite or gnostic document. The existence and origin of this source continues to be debated by scholars.
John Arendzen classifies the Ebionite writings into four groups.

Gospel of the Ebionites

Irenaeus stated that the Ebionites used the Gospel of Matthew exclusively. Eusebius of Caesarea wrote that they used only the Gospel of the Hebrews. From this, the minority view of James R. Edwards and Bodley's Librarian Edward Nicholson claim that there was only one Hebrew gospel in circulation, Matthew's Gospel of the Hebrews. They also note that the title "Gospel of the Ebionites" was never used by anyone in the early Church. Epiphanius contended that the gospel the Ebionites used was written by Matthew and called the "Gospel of the Hebrews". Because Epiphanius said that it was "not wholly complete, but falsified and mutilated", writers such as Walter Richard Cassels and Pierson Parker consider it a different "edition" of Matthew's Hebrew Gospel; however, internal evidence from the quotations in Panarion 30.13.4 and 30.13.7 suggest that the text was a gospel harmony originally composed in Greek.
Mainstream scholarly texts, such as the standard edition of the New Testament Apocrypha edited by Wilhelm Schneemelcher, generally refer to the text Jerome cites as used by the Ebionites as the "Gospel of the Ebionites", though this is not a term current in the Early Church.

Clementine literature

The collection of New Testament apocrypha known as the Clementine literature included three works known in antiquity as the Circuits of Peter, the Acts of the Apostles and a work usually titled the Ascents of James. They are specifically referenced by Epiphanius in his polemic against the Ebionites. 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 in the Recognitions attributed to Clement. They form an early Christian didactic fiction to express Jewish Christian views, such as the primacy of James the Just, brother of Jesus; their connection with the episcopal see of Rome; and their antagonism to Simon Magus, as well as gnostic doctrines. Scholar Robert E. Van Voorst opines of the Ascents of James, "There is, in fact, no section of the Clementine literature about whose origin in Jewish Christianity one may be more certain". Despite this assertion, he expresses reservations that the material is genuinely Ebionite in origin.

Symmachus

Symmachus produced a translation of the Hebrew Bible in Koine Greek, which was used by Jerome and is still extant in fragments, and his lost Hypomnemata, written to counter the canonical Gospel of Matthew. Although lost, the Hypomnemata is probably identical to De distinctione præceptorum mentioned by Ebed Jesu. The identity of Symmachus as an Ebionite has been questioned in recent scholarship.

Elkesaites

reported that a Jewish Christian, Alcibiades of Apamea, appeared in Rome teaching from a book which he claimed to be the revelation which a righteous man, Elkesai, had received from an angel, though Hippolytus suspected that Alcibiades was himself the author. Shortly afterwards, Origen recorded a group, the Elkesaites, with the same beliefs. Epiphanius claimed the Ebionites also used this book as a source for some of their beliefs and practices. Epiphanius explains the origin of the name Elkesai to be Aramaic El Ksai, meaning "hidden power". Scholar Petri Luomanen believes the book to have been written originally in Aramaic as a Jewish apocalypse, probably in Babylonia in 116–117.

Religious and critical perspectives

Christianity

The mainstream Christian view of the Ebionites is partly based on interpretation of the polemical views of the Church Fathers who portrayed them as heretics for rejecting many of the central Christian views of Jesus and allegedly having an improper fixation on the Law of Moses at the expense of the grace of God. In this view, the Ebionites may have been the descendants of a Jewish Christian sect within the early Jerusalem church which broke away from its mainstream theology.

Islam

Islam charges Christianity with having distorted the pure monotheism of the God of Abraham through the doctrines of the Trinity and through the veneration of icons. Paul Addae and Tim Bowes write that the Ebionites were faithful to the original teachings of Jesus and thus shared Islamic views about Jesus' humanity and also rejected classic and objective theories of atonement, though the Islamic view of Jesus may conflict with the view of some Ebionites regarding the virgin birth, with Muslims affirming and Ebionites denying, according to Epiphanius.
Hans Joachim Schoeps observes that the Christianity Muhammad was likely to have encountered on the Arabian peninsula "was not the state religion of Byzantium but a schismatic Christianity characterized by Ebionite and Monophysite views."

Judaism

The counter-missionary group Jews for Judaism favorably mentions the historical Ebionites in their literature in order to argue that "Messianic Judaism", as promoted by missionary groups such as Jews for Jesus, is Pauline Christianity misrepresenting itself as Judaism. Some Messianic groups have expressed concern over leaders in Israel who deny Jesus' divinity and the possible collapse of the Messianic movement due to a resurgence of Ebionitism.

Literature