Ebionites

The Ebionites (from Hebrew; אביונים, Ebyonim, "the poor ones") were an early sect of mostly Jewish followers of Jesus, which flourished from the 1st to the 5th century CE in and around the Land of Israel. In contrast to the dominant Christian sects that came to believe Jesus was the incarnation of God and the savior of mankind, the Ebionites believed that Jesus was a mortal human being, who by virtue of having become a sage and a holy man, was chosen by God to be the prophet of the "Kingdom of Heaven". They believed in the necessity of following Jewish religious law and rites, and rejected the writings of Paul of Tarsus as heretical. They called themselves the 'Poor Ones' because they regarded a vow of poverty as a method of simple living as if the "kingdom of God" was already on Earth. Accordingly, they dispossessed themselves of all their goods and lived in religious communistic societies.

Ebionites were in theological conflict with other streams of early Christianity. As a result, our knowledge of them is fragmentary, originating primarily from the polemics of the early Church Fathers. Their accounts at times seem to be contradictory due to the double application of the term "Ebionite", some referring to Jewish Christianity as a whole, others only to a sect within it. Many modern scholars argue that they existed as a distinct group from Pauline Christians and Gnostic Christians before and after the fall of Jerusalem in 70 C.E. Some even contend that Ebionites were more faithful than Paul to the authentic teachings of Jesus.

History

Since there is no independent archeological evidence for the existence and history of Ebionites, much of what we know about them comes from brief references by early and influential theologians and writers in the Christian Church, who considered them to be "heretics" and "Judaizers". Justin Martyr, in the earliest text known to us, describes an unnamed sect estranged from the Church who observe the Law of Moses, and who hold it of universal obligation. Irenaeus was the first to use the term "Ebionites" to describe a heretical Judaizing sect, which he regarded as stubbornly clinging to the Law. The most complete account comes from Epiphanius of Salamis, who wrote a heresiology in the 4th century, denouncing 80 heretical sects, among them Ebionites. These are mostly general descriptions of their religious ideology, though sometimes there are quotations from their gospels, which are otherwise lost to us.

The Fathers of the Church sometimes distinguished Ebionites from Nazarenes, another early sect of Jewish followers of Jesus also believed to be a branch of the first "Christian church of Jerusalem" (which thrived from c. 30 to 70 C.E.) or the first "Judeo-Christian synagogue" (built on Mount Zion between 70 and 132 C.E.), one patristic author often depending upon another for his assessment. However, Jerome clearly thinks that Ebionites and Nazoraeans were a single group. Without surviving texts, it is difficult to establish exactly the basis for their distinction.

Beliefs and practices

Most historical sources agree that Ebionites denied many of the central doctrines of mainstream Christianity such as the trinity of God, the pre-existence and divinity of Jesus, the virgin birth, and the death of Jesus as an atonement for sin. Ebionites seemed to have emphasized the humanity of Yeshua (the Hebrew name for Jesus) as the biological son of both Mary and Joseph, who, after having had John the Baptist as a teacher, became the "prophet like Moses" (foretold in Deuteronomy 18:14-22) when he was anointed with the holy spirit at his baptism.

Jesus' expounding of the Law during the Sermon on the Mount is at the core of the argument about the relationship between the views attributed to Jesus, and those attributed to Moses. This issue may have been a central one to Ebionites. Image: The Sermon on the Mount by Carl Heinrich Bloch, 1890

Of the books of the New Testament Ebionites only accepted an Aramaic version of the Gospel of Matthew, referred to as the Gospel of the Hebrews, as additional scripture to the Hebrew Bible. This version of Matthew, critics reported, omitted the first two chapters (on the nativity of Jesus), and started with the baptism of Jesus by John. Ebionites understood Jesus has inviting believers to live according to an ethic that will be standard in the future kingdom of God. Since they believed that this will be the ethic of the future, Ebionites went ahead and adjusted their lives to this ethic in this age. Ebionites, therefore, believed all Jews and gentiles must observe Mosaic Law; but it must be understood through Jesus' expounding of the Law, which he taught during his Sermon on the Mount. 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 may be understood to be present in an incipient fashion, while at the same time awaiting consummation in the future age following the coming of the Jewish Messiah, to whom Jesus was only a herald.

Like traditional Jews, Ebionites may have restricted communion only to gentiles who converted to Judaism, and revered Jerusalem as the holiest city. Scholar James Tabor, however, argues that Ebionites rejected doctrines and traditions, which they believed had been added to Mosaic Law, including scribal alterations of the texts of scripture; and that they had a greater interest in restoring the more anarchist form of worship reflected in the pre-Mosaic period of Judaism. Tabor relies on Epiphanius' description of Ebionites as rejecting parts or most of the Law, as religious vegetarians, as opposed to animal sacrifice; and his quoting of their gospel as ascribing these injunctions to a Jesus seen as the incarnation of Christ, a great archangel. Scholar Shlomo Pines counters that all these teachings are "Gnostic Christian" in origin and are characteristics of the Elcesaite sect, which have been mistakenly or falsely attributed to Ebionites. Without a consensus among scholars, the issue remains contentious.

Ebionites regarded the Desposyni (the blood relatives of Jesus) as the legitimate apostolic successors to James the Just (the brother of Jesus), and patriarchs of the Jerusalem Church, rather than Peter. Furthermore, Ebionites denounced Paul as an apostate from the Law and a false apostle. Epiphanius claims that some Ebionites gossiped that Paul was a Greek who converted to Judaism in order to marry the daughter of (Annas?) a High Priest of Israel, and then apostasized when she rejected him.

Influence

The influence of Ebionites is debated. Once the Roman army decimated the Jerusalemite leadership of the mother church of all Christendom during Bar Kokhba's revolt in 135 C.E., Jewish Christians gradually lost the struggle for the claim to orthodoxy due to marginalization and persecution. Scholar Hans-Joachim Schoeps, however, argues that the primary influence of Ebionites on mainstream Christianity was to aid in the defeat of gnosticism through counter-missionary work. It has also been argued by writer Keith Akers that they had an influence on the origins of Islam and the Sufis. Ebionites may be represented in history as the sect encountered by the Muslim historian Abd al-Jabbar (c. 1000 C.E.) almost 500 years later than most Christian historians allow for their survival. An additional possible mention of surviving Ebionite communities existing in the lands of north-western Arabia, specifically the cities of Tayma and Tilmas, around the 11th century, is said to be in Sefer Ha'masaoth, the "Book of the Travels" of Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela, a sephardic rabbi of Spain. 12th century historian Mohammad Al-Shahrastani, in his book Religious and Philosophical Sects, mentions Jews living in nearby Medina and Hejaz who accepted Jesus as a prophetic figure and followed normative Judaism, rejecting the christology of the Pauline Church.

In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, several small yet competing new religious movements, such as the Ebionite Jewish Community, have emerged claiming to be revivalists of the beliefs and practices of ancient Ebionites, although their idiosyncratic claims to authenticity cannot be verified. Like virtually all Jewish denominations, groups and national organizations, modern Ebionites charge Messianic Judaism, as promoted by controversial groups such as Jews for Jesus, to be Pauline Christianity blasphemously presenting itself as Judaism.

Ebionite writings

Few writings of Ebionites have survived, and in uncertain form. The Recognitions of Clement and the Clementine Homilies, two 3rd-century Christian works, are regarded by general scholarly consensus as largely or entirely Jewish Christian in origin and reflect Jewish Christian ideas and beliefs. These can be found in volume 8 of the Ante-Nicene Fathers. The exact relationship between Ebionites and these writings is debated, but Epiphanius's description of the Ebionites in Panarion 30 bears repeated and striking similarity to the ideas in the Recognitions and Homilies. Koch speculates that Epiphanius likely relied upon a version of the Homilies as a source document.

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

• Gospel of the Ebionites. Ebionites used only the Gospel of Matthew (according to Irenaeus). Eusebius of Caesarea (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 of Salamis attributes this gospel to Nazarenes, and claims that Ebionites only possessed an incomplete, falsified, and truncated copy. (Adversus Haereses, xxix, 9). The question remains whether or not Epiphanius was able to make a genuine distinction between Nazarenes and Ebionites.
• New Testament 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 Jewish Christian views, i.e. the primacy of James, their connection with Rome, and their antagonism to Simon Magus, as well as Gnostic doctrines. Van Voorst opines of the Ascents of James (R 1.33-71), "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.
• The Works of Symmachus the Ebionite, i.e. his 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 100 C.E. and brought to Rome about 217 by Alcibiades of Apamea. Those who accepted its doctrines and new practices were called Elcesaites. (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. The existence and origin of this source continues to be debated by scholars.

References

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• Adler, Marcus N. The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela: Critical Text, Translation and Commentary. Phillip Feldheim, NY, pp 70-72, 1907. [1]
• Akers, Keith. The Lost Religion of Jesus : Simple Living and Nonviolence in Early Christianity. New York: Lantern Books, 2000.
• Ante-Nicene Fathers, Hippolytus, "Refutation of All Heresies" 7.22 [2]
• Ante-Nicene Fathers, Irenaeus, "Against Heresies" 1.26.2 [3].
• Ante-Nicene Fathers, Jerome, "Epistle to Augustine" 112.13 [4].
• Ante-Nicene Fathers, Justin Martyr, "Dialogue With Trypho The Jew" xlvii (47.4) [5].
• Blackhirst, R. Barnabas and the Gospels: Was There an Early Gospel of Barnabas?. J. Higher Criticism, 7/1, pp 1-22, Spring 2000. [6]
• Catholic Encyclopedia, Ebionites, 1908. [7]
• 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.
• Epiphanius of Salamis. The Panarion of Epiphanius of Salamis. Book I (Sects 1-46), translated by Frank Williams, Brill Academic Publishers, Leiden, 1987 [8]
• Jewish Encyclopedia, Ebionites. [9]
• Klijn A.F.J.; Reinink, G.J. Patristic Evidence for Jewish-Christian Sects. 1973.
• Koch, Glenn Alan. A Critical Investigation of Epiphanius' Knowdedge of the Ebionites: A Translation and Critical Discussion of 'Panarion' 30. University of Pennsylvania, 1976.
• Maccoby, Hyam. The Mythmaker: Paul and the Invention of Christianity. New York: Harper & Row, 1987. [10]
• Pines, Shlomo. The Jewish Christians Of The Early Centuries Of Christianity According To A New Source. Proceedings of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities II, No. 13, 1966.
• Pixner, Bargil. Church of the Apostles found on Mt. Zion. Biblical Archaeological Review. May/June 1990
• Phillips, Shemayah. Messianic Jews: Jewish Idolatry Revisited. Our Liberation Magazine, Issue Five, August /September 2006
• Schoeps, Hans-Joachim. Jewish Christianity: Factional Disputes in the Early Church. Trans. Douglas R. A. Hare. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1969.
• Self Help Guide / Jesus Christ, 2006. [11]
• Shand, Richard. The Ministry of Jesus. Illuminations: The Real Jesus?, 19 December 2006, 16:00, [12] [accessed 19 December 2006]
• Shahrastani, Muhammad. The Book of Religious and Philosphical Sects, p. 167. London, 1842. Reprinted by Gorgias Press, William Cureton ed., 2002
• Tabor, James D. Ancient Judaism: Nazarenes and Ebionites. The Jewish Roman World of Jesus, 31 August 2006, 20:02, [13] [accessed 31 August 2006]
• Toland, John. Nazarenus, or Jewish, Gentile and Mahometan Christianity (1718)
• Van Voorst, Robert E. The Ascents of James: History and Theology of a Jewish-Christian Community. Scholars Press, Atlanta, GA, 1989.
• Viljoen, Francois. Jesus' Teaching on the Torah in the Sermon on the Mount. Neotestamenica 40.1, 135-155, 2006. [14]

External links

• Comparative Index to Islam: Ebionites
• Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature to the End of the Sixth Century C.E., with an Account of the Principal Sects and Heresies
• Encyclopedia Britannica: Ebionites
• Literature on the Ebionites
• The Recognitions of Clement and the Clementine Homilies

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