Ebionites

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This article is about the early Jewish Christian sect. For the gospel associated with them, see Gospel of the Ebionites.
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Ebionites (

mere man who, by virtue of his righteousness in following the Law of Moses, was chosen by God to be the Messiah.[4] A majority of the Ebionites rejected as heresies the orthodox Christian beliefs in Jesus' divinity, virgin birth and substitutionary atonement; and therefore maintained that Jesus was born the natural son of Joseph and Mary, sought to abolish animal sacrifices by prophetic proclamation, and died as a martyr in order to move all Israel to repentance
.

Beyond

scripture to the Hebrew Bible; and revered James the Just as an exemplar of righteousness and the true successor to Jesus (rather than Peter), while rejecting Paul as a false apostle and an apostate from the Law.[5][6][7]
: 88 

Since historical records by the Ebionites are scarce, fragmentary and disputed, much of what is known or conjectured about them derives from the

polemics whom they labeled heretical "Judaizers".[8][9][page needed] Consequently, very little about the Ebionite sect or sects is known with certainty, and most, if not all, statements about them are speculative. The Church Fathers consider the Ebionites identical with other Jewish Christian sects, such as the Nazarenes.[10][11]

Name

The hellenized Hebrew term Ebionite (Ebionai) was first applied by

second century without making mention of Nazarenes (c. 180 CE).[12][13] 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."[14][15] 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.[16][17] The term the poor (Greek: ptōkhoí) was still used in its original, more general sense.[16][17] Modern Hebrew still uses the Biblical Hebrew term the needy both in histories of Christianity for "Ebionites" (אביונים‎) and for almsgiving to the needy at Purim.[18]

History

Map of the Decapolis showing the location of Pella.

Emergence

The earliest reference to a sect that might fit the description of the later Ebionites appears in

destruction of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem" (70 CE).[2] 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.[24]

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 sect.[25]

The actual number of sects described as Ebionites is difficult to ascertain, as the contradictory

gnostic or other views rejected by the Ebionites. Epiphanius, however, mentions that a sect of Ebionites came to embrace some of these views despite keeping their name.[26]

As the Ebionites are first mentioned as such in the second century, their earlier history and any relation to the first

Asia (Turkey), Rome and Cyprus.[28]

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.[17][29]

Disappearance

After the end of the

Gentile Christianity, which then spread throughout the Roman Empire without competition from Jewish Christian sects.[30][page needed] Once the Jerusalem church was eliminated during the Bar Kokhba revolt ending in 136 C.E., the Ebionites gradually lost influence and followers. Some modern scholars, such as Hyam Maccoby, argue the decline of the Ebionites was due to marginalization and persecution by both Jews and Christians.[6] However, Maccoby's views expressed in his works from the 1980s and ’90s have been almost universally rejected by scholars.[31] Following the defeat of the rebellion and the expulsion of 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 the mainstream Christian church. Those who remained at Pella and continued in obedience to the Law were labeled heretics.[32] 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.[26]

The Ebionites are still attested, if as marginal communities, down to the 7th century. Some modern scholars argue that the Ebionites survived much longer and identify them with a sect encountered by the historian

Islamic view of Jesus due to exchanges of Ebionite remnants with the first Muslims.[17][36]

Views and practices

Judaism, Gnosticism and Essenism

Most patristic sources[citation needed] portray the Ebionites as Jews who zealously followed the Torah, revered Jerusalem as the holiest city[20] and restricted table fellowship only to Gentiles who converted to Judaism.[19]

Some Church Fathers describe some Ebionites as departing from traditional

Gnostic Christianity rather than Jewish Christianity and are characteristics of the Jewish Elcesaite sect, which Epiphanius mistakenly attributed to the Ebionites.[33]
: 39 

While mainstream

Siege of Jerusalem in 70 CE may be the source of some Ebionites adopting Essene views and practices,[36][page needed] while some conclude that the Essenes did not become Jewish Christians, but still had an influence on the Ebionites.[43][page needed
]

On John the Baptist

In the

War of the Jews.[49] Pines and other modern scholars propose that the Ebionites were projecting their own vegetarianism onto John the Baptist.[33]
: 39 

The strict vegetarianism of the Ebionites may have been a reaction to the cessation of

Enoch to Noah.[51]

On Jesus the Nazarene

The Church Fathers agree that some or all of the Ebionites rejected many of the precepts central to

Mary, who, by virtue of his righteousness in keeping the Mosaic law perfectly, was adopted as the son of God to fulfill the Hebrew scriptures.[52]

Origen (

scripture to the Hebrew Bible. However, Irenaeus reports that they only used a version of the Gospel of Matthew, which omitted the first two chapters (on the nativity of Jesus) and started with the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist.[20]

The Ebionites appear to have understood Jesus as the messianic "prophet like Moses" (foretold in Deuteronomy 18:15-19) who has come to proclaim the abolishment of animal sacrifices,[22]: 30, 16, 4–5 [38] rather than substituting himself for them through self-sacrifice. Consequently, Jesus is believed to have died as a martyr in order to move all descendants of the ancient Israelites to repentance by living immediately according to a radical ethic of inward and outward righteousness that will be standard in the Messianic Age.[57]

Therefore, in order to become righteous, achieve

Written Law[19] (except for those concerning animal sacrifice) and in Jesus' Sermon on the Mount with an emphasis on his "Culminations".[59]

On James the Just

Among modern scholars,

Pseudo-Clementine literature are related to the Ebionites.[42] The other popularly proposed connection is that mentioned by William Whiston in his 1794 edition of Josephus, where he notes that we learn from fragments of Hegesippus that the Ebionites interpreted a prophecy of Isaiah as foretelling the murder of James.[61]

Scholars, including Eisenman,

relatives of Jesus.[51][68]

Conservative Christian scholars, such as Richard Bauckham, hold that James and his circle in the early Jerusalem church held a "high Christology" (i.e. Jesus was God incarnate) while the Ebionites held a "low Christology" (i.e. Jesus was a mere man adopted by God).[69] As an alternative to the traditional view of Eusebius that the Jewish Jerusalem church gradually adopted the proto-orthodox Christian theology of the Gentile church, Bauckham and others suggest immediate successors to the Jerusalem church under James and the other relatives of Jesus were the Nazarenes who accepted Paul as an "apostle to the Gentiles", while the Ebionites were a later schismatic sect of the early second century that rejected Paul.[70][57]

On Paul the Apostle

The Ebionites rejected the Pauline Epistles,[3] and according to Origen they viewed Paul as an "apostate from the law".[71] The Ebionites may have been spiritual and physical descendants of the "super-apostles" — talented and respected Jewish Christian ministers in favour of mandatory circumcision of converts — who sought to undermine Paul in Galatia and Corinth.[72]

Epiphanius relates that the Ebionites opposed Paul, who they saw as responsible for the idea that

high priest of Israel, but apostatized when she rejected him.[73][7]
: 88 

Writings

No writings of the Ebionites have survived outside of a few quotes by others and they are in uncertain form.

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.[23] 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.[74] The existence and origin of this source continues to be debated by scholars.[75]

John Arendzen classifies the Ebionite writings into four groups.[76]

Gospel of the Ebionites

Irenaeus stated that the Ebionites used the

Eusebius of Caesarea wrote that they used only the Gospel of the Hebrews.[78] 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.[79][80][81] Epiphanius contended that the gospel the Ebionites used was written by Matthew and called the "Gospel of the Hebrews".[82] Because Epiphanius said that it was "not wholly complete, but falsified and mutilated",[22]: 30.13.1  writers such as Walter Richard Cassels and Pierson Parker consider it a different "edition" of Matthew's Hebrew Gospel;[83][84] 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.[85]

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.[86][87]

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 (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".[42] 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,[88][89] written to counter the canonical Gospel of Matthew. Although lost, the Hypomnemata is probably identical to De distinctione præceptorum mentioned by Ebed Jesu (Assemani, Bibl. Or., III, 1). The identity of Symmachus as an Ebionite has been questioned in recent scholarship.[90]

Elkesaites

Aramaic El Ksai, meaning "hidden power" (Panarion 19.2.1). Scholar Petri Luomanen believes the book to have been written originally in Aramaic as a Jewish apocalypse, probably in Babylonia in 116–117.[7]
: 96, 299, 331:note 7 

Religious and critical perspectives

Christianity

The mainstream Christian view of the Ebionites is partly based on interpretation of the polemical views of the

Jerusalem church which broke away from its proto-orthodox theology possibly in reaction to the Council of Jerusalem compromise of 50 CE.[94][page needed
]

Islam

Islamic view of Jesus may conflict with the view of most Ebionites regarding the virgin birth,[96][page needed][97]
with Muslims affirming and Ebionites denying, according to Epiphanius and other church fathers.

Hans Joachim Schoeps observes that the Christianity which Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, 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":[36]
: 137 

Thus we have a paradox of world-historical proportions, viz., the fact that Jewish Christianity indeed disappeared within the Christian church, but was preserved in Islam and thereby extended some of its basic ideas even to our own day. According to Islamic doctrine, the Ebionite combination of Moses and Jesus found its fulfillment in Muhammad.

— Hans Joachim Schoeps, Jewish Christianity[36]: 140 

But the Christian scholar in the field of Oriental studies, Irfan Shahîd, says that there is no evidence that the Ebionites remained until the 7th century AD, much less that they had a presence in Mecca.[98]

Judaism

The

apostatizing from the belief in the alleged divinity of Jesus.[100][101]

See also

References

  1. ^ Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Ebionites" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 8 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 842.
  2. ^ a b c "Ebionites". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 2022-11-14.
  3. ^
    ISBN 978-0-19-280290-3
    .
  4. ISBN 978-0-19-518249-1
    .
  5. ^ Kohler, Kaufmann (1901–1906). "EBIONITES (from = 'the poor')". In Singer, Isidore; Alder, Cyrus (eds.). Jewish Encyclopedia. Archived from the original on 2020-09-30. Retrieved 26 July 2020.
  6. ^
    ISBN 0-06-250585-8, an abridgement
    .
  7. ^
    ISBN 978-0-8006-3865-8
    .
  8. ISBN 90-04-17038-3
    . p. 267–.
  9. ^
    ISBN 90-04-03763-2
    .
  10. ^ Hegg, Tim (2007). "The Virgin Birth — An Inquiry into the Biblical Doctrine" (PDF). TorahResource. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2007-08-21. Retrieved 13 August 2007.
  11. ISBN 978-1-59477-307-5
    . p. 124: In fact, the Ebionites and the Nazarenes are one and the same; p. 137: "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."; p. 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."
  12. ^ Antti Marjanen, Petri Luomanen "A companion to second-century Christian "heretics" p250 "It is interesting to note that the Ebionites first appear in the catalogues in the latter half of the second century. The earliest reference to the Ebionites was included in a catalogue used by Irenaeus in his Refutation and Subversion ..."
  13. ^ Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible 2000 p. 364 "EBIONITES Name for Jewish Christians first witnessed in Irenaeus (Adv. haer. 1.26.2; Gk. ebionaioi) ca. 180 ce".
  14. ^ Origen. Contra Celsum. II, 1.
  15. ^ "Philip Schaff: ANF04. Fathers of the Third Century: Tertullian, Part Fourth; Minucius Felix; Commodian; Origen, Parts First and Second - Christian Classics Ethereal Library". www.ccel.org.
  16. ^ a b c G. Uhlhorn. "Ebionites". In Philip Schaff (ed.). A Religious Encyclopaedia or Dictionary of Biblical, Historical, Doctrinal, and Practical Theology. Vol. 2 (3rd ed.). pp. 684–685.
  17. ^ a b c d e f O. Cullmann. "Ebioniten". Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart. Vol. 2. p. 7435.
  18. ISBN 9780198601722
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  19. ^ a b c Justin Martyr. Dialogue with Trypho. 47.
  20. ^ a b c d Irenaeus of Lyon. Adversus Haereses. I, 26; III,21.
  21. ^ Origen. De Principiis. IV, 22.
  22. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Epiphanius of Salamis. Panarion.
  23. ^ a b c Glenn Alan Koch (1976). A Critical Investigation of Epiphanius' Knowledge of the Ebionites: A Translation and Critical Discussion of 'Panarion' 30. University of Pennsylvania.
  24. ^ Hakkinen, Sakara. "Ebionites," in Marjanen, Antti, and Petri Luomanen, eds. A Companion to Second-Century Christian'Heretics. Vol. 76. Brill, 2008, 257–278, esp. 259
  25. ^ Some scholars see the title present already in Paul's references to a collection for the "poor" in Jerusalem (Gal.1:10). But in Rom.15:26 Paul distinguishes this sect from the other Jerusalem believers by speaking of "the poor among the saints." In 2 Cor.9:12 Paul further confirms the economic, or literal, aspect by speaking of the collection as making up for "the deficiencies of the saints". E. Stanley Jones, '"Ebionites", in Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible, Amsterdam University Press, 2000 p. 364.
  26. ^ a b c Henry Wace & William Piercy (1911). A Dictionary of Early Christian Biography. Retrieved 1 August 2007.
  27. ^ Eusebius, Church History 3, 5, 3; Epiphanius, Panarion 29,7,7-8; 30, 2, 7; On Weights and Measures 15. On the flight to Pella see: Jonathan Bourgel (2010). "The Jewish Christians' Move from Jerusalem as a pragmatic choice". In Dan Jaffe (ed.). Studies in Rabbinic Judaism and Early Christianity. Leyden: Brill. pp. 107–138.
  28. ^
    OCLC 1076236746
    . (citing Epiphanius' Anacephalaiosis 30.18.1.)
  29. ISBN 978-1-57910-067-4
    .
  30. ISBN 0-281-00450-1
    .
  31. ^ Gregerman, Adam (2012-02-09). "It's 'Kosher' To Accept Real Jesus?". The Forward. Archived from the original on 2016-04-27. Retrieved 2023-03-11.
  32. ISBN 0-375-75811-9
    .
  33. ^
    OCLC 13610178
    .
  34. ^ Marcus N. Adler (1907). The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela: Critical Text, Translation and Commentary. Phillip Feldheim. pp. 70–72.
  35. Muhammad al-Shahrastani
    (2002). The Book of Religious and Philosophical Sects, William Cureton edition. Gorgias Press. p. 167.
  36. ^ a b c d Hans-Joachim Schoeps (1969). Jewish Christianity: Factional Disputes in the Early Church. Translation Douglas R. A. Hare. Fortress Press.
  37. ISBN 978-0-8308-1497-8
    . Retrieved 14 October 2010. Excerpt from St. Methodius of Olympus, Symposium on Virginity, 8.10., "and with regard to the Spirit, such as the Ebionites, who contend that the prophets spoke only by their own power".
  38. ^
    S2CID 164739491
    .
  39. S2CID 162190693
    .
  40. ^ Exarch Anthony J. Aneed (1919). Syrian Christians, A Brief History of the Catholic Church of St. George in Milwaukee, Wis. And a Sketch of the Eastern Church. Archived from the original on 17 April 2007. Retrieved 28 April 2007.
  41. ^ Irenaeus of Lyon. Adversus Haereses. V, 1.
  42. ^
    ISBN 1-55540-294-1
    .
  43. ISBN 0-8245-1136-0
    .
  44. ISBN 3-16-148094-5
    . p. 188: The vegetarianism of John the Baptist and of Jesus is an important issue too in the Ebionite interpretation of the Christian life.
  45. ISBN 0-19-514183-0
    . p. 102: Probably the most interesting of the changes from the familiar New Testament accounts of Jesus comes in the Gospel of the Ebionites description of John the Baptist, who, evidently, like his successor Jesus, maintained a strictly vegetarian cuisine.
  46. ISBN 0-19-514182-2
    . Referring to Epiphanius' quotation from the Gospel of the Ebionites in Panarion 30.13, "And his food, it says, was wild honey whose taste was of manna, as cake in oil".
  47. ^ Textual Apparatus of the UBS Greek New Testament. United Bible Societies. 1993 - with Peshitta, Old Latin etc.
  48. ISBN 978-3-16-148460-5
    .
  49. ISBN 978-1-60506-210-5
    . p. 104: And when he had been brought to Archelaus and the doctors of the Law had assembled, they asked him who he is and where he has been until then. And to this he made answer and spake: I am pure; [for] the Spirit of God hath led me on, and [I live on] cane and roots and tree-food.
  50. ISBN 978-0-567-08390-6
    .
  51. ^
    ISBN 978-0-7432-8723-4
    .
  52. ISBN 978-0-19-975668-1
    .
  53. ^ Schaff (1904). A select library of Nicene and post-Nicene fathers of the Christian church. p. footnote 828: That there were two different views among the Ebionites as to the birth of Christ is stated frequently by Origen (cf. e.g. Contra Celsum V. 61), but there was unanimity in the denial of his pre-existence and essential divinity, and this constituted the essence of the heresy in the eyes of the Fathers from Irenæus on.
  54. ^ Geoffrey W. Bromiley (1982). "Ebionites". International Standard Bible Encyclopedia: E-J. p. 9 citing E.H.3.27.3 "There were others, however, besides them, that were of the same name, that avoided the strange and absurd beliefs of the former, and did not deny that the Lord was born of a virgin and of the Holy Spirit. But nevertheless, inasmuch as they also refused to acknowledge that he pre-existed, being God, Word, and Wisdom, they turned aside into the impiety of the former, especially when they, like them, endeavored to observe strictly the bodily worship of the law." Also source text online at CCEL.org.
  55. ^ Albertus Frederik Johannes Klijn, G. J. Reinink (1973). Patristic evidence for Jewish-Christian sects. p. 42: Irenaeus wrote that these Ebionites used the Gospel of Matthew, which explains Theodoret's remark. Unlike Eusebius, he did not link Irenaeus' reference to Matthew with Origen's remarks about the 'Gospel of the Hebrews'
  56. ^ Edwin K. Broadhead (2010). Jewish Ways of Following Jesus: Redrawing the Religious Map of Antiquity. p. 209: Theodoret describes two groups of Ebionites on the basis of their view of the virgin birth. Those who deny the virgin birth use the Gospel of the Hebrews; those who accept it use the Gospel of Matthew.
  57. ^
    ISBN 3-16-148094-5
    .
  58. ^ Hippolytus. {{cite book}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  59. JSTOR 43049229
    .
  60. ISBN 0-14-025773-X
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  61. ^ Whiston, W. Antiquities (2008 ed.). p. 594.
  62. ^ Eisenman (1997). {{cite book}}: Missing or empty |title= (help), e.g. p. 154: "As presented by Paul, James is the Leader of the early Church par excellence. Terms like 'Bishop of the Jerusalem Church' or 'Leader of the Jerusalem Community' are of little actual moment at this point, because from the 40s to the 60s CE, when James held sway in Jerusalem, there really were no other centres of any importance."; p. 156: "there can be little doubt that 'the Poor' was the name for James' Community in Jerusalem or that Community descended from it in the East in the next two-three centuries, the Ebionites."
  63. ISBN 978-1-84293-186-8
    . p. 34: These 'Ebionites' are also the followers of James par excellence, himself considered (even in early Christian accounts) to be the leader of 'the Poor' or these selfsame 'Ebionites'; p. 145: "For James 2:5, of course, it is 'the Poor of this world ('the Ebionim' or 'Ebionites') whom God chose as Heirs to the Kingdom He promised to those that love Him'"; p. 273: "...'the Righteous Teacher' and those of his followers (called 'the Poor' or 'Ebionim' - in our view, James and his Community, pointedly referred to in the early Church literature, as will by now have become crystal clear, as 'the Ebionites' or 'the Poor')."
  64. ISBN 978-0-334-02695-2
    . The fact that he became the head of the Jerusalem church is something which is generally accepted. From an ABC interview with author.
  65. ISBN 0-664-25561-2
    . p. 134: So the 'Ebionite' Christology, which we found first described in Irenaeus about 180 is not the invention of the late second century. It was the creed of the Jerusalem Church from early times.
  66. ISBN 0-664-22085-1
    . Retrieved 27 March 2011. pp. 52–53: Since there is a good century between the end of the Jerusalem community and the writing down of the report quoted above (by Irenaeus), of course reasons must be given why the group of Ebionites should be seen as an offshoot of the Jerusalem community. The following considerations tell in favor of the historical plausibility of this: 1. The name 'Ebionites' might be the term this group used to denote themselves. 2. Hostility to Paul in the Christian sphere before 70 is attested above all in groups which come from Jerusalem. 3. The same is true of observance of the law culminating in circumcision. 4. The direction of prayer towards Jerusalem makes the derivation of the Ebionites from there probable.; p. 56: "therefore, it seems that we should conclude that Justin's Jewish Christians are a historical connecting link between the Jewish Christianity of Jerusalem before the year 70 and the Jewish Christian communities summed up in Irenaeus' account of the heretics."
  67. ISBN 0-8006-3169-2
    . p. 229: A connection between early Jerusalem Christianity (the Hebrews) and the later Ebionites is probable.
  68. ISBN 978-0-8308-2762-6
    .
  69. ^ Richard Bauckham (2001). "James and Jesus". The brother of Jesus: James the Just and his mission. By Bruce Chilton; Jacob Neusner. Westminster John Knox Press. pp. 100–137, 135. We may now assert quite confidently that the self-consciously low christology of the later Jewish sect known as the Ebionites does not, as has sometimes been asserted, go back to James and his circle in the early Jerusalem church.
  70. ^ Richard Bauckham (January 1996). "The Relatives of Jesus". Themelios. 21 (2): 18–21. Retrieved 11 February 2011. Reproduced in part by permission of the author.
  71. ISBN 978-0-567-15827-7
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  72. ISBN 978-0-06-177818-6
    .
  73. ^ "[The Ebionites] declare that he was a Greek [...] He went up to Jerusalem, they say, and when he had spent some time there, he was seized with a passion to marry the daughter of the priest. For this reason he became a proselyte and was circumcised. Then, when he failed to get the girl, he flew into a rage and wrote against circumcision and against the sabbath and the Law " - Epiphanius of Salamis, Panarion 30.16.6–9
  74. ^ John Toland (1718). Nazarenus, or Jewish, Gentile and Mahometan Christianity.
  75. ^ Blackhirst, R. (2000). "Barnabas and the Gospels: Was There an Early Gospel of Barnabas?". Journal of Higher Criticism. 7 (1): 1–22. Retrieved 11 March 2007.
  76. ^ a b J.P Arendzen (1909). "Ebionites" . In Herbermann, Charles (ed.). Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
  77. ^ "Those who are called Ebionites accept that God made the world. However, their opinions with respect to the Lord are quite similar to those of Cerinthus and Carpocrates. They use Matthew's gospel only, and repudiate the Apostle Paul, maintaining that he was an apostate from the Law." - Irenaeus, Haer 1.26.2
  78. ^ Eusebius of Caesarea, Church History, III, 27, 4.
  79. ^ James R. Edwards (2009). The Hebrew Gospel & the Development of the Synoptic Tradition. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. p. 121.
  80. ^ Nicholson (1879). The Gospel according to the Hebrews, reprinted print on demand BiblioBazaar, LLC, 2009. pp. 1–81.
  81. ^ William Whiston; H. Stebbing. The Life and Works of Flavius Josephus, reprinted Vol. II, Kessinger Publishing, 2006. p. 576.
  82. ^ They too accept the Matthew's gospel, and like the followers of Cerinthus and Merinthus, they use it alone. They call it the Gospel of the Hebrews, for in truth Matthew alone in the New Testament expounded and declared the Gospel in Hebrew using Hebrew script. - Epiphanius, Panarion 30.3.7
  83. ^ Walter Richard Cassels (1877). Supernatural Religion - An Inquiry into the Reality of Divine Revelation, reprinted print on demand Read Books, 2010. Vol. 1, pp. 419–422.
  84. JSTOR 3262407
    .
  85. ISBN 0-06-065587-9
    .
  86. ^ Robert Walter Funk (1999). The Gospel of Jesus: according to the Jesus Seminar. Polebridge Press.
  87. ^ F.L. Cross; E.A. Livingston (1989). The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. Oxford University Press. pp. 438–439.
  88. mere man, and insists strongly on keeping the law in a Jewish manner, as we have seen already in this history. Commentaries of Symmachus are still extant in which he appears to support this heresy by attacking the Gospel of Matthew. Origen states that he obtained these and other commentaries of Symmachus on the Scriptures from a certain Juliana, who, he says, received the books by inheritance from Symmachus himself."; Jerome, De Viris Illustribus, chapter 54; Church History
    . VI, 17.
  89. ^ Jerome, De viris illustribus, 54.
  90. ISBN 978-1-56563-763-4
    . Skarsaune argues that Eusebius may have only inferred that Symmachus was an Ebionite based on his commentaries on certain passages in the Hebrew Scriptures. E.g., Eusebius mentions Isa 7:14 where Symmachus reads "young woman" based on the Hebrew text rather than "virgin" as in the LXX, and he interprets this commentary as attacking the Gospel of Matthew.(Dem. ev. 7.1) and (Hist. eccl. 5.17).
  91. ^ Gerard P. Luttikhuizen (1985). The revelation of Elchasai. p. 216.
  92. ^ Antti Marjanen, Petri Luomanen A companion to second-century Christian "heretics" p336
  93. Philosophumena
    , IX, 14–17. Luttikhuizen 1985: "Epiphanius deviates so strikingly from Hippolytus' account of the heresy of Alcibiades that we cannot possibly assume that he is dependent on the Refutation."
  94. ASIN B0007FOFQI
    .
  95. ^ Karl Baus (1980). From the Apostolic Community to Constantine. Crossroad. p. 155.
    ISBN 978-0-824-50314-7
    .
  96. ISBN 0-9551099-0-6.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link
    )
  97. ^ J.P Arendzen (1909). "Ebionites" . In Herbermann, Charles (ed.). Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. Those who accepted the virginal birth seem to have had more exalted 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, Horn. in Luc., xvii.) St. Epiphanius calls the more heretical section Ebionites, and the more Catholic-minded, Nazarenes.
  98. ^ Irfan Shahîd. Islam And Oriens Christianus: Makka 610-622 Ad. in Mark Swanson et al, eds. The Encounter of Eastern Christianity with Early Islam. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2006. p18.
  99. ^ Bentzion Kravitz (2001). The Jewish Response to Missionaries: Counter-Missionary Handbook. Jews for Judaism International.
  100. ^ Moshe Koniuchowsky (2007). "'Messianic' Leaders Deny Yeshua in Record Numbers". yourarmstoisrael.org. Archived from the original on 12 August 2007. Retrieved 21 July 2007.
  101. ^ James Prasch (2007). "You Foolish Galatians, Who Bewitched You? A Crisis in Messianic Judaism?". Moriel Ministries. Archived from the original on 11 August 2004. Retrieved 21 July 2007.

Literature

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