Ebionites

The Ebionites were a religious communal sect dedicated to following Jewish Law but through Jesus' expounding of the Law, which he said to have revealed during his sermon on the mount. Image: The Sermon on the Mount by Carl Heinrich Bloch, 1890

The Ebionites (from Hebrew; אביונים, Ebyonim, "the Poor Ones") were an early sect of mostly Jewish disciples of Jesus, who flourished in and around the land of Israel, as one of several Jewish Christian communities coexisting from the 1st to the 5th century of the Common Era. Where they took their name from is unclear, since the word appears in several religious texts, such as the Dead Sea scrolls, the Epistle of James, and the Gospel of Luke which features one of Jesus' most well-known blessings: "Congratulations, you poor! God's domain belongs to you." They are said to have dispossessed themselves of all their goods, and to have lived in religious communes.

Since there is no authenticated archaeological evidence for the existence of the Ebionites, their nature and history cannot be definitely reconstructed from surviving references. The little that is known about them comes from critical references by early and influential theologians and writers in the Christian Church, who considered them to be "Judaizers" and "heretics". However, according to some of the modern scholars who have studied the historicity of the Ebionites, they may have been disciples of the early Jerusalem church, who were gradually marginalized by the followers of Paul of Tarsus despite possibly being more faithful to the authentic teachings of the historical Jesus.

History

In 140 C.E., 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. In 180 C.E, Irenaeus was the first to use the term "Ebionites" to describe a heretical judaizing sect, which he regarded as stubbornly clinging to the Law. In 212 C.E., Origen remarks that the name derives from the Hebrew word "evyon", meaning "poor". The most complete yet questionable account comes from Epiphanius of Salamis, who wrote a heresiology in the 4th century, denouncing 80 heretical sects, among them the Ebionites. These are mostly general descriptions of their religious ideology, though sometimes there are quotations from their gospels, which are otherwise lost to us.

Often depending upon another for their assessment, the Fathers of the Church distinguished the Ebionites from the Carpocratians, the Cerinthians, the Elcesaites, the Nasoraeans, the Nazarenes, the Nazoraeans, and the Sampsaeans, most of whom were early sects of Jewish disciples of Jesus who held traditional or gnostic Christian views rejected by the Ebionites. Eusebius, however, mentions that a minority of Ebionites came to embrace some of these views despite keeping their name.

Although it is an open question whether the Ebionites, denounced by the Church Fathers, were direct descendants of the earliest "Christian church of Jerusalem" (which thrived from c. 30 to 135 C.E.) or the first "Judeo-Christian synagogue" (built on Mount Zion between 70 and 132 C.E.), some scholars argue that the first self-identified Ebionites were poor Jewish peasants who began to follow John the Baptizer c. 23 C.E.. After the death of John, many of them joined the "kingdom of God" movement started by Jesus, whom they believed was the prophetic Messiah. After the death of Jesus, the movement organized itself into the Jerusalem church overseen by Jesus' brother James the Just.

It was during the stewardship of James, whose authority was accepted by remote communities, that Paul of Tarsus joined the movement. This eventually led to a dispute with regard to the circumcision of gentile converts, which Paul maintained was unnecessary. The book of the Acts of the Apostles records the compromise that James allegedly brokered during the Council of Jerusalem c. 49 C.E., which only required that gentile converts observe Noahide Laws without having to circumcize. However, in 58 C.E., Paul complains, in one of his epistles, that some of the twelve apostles of Jesus question his honesty and continue to counter his mission with their "judaizing teachings".

After the death of James in 62 C.E., the movement fled Jerusalem across the Jordan river to Pella, Jordan. Another of Jesus' brothers, Simeon of Jerusalem, led the community. After Simeon's execution c. 106 C.E., the Ebionites began to disperse throughout Southwest Asia, but are eclipsed by Pauline Christians who spread across the Roman Empire.

The legacy of the Ebionites is debated. Once the Jerusalemite leadership of the mother church of all Christendom was decimated during Bar Kokhba's revolt in 135 C.E., Jewish Christians gradually lost the struggle for the claim to being the true followers of Jesus, due to marginalization and persecution by both Jews and Christians. Scholar Jans-Hoachim Schoeps, however, argues that the primary influence of the Ebionites was on the nontrinitarian origins of Islam due to their exchanges with the first Muslims.

The Ebionites might 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 Muslim 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 traditional Judaism, rejecting mainstream Christian views.

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 views and practices of early Ebionites, although their idiosyncratic claims to authenticity cannot be verified. 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.

Views and practices

Judaism

Most patristic sources portray the Ebionites as traditional yet ascetic 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. They celebrated a commemorative meal annually, on or around Passover, with unleavened bread and water only, in contrast to the Christian practice of performing a mystical meal in commemoration of Jesus daily using leavened bread and water mixed with wine.

Essenism or Gnosticism?

Epiphanius of Salamis is the only Church Father who describes some Ebionites as departing from traditional Jewish principles of faith and practice; specifically by engaging in excessive ritual bathing, possessing 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, opposing animal sacrifice, rejecting doctrines and traditions believed to have been added to the Law of Moses, including scribal alterations of the texts of scripture, and practicing religious vegetarianism.

According to Robert Eisenman, James Tabor, Martin A. Larson and other scholars the Ebionites were therefore a messianic Essene sect within Judaism. In this view, the Ebionites originated with, and drew much of their original inspiration, rules, customs, theology, beliefs and even their name from either the alleged Essene roots of John the Baptizer and James the Just or other Essene sects. The Qumran community, for example, referred to themselves by many epithets, including "the poor".

The reliability of Epiphanius' claims, however, is questioned by some scholars. Shlomo Pines, for example, argues that all these heterodox views and practices originated in Gnostic Christianity rather than Essenism, and are characteristics of the Elcesaite sect, which Epiphanius mistakenly attributed to the Ebionites.

Jesus

The majority of Church Fathers are in agreement in claiming that the Ebionites rejected many of the central Christian views of Jesus such as the pre-existence, divinity, virgin birth, atoning death, and physical resurrection of Jesus. The Ebionites are described as emphasizing the oneness of God and the humanity of Jesus as the biological son of both Mary and Joseph, who by virtue of his righteousness, was chosen by God to be the messianic "prophet like Moses" foretold in Deuteronomy 18:14-22, when he was anointed with the holy spirit at his baptism.

Of the books of the New Testament, the Ebionites are said to have accepted only a Hebrew 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, Irenaeus reports, omitted the first two chapters (on the nativity of Jesus), and started with the baptism of Jesus by John.

Like traditional Christians, Ebionites believed Jesus invited his disciples to live according to an ethic of social justice that would be standard in the future kingdom of God: Since Jesus revealed what the ethic of the Messianic Age will be, his disciples should immediately adjust their lives to this ethic in this age. Ebionites, however, interpreted these teachings to mean that all Jews and gentiles must observe the commandments in the Law of Moses, in order to become righteous and seek communion with God; but that these commandments must be understood in the light of Jesus' expounding of the Law, which he is said to have revealed during his sermon on the mount. The Ebionites may have held a form of "inaugurated eschatology" positing that the ministry of Jesus had ushered in the Messianic Age so that the kingdom of God might be understood as present in an incipient fashion, while at the same time awaiting consummation in the future age.

John the Baptizer

In one excerpt from the so-called Gospel of the Ebionites collected by Epiphanius, John the Baptizer is portrayed as a vegetarian Nazirite teacher and a forerunner to Jesus. Scholars argue that Jewish Christians viewed the ministry of John as an alternative to what they perceived to be the culture of corruption surrounding the Temple in Jerusalem.

James the Just

Although he is not mentioned in patristic sources for the Ebionites, James the Just, the brother of Jesus, was the hereditary leader of the Jerusalem church; followed by other members of the Desposyni (the blood relatives of Jesus) who many Jewish Christians regarded as the legitimate apostolic successors to James as patriarchs of the Jerusalem church, rather than Peter. Jewish Christians also viewed James as the legitimate high priest of Israel, by virtue of his righteousness, in opposition to the high priest recognized by the Roman Empire.

Paul of Tarsus

Patristic sources report Ebionites as denouncing Paul of Tarsus as an apostate from the Law, for his slander of the pillars of the church, and condemnation of their "judaizing teachings" as a threat to the spread of his schismatic religion. Epiphanius claims that some Ebionites fought back by gossiping that Paul was a Greek who converted to Judaism in order to marry the daughter of (Annas?) a high priest of Israel, apostasized when she rejected him; and later, according to scholar Hyam Maccoby, developed the early Christian church as a Gnostic Jewish mystery religion.

Writings

Few writings of the Ebionites have survived, and these are 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 ideology. These can be found in volume 8 of the Ante-Nicene Fathers. The exact relationship between the Ebionites and these writings is debated, but Epiphanius's description of some Ebionites in Panarion 30 bears repeated and 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.

The 1908 Catholic Encyclopedia mentions four classes of Ebionite writings:

• Gospel of the Ebionites. According to Irenaeus, the Ebionites used only the Gospel of Matthew. Eusebius of Caesarea (Historia Ecclesiae IV, xxi, 8) mentions a Gospel of the Hebrews, 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's De viris illustribus 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 and Acts of the Apostles, including the work usually titled the Ascents of James. 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 the Just, their connection with the episcopal see of Rome, and their antagonism to Simon Magus, as well as gnostic doctrines. Scholar Robert 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 Koine Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, used by Jerome, fragments of which exist, and his lost Hypomnemata, 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 CE and brought to Rome in c. 217 CE by Alcibiades of Apamea. Ebionites who accepted its gnostic doctrines were judged to be apostates and 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 or gnostic document. The existence and origin of this source continues to be debated by scholars.

Archaeology

In his 2004 book Buried Angels, biblical scholar Jacob Rabinowitz suggests that a body of archaeological evidence discovered by Franciscan biblical archaeologists in Jerusalem, Hebron and Nazareth may be a record of the original Ebionite community. The items, consisting of ossuaries, figures and ritual objects, incorporate the cross as a decorative motif combined with other biblical symbols. The Franciscans describe the finds as the work of a late 3rd or 4th century heretical judaizing sect, but since the dating is very approximate, the material could as well be 1st century. The objects themselves may be significant examples of early Christian art, whatever their exact date, and Rabinowitz' argument, supported by citations of New Testament, patristic, and Dead Sea Scrolls material, and in accord with the visual evidence, are notable.