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Bible Dictionaries
Ebionism (2)
Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament
or EBIONISM.—It would be going beyond the scope of this Dictionary to enter with any fulness into a discussion of the obscure and elusive subject of Ebionism as it meets us in its varying forms in the history of the early Church. What immediately concerns us is its bearing upon certain questions connected with the origin of the Gospels and the history and person of Jesus Christ Himself. But as these questions cannot properly be handled till we have determined what we are to understand by Ebionism, a brief treatment of the general subject appears to be necessary.
i. Who and what were the Ebionites?—The name Ebionites (Ἐβιωναῖοι), it is generally agreed, is derived from the Hebrew ’ebyônîm אָבִיוֹנִים ‘the poor.’* [Note: Certain of the Fathers attempt to derive the name from a supposed founder called Ebion, who is said to have spread his doctrines among the Christians who fled to Pella after the fall of Jerusalem (Tertullian, de prœscr. Hœret. 33; Epiphanius, Hœr. xxx. 1, 2). But though Hilgenfeld has laboured to give historical reality to the figure of Ebion (Ketzergesch. pp. 422–424), modern scholars have practically agreed that he has only a mythical existence (Harnack, Hist. of Dogma, i. 299; Uhlhorn in PRE3 v. 126).] It seems most probable that originally this name, like Nazarenes (Acts 24:5), was applied to all Christians; but whether it was first adopted by the followers of Christ themselves or given them by others it is impossible to say. The comparative poverty of the great mass of Christians in the early days of the Church, especially in Jerusalem, where the name doubtless arose, might lead to its being used by outsiders as a term of contempt. On the other hand, the Christians of Jerusalem may themselves have adopted it because of the spiritual associations with which ‘the poor’ (אִבְיוֹנים, רַלּים עַניים) are referred to in the OT (e.g. Psalms 34:6; Psalms 69:33; Psalms 72:13, Isaiah 11:4; Isaiah 14:32; Isaiah 29:19; cf. S. R. Driver, art. ‘Poor’ in Hasting's Dictionary of the Bible; G. A. Smith, Isaiah, vol. i. ch. xxix. ‘God’s Poor’), and the blessings pronounced upon them by Jesus Himself (Luke 6:20, Matthew 5:3). If it was first given as a name of reproach, it could very easily and naturally be accepted as a name of honour.† [Note: It is a later idea, evidently suggested by antipathy to the low Christological ideas with which Ebionism had come to be identified, that leads Origen (c. Cels. ii. 1, de Princip. iv. i. 22) and Eusebius (HE iii. 27) to treat the name as derived from the ‘poverty’ of the Ebionites in intelligence and knowledge of Scripture, and especially from the ‘beggarly’ quality of their Christology.]
After the name ‘Christian’ (cf. Acts 11:26) had become the general designation for the disciples of Christ, ‘Ebionites’ appears to have been reserved as a distinctive title for Jewish as distinguished from Gentile Christians (Ἐβιωναῖοι χρηματίζουσιν οἱ ἀπὸ Ἰουδαίων τὸν Ἰησοῦν ὡς Χριστὸν παραδεξάμενοι, Origen, c. Cels. ii. 1), but specifically for those Jewish Christians who, in some degree more or less pronounced, sought to maintain as essential to Christianity the now obsolete forms of the OT religion (the Fathers from the 2nd to the 4th cent. passim). Thus Ebionism becomes a synonym for Jewish Christianity in its antithesis to the universalism of the Catholic Church; and it is in this broad and yet pretty definite sense that the word is properly to be employed (Harnack, l.e. i. 289; Uhlhorn, l.e. ibid.). It is true that in the 4th cent. we find Jerome using the two names Nazarenes and Ebionites in speaking of the Jewish Christians, with whom he had become well acquainted in Palestine (Ep. ad August. cxxii. 13), and this has led some to suppose that he is making a distinction between two entirely different sects (so especially Zahn, Kanonsgeseh. ii. 648 ff.); but it is now generally held that in this case he was really using two names for the same thing, and that ‘Nazarenes’ and ‘Ebionites’ are both general designations for Jewish Christians as such (Harnack, l.e. p. 301; cf. Uhlhorn’s art. ‘Ebionites’ in Schaff-Herzog, Encycl. of Rel. Knowledge, with his later art. ‘Ebioniten ‘in PRE [Note: RE Real-Encyklopädie fur protest. Theologic und Kirche.] 3 [Note: designates the particular edition of the work referred] ).
While, however, it seems impossible to distinguish between Nazarenes and Ebionites, and improper in this connexion to think of a separation into clear-cut sects, there were undoubtedly differences of tendency within the general sphere of Ebionism. From the first a stricter and a more liberal party is to be discerned (the οἱ διττοὶ Ἐβιωναῖοι of Origen, c. Cels. v. 61), corresponding in some measure to the cleavage which emerged in the Council of Jerusalem (Acts 15:1-29)—a Pharisaic party which held the Law to be essential even for Gentile Christians, and a party of broader mind, which, while clinging to the Law for themselves, did not seek to impose it upon their Gentile brethren (Justin, Dial. c. Tryph. 47). Finally, with the rise of the Gnostic heresy, a Gnostic or syncretistic type of Jewish Christianity makes its appearance, to which the name of Ebionism is still applied (Epiphanius, Haer. xxx. 1). This Gnostic Ebionism itself assumes various forms. It already meets us within the NT in the false doctrine which St. Paul opposes in Colossians, and in the teaching of Cerinthus to which St. John replies in his First Epistle. At a later period it is represented in the doctrines of the EIkesaites, who combined their Ebionism with influences drawn from the Oriental heathen world (Epiphanius, Hœr. xix. 2, xxx. 1; Hippolytus, Philos. ix. 13).
ii. The Ebionite Gospels.—As against the Tübingen school, which held that primitive Christianity was itself Ebionism, and which took, in consequence, a highly exaggerated view of the influence of Ebionitic thought upon the history and the literature of the early Church, it is now admitted by nearly all modern scholars that there are no writings within the Canon of the NT which come to us directly from this circle. On the other hand, two of the Apocryphal Gospels, the Gospel according to the Hebrews and the Gospel of the Twelve Apostles (otherwise known as the Gospel of the Ebionites), are immediate products of the Judaeo-Christian spirit—the former representing Ebionism in its earlier and simpler type, and the latter that syncretistic form of Jewish Christianity which afterwards sprang up through contact with Gnosticism (see Gospels [Apocryphal]; and artt. ‘Gospel according to the Hebrews’ and ‘Apocryphal Gospels’ in Hasting's Dictionary of the Bible, Extra Vol.). The extant fragments of the Gospel of the Twelve Apostles show that its value is quite secondary, and that the author has simply compiled it from the Canonical, and especially from the Synoptic Gospels, adapting it at the same time to the views and practices of Gnostic Ebionism. Much more interest and importance attach to the Gospel according to the Hebrews. We have references to it, for the most part respectful and sympathetic, in the writings of Clement, Origen, Eusebius, and, above all, Jerome; while several valuable fragments of it have been preserved for us in the pages of Epiphanius. Eusebius (Historia Ecclesiastica iii. 25, 27) and Jerome (Com. on Matthew 12:13) both testify that this was the Gospel used by the Ebionites, and it is the latter who gives it its name of the ‘Gospel according to the Hebrews’ (seeundum Hebraeos). The numerous references in the Fathers to this work, and the extant fragments themselves, if they do not justify Harnack’s statement that Jewish-Christian (i.e. Ebionite) sources lie at the basis of our Synoptic Gospels (Hist. of Dogma, i. 295), lend some weight to the idea that the distinctive features of the document, so far from being altogether secondary, ought to be regarded as indications of an early Aramaic tradition, which still held its own among the ‘Hebrews’ after the growing universalism of the Church had left it behind (see Prof. Allan Menzies in Hasting's Dictionary of the Bible, Extra Vol. 343a).
iii. Ebionism and the Canonical Gospels.—Apart from the existence of special Ebionite Gospels, the idea has been common, both in ancient and modern times, that certain of the Canonical Gospels owe something of their substance or their form to the positive or negative influence of Ebionite sources or Ebionite surroundings. (1) The Gospel of St. Matthew.—Jerome, who testifies, as we have seen, to the fact that the Jewish Christians of Palestine had a Gospel of their own (seeundum Hebraeos), also tells us that this Gospel was regarded by many as Matthaei authentieum, i.e. the original of Matthew (Com. on Matthew 12:13); and on one occasion refers to a copy of it which he himself had seen and translated as though he believed it to be the original Hebrew (ipsum Hebraieum) of St. Matthew’s Gospel (de Viris Illust. ii. 3). Irenaeus, two centuries earlier, says that the Ebionites use only the Gospel of Matthew (i. xxvi. 2); a statement which points, at all events, to this, that even in his time the Jewish Christians of Syria attached themselves to a particular Gospel, and that between that Gospel and St. Matthew the Apostle a close connexion was believed to exist. Irenaeus does not seem to have been aware of the existence of the Gospel according to the Hebrews, and apparently confounded that work with the Canonical Matthew. But when his statement is taken together with those of Jerome, very interesting questions are raised as to the origin and connexions of the Synoptical Gospels, and of the First Gospel in particular, with the result that in modern theories upon this subject the Gospel according to the Hebrews has played an important rôle. It would be out of place to enter here upon any discussion of the questions thus raised (see Gospels). But it may be said that while the whole trend of recent scholarship is unfavourable to the views of those who would make the Gospel according to the Hebrews either the ‘Ur-Matthaeus’ itself or an expanded edition of it, some grounds can be alleged for thinking that it represents an early Aramaic tradition of the Gospel story which was in existence when the author of Canonical Matthew wrote his book, and upon which to some extent he may have drawn,—a tradition which would naturally be more Jewish and national in its outlook than that represented by the Greek written sources on which he placed his main dependence (see Hasting's Dictionary of the Bible, Extra Vol. 342 f.).
(2) The Gospel of St. Luke.—On the ground that much of the teaching which is peculiar to St. Luke bears specially upon wealth and poverty, it has frequently been alleged that the Evangelist made use of a distinctly Ebionitic source, or was himself in sympathy with Ebionism. It is true that the Ebionites, as we meet them later in Church history, resemble the Essenes in taking an ascetic view of life, and regarding voluntary poverty as a thing of merit and a means of preparing for the Messianic kingdom. But it is altogether a misrepresentation of the facts to say that this is the type of the ideal Christian life as it meets us in Luke, or that his references to riches and poverty ‘rest on the idea that wealth is pernicious in itself and poverty salutary in itself’ (Weiss, Introd, ii. 309). The form in which the first Beatitude of Matthew (Matthew 5:3) is given in Luke, ‘Blessed are ye poor: for yours is the kingdom of God’ (Luke 6:20), together with the closely following Woe pronounced upon the rich (v. 24), has especially been fastened on as a clear proof that these sayings proceed from an Ebionitic circle ‘ascetic in spirit and believing poverty to be in itself a passport to the kingdom, and riches the way to perdition.’ Similarly in the parable of Dives and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31), it is supposed that Dives goes to the place of torment because he is rich, while the beggar is carried into Abraham’s bosom simply because he is a beggar. Such interpretations, however, spring from a very superficial exegesis (cf. Bruce, Expos. Gr. Test. on Luke 6:20, Parabolic Teaching of Christ, p. 376 ff.). And, while it is true that St. Luke dwells, more than the other Evangelists, on the consolations of the poor and the perils of rich men (see, besides the passages already quoted, Luke 4:18, Luke 7:22, Luke 12:16 ff., Luke 16:1 ff., Luke 19:2 ff., Luke 21:1 ff.), the fact is sufficiently accounted for, on the one hand, by that humane and philanthropic spirit which is so characteristic of the Third Evangelist and so natural in one who is called ‘the beloved physician’; and, on the other, as Zahn has suggested (Einleitung, ii. 379), by his sense of the appropriateness for one in the position of Theophilus, to whom his Gospel is immediately addressed, of our Lord’s frequent warnings of the spiritual dangers of wealth and the worldliness to which wealth is so prone to lead. It is to be noted, however, that our Lord’s strongest utterance against wealth is found in Matthew (Matthew 19:24) and Mark (Mark 10:25), as well as Luke (Luke 18:25); and that a comparison of the Third Synoptic with the other two reveals occasional touches, on the one side or the other (note, e.g., the presence of ἁγρούς in Matthew 19:29, Mark 10:29, and its absence from Luke 18:29), which an ingenious theorist might very well use to support the thesis that Luke is not so Ebionitic as Matthew and Mark (see Plummer, ‘St. Luke’ in Internet. Crit. Com. p. xxv f.).
(3) It is curious to notice how, from the 2nd cent. to the 19th, the Fourth Gospel has been associated in two quite different ways with Ebionism, and specifically with Cerinthus, an Ebionite of the Gnosticizing type who taught in Ephesus towards the close of the Apostolic age. On the one hand, we have the statements of Irenaeus and others that the Apostle John wrote his Gospel to combat the errors of Cerinthus (Iren. iii. xi. 1) and the Ebionites (Epiphanius, Hœr. li. 12, lxix. 23); statements which should be taken in connexion with the well-known story, attributed to Polycarp, of the dramatic encounter between St. John and Cerinthus in the baths of Ephesus (Iren. iii. iii. 4; Epiphan. l.e. xxx. 24).* [Note: In one version of the story it is the mythical ‘Ebion’ whom St. John meets in the bath.] Even down to recent times these statements have been widely accepted as furnishing an adequate account of the origin of the Fourth Gospel. Thus Ebrard says: ‘We are thus led to the conclusion that the Cerinthian gnosis was the principal cause which induced John to believe that the time had come for him to make known his peculiar gift, which he had hitherto kept concealed.… He emphasizes faith in Jesus the Son of God (xx. 31) over against a bare gnosis’ (Schaff-Herzog, Encyc. of Rel. Knowledge, ii. 1189).
At the opposite extreme from the belief of Irenaeus was the view of a sect referred to by Epiphanius (l.e. li. 3), and named by him the Alogi (because of their refusal to accept St. John’s teaching regarding the Logos), who ascribed the Johannine writings to Cerinthus himself, and on that ground discarded them altogether. A parallel of a sort to this view was furnished by the Tübingen writers when they assigned the Gospel to some Gnosticizing dreamer of the 2nd century.
The residuum of truth that lies between these two contrary views may perhaps be found in the fact that the author was a contemporary of Cerinthus, and that he wrote his Gospel in full view of prevailing Cerinthian error. It is a mistake, however, to suppose that the work was intended as a direct polemic against Cerinthus and his followers.
‘It is decisive,’ says Meyer, ‘against the assumption of any such polemical purpose that, in general, John nowhere in his Gospel allows any direct reference to the perverted tendencies of his day to appear; while to search for indirect and hidden allusions of the kind, as if they were intentional, would be as arbitrary as it would be repugnant to the decided character of the Apostolic standpoint which he took up when in conscious opposition to heresies.… We see from his [First] Epistle how John would have carried on a controversy, had he wished to do so in his Gospel’ (John 1:44 f.; cf. Westcott, John, p. xli).
The author doubtless has in view the heresies of Gnostic Ebionism, but in the Gospel he refutes them only by the full and positive exhibition of what he conceives to be the truth about Jesus Christ. He tells us himself that his purpose in writing is that those who read ‘may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God’ (John 20:31). What he means by ‘the Christ, the Son of God,’ he lets us see in the prologue; and his method in the rest of the work is to show by selected examples how this conception of the truth about Jesus Christ has been historically realized.
iv. Ebionism and the Person of Christ.—The distinctive feature of Judaic Christianity, when we first meet it, lies in its continued adherence to the Law; but with the growth of more definite conceptions regarding the Person of Christ, the question of the keeping of the Law recedes into the background, and Christology becomes the matter of supreme importance to the Church. From the beginning it was the tendency of Jewish Christianity to shrink from the idea of the Incarnation, and to be content to regard Jesus as the last and greatest of the prophets. And when the Church delined its Christological position, the Jewish section was found to be lacking at this particular and crucial point, and so the term ‘Ebionism’ came to be almost synonymous with the denial of Christ’s Divinity and Virgin-birth. Irenaeus, after referring to the way in which the Ebionites clung to the Law of Moses and rejected Paul as an apostate, adds that, besides this, they teach consimiliter ut Cerinthus et Carpocrates (cf. Hippolytus, Philos. vii. 34, τὰ δὲ περὶ Χριστὸν ὁμοίως τῷ Κηρίνθῳ καὶ Καρποκράτει μυθεύουσιν), denying the birth from the Virgin and holding Christ as a mere man. Origen, more than half a century later, distinguishes between two classes of Ebionites (οἱ διττοὶ Ἐβιωναῖοι), one of which confesses, like the Church generally, that Jesus was born of a virgin, while the other affirms that He was born like the rest of men (c. Cels. v. 61). According to Jerome, it appears that by the 4th cent. the Ebionites of Palestine had made progress in their recognition of the Divinity of Christ and the Virgin-birth, for he says of them, qui credunt in Christum filium dei natum de Virgine Maria … in quem et nos credimus (Ep. ad August. cxxii. 13).
But while it may be true of the vulgar or non-Gnostic Ebionites, over whom, as Harnack says, ‘the Church stalked with iron feet’ (Hist. of Dogma, i. 301), that their distinction from the Church tended more and more to disappear, the case was different with the Gnostic or syncretistic variety, of whom Cerinthus may be taken as an early type. To Cerinthus, according to Irenaeus (1. xxvi. 1; cf. Hippolytus, Philos. vii. 33), Jesus was nothing more than a naturally-begotten man—the son of Joseph and Mary—upon whom at His baptism the Christ came down from the absolute power (αὐθεντία) of God, thus making him the revealer of the Father and the miracle-working Messiah; but from whom this Christ-Spirit departed before the Passion, so that it was only the man Jesus who endured the cross, while the spiritual Christ remained untouched by suffering.
In the case of the Elkesaites of a later period, we find Jewish monotheism combining itself not only with Greek speculation, but with strange heathen elements taken over from the Asiatic religions. This syncretism was characteristic of the age, and in that fact the strength of Gnostic Ebionism lay. It was much more aggressive than Ebionism of the simpler type, and had a far more widely extended influence. Of its fantastic and fugitive forms this is not the place to speak. But its Christology appears in general to have been akin to that of Cerinthus; in other words it was essentially Docetic, and involved a denial of any real and abiding union of the Divine and human in the Person of our Lord.
Literature.—On the general subject the following should be read: Neander, Church History, vol. ii. pp. 8–41 (Clark’s ed.); Harnack, Hist. of Dogma, i. 287–317; PRE [Note: RE Real-Encyklopädie fur protest. Theologic und Kirche.] 3 [Note: designates the particular edition of the work referred] , artt. ‘Ebioniten,’ ‘Elkesaiten’; Jewish Encyc., art. ‘Ebionites.’ For particular points see the various references given in the article.
J. C. Lambert.
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Hastings, James. Entry for 'Ebionism (2)'. Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hdn/e/ebionism-2.html. 1906-1918.
