Virtually no writings of the Ebionites have survived, (see below) except as excerpted in the writings of orthodox Christian theologians, such as Irenaeus, Hippolytus, and Tertullian, who considered the Ebionites to be "heretics," and who sometimes distinguished them as separate from the Nazarenes. Without surviving texts, it is not easy now for us to establish exactly the basis for their distinction.

All these sources within mainstream Pauline Christianity agree that the Ebionites denied the divinity of Jesus, the doctrine of the Trinity and the Virgin Birth.

The Ebionites emphasized the humanity of Jesus as the mortal son of Mary and Joseph, who was 'adopted' as a son of God (or rather elevated to the status of prophet) when he was anointed with the Holy Spirit at his baptism, and therefore could have become the messianic king-priest of Israel (by virtue of also being both a descendant of king David through his father and a descendant of high priest Zadok through his mother) but was chosen to be the last and greatest of the prophets.

It seems that the Ebionites also rejected the doctrine of Atonement through the death of Jesus, and judged sightings of the risen Jesus as spiritual experiences rather than an actual physical resurrection.

The Ebionites revered the Desposyni (from Greek, "belonging to the Lord," a sacred name reserved only for Jesus' blood relatives), especially James the Just, as the legitimate apostolic successors of Jesus rather than Peter. They considered Paul to be an apostate, and of the books of the New Testament only accepted an Aramaic version (written in Hebrew letters) of the Gospel of Matthew to be Scripture. The Ebionite version of Matthew must have differed from the canonical version, for Symmachus the Ebionite wrote a commentary in the late 2nd century attacking the version of the Gospel that was circulating among Pauline Christians. Ebionites believed that all followers of Jesus, whether they be Judean or Gentile, must adhere to Noahide Laws and Mosaic law albeit a more spiritual rather than academic interpretation and observance of them.

Some Ebionites such as Cerinthus adopted Gnostic beliefs but are better identified as Elkasites and were seen as heretics by traditional Ebionites.

The sect did not exert any great influence on Pauline Christianity, and gradually dwindled into obscurity. However, the Ebionites are represented in history as the sect encountered by the Muslim historian Abd al-Jabbar almost 500 years later than most Christian historians admit for the survival of the Ebionites, as al-Jabbar wrote at around 1000 CE.

Table of contents

1 Ebionite writings 2 Modern Ebionites 3 External Links

Ebionite writings

• Ebionite Gospel. The Ebionites used only the Gospel of Matthew (according to Irenaeus). Eusebius (Historia Ecclesiae IV, xxi, 8) mentions a Gospel according to 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 attributes this gospel to the Nazarenes, and claims that the Ebionites only possessed an incomplete, falsified, and truncated copy. (Adversus Haer., xxix, 9). The question remains, was Epiphanius able to make a genuine distinction between Nazarenes and Ebionites?

• 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 Ebionite views, i.e. the supremacy of James, their connection with Rome, and their antagonism to Simon Magus, as well as Gnostic doctrines.

• The Works of Symmachus the Ebionite, i.e. his elegant 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 A. D. 100 and brought to Rome about A. D. 217 by Alcibiades of Apamea. Those who accepted its doctrines and its new baptism were called Elkasites (see entry). (Hipp., Philos., IX, xiv-xvii; Epiphanius., Adv. Haer., xix, 1; liii, 1.)

External Links