What were the beliefs of Early Ebionaen Christianity?

[ebion]

There's a long thread by Ben Smith on Epiphanius on the Ebionites. Before you read it, be sure to put Secret Alias on your foes list to filter his crap. A few choice quotes (only up to page 36 so far):

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His bit in the section about the Ebionites where he says that the Ebionites used the gospel of Matthew alone, "just like Cerinthus," is also a known misunderstanding of Irenaeus, Against Heresies 1.26.2: "Those who are called Ebionites agree that the world was made by God; but their opinions with respect to the Lord are similar to those of Cerinthus and Carpocrates. They use the gospel according to Matthew only, and repudiate the apostle Paul, maintaining that he was an apostate from the law."

Using Matthew only, and repudiating the apostle Paul, maintaining that he was an apostate from the law is a key criterion to our definition of Ebionaen.

viewtopic.php?p=102636&sid=b10ffd8f2f2d ... bd#p102636

what John is saying has been my assumption for a few years, that Paul was opposed by Cerinthus who was an apostle of the Judaisers and likely compiler/redactor of Revelation. The split between these two branches of the church was far greater than Acts admits, and the fact it admits anything shows how great it was, yet these two branches did coalesce later on in the 1st century giving birth to the narrative as we have it

We take issue with "coalesce later on in the 1st century giving birth to the narrative as we have it" as the Faulines weren't written until mid 2.c (>144 AD), and I wouldn't argue anything coalesced before Anthanasius (348 AD).

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For one thing, wherever he may have gotten the idea (written or oral sources or conjecture), even if Epiphanius did not say that his Ebionites emerged after 70 CE, I think we could infer this from the data (as per the Clementine writings) that they were vegetarians and opposed sacrifices (including the parts of the Torah that command them) and some of the OT prophets.

While the Dead Sea Scrolls also "oppose" sacrifice and are pre-70 CE, they don't oppose the idea of sacrifice or reject the parts of the Torah that command them or any of the prophets, only sacrifices in an unclean Temple run by unclean people, and they long for the day when sacrifices can be done properly.

Epiphanius' Ebionites, however, totally reject the idea of sacrifice and eating meat (and even have Jesus saying such in their version of Matthew), and to me that smells like a post-70 CE development in response to the destruction of the Temple, and in any event is not in keeping with Jesus' pro-sacrifice position in the NT and Nazarene versions of Matthew.
...

Pan. 29.6.7 (on the Nazarenes):

Thus Christ’s holy disciples too called themselves “disciples of Jesus” then, as indeed they were. But when others called them Nazoraeans they did not reject it, being aware of the intent of those who were calling them that. They were calling them Nazoraeans because of Christ, since our Lord Jesus was called “the Nazoraean” himself—as the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles say.

So I suspect that earlier writers may have lumped the "no name" Nazarene Jewish Christian faction with the Ebionite faction and didn't appreciate their differences (similar to pagan observers of Gentile Christian factions), but that on the whole their information is correct, i.e., that Jewish Christians (as a whole) held these beliefs.

Or some of the differences he cites aren't important enough to distinguish, like eating meat, or marriage.

viewtopic.php?p=102935#p102935

Only what Luomanen calls the Basic Writing (which he notes "can be deduced from parallel passages contained in the Recognitions and Homilies") and a section in the Recognitions (1.27-71) that some suppose (including me but not Luomanen, though he does think it is Jewish Christian) to be from the Ebionite writing that Epiphanius calls the Ascents of James. I think these passages are "real" in the sense that they were really used by Jewish Christians, and while I agree with Epiphanius that the latter is "full of nonsense," it is nevertheless in keeping with his description of it.

The Recognitions and Homilies are a mess - I've followed up with a question in our Ebionaen Canon thread.

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I am also interested to know what you think of the Didache. This text has baffled me a long time, it's very odd and I have trouble putting it in context

We love the Didache and put in in our canon as community rule.

viewtopic.php?p=103119#p103119

And I don't get the impression from Acts (or from the Letter of James, 1 Peter, and 1, 2 and 3 John, which I regard as genuine letters of the "pillars" Paul mentions in Galatians) that Jewish Christian leaders approved of the violence of these Christians or their opposition to Paul, but only that they were "zealous for the law" and believed that Jesus was the Messiah. So at least according to Acts there were already two kinds of Jewish Christians, those who opposed Paul and those who did not and only reproved him regarding Jewish Torah observance, as per Acts 21:21-24:

While we know that Paul's Torah observance wasn't sincere (as per 1 Cor. 9:20), his MO to be "like a Jew .. to win the Jews" and "like one under the law ... to win those under the law" could have given Jewish Christian leaders like James the impression that his observance was sincere like in the above account (at least in the time period it is set).

So in the big picture, we already know (or we are at least told) that there were Jewish Christians who opposed Paul, from Acts to Irenaeus to the Clementine writings, and according to the earliest sources (Acts and Irenaeus), they were also "zealous for the law" and revered the Temple.

And as Ben has noted upthread, while the NT does not use the term "Ebionite" as a title for Jewish Christians, the Hebrew word it is based on is translated in the LXX with the same word the NT uses to describe poor Christians. In other words, while they may not have existed as a full blown branch of Jewish Christianity until after 70 CE, it does appear that there were little "e" ebionites before 70 CE as well as Jewish Christians who were "zealous for the law" and revered the Temple.

Or the little "e" ebionites may have been a loud but brief outburst pre-70 AD.

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The Damascus Document in particular has always stood out to me with respect to Christian origins since both it and Christian sources mention a singular Messiah and the observance of "the new covenant" and "the Way" in a place called "Damascus." So in the big picture, we can say that there were at least two Jewish groups who were like this before 70 CE.
...
Additionally, the group in the Damascus Document opposes someone called the "Scoffer," who similarly taught against Torah observance, and that he and his followers had consequently been "delivered up to the avenging sword of the Covenant," similar to the treatment of Paul by the violent Jewish Christians in Acts:

[This is the time] when the Scoffer arose who shed over Israel the waters of lies. He led them astray in a wilderness without way by bringing low the everlasting hills, and by causing them to depart from the paths of righteousness, and by removing the bound with which the forefathers had marked out their inheritance, that he might call down on them the curses of His Covenant and deliver them up to the avenging sword of the Covenant.

We like the Damascus Document too: any idea where Damascus was?

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See what I mean about having to sort through what Stephen says and what Christian and Jewish sources say? And I used to find his hostility equal parts frightening and amusing, but now I just find it uninteresting, and I don't have the time or energy to respond to it anymore.

We find it less than uninteresting: it's an intentional waste of time - don't even look.

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I'll follow up on that in the HAramaic thread.

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Well, just to clarify, I don't think all "those DSS folk" could be Jewish Christians, only the ones who wrote about the Teacher of Righteousness (who seems very similar to James and Jesus to me, is all), which amounts to some of the pesharim and the Damascus Document.
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I would agree that the "original thing" (i.e., Nazarenes, as represented by Jewish Christian leaders like James) certainly had "more in common with Paul" than pre-70 CE proto-Ebionites (of the sort who opposed Paul in Acts) and post-70 CE Ebionites (as mentioned by patristic writers) in the sense that they did not reject him, though they do appear to have not agreed with him regarding the necessity of Jewish Torah observance.

Some of the pesharim (e.g. Habbukuk) and the Damascus Document are the only things interesting to us;
we'll take issue with "Nazarenes, as represented by Jewish Christian leaders like James" in another post.

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Now, I suppose "the apostles' time" could be post-70 CE, considering that John the disciple, Simon bar Clopas and such are said to have lived post-70 CE,
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So I'm thinking if other Jews ate meat and drank wine before 70 CE and then changed their behavior after 70 CE, why couldn't the proto-Ebionites in Acts, particularly given their inclination to take this kind of oath before 70 CE?

And I'm thinking they weren't called Ebionites per se before 70 CE because they weren't called that yet

We suppose "the apostles' time" is also post-70 CE, as we define lower-case apostles to include the 70. We assume eating meat and drinking wine can't be used to distinguish any of them. And although we could agree with you that little-e ebionites pre-70 AD could be defined as the anti-Paul little-n nazarenes (in Acts), we'd rather just frame that as a dispute under James with Paul, and note that there is not trace of Paul from 63->144 AD MarcionOrLater. We assume he retired to Spain.

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just said what I think is at the core of Christianity: the belief that a/the Messiah has come or been revealed in some way. Without that, it is not Christianity.

Dealing with lust being very important to Christianity, check. Dealing with lust being the central focus of Christianity? Wow. There is no need even to rebut such an assertion.

Christ as Messiah is a Zorban concept; the Aramaic word for Christ is the Annointed One, which gives things a different flavour. As for the central focus of Christianity: Jesus speaks of sin only once in the synoptics, and even then in the sense of "all manner of sin will be forgiven thee...". All this washing your sins in the blood of a dead God is pure Marcionism.

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The DSS believe in the resurrection of the dead and the Sadducees did not.
...

And the existence of Enoch and Jubilees and the relatively high vnumber of copies of Daniel and Daniel-related writings (which refer to resurrection) among the DSS favors the idea that whoever wrote and collected them were not Sadducees.

Interesting.

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So your Ebionites believed ... that temple sacrifice was acceptable?

No, but the did, and they are said to have used all of Matthew.

So would you say that post-63 AD, the Nazarenes believed that temple sacrifice was acceptable, and the Ebionites didn't? Could we/should we put that difference in our criteria for telling the 2 groups apart?


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Regarding the earlier patristic sources that mention Ebionites and not Nazarenes (which is odd because they are all post-Acts, which mentions Nazarenes and not Ebionites), I'm thinking this could be not only because they lumped both Jewish Christian factions together similar to the way pagan critics lumped Gnostics and orthodox Christians together, but also because they could make fun of the name Ebionite (i.e., "poor" in understanding), unlike Nazarene, since that's what Jesus is called in the NT.

We agree: Nazarenes and Ebionites are indistinguishable unless one of our criteria are explicitly mentioned.

viewtopic.php?p=103504&sid=15cddf2365d6 ... 1a#p103504

And while Jesus may not have been violent when he was alive, he was certainly disruptive, by rejecting the oral Torah of the Pharisees (e.g., Mk. 7:1-13), which Josephus says was the law of the land, and saying things like in Mk. 8:15 and Mt. 10:34-37:

"Be careful,” Jesus warned them. “Watch out for the yeast of the Pharisees and that of Herod.”

Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. ...

This is a crucial definition of Christianity.

viewtopic.php?p=103507&sid=15cddf2365d6 ... 1a#p103507

...And Josephus says that the Sadducees deferred to the rulings of the Pharisees (Ant. 18.1.4: "But they are able to do almost nothing of themselves; for when they become magistrates, as they are unwillingly and by force sometimes obliged to be, they addict themselves to the notions of the Pharisees, because the multitude would not otherwise bear them"), and the DSS adamantly oppose them (like Jesus does).

Interesting - would you say that Jesus was anti-Sadducee?

---

Neil Godfrey has an extended quote from Skarsaune, Oskar, and Reidar Hvalvik, eds. 2007. Jewish Believers in Jesus: The Early Centuries:

What we know—or think we know—about the "sect" of the Ebionites, is
mainly based on four categories of sources: ...

It's very useful in clarifying the source of the evidence on the Ebionaens.

He also has a translation:
Earliest Nazarenes: Evidence of Epiphanius on his site from
https://web.archive.org/web/20180429020 ... -nazarenes

PS: John2: If we've missed anything important, let us know.

...

[ebion]

Epiphanius' Ebionites, however, totally reject the idea of sacrifice and eating meat (and even have Jesus saying such in their version of Matthew), and to me that smells like a post-70 CE development in response to the destruction of the Temple, and in any event is not in keeping with Jesus' pro-sacrifice position in the NT and Nazarene versions of Matthew.

What makes you say "Jesus' pro-sacrifice position in the NT" - I don't see much, especially in Matthew.

You wrote:

Jesus is pro-sacrifice in Mt. 5:23-24 (in keeping with his general pro-Torah position):

Here's the full context:

Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee;
Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.
(Matthew 5:23-24 [KJV])

I don't see that a being pro-sacrifice - merely accepting that the sacrifices exist enough to use them in a parable.

said to have used all of Matthew (which is pro-sacrifice)

Again, what makes you say Matthew is pro-sacrifice?

James was very pro-Temple and that included sacrifices as in Acts 21:23-26 I agree, but is there anything pro-sacrifice in Matthew? In other words, if the rejection of sacrifices is an indentifying feature of post-63 AD Ebionaens, were they violating Matthew to do so? (It's not a big deal if so, because the question was moot after 70 AD - no temple.)

What else am I missing in Matthew?

[GakuseiDon]

?2) "Before the War, there were Nazoreans" but were they distinct from what I call the Jamesian church, and if so how? Was I wrong in arguing to John2 that under the Jamesian church the Nazarenes were the followers of Paul?

According to Epiphanius, all Christians were called Nazoraeans. So that would have included Paul's faction as well as James' faction:

Part 29 1:2 For these people did not give themselves the name of Christ or Jesus' own name, but that of 'Nazoraeans.'

1:3 But at that time all Christians alike were called Nazoraeans. They also came to be called 'Jessaeans' for a short while, before the disciples began to be called Christians at Antioch.
...
6:2 But besides, as I have indicated, everyone called the Christians Nazoraeans, as they say in accusing Paul the apostle, 'We have found this man a pestilent fellow and a perverter of the people, a ring-leader of the sect of the Nazoraeans.'
...
6:5 And no wonder the apostle admitted to being a Nazoraean! In those days everyone called Christians this because of the city of Nazareth—there was no other usage of the name at the time. And so people gave the name of 'Nazoraeans' to believers in Christ, of whom it is written, 'because he shall be called a Nazoraean.
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7:7 This sect of Nazoraeans is to be found in Beroea near Coelesyria, in the Decapolis near Pella, and in Bashanitis at the place called Cocabe—Khokhabe in Hebrew.

7:8 For that was its place of origin, since all the disciples had settled in Pella after their remove from Jerusalem'

Assuming Epiphanius is correct, then the term 'Nazoraean' would have initially been applied to all early Christians including the followers of both Paul and James. The disciples and their followers settled around Pella. "Ebionite" and proto-orthodox (influenced by Pauline churches around the Mediterranean) would have split out from there, with the Ebionites rejecting Paul and the proto-orthodox accepting Paul.

[ebion]

?2) "Before the War, there were Nazoreans" but were they distinct from what I call the Jamesian church, and if so how? Was I wrong in arguing to John2 that under the Jamesian church the Nazarenes were the followers of Paul?

According to Epiphanius, all Christians were called Nazoraeans. So that would have included Paul's faction as well as James' faction:

Part 29 1:2 For these people did not give themselves the name of Christ or Jesus' own name, but that of 'Nazoraeans.'

1:3 But at that time all Christians alike were called Nazoraeans. They also came to be called 'Jessaeans' for a short while, before the disciples began to be called Christians at Antioch.

Thanks - I can't say that I believe him, but in order to move forward, as unelected Patriarch of the Early Ebionaen Christian Thread I/We issue the following Encyclical/Fatwa:

• in this thread, Nazoraeans and Ebionaens in the pre-63 AD Jamesean church are declared not to exist, and the use of the term in Acts 24:5 is a scribal error for "followers of Paul", in all languages, and there is simply a Paul's faction in the pre-63 AD Jamesean church.
• in this thread, Nazoraeans and Ebionaens in the post-63 AD Pella and beyond communities are defined by the criteria in the OP.
• The definitions in the OP are infallable unless someone has a better idea, in which case they can change at any time at the whim of our Beatitude.

Does that work for you? Can we be done with Epiphanius (who hated us Ebionaens) and move on to exploring what were the beliefs of Early Ebionaen Christianity according to the OP criteria?

(I/We infallably edited the OP a little to clarify what is common to both and what is distinctive - are they OK?)

PS: Our beatitude reserves judgement on if the Nazoreans accepting Paul can be considered "the proto-orthodox". He'd have to think about that, given that he does not see any traces of Paul > 63AD < 144 AD, which may be because of his decrepitude due to advanced age.

[ebion]

James Tabor: tracking the original followers of Jesus:

The variety of self-designations used by the John/Jesus/James movement, many of which had previously been used by the Essenes, is telling. Indeed, one might call the Jesus movement a further developed messianic “Essenism,” modified through the powerful, prophetic influence of Jesus as Teacher and the leadership of James his brother for nearly 40 years.
...
But, curious Christians later wanted to know things that they did not know, for example when was the Messiah born, and when did he die? So they went in search of their past.

“Indeed, when in 160 Bishop Melito of Sardis went to Judea to discover what had become of the legendary Jerusalem Church, to his dismay he found not the descendants of the apostles, but instead a small group of [...] Christians, who called themselves the Ebionites or 'Poor Men', [who] had their own Gospel of the Ebionites and also a Gospel of the Hebrews, a Gospel of the Twelve Apostles and a Gospel of the Nazarenes. All of these gospels differed significantly from the gospels of the New Testament” (The Jesus Mysteries by Timothy Freke & Peter Gandy (1999)) [10]

So we'd have to revise our unsupported conjecture that these gospels were all the same. Huge.

Later, when Christianity developed in the 3rd and 4th centuries and gradually lost its Jewish roots and heritage, largely severing its homeland connections, the Gentile, Roman Catholic Church historians began to refer to Ebionites and Nazarenes as two separate groups—and indeed, by the late 2nd century there might have been a split between these mostly Jewish followers of Jesus. The distinction these writers make (and remember, they universally despise these people and call them “Judaizers”), is that the Ebionites reject Paul and the doctrine of the Virgin Birth or “divinity” of Jesus, use only the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew, and are thus more extreme in their Judaism. They describe the Nazarenes more positively as those who accept Paul (with caution) and believe in some aspect of the divinity of Jesus, even possibly the virgin birth, but viewed him as “adopted” as Son of God at his baptism. What we have to keep in mind in reading these accounts from the Church fathers is that they are strongly prejudiced against any form of what they call “Judaizing” among Christians and they share the view that “Christianity” has replaced Judaism entirely overthrowing the Torah for both Gentile and Jew.

The "distinctions" agree with our "criteria", and do not mention any acceptance of the Pharisees, which we hold to be common to both.

Generally, the movement came to have a very negative view of Paul as an “apostate from the Torah,” though it is possible that in the 2nd and 3rd centuries there were branches of the Nazarenes who were more tolerant of Paul as the “apostle to the Gentiles,” but who as Jews, nonetheless, insisted on Torah observance.

So our definitions and criteria agree with James Tabor's: "great minds think alike" :-,)

[ebion]

There are 2 chapters from the Edward Gibbon: The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire that talk of the Ebionites:

The Ebionites

When the name and honours of the church of Jerusalem had been restored to Mount Sion, the crimes of heresy and schism were imputed to the obscure remnant of the Nazarenes which refused to accompany their Latin bishop. They still preserved their former habitation of Pella, spread themselves into the villages adjacent to Damascus, and formed an inconsiderable church in the city of Bercea, or, as it is now called, of Aleppo, in Syria.
(22) The name of Nazarenes was deemed too honourable for those Christian Jews, and they soon received, from the supposed poverty of their understanding, as well as of their condition, the contemptuous epithet of Ebionites.
(23) In a few years after the return of the church of Jerusalem, it became a matter of doubt and controversy whether a man who sincerely acknowledged Jesus as the Messiah, but who still continued to observe the law of Moses, could possibly hope for salvation. The humane temper of Justin Martyr inclined him to answer this question in the affirmative; and though he expressed himself with the most guarded diffidence, he ventured to determine in favour of such an imperfect Christian, if he were content to practise the Mosaic ceremonies without pretending to assert their general use or necessity. But when Justin was pressed to declare the sentiment of the church, he confessed that there were very many among the orthodox Christians who not only excluded their Judaising brethren from the hope of salvation, but who declined any intercourse with them in the common offices of friendship, hospitality, and social life.
(24) The more rigorous opinion prevailed, as it was natural to expect, over the milder; and an eternal bar of separation was fixed between the disciples of Moses and those of Christ. The unfortunate Ebionites, rejected from one religion as apostates, and from the other as heretics, found themselves compelled to assume a more decided character; and although some traces of that obsolete sect may be discovered as late as the fourth century, they insensibly melted away either into the church or the synagogue. (25)

This polemic says that the Ebionites were renamed from the Nazarenes, and adds nothing to our understanding of the differences between the two.

A pure man to the Ebionites

I. A laudable regard for the honor of the first proselyte has countenanced the belief, the hope, the wish, that the Ebionites, or at least the Nazarenes, were distinguished only by their obstinate perseverance in the practice of the Mosaic rites. Their churches have disappeared, their books are obliterated: their obscure freedom might allow a latitude of faith, and the softness of their infant creed would be variously moulded by the zeal or prudence of three hundred years. Yet the most charitable criticism must refuse these sectaries any knowledge of the pure and proper divinity of Christ. Educated in the school of Jewish prophecy and prejudice, they had never been taught to elevate their hopes above a human and temporal Messiah.
(2) If they had courage to hail their king when he appeared in a plebeian garb, their grosser apprehensions were incapable of discerning their God, who had studiously disguised his celestial character under the name and person of a mortal.
(3) The familiar companions of Jesus of Nazareth conversed with their friend and countryman, who, in all the actions of rational and animal life, appeared of the same species with themselves. His progress from infancy to youth and manhood was marked by a regular increase in stature and wisdom; and after a painful agony of mind and body, he expired on the cross. He lived and died for the service of mankind: but the life and death of Socrates had likewise been devoted to the cause of religion and justice; and although the stoic or the hero may disdain the humble virtues of Jesus, the tears which he shed over his friend and country may be esteemed the purest evidence of his humanity. The miracles of the gospel could not astonish a people who held with intrepid faith the more splendid prodigies of the Mosaic law. The prophets of ancient days had cured diseases, raised the dead, divided the sea, stopped the sun, and ascended to heaven in a fiery chariot. And the metaphorical style of the Hebrews might ascribe to a saint and martyr the adoptive title of SON OF GOD.

His birth and elevation
Yet in the insufficient creed of the Nazarenes and the Ebionites, a distinction is faintly noticed between the heretics, who confounded the generation of Christ in the common order of nature, and the less guilty schismatics, who revered the virginity of his mother, and excluded the aid of an earthly father. The incredulity of the former was countenanced by the visible circumstances of his birth, the legal marriage of the reputed parents, Joseph and Mary, and his lineal claim to the kingdom of David and the inheritance of Judah. But the secret and authentic history has been recorded in several copies of the Gospel according to St. Matthew,
(4) which these sectaries long preserved in the original Hebrew,
(5) as the sole evidence of their faith. The natural suspicions of the husband, conscious of his own chastity, were dispelled by the assurance (in a dream) that his wife was pregnant of the Holy Ghost: and as this distant and domestic prodigy could not fall under the personal observation of the historian, he must have listened to the same voice which dictated to Isaiah the future conception of a virgin. The son of a virgin, generated by the ineffable operation of the Holy Spirit, was a creature without example or resemblance, superior in every attribute of mind and body to the children of Adam. Since the introduction of the Greek or Chaldean philosophy,
(6) the Jews
(7) were persuaded of the preexistence, transmigration, and immortality of souls; and providence was justified by a supposition, that they were confined in their earthly prisons to expiate the stains which they had contracted in a former state.
(8) But the degrees of purity and corruption are almost immeasurable. It might be fairly presumed, that the most sublime and virtuous of human spirits was infused into the offspring of Mary and the Holy Ghost;
(9) that his abasement was the result of his voluntary choice; and that the object of his mission was, to purify, not his own, but the sins of the world. On his return to his native skies, he received the immense reward of his obedience; the everlasting kingdom of the Messiah, which had been darkly foretold by the prophets, under the carnal images of peace, of conquest, and of dominion. Omnipotence could enlarge the human faculties of Christ to the extend of is celestial office. In the language of antiquity, the title of God has not been severely confined to the first parent, and his incomparable minister, his only-begotten son, might claim, without presumption, the religious, though secondary, worship of a subject of a subject world.

This adds nothing to our understanding of the differences between the two.

[ebion]

Hope of Israel Ministries (Ecclesia of YEHOVAH):

The first Christians were the Hebrew Judeans who believed that Yeshua was the Israelite Messiah. They believed in one God and taught that Yeshua was the Messiah and was the true “prophet” mentioned in Deuteronomy 18:15. They rejected the Virgin Birth of the Messiah, instead holding that he was the natural son of Joseph and Mary. They also were circumcised, observed the Sabbath and celebrated the Israelite festivals, and taught that all the precepts of the law should be observed.

The success and popularity of these new groups caused the Ebionites to be eclipsed, and Roman Christianity as we know it today flourished. This developing Church, and its founders, largely forgot and rejected the Hebrew roots of their religion. But, curious Christians later wanted to know things that they did not know, for example when was the Messiah born, and when did he die? So they went in search of their past.

“Indeed, when in 160 Bishop Melito of Sardis went to Judea to discover what had become of the legendary Jerusalem Church, to his dismay he found not the descendants of the apostles, but instead a small group of [...] Christians, who called themselves the Ebionites or 'Poor Men', [who] had their own Gospel of the Ebionites and also a Gospel of the Hebrews, a Gospel of the Twelve Apostles and a Gospel of the Nazarenes. All of these gospels differed significantly from the gospels of the New Testament” (The Jesus Mysteries by Timothy Freke & Peter Gandy (1999)) [10]

The Ebionites had a very early version of the Gospel of Matthew. There were many versions and editions of the gospels in the early years of Christianity. The Ebionites, being such an early group of Christians, had access to the earlier, less edited, version of Matthew.

“Their own version of Matthew, however, may have been a translation of the text from Aramaic. Jesus himself spoke Aramaic in Palestine, as did his earliest followers. It would make sense that a group of Jewish followers of Jesus that originated in Palestine would continue to cite his words, and stories about him, in his native tongue. It appears likely that this Aramaic Matthew was somewhat different from the Matthew now in the canon. In particular, the Matthew used by Ebionite Christians would have lacked the first two chapters, which narrate Jesus' birth to a virgin -- a notion that the Ebionite Christians rejected. There were doubtless other differences ...

Later editors "mistranslated" Isaiah 7:14 in the Septuagint and handily turned the prophecy that a young woman would have a child, to a prophecy that a virgin would have a child. This was used heavily in the debate against the Ebionites and other adoptionists by later Christians.

Matthew, in chapter 1, verses 22 and 23, explains that the event which is to take place is the fulfillment of a prophecy in Isaiah (7:14) regarding a "virgin" who would bring forth a son. This explanation is based upon a MISTRANSLATION. Matthew (or rather the author of the first two books of Matthew) is quoting from the Septuagint, the Greek version of the Old Testament. In the original Hebrew the word "almah" is used, and this word means only a "young woman." In the Greek text the word "parthenos" (virgin) is used, but probably only in its metaphorical sense.

The original prophecy merely foretold that SOME young woman would give birth to a son from whom great things might be expected. The Hebrew word for "virgin" is frequently used in the Old Testament and would, presumably, have been used in this passage of Isaiah if a virgin had really been meant! But the word for "young woman" having actually been used, the misleading translation in the Septuagint cannot give the "prophecy" a new meaning.

Authors such as Tertullian, Origen of Alexandria, and many other intolerant "heresy-hunters" wrote at great length against the Ebionites. Many of the claims made against them were based on misunderstandings of their beliefs, and many anti-Ebionite claims were plainly ridiculous. Roman Christians eradicated the Ebionites, burning all of their books (none survived) and harassing and arresting the people until none were left.

... These edits, when they were uncovered, have shown that the Ebionites were treated very cruelly and unfairly, and that the original readings of Matthew and Luke both support Ebionite Christianity, rather than the Roman Christianity that the West has inherited.

If we were to guess which group was the more austere, holy and godly, we would have to guess it was the Ebionites rather than the Roman Christians who slaughtered, slandered and oppressed them. Unfortunately the victors get to write history, and it is Roman "Christianity" that became the legacy of the Roman Empire. After the fourth century, the Ebionites were vanquished.

They were defeated, but not destroyed!

PS: Caveat - Quoting a quote from The Jesus Mysteries by Timothy Freke & Peter Gandy is not an endorsement of the book. We don't endorse it, but are interested in anything by Melito of Sardis, and would like to know if the quote can be confirmed, and it's novel. Or if it's possibly just an invention of Freke and Gandy.

[ebion]

The Ebionites were Torah/Law Observant But NOT Torah Observant in the Ritualistic Manner of the Jews.

On the central theme of the alleged beliefs ascribed to the Ebionites, the early church writer Hippolytus tells us:

“They live conformably to the customs of the Jews, alleging that they are justified according to the law, and saying that Jesus was justified by fulfilling the law. And therefore it was, (according to the Ebionaeans,) that (the Savior) was named (the) Christ of God and Jesus, since not one of the rest (of mankind) had observed completely the law. For if even any other had fulfilled the commandments (contained) in the law, he would have been that Christ. And the (Ebionaeans allege) that they themselves also, when in like manner they fulfill (the law), are able to become Christs; for they assert that our Lord Himself was a man in a like sense with all the rest of the human family” (Hippolytus; The Refutation of All Heresies, Bk 7, Ch 22, Doctrine of the Ebionaeans).

The Ebionites were the believers and disciples of Yeshua who were originally Essenes, and came to be called "the poor ones" (Ebionites) with the advent of Yeshua and the charge to be in the world and not of it. Gibbon writes that the family of Yeshua were Ebionites. The Nazoreans were the Pharisee converts to the teachings of Yeshua, and they embraced a more literal and ritualistic interpretation of the Law (Torah). Like the Essenes, the Ebionites were Jewish Mystics and Gnostics (experiential spiritual knowledge) who interpreted the Law as a Living Threefold Revelation. They used only the most ancient and original of the Gospels written in Hebrew Characters, and interpreted it allegorically as seen in the words of St. Jerome [written to the Bishops Chromatius and Heliodorus]: "A difficult work is enjoined, since this translation has been commanded me by your Felicities, which St. Matthew himself, the Apostle and Evangelist, did not wish to be openly written. For if it had not been Secret, he would have added to the evangel that which he gave forth was his; but he made up this book sealed up in the Hebrew characters, which he put forth even in such a way that the book, written in Hebrew letters and by the hand of himself, might be possessed by the men most religious, who also, in the course of time, received it from those who preceded them. But this very book they never gave to any one to be transcribed, and its text they related some one way and some another".

This Secret more Spiritual version of the Book of Matthew was referred to by Gibbon where he wrote: "But the secret and authentic history has been recorded in several copies of the Gospel according to St. Matthew, which these sectaries long preserved in the original Hebrew, as the sole evidence of their faith." Additional information regarding the original Hebrew Gospel of Matthew is provided by Jerome in his work, O Illustrious Men, on James the Lord's brother:

"Further, the Hebrew itself (or original) is preserved to this day in the library at Caesarea which was collected with such care by the martyr Pamphilus. I also had an opportunity of copying it afforded me by the Nazarenes who use the book, at Beroea, a city of Syria".

Of the Hebrew original of Matthew, Gibbon writes: "the fact is attested by a chain of fathers - Papias, Irenaeus, Origen, Jerome, etc… But this Hebrew Gospel of St. Matthew is most unaccountably lost; and we may accuse the diligence or fidelity of the primitive churches, who have preferred the unauthorized version of some nameless Greek".

Gibbon rightfully calls our copy of Matthew the "unauthorized version of some nameless Greek", because the only true Gospel attributed to Matthew is the original Hebrew version which was never given to the Gentile Church, and we no longer possess today.

The Sacred Knowledge entrusted to the Ebionite followers of Yeshua was kept so secret, that even Epiphanius, writing as early as the end of the fourth century, confesses his ignorance as to their real doctrine and writes that "they neither call themselves Iessaens, nor continue to hold the name of the Jews, nor name themselves Christians, but Nazarenes ... The resurrection of the dead is confessed by them ... concerning Christ, I cannot say whether they think him a mere man, or as the truth is, confess that he was born through the Holy Pneuma from the Virgin."

[ebion]

Kok tried to make the following points in the chapter:

The Patristic writers depict the “Ebionites” (i.e. “poor ones”) and Nazoraeans as distinct sects, but I think that the reality is that these titles were probably used by a diverse variety of Jewish followers. The “poor” could have been a popular self-designation given the important theme of eschatological reversal for the poor and marginalized in the Jesus tradition, while non-Greek and non-Latin speaking followers of Jesus (including Jewish ones) who did not take on the title “Christian” could have been known as Nazoraeans.

Many of the Patristic reports from the second to the fourth century state that the Ebionites believed that Jesus was a human who had been exalted by God to his messianic status, though there was debate over whether he was the biological son of Joseph or was born of a virgin that I think may have been due to different Jewish Christ followers privileging either the Gospel of Mark or the Gospel of Matthew. The fourth-century bishop Epiphanius had a range of Jewish sources with a range of views about Jesus from presenting him as a prophet like Moses to an angel, but his mistake was assuming that a single group of Ebionites held all of these diverse Christologies.

Paul was likely widely regarded as an apostate who abandoned the Law, for the Patristic reports on the “Ebionites” are fairly consistent on this point. Epiphanius even found a source that invents a story about how Paul was not Jewish and that his failure to marry the Jerusalem high priest’s daughter lead him to reject the Jewish Law.

Jerome had contact with Jesus followers known as Nazoraeans in the fourth century, though he was misled by Epiphanius’s depiction of them as a sect that emerged after the Jewish Christ followers escaped to Pella in the aftermath of the Jewish War against Rome. A commentary on Isaiah was written by one of them and the author both polemicized against Rabbinic Judaism and accepted Paul’s mission to the nations.

To conclude on the reception of Paul among Jesus Christ-followers in the Patristic era, he could be regarded as either an apostate from the Law or a Jewish apostle to the nations.

... I tried to make the following points in the chapter:

The Patristic writers depict the “Ebionites” (i.e. “poor ones”) and Nazoraeans as distinct sects, but I think that the reality is that these titles were probably used by a diverse variety of Jewish followers. The “poor” could have been a popular self-designation given the important theme of eschatological reversal for the poor and marginalized in the Jesus tradition, while non-Greek and non-Latin speaking followers of Jesus (including Jewish ones) who did not take on the title “Christian” could have been known as Nazoraeans.

Many of the Patristic reports from the second to the fourth century state that the Ebionites believed that Jesus was a human who had been exalted by God to his messianic status, though there was debate over whether he was the biological son of Joseph or was born of a virgin that I think may have been due to different Jewish Christ followers privileging either the Gospel of Mark or the Gospel of Matthew. The fourth-century bishop Epiphanius had a range of Jewish sources with a range of views about Jesus from presenting him as a prophet like Moses to an angel, but his mistake was assuming that a single group of Ebionites held all of these diverse Christologies.

Paul was likely widely regarded as an apostate who abandoned the Law, for the Patristic reports on the “Ebionites” are fairly consistent on this point. Epiphanius even found a source that invents a story about how Paul was not Jewish and that his failure to marry the Jerusalem high priest’s daughter lead him to reject the Jewish Law.

Jerome had contact with Jesus followers known as Nazoraeans in the fourth century, though he was misled by Epiphanius’s depiction of them as a sect that emerged after the Jewish Christ followers escaped to Pella in the aftermath of the Jewish War against Rome. A commentary on Isaiah was written by one of them and the author both polemicized against Rabbinic Judaism and accepted Paul’s mission to the nations.

To conclude on the reception of Paul among Jesus Christ-followers in the Patristic era, he could be regarded as either an apostate from the Law or a Jewish apostle to the nations.

[GakuseiDon]

“Indeed, when in 160 Bishop Melito of Sardis went to Judea to discover what had become of the legendary Jerusalem Church, to his dismay he found not the descendants of the apostles, but instead a small group of [...] Christians, who called themselves the Ebionites or 'Poor Men', [who] had their own Gospel of the Ebionites and also a Gospel of the Hebrews, a Gospel of the Twelve Apostles and a Gospel of the Nazarenes. All of these gospels differed significantly from the gospels of the New Testament” (The Jesus Mysteries by Timothy Freke & Peter Gandy (1999)) [10]

Not to mince words, but I distrust anything that Freke and Gandy claimed in "The Jesus Mysteries". If Melito of Sardis wrote that, I can't find it. The passage in "The Jesus Mysteries" is on page 197, which I've reproduced in full below including the references they provide:

Indeed, when in 160 Bishop Melito of Sardis went to Judea to discover what had become of the legendary Jerusalem Church, to his dismay he found not the descendants of the apostles, but instead a small group of Gnostics! (2) These Christians, who called themselves the Ebionites or ‘Poor Men’, had their own Gospel of the Ebionites and also a Gospel of the Hebrews,(3) a Gospel of the Twelve Apostles and a Gospel of the Nazarenes.(4) All of these gospels differed significantly from the gospels of the New Testament.(5) This form of Jewish-Christian Gnosticism managed to survive for many hundreds of years.(6)
----
(2) Lüdemann, G. (1995), 31. Apparently this group of apostates was all that was left of the Jerusalem Church that God had so carefully preserved from destruction in 70 CE. Irenaeus leaves us in no doubt that the Ebionites were Gnostics, see Lüdemann, 247, note 111.Epiphanius tells us that the Ebionites were vegetarians, see Barnstone, W. (1984), 203, a practice almost universally associated with Pythagoreanism
in the ancient world.
(3) Barnstone, op. cit., 333
(4) Mead, G.R.S. (1906), 129
(5) It should be remembered that these Nazarenes knew nothing of the Nazareth legend, which was subsequently developed by the ’in order that it might be fulfilled’ school of historicizers, see ibid., 128-9.
(6) Ibid., 126. The Nazarenes were still found scattered throughout Syriaand the Decapolis in the late fourth century.

Ebion, I suggest you should verify their statement about Melito of Sardis if you want to use it. I haven't looked into the Lüdemann reference yet, but will have a look over the weekend.