Epiphanius on the Ebionites

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Ben C. Smith
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Re: Epiphanius on the Ebionites

Post by Ben C. Smith »

John2 wrote: Wed Oct 16, 2019 6:30 pm Regarding the Ebionite Matthew being in Greek, in Pan. 30.22.4-5 Epiphanius notes something that appears to indicate that it was:
But to destroy deliberately the true passage these people have altered its text -which is evident to everyone from the expressions that accompany it- and represented ... [Jesus] supposedly saying, "Did I really desire to eat meat at this Passover with you?"

How can their tampering [of Matthew] go undetected, when the passage cries out that the "mu" and "eta" are additions?
All Epiphanius means is that the Ebionite version adds μή, a Greek word for "no" which, in questions, expects a "no" response. (If it were οὐ, the other Greek word for "no," the question would expect a "yes" response.)
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Re: Epiphanius on the Ebionites

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neilgodfrey wrote: Wed Oct 16, 2019 5:38 pm Fwiw, according to Skarsaune the source for Epiphanius's claim that the Ebionites originated after 70 CE is Eusebius.
Epiphanius seems eager not to miss any scrap of information on the Ebionites which he could glean from his heresiological predecessors, beginning with the New Testament itself. The following statements seem borrowed from the patristic sources we have studied already:

(6) Ebionites originated after the capture of Jerusalem in 70 C.E., and migrated into the Trans-Jordan area. (2.7, cf. Eusebius)
Skarsaune, Oskar, and Reidar Hvalvik, eds. 2007. Jewish Believers in Jesus: The Early Centuries. Baker Academic. pp. 450 f

and further,
Alfred Schmidtke has convincingly shown that Epiphanius's identification of the group expressing themselves in the Pseudo-Clementines with the Ebionites of Irenaeus was entirely without foundation and should be discarded.11

11 Alfred Schmidtke, Neue Fragmente und Untersuchungen zu den judenchristlichen Evangelien: Ein Beitrag zur Literatur und Geschichte der Judenchristen (TU 37.1; Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1911), 175-241.

Thanks Neil. Epiphanius uses earlier sources, of course (including writings that line up fairly well with the supposed Ebionite sources in the Clementine writings), which I think is a good thing, but he also says he knew Jewish Christians in his time. For example (though not with respect to Ebion), in Pan. 30.5.1 he says, "Josephus [a Jewish convert] told me this in conversation. For I heard all this from his own lips and not from anyone else, in his old age, when he was about 70 or even more."
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Re: Epiphanius on the Ebionites

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Ben C. Smith wrote: Wed Oct 16, 2019 6:52 pm
John2 wrote: Wed Oct 16, 2019 6:09 pmHm. Interesting (re: Ex. 23:10-22). And out of curiosity I've been wanting to check Shem Tov's Hebrew Matthew 5:3 to see what it says, but I don't have access to it right now and can't see that part on Google books, but I will check Howard's book at home later
Most manuscripts of the Shem Tov do not even have Matthew 5.3. The only one (I think) which has it has שפלי, which means "humble." Not the same word.
I'm not sure if the Ebionites spoke Hebrew or used a Hebrew Matthew though. Epiphanius says that the Nazarenes did, but isn't the long citation from the Ebionite Matthew he gives in Greek? Did Epiphanius translate all that from Hebrew, or is it an indication that the Ebionite Matthew (aka the Gospel of the Ebionites) was written in Greek or a Greek translation from Hebrew? if they spoke Greek and their gospel was in Greek, would that have any bearing on what you are saying?
The Ebionite gospel as we know it from Epiphanius is a Greek text. I do not think there is much or any evidence that a Semitic original lies behind it. A lot of people point to it having ἐγκρὶς ("cake" or "wafer") instead of ἀκρίδες ("locusts") for John the Baptist's diet; the similarity between the two words exists only in Greek; I used to subscribe fully to the view that the Ebionite gospel was depending upon and changing the synoptic gospels at this point, but lately I have been less sure of this, though it may easily still be true.
I thought that was interesting too, but without seeing what Lightfoot supposedly saw in the Jerusalem Talmud I can't be sure about anything.
That is the point. What he says he saw is apparently not there in the extant text. Others have looked; I have looked. Nathan's explanation at least accounts for why we cannot find what he says he found.
Also, if I recall correctly, Tertullian spells his name Hebion, and I wonder if that could have any bearing on any of this.
Yes, that is how Tertullian spells the name, but I am not sure what bearing it might have on the issue. I know that an initial het in Hebrew can often be rendered by a Greek alpha, but I am not sure that an initial Hebrew aleph can normally be rendered by a Greek rough breathing.

I feel like the fathers had little idea about what the Ebionites were all about, which is why they wound up talking about different "kinds" of Ebionites (those who accept certain doctrines and those who do not).


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Re: Epiphanius on the Ebionites

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John2 wrote: Wed Oct 16, 2019 4:23 pm
DCHindley wrote: Wed Oct 16, 2019 1:41 pm Not under the name "Ebionite," but since that word means "(the) poor" then you have Paul being given the instruction to "remember the poor" (τῶν πτωχῶν ἵνα μνημονεύωμεν, "tōn ptōchōn hina mnēmoneuōmen").
Then why didn't they call themselves something based on the word that Paul, James and Jesus use instead of Ebionites?

For what it's worth (maybe nothing, maybe something), according to Epiphanius (following Tertullian and Hipplolytus), they were named after their founder Ebion, who emerged from the Nazarene faction after 70 CE.
I'd think that because they were a "judiazing" sect, they spoke Hebrew or Aramaic, where "ebion" does mean "poor." That just happened to be the name that everyone called them (perhaps they were unpretentious), but not necessarily the name they called themselves. This group may have been the organization from which Jesus first became known, and thus probably Judean from the start.

If they were Greeks followers of Jesus who had decided to "Judiaze" in emulation of him, the phrase may have been their (or their enemies') attempt to capture the Hebrew or Aramaic word corresponding to the Greek "ptōchōn" of Gal. 2:10.

As for Epiphanius taking "Ebion" to be a proper name rather than a group label, scholars have made a cottage industry out of finding other places where Epiphanius had proposed that this-or-that sect had a founder names so-and-so with the sect adopting his name. Usually, IIRC, it happens when he is not able to figure out the significance of the name or label and makes stuff up to "explain" it. Epiphanius was a poor monk himself, living in or organizing communities in Egypt, Syria and Cyprus. He was probably NOT of Jewish ancestry. His knowledge of Hebrew and Aramaic was rudimentary.

Have you looked at this dissertation of our own Stephen C. Goranson? There is an extensive discussion about Ephipanius' description of Ebionites, and other "Jewish Christian" sects.

The Joseph of Tiberias Episode in Epiphanius: Studies in Jewish and Christian Relations (Duke Univ. May 4, 1990)
http://people.duke.edu/~goranson/Joseph_of_Tiberias.pdf

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Re: Epiphanius on the Ebionites

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John2 wrote: Wed Oct 16, 2019 7:05 pmThanks for the "Benformation"!
:cheers:

I did some work on the Ebionite gospel a few weeks ago and jotted down quite a few notes, but then I got distracted by other matters, and I never really landed on any firm conclusions about the text; all I did was to wind up questioning some of my previous conclusions (or sometimes assumptions) about it. Maybe soon I will get back to taking a look at it and seeing what I think of it.
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Re: Epiphanius on the Ebionites

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Ben C. Smith wrote: Wed Oct 16, 2019 7:16 pm
John2 wrote: Wed Oct 16, 2019 7:05 pmThanks for the "Benformation"!
:cheers:

I did some work on the Ebionite gospel a few weeks ago and jotted down quite a few notes, but then I got distracted by other matters, and I never really landed on any firm conclusions about the text; all I did was to wind up questioning some of my previous conclusions (or sometimes assumptions) about it. Maybe soon I will get back to taking a look at it and seeing what I think of it.

And I've fallen behind at work, so I'm going to have to sleep on what you and Neil have offered today. The only thing I'm wondering at the moment (and I don't recall or have time right now to check if Nathan mentioned it, and assuming the citation I gave upthread is correct) is what would have given Lightfoot the idea that Rabbi Abin was "a founder of sects."
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Re: Epiphanius on the Ebionites

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John2 wrote: Wed Oct 16, 2019 7:33 pmAnd I've fallen behind at work, so I'm going to have to sleep on what you and Neil have offered today. The only thing I'm wondering at the moment (and I don't recall or have time right now to check if Nathan mentioned it, and assuming the citation I gave upthread is correct) is what would have given Lightfoot the idea that Rabbi Abin was "a founder of sects."
Where does the exact phrase "founder of sects" come from? In the passage that I found, Lightfoot himself says, "We find the names of some archheretics mentioned in the Talmuds, though we cannot say they were the same men."
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Re: Epiphanius on the Ebionites

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אבין

To get back to Nathan's observation. I wonder whether Evion is a corruption of אבין. Remember Irenaeus opposes gnostics. אבין "I know." Interesting the Origen's explanation of Evion is rooted in this
Now, if the statements made to us regarding Israel, and its tribes and its fam­ilies, are calculated to impress us, when the Saviour says, I was not sent but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, we do not understand the expression as the Ebionites do, who are poor in under­standing (deriving their name from the poverty of their intellect— Ebion sig­nifying poor in Hebrew), so as to sup­pose that the Saviour came specially to the carnal Israelites; for they who are the children of the flesh are not the children of God.
It is in Epiphanius too:

https://books.google.com/books?id=RC_0a ... 22&f=false

Indeed it goes back to Ignatius corpus.
if any one says there is one God, and also confesses Christ Jesus, but thinks the Lord to be a mere man, and not the only-begotten God, and Wisdom, and the Word of God, and deems Him to consist merely of a soul and body, such an one is a serpent, that preaches deceit and error for the destruction of men. And such a man is poor in understanding, even as by name he is an Ebionite
.

My guess is that Evion is a corruption of a gnostic self-designation for the group.

Note אבין appears in Daniel chapter 12 the section of text Irenaeus says the Marcosians use to defend their self-designation as gnostics (maskilim) and the white. אבין was yet another Danielic epithet.
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Re: Epiphanius on the Ebionites

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I just started the proper explanation of the origins of the Ebionites. You're all welcome.
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Re: Epiphanius on the Ebionites

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I have no argument with any of the views hitherto expressed on any aspect of this topic and the only reason I am pasting the following is because I have easy access to it and it looks relevant and it seems a waste just to look at it here and not do anything with it given the current topic, if only for someone to find reason to argue against:
2. The Sources

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

(1) There are short notices about the Ebionites of a heresiological nature in
early Fathers like Irenaeus, Tertullian, Pseudo-Tertullian, Hippolytus, Origen,
and frequently in later Fathers, primarily Eusebius, Epiphanius, and Jerome.
Among these Origen and Eusebius stand out as apparently having more firsthand
information than the others. Epiphanius (of Salamis, Cyprus) is in a class by himself,
due to the apparent richness of his information. While the information in the
early Fathers is scanty at best, Epiphanius's chapter on the Ebionites in the Panarion
(ch. 30), contains a bewildering wealth of material, some of it rather contradictory,
as Epiphanius himself admits. As it turns out, most of Epiphanius's
information is derived from some version of the so-called Pseudo-Clementine
romance, which we now possess in the two versions of the Pseudo-Clementine
Homilies and the Recognitions. Epiphanius claims that Clement's work has been
interpolated and modified by Ebionites.

(2) If Epiphanius is right that the Pseudo-Clementines contain Ebionite material,
then these should be reckoned our main sources for Ebionite theology and
history. Hans Joachim Schoeps's work on the history and theology of Jewish
Christianity1 0 is based on this assumption, as were also the works of the Old
Tübingen school, beginning with F. C. Baur. There is no reason, however, to accept
this view. Alfred Schmidtke has convincingly shown that Epiphanius's identification
of the group expressing themselves in the Pseudo-Clementines with the
Ebionites of Irenaeus was entirely without foundation and should be discarded.11
The evidence for Jewish believers in the Pseudo-Clementines must be evaluated
on its own terms, without any a priori assumption about this evidence being
"Ebionite" in the Irenaean sense of this term.1 2

(3) Epiphanius had access to a Gospel he claimed was used by the Ebionites,
and he quotes fragments from it. If he is correct in attributing this gospel to
Ebionites, these fragments should be considered primary sources for Ebionite
theology. It is very uncertain, however, if the author or group behind this gospel
had anything to do with the group called Ebionites by Irenaeus. This can only be
ascertained by a closer examination of the gospel fragments themselves.

(4) Jerome claims that the Bible translator Symmachus was an Ebionite, and
some other Fathers speak of a sect of Jewish believers called the Symmachians.
Hans Joachim Schoeps has followed this up in an attempt to discover Ebionite
theologoumena in Symmachus's translation.1 3 This theory has received little assent
(even little notice) in later research; I believe rightly so. Nevertheless, I will
examine it briefly below.

This leaves us with the following conclusion: Irenaeus speaks about a group
of Jewish believers whose peculiar characteristic is that they claim Joseph as the
physical father of Jesus. He calls this group "followers of Ebion." In so doing,
he may have misunderstood and misapplied a common Jewish-Christian selfdesignation,
"the Poor Ones," using it only for a particular group among them.
Reports on "Ebionites" in later heresiologists may refer to the same group, either
in total dependence on Irenaeus, or based on direct and independent knowledge
of it. But later use of the term "Ebionites" may also sometimes refer to Jewish believers
in a more general sense. The Pseudo-Clementines should not be used as
sources of "Ebionite" theology in either sense of the term, until proven to be so
independently of Epiphanius's portrait of Ebionite doctrine, so as to avoid circularity
of argument. Epiphanius's portrait is itself dependent upon the Pseudo-
Clementines. The same remark applies to Epiphanius's fragments of a Jewish
Christian Gospel. I will argue below that Symmachus was not an Ebionite, and
should also be excluded as a source on Ebionitism.

3. The Term Ebionim

There is no reasonable doubt that behind the Greek term Έβιωναιοι (in a
few cases Έβιωνεΐς) stands ultimately the Hebrew term ebionim, "The Poor
Ones" or "The Needy Ones," probably mediated via Aramaic ebionaye.14 Origen
knew this meaning of the term, but gave it a (surely secondary) pejorative meaning:
those among the Jews who have believed in Jesus are called "the poor"
"because of their hanging on to the poverty of the Law. Because among the
Jews Ebion means poor and those of the Jews who accepted Jesus are named
Ebionites."15 "The Ebionites . . . [are] called by this very name 'poor ones' (for
Hebion means 'poor' in Hebrew) The Ebionites [are] poor of understanding,
so-called after their poverty of understanding (because Ebion signifies 'poor'
with the Hebrews) . . ."1 6 Epiphanius and Jerome echo Origen on this point, but
they also try to combine this etymology with another one, which we meet for the
first time in Tertullian. According to Tertullian, the Ebionites are called so because
they adhere to the teaching of Ebion. When ebionim was transformed into a
sect-name Έβιωναιοι, it also demanded, according to the standard pattern for
these names, a sect-founder. So, while Hebrew ebionim was almost certainly a
self-designation, Greek Έβιωναιοι ("followers of Ebion") was not.

What could be the origin, and what could be the original meaning of this
name? Many scholars have pointed to Gal 2:10 and Rom 15:26, and take these
passages to imply that the "Poor Ones" was already an established name for the
Jerusalem community in the days of Paul.1 7 Closer reading of these passages,
however, reveals that they warrant no such conclusion. They are not naming the
Jerusalem community in general as the "Poor Ones," but are quite simply speaking
of the poor ones, in the ordinary sense of the word, within this community.
Paul's collection of money was for the benefit of those who were poor in the Jerusalem
community of believers.18

Some scholars suggest that the term is a re-translation back into Hebrew of
the Gospel word πτωχοί, which in the words of Jesus—not least the Beatitudes—
is a very positive word, describing the true disciples. While this is certainly a factor
to be considered, I find it unlikely that the term should lack a basis in the Hebrew
Bible. A survey of the fifty-four occurrences of the term ebion(im) in the
Hebrew Bible yields the somewhat surprising result that in only a few cases in
Exodus and Deuteronomy does the word refer to poor people, in the plain and
simple sense. All the remaining cases occur in the Prophets, the Psalms and the
Wisdom books, and here the term is theologically loaded (for examples, see
below). In some instances ebionim refers to those within Israel who are suppressed
and oppressed by other Israelites—those who have their legitimate rights
taken away from them by the rich and powerful—and because of this they are
precisely those on whom the eye of the Lord rests in a special way. They are poor
because they have been faithful to the Lord, while the rich are apostates. In other
instances it is the other way round: because they are poor, all rights are taken
away from them. Accordingly they are thrown back on the Lord's support and
sustenance. Either way, their existence as poor is theologically qualified. The poor
are a not clearly delimited subgroup within Israel, whose poverty throws them
back to the way of life that ideally should be all Israel's.

Any subgroup within the Jewish people, especially if oppressed by the majority
and the people's leaders, would easily find the ebionim of the Psalms and the
Prophets to be the ideal object of identification. If we assume that ebionim was
originally a self-designation for some or most Jewish believers,1 9 this would suggest
that this name would be found in periods when the relationship with the
non-believing majority of the people, and to the powerful in particular, was especially
strained and painful. This would lead to the hypothesis that Jewish believers
began to apply the ebionim terminology about themselves in the years that followed
Judaism's intensified self-definition in the years around the turn from the
first to the second century, with the introduction of the Birkat Haminim and
other measures directed against minim. This conflict may have come to a head in
the years around the Bar Kokhba uprising.

There are, in fact, quite a few ebionim passages in the Hebrew Bible that take
on a striking actuality in the situation we have just envisaged. To quote some examples:
"He raises up the poor [dal] from the dust; he lifts the needy [ebion] from
the ash heap, to make them sit with princes and inherit a seat of honor" (1 Sam
2:8 = Ps 113:7-8). "The knaveries of the knave are evil; he devises wicked devices
to ruin the poor [anivim] with lying words, even when the plea of the needy
[ebion] is right" (Isa 32:7). "The people of the land have practised extortion and
committed robbery; they have oppressed the poor and needy [ani we-ebion], and
have extorted from the sojourner without redress" (Ezek 22:29). "For I know how
many are your transgressions, and how great are your sins—you who afflict the
righteous, who take a bribe, and turn aside the needy [ebionim] in the gate"
(Amos 5:12). "They thrust the poor [ebionim] off the road; the poor of the earth
[anive-aretz] all hide themselves" (Job 24:4). "There are those whose teeth are
swords, whose teeth are knives, to devour the poor [ 'am'ira] from off the earth,
the needy [ebionim] from among men" (Prov 30:14).

Corresponding to this, there are even more passages in which the ebionim is
that group within the people whom the Lord delivers, often at the expense of the
rich and powerful: "For thou hast been a stronghold to the poor, a stronghold to
the needy in his distress, a shelter from the storm and a shade from the h e a t . . ."
[continuing in verses 6-8 with the eschatological meal on Zion] (Isa 25:4). "Sing
to the Lord; praise the Lord! For he has delivered the life of the needy [ebion]
from the hand of evildoers" (Jer 20:13). "For the needy [ebion] shall not always be
forgotten and the hope of the poor [anivim] shall not perish for ever" (Ps 9:19).
"Because the poor ['ani'im] are despoiled, because the needy [ebionim] groan, I
will now arise," says the Lord; "I will place him in the safety for which he longs"
(Ps 12:6). "O Lord, who is like you? You deliver the weak ['αηϊ] from those too
strong for them, the weak ['ant] and needy [ebion] from those who despoil
them?" (Ps 35:10). "For the Lord hears the needy [ebionim], and does not despise
his own that are in bonds" (Ps 69:34). "For he delivers the needy [ebion] when he
calls, the poor ['ant] and him who has no helper. He has pity on the weak [dal]
and the needy [we-ebion], and saves the lives of the ebionim" (Ps 72:12-13). This
last passage is of special interest, since it occurs in the very important messianic
Ps 72, and describes how the royal savior figure saves his people. In two verses
ebion(im) occurs three times to describe the recipients of the king-Messiah's
redemptory works.

An even more specific background is pointed out by Richard Bauckham.20
Psalm 37:11, which forms the background for the third Matthean Beatitude,
promises the land to the poor rather than the rich, and this is the overall theme of
the entire psalm. In the Qumran pesher on Ps 37 the Qumran community identifies
itself with the Poor Ones of Ps 37, and calls itself edat ha-ebionim, the congregation
of the poor (4Q 171; 2:9-12; 3:10). In the Gospel of Matthew, the
community of believers in Jesus read about themselves for the first time in the
Beatitudes, and by combining the first and the third, they would read the authoritative
interpretation of Ps 37:11: The poor shall inherit the Land.

The theory proposed here rests on the basic observation that in the Hebrew
Bible ebionim is a positive, even honorific word, describing the chosen recipients
of divine salvation, because they are an unjustly persecuted sub-group within
the people. With regard to the Ebionites: a honorific term is most likely a selfgiven
name, and the situation after the Birkat Haminim would seem to fit as a
situation in which this type of self-identification would be very opportune for
many Jewish believers.
Skarsaune, Oskar, and Reidar Hvalvik, eds. 2007. Jewish Believers in Jesus: The Early Centuries. Baker Academic. pp. 423-427
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