History of Dogma, Volume 1

by Adolf von Harnack

Footnote 422:[ (return) ]

When Irenæus adduces as the points of distinction between the Church and the Ebionites, that besides observing the law and repudiating the Apostle Paul, the latter deny the Divinity of Christ and his birth from the Virgin, and reject the New Testament Canon (except the Gospel of Matthew), that only proves that the formation of dogma has made progress in the Church. The less was known of the Ebionites from personal observation, the more confidently they were made out to be heretics who denied the Divinity of Christ and rejected the Canon. The denial of the Divinity of Christ and the birth from the Virgin was, from the end of the second century, regarded as the Ebionite heresy par excellence, and the Ebionites themselves appeared to the Western Christians, who obtained their information solely from the East, to be a school like those of the Gnostics, founded by a scoundrel named Ebion for the purpose of dragging down the person of Jesus to the common level. It is also mentioned incidentally, that this Ebion had commanded the observance of circumcision and the Sabbath; but that is no longer the main thing (see Tertull, de carne 14, 18, 24: de virg. vel. 6: de præscr. 10. 33; Hippol, Syntagma, (Pseudo-Tertull, 11; Philastr. 37; Epiph. h. 30); Hippol, Philos. VII. 34. The latter passage contains the instructive statement that Jesus by his perfect keeping of the law became the Christ). This attitude of the Western Christians proves that they no longer knew Jewish Christian communities. Hence it is all the more strange that Hilgenfeld (Ketzergesch. p. 422 ff.) has in all earnestness endeavoured to revive the Ebion of the Western Church Fathers.

Footnote 423:[ (return) ]

See Orig. c. Cels II. 1; V. 61, 65; de princip. IV. 22; hom. in Genes. III. 15 (Opp. II. p. 65); hom. in Jerem XVII. 12 (III. p. 254); in Matth. T. XVI. 12 (III. p. 494), T. XVII. 12 (III. p. 733); cf. Opp. III. p. 895; hom in XVII. (III. p. 952). That a portion of the Ebionites recognised the birth from the Virgin was according to Origen frequently attested. That was partly reckoned to them for righteousness and partly not, because they would not admit the pre-existence of Christ. The name "Ebionites" is interpreted as a nickname given them by the Church ("beggarly" in the knowledge of scripture, and particularly of Christology).

Footnote 424:[ (return) ]

Eusebius knows no more than Origen (H. E. III. 27), unless we specially credit him with the information that the Ebionites keep along with the Sabbath also the Sunday. What he says of Symmachus, the translator of the Bible, and an Ebionite, is derived from Origen (H. E. VI. 17). The report is interesting, because it declares that Symmachus wrote against Catholic Christianity, especially against the Catholic Gospel of Matthew (about the year 200). But Symmachus is to be classed with the Gnostics, and not with the common type of Jewish Christianity (see below). We have also to thank Eusebius (H. E. III. 5. 3) for the information that the Christians of Jerusalem fled to Pella, in Peræa, before the destruction of that city. In the following period the most important settlements of the Ebionites must have been in the countries east of the Jordan, and in the heart of Syria (see Jul. Afric. in Euseb. H. E. I. 7. 14; Euseb. de loc. hebr. in Lagarde, Onomast p. 301; Epiph., h. 29. 7; h. 30. 2). This fact explains how the bishops in Jerusalem and the coast towns of Palestine came to see very little of them. There was a Jewish Christian community in Beroea with which Jerome had relations (Jerom., de Vir inl 3).

Footnote 425:[ (return) ]

Jerome correctly declares (Ep. ad. August. 122 c. 13, Opp. I. p. 746), "(Ebionitæ) credentes in Christo propter hoc solum a patribus anathematizati sunt, quod legis cæremonias Christi evangelio miscuerunt, et sic nova confessi sunt, ut vetera non omitterent."

Footnote 426:[ (return) ]

Ep. ad August. l. c.: "Quid dicam de Hebionitis, qui Christianos esse se simulant? usque hodie per totas orientis synagogas inter Judæos(!) hæresis est, que dicitur Minæorum et a Pharisæis nunc usque damnatur, quos vulgo Nazaræos nuncupant, qui credunt in Christum filium dei natum de Virgine Maria et eum dicunt esse, qui sub pontio Pilato passus est et resurrexit, in quem et nos credimus; sed dum volunt et Judæi esse et Christiani, nec Judæi sunt nec Christiani." The approximation of the Jewish Christian conception to that of the Catholics shews itself also in their exposition of Isaiah IX. 1. f. (see Jerome on the passage). But we must not forget that there were such Jewish Christians from the earliest times. It is worthy of note that the name Nazarenes, as applied to Jewish Christians, is found in the Acts of the Apostles XXIV. 5, in the Dialogue of Jason and Papiscus, and then first again in Jerome.

Footnote 427:[ (return) ]

Zahn, l. c. p. 648 ff. 668 ff. has not convinced me of the contrary, but I confess that Jerome's style of expression is not everywhere clear.

Footnote 428:[ (return) ]

Zahn, (l. c.) makes a sharp distinction between the Nazarenes, on the one side, who used the Gospel of the Hebrews, acknowledged the birth from the Virgin, and in fact the higher Christology to some extent, did not repudiate Paul, etc., and the Ebionites on the other, whom he simply identifies with the Gnostic Jewish Christians, if I am not mistaken. In opposition to this, I think I must adhere to the distinction as given above in the text and in the following: (1) Non-Gnostic, Jewish Christians (Nazarenes, Ebionites) who appeared in various shades, according to their doctrine and attitude to the Gentile Church, and whom, with the Church Fathers, we may appropriately classify as strict or tolerant (exclusive or liberal). (2) Gnostic or syncretistic Judæo-Christians who are also termed Ebionites.

Footnote 429:[ (return) ]

This Gospel no doubt greatly interested the scholars of the Catholic Church from Clement of Alexandria onwards. But they have almost all contrived to evade the hard problem which it presented. It may be noted, incidentally, that the Gospel of the Hebrews, to judge from the remains preserved to us, can neither have been the model nor the translation of our Matthew, but a work independent of this, though drawing from the same sources, representing perhaps to some extent an earlier stage of the tradition. Jerome also knew very well that the Gospel of the Hebrews was not the original of the canonical Matthew, but he took care not to correct the old prejudice. Ebionitic conceptions, such as that of the female nature of the Holy Spirit, were of course least likely to convince the Church Fathers. Moreover, the common Jewish Christians hardly possessed a Church theology, because for them Christianity was something entirely different from the doctrine of a school. On the Gospel of the Hebrews, see Handmann (Texte u. Unters V. 3), Resch, Agrapha (I. c. V. 4), and Zahn, 1. c. p. 642 ff.

Footnote 430:[ (return) ]

We have as yet no history of the sacrificial system, and the views as to sacrifice in the Græco-Roman epoch, of the Jewish Nation. It is urgently needed.

Footnote 431:[ (return) ]

We may remind readers of the assumptions, that the world was created by angels, that the law was given by angels, and similar ones which are found in the theology of the Pharisees Celsus (in Orig. I. 26; V. 6) asserts generally that the Jews worshipped angels, so does the author of the Prædicatio Petri, as well as the apologist Aristides. Cf Joel, Blicke in die Religionsgesch I. Abth, a book which is certainly to be used with caution (see Theol. Lit. Ztg. 1881. Coll. 184 ff.).