Footnote 432:[ (return) ]
No reliance can be placed on Jewish sources, or on Jewish scholars, as a rule. What we find in Joël, l. c. I. Abth. p. 101 ff. is instructive. We may mention Grätz, Gnosticismus und Judenthum (Krotoschin, 1846), who has called attention to the Gnostic elements in the Talmud, and dealt with several Jewish Gnostics and Antignostics, as well as with the book of Jezira. Grätz assumes that the four main dogmatic points in the book Jezira, viz., the strict unity of the deity, and, at the same time, the negation of the demiurgic dualism, the creation out of nothing with the negation of matter, the systematic unity of the world and the balancing of opposites, were directed against prevailing Gnostic ideas.
Footnote 433:[ (return) ]
We may pass over the false teachers of the Pastoral Epistles, as they cannot be with certainty determined, and the possibility is not excluded that we have here to do with an arbitrary construction; see Holtzman, Pastoralbriefe, p. 150 f.
Footnote 434:[ (return) ]
Orig. in Euseb. VI. 38; Hippol., Philos. IX. 13 ff., X. 29; Epiph., h. 30, also h. 19, 53; Method, Conviv. VIII. 10. From the confused account of Epiphanius who called the common Jewish Christians Nazarenes, the Gnostic type Ebionites and Sampsæi, and their Jewish forerunners Osseni, we may conclude, that in many regions where there were Jewish Christians they yielded to the propaganda of the Elkesaite doctrines, and that in the fourth century there was no other syncretistic Jewish Christianity besides the various shades of Elkesaites.
Footnote 435:[ (return) ]
I formerly reckoned Symmachus, the translator of the Bible, among the common Jewish Christians; but the statements of Victorinus Rhetor on Gal. I. 19. II. 26 (Migne T. VIII. Col. 1155, 1162) shew that he has a close affinity with the Pseudo-Clementines, and is also to be classed with the Elkesaite Alcibiades. "Nam Jacobum apostolum Symmachiani faciunt quasi duodecimum et hunc secuntur, qui ad dominum nostrum Jesum Christum adjungunt Judaismi observationem, quamquam etiam Jesum Christum fatentur; dicunt enim eum ipsum Adam esse et esse animam generalem, et aliæ hujusmodi blasphemiæ." The account given by Eusebius, H. E. VI. 17 (probably on the authority of Origen, see also Demonstr. VII. I) is important: Των γε μεν 'ερμηνευτων αυτων δη τουτων 'ιστεον, Εβιωναιον τον Συμμαχον γεγονεναι ... και 'υπομνηματα δε του Συμμαχου εισετι νυν φερεται, 'εν οις δοκει προς το κατα Ματυαιον αποτεινομενος ευαγγελιον την δεδηλωμενην αιρεσιν κρατυνειν. Symmachus therefore adopted an aggressive attitude towards the great Church, and hence we may probably class him with Alcibiades who lived a little later. Common Jewish Christianity was no longer aggressive in the second century.
Footnote 436:[ (return) ]
Wellhausen (l. c. Part III. p. 206) supposes that Elkesai is equivalent to Alexius. That the receiver of the "book" was a historical person is manifest from Epiphanius' account of his descendants (h. 19. 2; 53. 1). From Hipp, Philosoph. IX. 16, p. 468, it is certainly probable, though not certain, that the book was produced by the unknown author as early as the time of Trajan. On the other hand, the existence of the sect itself can be proved only at the beginning of the third century, and therefore we have the possibility of an ante-dating of the "book." This seems to have been Origen's opinion.
Footnote 437:[ (return) ]
Epiph. (h. 53. 1) says of the Elkesaites: ουτε χριστιανοι 'υπαρχοντες ουτε Ιουδαιοι ουτε Ελληνες, αλλα μεσον απλως υπαρχοντες. He pronounces a similar judgment as to the Samaritan sects (Simonians), and expressly (h. 30. 1) connects the Elkesaites with them.
Footnote 438:[ (return) ]
The worship paid to the descendants of this Elkesai, spoken of by Epiphanius, does not, if we allow for exaggerations, go beyond the measure of honour which was regularly paid to the descendants of prophets and men of God in the East. Cf. the respect enjoyed by the blood relations of Jesus and Mohammed.
Footnote 439:[ (return) ]
If the "book" really originated in the time of Trajan, then its production keeps within the frame-work of common Christianity, for at that time there were appearing everywhere in Christendom revealed books which contained new instructions and communications of grace. The reader may be reminded, for example, of the Shepherd of Hermas. When the sect declared that the "book" was delivered to Elkesai by a male and a female angel, each as large as a mountain, that these angels were the Son of God and the Holy Spirit, etc., we have, apart from the fantastic colouring, nothing extraordinary.
Footnote 440:[ (return) ]
It may be assumed from Philos. X. 29, that, in the opinion of Hippolytus, the Elkesaites identified the Christ from above with the Son of God, and assumed that this Christ appeared on earth in changing and purely human forms, and will appear again (αυτον μεταγγιζομενον εν σωμασι πολλοις πολλακις, και νυν δε εν τω Ιησου, 'ομοιως ποτε μεν εκ του θεου γεγενησθαι, ποτε δε πνευμα γεγονεναι, ποτε δε εκ παρθενου, ποτε δε ου και τουτου δε μετεπειτα αει εν σωματι μεταγγιζεσθαι και εν πολλοις κατα καιρους δεικνυσθαι). As the Elkesaites (see the account by Epiphanius) traced back the incarnations of Christ to Adam, and not merely to Abraham, we may see in this view of history the attempt to transform Mosaism into the universal religion. But the Pharisitic theology had already begun with these Adam-speculations, which are always a sign that the religion in Judaism is feeling its limits too narrow. The Jews in Alexandria were also acquainted with these speculations.
Footnote 441:[ (return) ]
In the Gospel of these Jewish Christians Jesus is made to say (Epiph. h. 30. 16) ηλθον καταλυσαι τας θυσιας, και εαν μη παυσησθε του θυειν, ου παυσεται αφ' 'υμων 'η οργη. We see the essential progress of this Jewish Christianity within Judaism, in the opposition in principle to the whole sacrificial service (vid. also Epiph., h. 19. 3).