[Footnote 5: Julius Africanus in Eusebius, H.E., i. 7; Eus., De situ et nom. loc. hebr., at the word [Greek: Chôba]; Orig., Contra Celsus, ii. 1, v. 61; Epiph., Adv. Hær., xxix. 7, 9, xxx. 2, 18.]
[Footnote 6: See especially Origen, Contra Celsus, ii. 1; De Principiis, iv. 22. Compare Epiph., Adv. Hær., xxx. 17. Irenæus, Origen, Eusebius, and the apostolic Constitutions, ignore the existence of such a personage. The author of the Philosophumena seems to hesitate (vii. 34 and 35, x. 22 and 23.) It is by Tertullian, and especially by Epiphanes, that the fable of one Ebion has been spread. Besides, all the Fathers are agreed on the etymology, [Greek: Ebiôn] = [Greek: ptôchos].]
We may see, in fact, without difficulty, that this exaggerated taste for poverty could not be very lasting. It was one of those Utopian elements which always mingle in the origin of great movements, and which time rectifies. Thrown into the centre of human society, Christianity very easily consented to receive rich men into her bosom, just as Buddhism, exclusively monkish in its origin, soon began, as conversions multiplied, to admit the laity. But the mark of origin is ever preserved. Although it quickly passed away and became forgotten, Ebionism left a leaven in the whole history of Christian institutions which has not been lost. The collection of the Logia, or discourses of Jesus, was formed in the Ebionitish centre of Batanea.[1] "Poverty" remained an ideal from which the true followers of Jesus were never after separated. To possess nothing was the truly evangelical state; mendicancy became a virtue, a holy condition. The great Umbrian movement of the thirteenth century, which, among all the attempts at religious construction, most resembles the Galilean movement, took place entirely in the name of poverty. Francis d'Assisi, the man who, more than any other, by his exquisite goodness, by his delicate, pure, and tender intercourse with universal life, most resembled Jesus, was a poor man. The mendicant orders, the innumerable communistic sects of the middle ages (Pauvres de Lyon, Bégards, Bons-Hommes, Fratricelles, Humiliés, Pauvres évangéliques, &c.) grouped under the banner of the "Everlasting Gospel," pretended to be, and in fact were, the true disciples of Jesus. But even in this case the most impracticable dreams of the new religion were fruitful in results. Pious mendicity, so impatiently borne by our industrial and well-organized communities, was in its day, and in a suitable climate, full of charm. It offered to a multitude of mild and contemplative souls the only condition suited to them. To have made poverty an object of love and desire, to have raised the beggar to the altar, and to have sanctified the coat of the poor man, was a master-stroke which political economy may not appreciate, but in the presence of which the true moralist cannot remain indifferent. Humanity, in order to bear its burdens, needs to believe that it is not paid entirely by wages. The greatest service which can be rendered to it is to repeat often that it lives not by bread alone.
[Footnote 1: Epiph., Adv. Hær., xix., xxix., and xxx., especially xxix. 9.]
Like all great men, Jesus loved the people, and felt himself at home with them. The Gospel, in his idea, is made for the poor; it is to them he brings the glad tidings of salvation.[1] All the despised ones of orthodox Judaism were his favorites. Love of the people, and pity for its weakness (the sentiment of the democratic chief, who feels the spirit of the multitude live in him, and recognize him as its natural interpreter), shine forth at each moment in his acts and discourses.[2]
[Footnote 1: Matt. xi. 5; Luke vi. 20, 21.]
[Footnote 2: Matt. ix. 36; Mark vi. 34.]
The chosen flock presented, in fact, a very mixed character, and one likely to astonish rigorous moralists. It counted in its fold men with whom a Jew, respecting himself, would not have associated.[1] Perhaps Jesus found in this society, unrestrained by ordinary rules, more mind and heart than in a pedantic and formal middle-class, proud of its apparent morality. The Pharisees, exaggerating the Mosaic prescriptions, had come to believe themselves defiled by contact with men less strict than themselves; in their meals they almost rivalled the puerile distinctions of caste in India. Despising these miserable aberrations of the religious sentiment, Jesus loved to eat with those who suffered from them;[2] by his side at table were seen persons said to lead wicked lives, perhaps only so called because they did not share the follies of the false devotees. The Pharisees and the doctors protested against the scandal. "See," said they, "with what men he eats!" Jesus returned subtle answers, which exasperated the hypocrites: "They that be whole need not a physician."[3] Or again: "What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost until he find it? And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders rejoicing."[4] Or again: "The Son of Man is come to save that which was lost."[5] Or again: "I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners."[6] Lastly, that delightful parable of the prodigal son, in which he who is fallen is represented as having a kind of privilege of love above him who has always been righteous. Weak or guilty women, surprised at so much that was charming, and realizing, for the first time, the attractions of contact with virtue, approached him freely. People were astonished that he did not repulse them. "Now when the Pharisee which had bidden him saw it, he spake within himself, saying, This man, if he were a prophet, would have known who and what manner of woman this is that toucheth him: for she is a sinner." Jesus replied by the parable of a creditor who forgives his debtors' unequal debts, and he did not hesitate to prefer the lot of him to whom was remitted the greater debt.[7] He appreciated conditions of soul only in proportion to the love mingled therein. Women, with tearful hearts, and disposed through their sins to feelings of humility, were nearer to his kingdom than ordinary natures, who often have little merit in not having fallen. We may conceive, on the other hand, that these tender souls, finding in their conversion to the sect an easy means of restoration, would passionately attach themselves to him.
[Footnote 1: Matt. ix. 10, and following; Luke xv. entirely.]
[Footnote 2: Matt. ix. 11; Mark ii. 16; Luke v. 30.]