§ 28.1. Nazareans and Ebionites.—Tertullian and with him most of the later Church Fathers derive the name Ebionite from Ebion, a founder of the sect. Since the time of Gieseler, however, the name has generally been referred to the Hebrew word אֶבְיוֹן meaning poor, in allusion partly to the actual poverty of the church of Jerusalem (Gal. ii. 10), partly to the association of the terms poor and pious in the Psalms and Prophets (comp. Matt. v. 3). Minucius Felix, c. xxxvi. testifies that the Gentile Christians were also so designated by those without: Ceterum quod plerique “Pauperes” dicimur, non est infamia nostra, sed gloria. Recently, however, Hilgenfeld has recurred to the patristic derivation of the name.—In Irenæus the name Ebionæi makes its first appearance in literature, and that as a designation of Jewish Christians as heretics who admitted only a Gospel according to Matthew, probably the so-called Gospel according to the Hebrews (§ [32, 4]), branded the Apostle Paul as an apostate, insisted upon the strict observance of the Jewish law, and taught on Christological questions “consimiliter ut Cerinthus et Carpocrates” (§ [27, 1], [8]), while they denied that Christ was born of a virgin, and regarded Him as a mere man. Origen († A.D. 243) embraced all Jewish Christians under the name Ἐβιωναῖοι but did not deny the existence of two very different parties among them (διττοὶ and ἀμφότεροι Ἐβιωναῖοι). Eusebius does the same. Jerome again is the first to distinguish the more moderate party by the name Nazareans (Acts xxiv. 5) from the more extreme who are designated Ebionites. This too is the practice of Augustine and Theodoret. The former party acknowledged the virgin birth of Christ and so His divine origin, assigned to Paul his place as Apostle to the Gentiles, and made no demand of Gentile Christians that they should observe the ceremonial law of Moses, although they believed that they themselves were bound thereby. The latter again regarded it as absolutely necessary to salvation, and also held that Christ was the Messiah, but only a man, son of Joseph by Mary, endowed with divine powers in His baptism. His Messianic work, according to them, consisted in His fulfilling by His teaching the Mosaic law. His death was an offence to them, but they took comfort from the promise of His coming again, when they looked for the setting up of an earthly Messianic kingdom. Paul was depreciated by them and made of little account. Ebionites of both parties continued to exist in small numbers down to the fifth century, especially in Palestine and Syria. Both however had sunk by the middle of the second century into almost utter insignificance.The scanty remains of writings issuing from the party prove that especially the non-heretical Jewish Christianity before the close of this century had in great part abandoned its national Jewish character, and therewith its separate position as a religious sect, and by adopting the views of the Pauline Gentile Christianity (§ [30, 2]) became gradually amalgamated with it.[46]
§ 28.2. The Elkesaites.—Independent accounts of this sect in substantial agreement with one another are given by Hippolytus in his Elenchus, by Origen as quoted in Eusebius, and by Epiphanius. Their designation has also led the Church Fathers to assume a sect founder of the name of Elxai or Elchasai, who is said to have lived in the time of Hadrian. The members of the sect themselves derived their name from חֵיל כְּסָי, δύναμις κεκαλυμμένη, the hidden power of God operating in them, that is, the Holy Spirit, the δύναμις ἄσαρκος of the Clementine Homilies. Probably it was the title of a book setting forth their esoteric doctrine, which circulated only among those bound under oath to secrecy. Origen says that the book was supposed to have fallen down from heaven; Hippolytus says that it was held to have been revealed by an angel who was the Son of God himself. Elxai obtained it from the Serians in Parthia and communicated it to the Sobiai, probably from שֹׁבְעַ; then the Syrian Alcibiades brought it from Apamea to Rome in the third century. The doctrinal system of the Elkesaites was very variable, and is represented by the Church Fathers referred to as a confused mixture of Christian elements with the legalism of Judaism, the asceticism of Essenism, and the naturalism of paganism, and exhibiting a special predilection for astrological and magical fancies. The law was regarded as binding, especially the precepts concerning the Sabbath and circumcision, but the sacrificial worship was abandoned, and the portions of the Old Testament referring to it as well as other parts. Their doctrine of baptism varied from that of baptism once administered to that of a baptism by oft repeated washings on days especially indicated by astrological signs. Baptism was for the forgiveness of sins and also for the magical cure of the sick. It was administered in the name of the Father and the Son, and in addition there were seven witnesses called, the five elements, together with oil and salt, the latter as representative of the Lord’s Supper, which was celebrated with salt and bread without wine. Eating of flesh was forbidden, but marriage was allowed and highly esteemed. Their Christology presented the appearance of unsettled fermentation. On the one hand Christ was regarded as an angel, and indeed as the μέγας βασιλεύς, of gigantic size, 96 miles high, and 24 miles broad; but on the other hand, they taught also a repeated incarnation of Christ as the Son of God, the final One being the Christ born of the virgin. He represents the male principle, and by his side, as the female principle, stands the Holy Spirit. Denial of Christ in times of persecution seemed to them quite allowable. At the time of Epiphanius,—who identifies them with the Sampseans, whose name was derived from שֶׁמֶשׁ the sun, because in prayer they turned to the sun, called also Ἡλιακοί,—they had for the most part their residence round about the Dead Sea, where they got mixed up with the Essenes of that region.—More recently the Elkesaites have been brought into connection with the still extant sect of the Sabeans or Mandeans (§ [25, 1]).These Sabeans, from צבע meaning טבע, βαπτίζειν, are designated by the mediæval Arabic writers Mogtasilah, those who wash themselves, and Elchasaich is named as their founder, and as teaching the existence of two principles a male and a female.[47]
§ 28.3. The Pseudo-Clementine Series of Writings forms a literature of a romantic historico-didactic description which originated between A.D. 160 and 170.
- The so-called Homiliæ XX Clementis[48] were prefaced by two letters to the Apostle James at Jerusalem. The first of these is from Peter enjoining secrecy in regard to the “Kerugma” sent therewith. The second is from Clement of Rome after the death of Peter, telling how he as the founder and first bishop of the church of Rome had ordained Clement as his successor, and had charged him to draw up those accounts of his own career and of the addresses and disputations of Peter which he had heard while the Apostle pursued and contended with Simon Magus, and to send them to James as head of the church, “bishop of bishops, who ruled the church of Jerusalem and all the churches,” that they might be certified by him. The historical framework of the book represents a distinguished Roman of philosophical culture and of noble birth, named Clement, as receiving his first acquaintance with Christianity at Rome, and then as going forth on his travels to Judea as an eager seeker after the truth. At Alexandria (§ [16, 4]) Barnabas convinces him of the truth of Christianity, and Clement follows him to Cæsarea where he listens to a great debate between Peter and Simon Magus (§ [25, 2]). Simon defeated betakes himself to flight, but Peter follows him, accompanied by Clement and two who had been disciples of the magician, Niceta and Aquila. Though he goes after him from place to place, Peter does not get hold of Simon, but founds churches all along his route. On the way Clement tells him how long before his mother, Mattidia, and his two brothers had gone on a journey to Athens, and how his father, Faustus, had gone in search of them, and no trace of any of them had ever been found. Soon thereafter the mother is met with, and then it is discovered that Niceta and Aquila are the lost brothers Faustinus and Faustinianus. At the baptism of the mother the father also is restored. Finally at Laodicea Peter and Simon engage a second time in a four-days’ disputation which ends as the first. The story concludes with Peter’s arrival at Antioch.
- The ten books of the so-called Recognitiones Clementis,[49] present us again with the Clement of the historical romance, the historical here overshadowing the didactic, and a closer connection with church doctrine being here maintained. Critical examinations of the relations between the two sets of writings have more and more established the view that an older Jewish-Christian Gnostic work lay at the basis of both. This original document seems to have been used contemporaneously, but in a perfectly independent manner in the composition of both; the Homilies using the materials in an anti-Marcionite interest (§ [27, 11]), the Recognitions using them in such a way as to give as little offence as possible to their Catholic readers. Still it is questionable whether this original document, which probably bore the title of Κηρύγματα Πέτρου, embraced in its earliest form the domestic romance of Clement, or only treated of the disputation of Peter with Simon at Cæsarea, and was first enlarged by addition of the Ἀναγνωρισμοί Κλήμεντος giving the story of Peter’s travels (Περίοδοι).
- Finally, extracts from the Homilies, worthless and of no independent significance, are extant in the form of two Greek Epitomæ (ed. Dressel, Lps., 1859). Equally unimportant is the Syrian Epitome, edited by Lagarde, Lps., 1861, a compilation from the Recognitions and the Homilies. All the three writers of the Epitomes had an interest only in the romantic narrative.
§ 28.4. The Pseudo-Clementine Doctrinal System is represented in the most complete and most original manner in the Homilies. In the conversations, addresses, and debates there reported the author develops his own religious views, and by putting them in the mouth of the Apostle Peter seeks to get them recognised as genuine unadulterated primitive Christianity, while all the doctrines of Catholic Paulinism which he objects to, as well as those of heretical Gnosticism and especially of Marcionism, are put into the mouth of Simon Magus, the primitive heretic; and then an attempt is made at a certain reconciliation and combination of all these views, the evil being indeed contended against, but an element of truth being recognised in them all. He directs his Polemics against the polytheism of vulgar paganism, the allegorical interpretation by philosophers of pagan myths, the doctrine of the creation of the world out of nothing and the sacrificial worship of Judaism, against the hypostatic Trinity of Catholicism, the chiliasm of the Ebionites, the pagan naturalistic element in Elkesaism, the dualism, the doctrine of the Demiurge, the Docetism and Antinomianism of the Gentile Christian Gnostics. He attempts in his Ironies to point out the Ebionitic identity of genuine Christianity with genuine Judaism, emphasizes the Essenic-Elkesaitic demand to abstain from eating flesh, to observe frequent fasts, divers washings and voluntary poverty (through a recommendation of early marriages), as well as the Catholic doctrine of the necessity of baptism for the forgiveness of sins, and justifies the Gnostic tendency of his times by setting up a system of doctrine of which the central idea is the connection of Stoical Pantheism with Jewish Theism, and is itself thoroughly dualistic: God the eternal pure Being was originally a unity of πνεῦμα and σῶμα, and his life consisted in extension and contraction, ἔκτασις and συστολή, the symbol of which the human heart was a later copy. The result of such an ἔκτασις was the separation of πνεῦμα and σῶμα, wherewith a beginning of the development of the world was made. The πνεῦμα is thus represented as Υἱός, also called Σοφία or Ἄρχων τοῦ αἰῶνος τοῦ μέλλοντος; the Σῶμα is represented as Οὐσία or Ὕλη which four times parts asunder in twofold opposition of the elements. Satan springs from the mixing of these elements, and is the universal soul of the Ἄρχων τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτου. The Σῶμα has thereby become ἔμψυχον and ζῶον. Thus the Monas has unfolded itself into a Dyas, as the first link of a long chain of contrasted pairs or Syzygies, in the first series of which the large and male stands opposite the small and female, heaven and earth, day and night, etc. The last Syzygy of this series is Adam as the true male, and Eve as the false female prophet. In the second series that relation had come to be just reversed, Cain and Abel, Ishmael and Isaac, etc. In the protoplasts this opposition of truth and falsehood, of good and evil, was still a physical and necessary one; but in their descendants, because both elements of their parents are mixed up in them, it becomes an ethical one, conditioning and requiring freedom of self-determination. Meanwhile Satan tempted men to error and sin; but the true prophet (ὁ ἀληθὴς προφήτης) in whom the divine Πνεῦμα dwelt as ἔμφυτον and ἀένναον, always leads them back again into the true way of Gnosis and the fulfilment of the law. In Adam, the original prophet, who had taught whole and full truth, he had at first appeared, returning again after every new obscuration and disfigurement of his doctrine under varying names and forms, but always anew proclaiming the same truth. His special manifestations were in Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and finally, in Christ. Alongside of them all, however, stand false prophets inspired by the spirit of lies, to whom even John the Baptist belongs, and in the Old Testament many of their doctrines and prophecies have slipped in along with the true prophecy. The transition from the original pantheistic to the subsequent theistic standpoint, in which God is represented as personal creator of the world, lawgiver, and governor, seems to have been introduced by means of the primitive partition of the divine being into Πνεῦμα and Σῶμα. In vain, however, do we seek an explanation of the contradiction that, on the one hand, the end of the development of the world is represented as the separation of the evil from the good for the eternal punishment of the former, but on the other hand, as a return, through the purification of the one and the destruction of the other, of all into the divine being, the ἀνάπαυσις. Equally irreconcilable is the assertion of the unconditional necessity of Christian baptism with the assertion of the equality of all stages of revelation.
§ 29. Manichæism.
Manichæism makes its appearance in Persia about the middle of the third century, independently of the Gentile-Christian Gnosticism of the Roman empire, which was more or less under the influence of the Greek philosophy of the second century, but bearing undoubted connection with Mandæism (§ [25, 1]), and Elkesaism (§ [28, 2]). In principle and tendency, it was at various points, as e.g. in its theory of emanation, its doceticism, etc., connected with Gnosticism, but was distinguished therefrom pre-eminently by using Christian soteriological ideas and modes of thought as a mere varnish for oriental pagan or Babylonian-Chaldaic theosophy, putting this in place of Platonic or Stoical notions which are quite foreign to it, basing the system on Persian dualism and impregnating it with elements from Buddhist ethics. Another point in which it is distinguished from Gnosticism is that it does not present itself as an esoteric form of religion meant only for the few specially gifted spirits, but distinctly endeavours to build up a community of its own with a regularly articulated constitution and a well organized ritual.
§ 29.1. The Founder.—What the Greek and Latin Fathers (Titus of Bostra, Epiphanius, Augustine, etc.) say about the person and history of the founder of this sect is derived mainly from an account of a disputation which a bishop Archelaus of Cascar in Mesopotamia is said to have held with Manes or Manichæus. This document is written in Syriac and dates about A.D. 320, but it is simply a polemical work under the guise of a debate between men with historical names. These “Acts” have come down to us in a very corrupt Latin version, and contain, especially in their historical allusions, much that is incredible and legendary, while in their representation of the doctrine of Manes they are much more deserving of confidence. According to them the origin of Manichæism is to be attributed to a far travelled Saracen craftsman, named Scythianus, who lived in the age of the Apostles. His disciple, Terebinthus, who subsequently in Babylon took the name Buddas, and affirmed that he had been born of a virgin, wrote at the master’s dictation four books, Mysteria, Capitula, Evangelium, Thesaurus, which after his death came into the possession of a freed slave, Cubricus or Corbicus. This man made the wisdom taught therein his own, developed it more fully, appeared in Persia as the founder of a new religion, and called himself Manes. He was even received at court, but his failure to heal a prince was used by the jealous magicians to secure his overthrow. He escaped, however, from prison, and found a safe hiding place in Arabion, an old castle in Mesopotamia. Meanwhile he had got access to the sacred writings of the Christians and borrowed much from them for the further development of his system. He now gave himself out as the Paraclete promised by Christ, and by means of letters and messengers developed a great activity in the dissemination of his views, especially among Christians. This led to the disputation of Archelaus above referred to, in which Manes suffered utter defeat. He was soon thereafter seized by order of the Persian king, flayed alive, and his stuffed skin publicly exhibited as a warning.
The reports in Persian documents of the ninth and tenth centuries though later seem much more credible, and the dates derivable from Manes’ own writings and those of his disciples quoted in Arabic documents of the tenth and eleventh centuries, are quite worthy of acceptance.[50] According to them Fatak the father of Manes, called Πατέκιος in a Greek oath formula still extant, was descended from a noble Persian family in Hamadan or Ecbatana, married a princess of the Parthian Asarcidae, not long before this, in A.D. 226, driven out by the Persian Sassanidæ, and settled down with her at Ctesiphon, the Parthian capital. Here he met with the Mogtasilah, Mandeans or Elkesaites (§ [28, 2]), then removed to Southern Chaldea, and trained his son, born in A.D. 216, with great care in this faith. But even in his twelfth year Manes received a divine revelation, which ordained him to be the founder of a new religion, and in his twenty-fourth year he was commissioned to preach this religion publicly. On his first appearance in Persia, on the coronation day of king Sapor I., in A.D. 242, he met with so little support that he found it necessary to keep away from the Persian empire for several decades, which he spent in foreign lands developing his system and successfully prosecuting missionary work. It was only about the end of Sapor’s reign († A.D. 272) that he ventured again to return. He won over to his views the king’s brother Peroz and through him found favour temporarily with Sapor, which, however, soon again turned into dislike. Sapor’s successor, Hormuz or Hormisdas I., seemed inclined to be tolerant toward him. For this very reason Bahram or Baranes I. showed himself all the more hostile, and had him crucified in A.D. 276, his body flayed, and the skin stuffed with straw thrown out at the gate of the city.
The two accounts may, according to Kessler, be brought into harmony thus. The name Scythianus was given to Fatak as coming from Parthia or Scythia. Terebinthus, a corruption of the Aramaic tarbitha, sapling, was given originally as Nomen appell. to the son of Fatak, and was afterwards misunderstood and regarded as Nomen propr. of an additional member of the family, intermediate between Fatak and Manes.In the Latin Cubricus, however, we meet with a scornful rendering of his original name, which he, on his entering independently on his work, exchanged for the name Manes.[51] The name Buddas seems to indicate some sort of connection with Buddhism. We also meet with the four Terebinthus books among the seven chief works of Manes catalogued in the Fihrist. According to a Persian document the Evangelium bore the title Ertenki Mani, was composed by Manes in a cave in Turkestan, in which he stayed for a long time during his banishment, and was adorned with beautiful illustrations, and passed for a book sent down to him direct from heaven.