I certainly had conceived that this quæstio vexata of ecclesiastical history, might be considered as set at rest, since the controversy respecting it between Bishop Horsley and Dr. Priestley; and still more, since the production of many additional loca probantia from the Fathers, by Eichhorn, Olshausen, Bertholdt and others, who have engaged in the inquiry respecting the origin of the three first gospels. If, however, the subject is still open to agitation, the principle on which it must be discussed is evident. If, as Dr. Tattershall states, the Nazarenes and Ebionites did not embrace in extent, the main body, and in time, the original societies, of Jewish believers, it is incumbent on him to find some clear traces of other or earlier Hebrew Christians, denominated by some different term, or at all events excluded from these. Until such persons are discovered, in the primitive history of the church, the Nazarenes and Ebionites must remain in undisturbed possession of their title as “The early Hebrew Christians.” Meanwhile, in direct proof of their claim to be so regarded, I submit the following considerations:
(1.) Their name is applied, in a direct definition, to the whole of the Jewish Christians. Origen says, “Those from among the Jews who received Jesus as the Christ,” were called Ebionites.[[114]]
(2.) The characteristic sentiments of this “sect,” are ascribed to the early Hebrew Christians generally. These were, the persuasion of the continued obligation of the Mosaic law, on persons of Jewish birth, and the belief that Christ was a creature, some considering him as simply human, others as pre-existent.[[115]] Origen says, “Those from among the Jews who have faith in Jesus, have not abandoned their ancient law; for they live in conformity with it, deriving even their name (according to the true interpretation of the word,) from the poverty of the law; for Ebion, among the Jews, means poor.”[[116]] Origen again says, “And when you observe the belief respecting the Saviour, held by those from among the Jews who have faith in Jesus, some supposing that he was of Mary and Joseph, and others that he was of Mary alone and the Holy Spirit, but still without the notion of his Deity, &c.”[[117]]
(3.) The characteristic Gospel of the sect (under its frequent title “Gospel according to the Hebrews”) was used by the Hebrew Christians generally. Eusebius says: “In this number, some have placed the Gospel according to the Hebrews, which is a favourite especially with the Hebrews who receive Christ.”[[118]] The gospel here given to “the Hebrews who received Christ,” is given in the following to the “Ebionites,” by the same author. “They (the Ebionites) made use only of that which is called ‘the Gospel according to the Hebrews;’ the rest they made small account of.”[[119]]
If these passages be thought sufficient to identify the Ebionites and Nazarenes with the “main body of Hebrew Christians,” perhaps the following may be held to prove their early existence; as it states that they presented the Apostle John with a motive for composing his Gospel: Epiphanius says, “When therefore the blessed John comes and finds men speculating about the human nature of Christ,—the Ebionites going astray respecting the genealogy of Christ in the flesh, deduced from Abraham, and by Luke from Adam; and when he finds the Cerinthians and Merinthians affirming his natural birth as a mere man; the Nazarenes too, and many other heresies; coming as he did, fourth, or in the rear of the Evangelists, he began, if I may say so, to recall the wanderers, and those who speculated about the human nature of Christ, and to say to them, when from his station in the rear, he beheld some declining into rugged paths, and quitting, as it were, the straight and true one, ‘whither are you tending, whither are you going, you who are treading a path rugged and obstructed, conducting, moreover, to a precipice? Return, it is not so; the God, Logos, who was begotten of the Father from the beginning, is not from Mary only.’”[[120]]
That the Nazarenes and Ebionites were truly “the early Hebrew Christians,” must be considered as a fact established by such evidence as the foregoing, till some testimony to the contrary can be produced. That they were the successors of the Judaizing Christians reproved by St. Paul is an assertion destitute of support; for the opponents who troubled the Apostle of the Gentiles were distinguished by their pertinacious attempts, as Hebrews, to force the Mosaic Law on Gentile converts; whereas, respecting the Nazarenes, Lardner observes, “Divers learned moderns are now convinced of this, and readily allow, that the Jewish believers, who were called Nazarenes, did not impose the ordinances of the law upon others, though they observed them as the descendants of Israel and Abraham.”[[121]]
The application by Epiphanius of the words “sect” and “heretics” to these believers, does not prove that he was speaking of a different class from the early Hebrew Christians; but only that this same class began, in his time, to be spoken of in a different and more disparaging way. He is the first writer, so far as I can discover, who describes them in such reproachful language. On this point Dr. Wall observes: “He styles them heretics, for no other reason that I can see, but that they, together with their Christian faith, continued the use of circumcision and of the Jewish rites; which things St. Paul never blamed in a Jewish Christian, though, in the Gentile Christian, he did: and Epiphanius with the same propriety, as far as I can perceive, might have blamed St. James, bishop of Jerusalem, and those thousands of Jewish Christians with him, concerning whom James said to Paul, ‘Thou seest, brother, how many thousands of Jews there are which believe, and they are all zealous for the law.’”[[122]]
And as to the Nazarenes and Ebionites separating from the general community of the Christian church, after the second destruction of Jerusalem by Adrian, and thus bringing upon themselves the opprobrium of heresy, the fact, stated in this form, cannot be proved. From the first, the Hebrew Christians had formed a separate body from the Gentile Christians. But their proportion to the whole body of believers seems to have been for some time too considerable to admit of their being spoken of in contemptuous language. When the Gentile portion of the Church became altogether ascendant, and especially when it furnished all the ecclesiastical writers, (one of whose chief functions it has been, in every age, to call names,) the Jewish brethren, destitute of all pretensions to philosophy, and free from that ambitious speculative spirit out of which orthodox theology arose, were naturally treated with less respect, and regarded as exceptions to that general union which had consolidated itself independently of them, and at last completely left them out. It does not appear that any further change was wrought by Adrian’s destruction of Jerusalem, than necessarily followed from his resolution to exclude, from the new colony which he founded there, all who practised Jewish rites. This imperial determination compelled the withdrawal of the Hebrew Christians to the North of Palestine; and they were replaced by a new church, whose Gentile origin and customs qualified its members (under the Emperor’s decree) for settlement on the ancient site.
II. Dr. Tattershall disparages the testimony of the witnesses cited in this cause,—Epiphanius and Jerome; and not without good reason, if there should be sufficient proof, when the whole case is before us, of his two allegations, viz.:
First, That Epiphanius contradicts himself; affirming now the completeness, and then the mutilation, of the Gospel in question.