A church dictionary

by Walter Farquhar Hook

EASTER ANTHEMS. On Easter day, instead of the Venite, certain anthems are appointed to be said or sung. At the last review the first two verses now used were prefixed, and the authorized translation adopted. In the First Book of King Edward VI., these anthems were appointed to be said or sung “afore matins, the people being assembled in the church;” and were followed by the following Versicle and Response.

Priest. Show forth to all the nations the glory of God.

Answ. And among all people his wonderful works.

With a special prayer. (See Anthem.)

EBIONITES. Heretics in the first century; so called from their leader, Ebion. The Ebionites, as well as the Nazarenes, had their origin from the circumcised Christians, who had retired from Jerusalem to Pella, during the war between the Jews and Romans, and made their first appearance after the destruction of Jerusalem, about the time of Domitian, or a little before.

Ebion, the author of the heresy of the Ebionites, was a disciple of Cerinthus, and his successor. He improved upon the errors of his master, and added to them new opinions of his own. He began his preaching in Judea: he taught in Asia, and even at Rome: his tenets infected the isle of Cyprus. St. John opposed both Cerinthus and Ebion in Asia; and it is thought that this apostle wrote his Gospel, in the year 97, particularly against this heresy.

The Ebionites held the same errors as the Nazarenes. They united the ceremonies of the law with the precepts of the gospel: they observed both the Jewish Sabbath and the Christian Sunday. They called their place of assembling a synagogue, and not a church. They bathed every day, which was the custom of the Jews. In celebrating the eucharist, they made use of unleavened bread, but no wine.

They added to the observance of the law divers superstitions. They adored Jerusalem as the house of God. Like the Samaritans, they would not suffer a person of another religion to touch them. They abstained from the flesh of animals, and even from milk: and, lest any one should object to them that passage of the Gospel, where our Lord says he desires to eat of the passover, they corrupted it. When they were sick, or bitten by a serpent, they plunged themselves into water, and invoked all sorts of things to their assistance.

They disagreed among themselves in relation to our Lord Jesus Christ. Some of them said he was born, like other men, of Joseph and Mary, and acquired sanctification only by his good works. Others of them allowed that he was born of a virgin, but denied that he was the Word of God, or had a pre-existence before his human generation. They said he was indeed the only true prophet, but yet a mere man, who, by his virtue, had arrived at being called Christ and the Son of God. They supposed that Christ and the devil were two principles, which God had opposed the one to the other.

Though the Ebionites observed the law, yet they differed from the Jews in many points. They acknowledged the sanctity of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Aaron, and Joshua; but they laughed at all those who came after them. They rejected some parts of the Pentateuch; and when they were too closely pressed by these books, they entirely abandoned them.