Gospel of the Ebionites
Encyclopedia
Epiphanius of Salamis
Epiphanius of Salamis was bishop of Salamis at the end of the 4th century. He is considered a saint and a Church Father by both the Eastern Orthodox and Catholic Churches. He gained a reputation as a strong defender of orthodoxy...
of a gospel used by the Ebionites. All that is known of the gospel text consists of seven brief quotations found in Chapter 30 of a heresiology
Heresiology
In theology or the history of religion , heresiology is the study of heresy. It can be distinguished from heresiography, or the recording of heresy....
written by Epiphanius known as the Panarion
Panarion
In early Christian heresiology, the Panarion , to which 16th-century Latin translations gave the name Adversus Haereses , is the most important of the works of Epiphanius of Salamis...
. The quotations were used as part of a polemic to point out inconsistencies in the beliefs and practices of the Ebionites relative to Nicene
Nicene Creed
The Nicene Creed is the creed or profession of faith that is most widely used in Christian liturgy. It is called Nicene because, in its original form, it was adopted in the city of Nicaea by the first ecumenical council, which met there in the year 325.The Nicene Creed has been normative to the...
orthodoxy. The seven citations are numbered GE 1 to GE 7 in Schneemelcher's New Testament Apocrypha.
The original title of the gospel is unknown. Epiphanius mistakenly identifies it as the "Hebrew" gospel, believing it to be a truncated and modified version of the Gospel of Matthew
Gospel of Matthew
The Gospel According to Matthew is one of the four canonical gospels, one of the three synoptic gospels, and the first book of the New Testament. It tells of the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth...
. The text is a gospel harmony
Gospel harmony
A Gospel harmony is an attempt to merge or harmonize the canonical gospels of the Four Evangelists into a single gospel account, the earliest known example being the Diatesseron by Tatian in the 2nd century. A gospel harmony may also establish a chronology for the events of the life of Jesus...
of the Synoptic Gospels
Synoptic Gospels
The gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke are known as the Synoptic Gospels because they include many of the same stories, often in the same sequence, and sometimes exactly the same wording. This degree of parallelism in content, narrative arrangement, language, and sentence structures can only be...
composed in Greek with various expansions and abridgments reflecting the theology of the writer. Distinctive features of the text include the absence of the virgin birth and genealogy of Jesus, an adoptionist Christology in which Jesus is chosen to be God's son at the time of his baptism, Jesus' appointed task of abolishing the Jewish sacrifices, and an advocacy of the practice of vegetarianism
Vegetarianism
Vegetarianism encompasses the practice of following plant-based diets , with or without the inclusion of dairy products or eggs, and with the exclusion of meat...
. The gospel harmony is believed to have been composed sometime during the first half of the 2nd century in or around the region East of the Jordan River. The gospel text was said to be used by "Ebionites" during the time of the early church
Early Christianity
Early Christianity is generally considered as Christianity before 325. The New Testament's Book of Acts and Epistle to the Galatians records that the first Christian community was centered in Jerusalem and its leaders included James, Peter and John....
, however the identity of the group or groups that used the text remains a matter of conjecture.
The Gospel of the Ebionites is one of the Jewish-Christian Gospels
Jewish-Christian Gospels
Jewish-Christian Gospels are non-canonical Gospels used by various Jewish Christian groups that were declared heretical by other members of the Early Church. They are mentioned by Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Eusebius, Epiphanius and Jerome...
, along with the Gospel of the Hebrews
Gospel of the Hebrews
The Gospel of the Hebrews , commonly shortened from the Gospel according to the Hebrews or simply called the Hebrew Gospel, is a hypothesised lost gospel preserved in fragments within the writings of the Church Fathers....
and the Gospel of the Nazoraeans
Gospel of the Nazoraeans
The Gospel of the Nazarenes is the traditional but hypothetical name given by some scholars to distinguish some of the references to, or citations of, non-canonical Jewish-Christian Gospels extant in patristic writings from other citations believed to derive from different Gospels.-Collation into...
, which survive only as fragments in quotations of the early Church Fathers. Because so little of the text is known, its relationship to the other Jewish-Christian Gospels and a hypothetical original Hebrew Gospel
Hebrew Gospel hypothesis
The modern mainstream consensus is that all of the books of the New Testament including the Gospel of Matthew were written in a form of Koine Greek....
has been a subject of scholarly investigation. More recently, it has been recognized that the gospel harmony is a distinctive text from the others and it has been identified more closely with the lost Gospel of the Twelve
Gospel of the Twelve
The Gospel of the Twelve , possibly also referred to as the Gospel of the Apostles, is a lost gospel mentioned by Origen in Homilies in Luke as part of a list of heretical works.-Gospel of the Twelve :...
. A similarity between the Gospel and a source document contained within the Clementine Recognitions (Rec. 1.27–71), conventionally referred to by scholars as the Ascents of James, has also been noted with respect to the command to abolish the Jewish sacrifices.
Background
Epiphanius is believed to have come into possession of a gospel that he attributed to the Ebionites when he was bishop of Salamis. He alone among the Church Fathers identifies Cyprus as one of the "roots" of the Ebionites. The Gospel survives only in brief quotations by Epiphanius in his heresiology Panarion Chapter 30. as a polemic against the Ebionites. His citations are often contradictory and thought to be based in part on his own conjecture. The various, sometimes conflicting, sources of information were combined to point out inconsistencies in Ebionite beliefs and practices relative to Nicene orthodoxyFirst Council of Nicaea
The First Council of Nicaea was a council of Christian bishops convened in Nicaea in Bithynia by the Roman Emperor Constantine I in AD 325...
, possibly to serve, indirectly, as a polemic against the Arians of his time.
The term Gospel of the Ebionites is a scholarly convention in use at least as early as the French priest Richard Simon
Richard Simon
Richard Simon was a French Oratorian, influential advanced biblical critic, orientalist, and controversialist.-Early years:...
(1689), however, no surviving document of the Early Church mentions a gospel by that name. Epiphanius identifies the gospel only as "in the Gospel used by them, called 'according to Matthew'" and "they call it 'the Hebrew [gospel]'". The name is used by modern scholars as a convenient way to distinguish a gospel text that was probably used by the Ebionites from Epiphanius' mistaken belief that it was a Hebrew version of the Gospel of Matthew. Nothing is known for certain about its place of origin. One speculation is that it was composed in the region East of the Jordan where the Ebionites were said to have been present, according to the accounts of the Church Fathers. It is thought to have been composed during the first half of the 2nd century, since several other gospel harmonies are known to be from this period.
Composition
Epiphanius is believed to have incorporated the text at a late stage in the composition of Panarion 30, primarily in chapters 13 and 14. As Epiphanius describes it, "The Gospel which is found among them...is not complete, but falsified and distorted" (13.1–2). In particular, it lacked some or all of the first two chapters of Matthew, which contain the infancy narrative of the virgin birth of Jesus and the Davidic genealogy via SolomonGenealogy of Jesus
The genealogy of Jesus is described in two passages of the Gospels: Luke 3:23–38 and Matthew 1:1–17.* Matthew's genealogy commences with Abraham and then from King David's son Solomon follows the legal line of the kings through Jeconiah, the king whose descendants were cursed, to Joseph, legal...
, "They have removed the genealogies of Matthew" (14.2–3).
The translations of Bernhard Pick
Bernhard Pick
Bernhard Pick was a German-American Lutheran pastor and scholar.He studied at Union Theological Seminary in New York City and after became a pastor. As a scholar he contributed many articles to the Schaff-Herzog Encyclopaedia of Religious Knowledge and McClintock and James Strong's Cyclopaedia of...
(1908), with the sequence of four fragments arranged in the order of Wilhelm Schneemelcher from the beginning of the Gospel harmony are as follows:
- It came to pass in the days of Herod, King of Judaea under the high priest Caiaphas, that John came and baptized with the baptism of repentance in the river Jordan; he is said to be from the tribe of Aaron and a son of Zacharias the priest and of Elizabeth and all went out to him.(13.6) And it came to pass when John baptized, that the Pharisees came to him and were baptized, and all Jerusalem also. He had a garment of camels' hair, and a leather girdle about his loins. And his meat was wild honey, which tasted like manna, formed like cakes of oil.(13.4) The people having been baptized, Jesus came also, and was baptized by John. And as he came out of the water the heavens opened, and he saw the Holy Spirit descending under the form of a dove, and entering into him. And a voice was heard from heaven: "Thou art my beloved Son, and in thee am I well pleased. And again: "This day have I begotten thee." And suddenly shone a great light in that place. And John seeing him, said, "Who art thou, Lord?" Then a voice was heard from heaven: "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." Thereat John fell at his feet and said: "I pray thee, Lord, baptize me." But he would not, saying "Suffer it, for so it behoveth that all should be accomplished."(13.7)
- "There was a man named Jesus, and he was about thirty years old; he has chosen us. And He came into Capernaum and entered into the house of Simon, surnamed Peter, and He opened His mouth and said, 'As I walked by the sea of Tiberias, I chose John and James, the sons of Zebedee, and Simon and Andrew and Thaddaeus and Simon Zelotes, and Judas Isariot; thee also, Matthew, when thou wast sitting at the receipt of custom, did I call and thou didst follow me. According to my intention ye shall be twelve apostles for a testimony unto Israel.'" (13.2b-3)
The three quotations by Epiphanius in Panarion 30.13.6, 4, and 7, respectively, form the opening of the Gospel narrative, including the mission of John the Baptist, his appearance and diet, and the baptism of Jesus by John. The beginning of the Gospel (13.6) has parallels to the Gospel of Luke
Gospel of Luke
The Gospel According to Luke , commonly shortened to the Gospel of Luke or simply Luke, is the third and longest of the four canonical Gospels. This synoptic gospel is an account of the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth. It details his story from the events of his birth to his Ascension.The...
but in abbreviated form. The text shows a familiarity with the infancy narrative of Luke 1:5 despite lacking a birth narrative of its own. Quoting from the text regarding the diet of John (13.4), Epiphanius complains that the Ebionites have falsified the text by substituting the word "cake" (egkris ἐγκρίς) for "locust" (akris ἀκρίς, in Matthew 3:4). The similarity of the wording in Greek has led scholars to conclude that Greek was the original language of composition. In the narrative of the baptism of Jesus by John, the voice of God speaks three times in close parallels to the Gospel of Mark
Gospel of Mark
The Gospel According to Mark , commonly shortened to the Gospel of Mark or simply Mark, is the second book of the New Testament. This canonical account of the life of Jesus of Nazareth is one of the three synoptic gospels. It was thought to be an epitome, which accounts for its place as the second...
, Luke (Western text-type
Western text-type
The Western text-type is one of several text-types used in textual criticism to describe and group the textual character of Greek New Testament manuscripts...
), and Matthew, respectively. The parallels to the Synoptic Gospels have led to the conclusion that the text quoted by Epiphanius is a Gospel harmony. The appearance of a great light on the water may be an echo of St. Paul
Paul of Tarsus
Paul the Apostle , also known as Saul of Tarsus, is described in the Christian New Testament as one of the most influential early Christian missionaries, with the writings ascribed to him by the church forming a considerable portion of the New Testament...
's conversion or an additional harmonization to the Gospel of the Hebrews.
Epiphanius begins his description of the Gospel text (13.2b-3) with a quotation which has Matthew narrating directly to the reader. Jesus recalls how the twelve apostles were chosen and addresses Matthew in the second person as "you also Matthew". Although twelve apostles are mentioned, only eight are named. They are said to be chosen by Jesus, "for a testimony to Israel". The phrase "who chose us" has been interpreted as evidence that the text may be the lost Gospel of the Twelve
Gospel of the Twelve
The Gospel of the Twelve , possibly also referred to as the Gospel of the Apostles, is a lost gospel mentioned by Origen in Homilies in Luke as part of a list of heretical works.-Gospel of the Twelve :...
mentioned by Origen. However, the identification of the Gospel text quoted by Epiphanius with this otherwise unknown Gospel is disputed. The position of this quotation was tentatively assigned based on a parallel to the Synoptic Gospels.
The fifth and sixth quotations (following Schneemelcher's order) are associated with a Christological controversy. The polemics of Epiphanius along with his quotations of the Gospel text are shown in parallel:
- "Moreover they deny that he was a man, evidently on the ground of the word which the Savior spoke when it was reported to him: Behold, thy mother and thy brethren stand without, namely: Who is my mother and who are my brethren? And he stretched forth his hand towards his disciples and said: These are my brethren and mother and sisters, which do the will of my Father." (14.5)
- "They say that he was not begotten of God the Father, but created as one of the archangels...that he rules over the angels and all the creatures of the Almighty, and that he came and declared, as their Gospel, which is called according to the Hebrews, reports: I am come to abolish the sacrifices, if ye cease not from sacrificing, the wrath will not cease from you." (16.4–5)
The fifth quotation (14.5) appears to be a harmony of Matthew 12:47–48 and its Synoptic parallels. However, Jesus' final proclamation shows a closer agreement to 2 Clement 9:11 than any of the Synoptics. The unity of this quotation with the Gospel text in Chapter 13 has been questioned. The command to abolish the sacrifices in the sixth quotation (16.5) is unparalleled in the Canonical Gospels, and it suggests a relationship to Matthew 5:17 ("I did not come to abolish the Law") that is echoed in the Clementine literature
Clementine literature
Clementine literature is the name given to the religious romance which purports to contain a record made by one Clement of discourses...
.
Referring to a parallel passage in Luke 22:15, Epiphanius complains that the Ebionites have again falsified the Gospel text "they destroyed the true order and changed the passage..."
- "they made the disciples say, Where wilt Thou that we prepare for Thee to eat the Passover? To which He replied: I have no desire to eat the flesh of this Paschal Lamb with you.", (22.4)
thereby making Jesus declare that he would not eat meat on Passover. The immediate context suggests the possible attribution of the quotation to a Clementine source.
Christology
The baptismal scene of the Gospel text (13.7) is a harmony of the Synoptic Gospels, but one in which the Holy Spirit is said to descend to Jesus in the form of a dove and enter into him. This divine election at the time of his baptism is known as an adoptionist Christology, and it is emphasized by the quotation of Psalm 2:7, as found in the "Western text" of Luke 3:23, "You are my son, this day I have begotten you." The Spirit entering into Jesus and the great light on the water are thought to be based on the prophesies of Isaiah 61:1 and 9:1, respectively. The absence of any reference to a Davidic son-ship in the Gospel text suggests that Jesus has been elected to be the end-time prophet, the Chosen One, sent to abolish the Jewish sacrifices. The Prophet-Christology of the Gospel text quoted by Epiphanius is more at home with the Clementine literature than the Christology of the Ebionites known to IrenaeusIrenaeus
Saint Irenaeus , was Bishop of Lugdunum in Gaul, then a part of the Roman Empire . He was an early church father and apologist, and his writings were formative in the early development of Christian theology...
.
Vegetarianism
The change in wording of the Gospel text from "locust" (akris) to "cake" (egkris) for John the Baptist's diet (13.4) has been interpreted as evidence of vegetarianism. However, the association of the diet of John the Baptist with vegetarianism has been questioned. Epiphanius gives no indication of concern for vegetarianism in this part of the Gospel text, and it may instead be an allusion to the manna in the wilderness of Exod 16:31 and Num 11:8, or to 1Kgs 19:6 where Elijah eats cakes and oil.Further evidence has been found in the quotation based on Luke 22:15 (22.4), where the saying has been modified by insertion of the word "flesh" to provide a rationale for vegetarianism. The immediate context of the quotation suggests that it may be closely related to a Clementine source, the Journeys of Peter. Reading from the same source, Epiphanius states that the Ebionites abstained from "meat with soul in it" (15.3), and he attributes this teaching to Ebionite interpolations "they corrupt the contents and leave a few genuine items". Due to the close association of this saying with the Clementine literature of the 3rd and 4th century, the earlier practice of vegetarianism by the 2nd-century Ebionites known to Irenaeus has been questioned.
Relationship to other texts
Epiphanius mistakenly refers to the Gospel used by the Ebionites as the "Hebrew" gospel and the Gospel of Matthew, perhaps relying upon and conflating the testimony of the earlier Church Fathers. Jerome remarks that the Nazoraeans and Ebionites both used the Gospel of the Hebrews, which was considered the original Matthew by many of them. JeromeJerome
Saint Jerome was a Roman Christian priest, confessor, theologian and historian, and who became a Doctor of the Church. He was the son of Eusebius, of the city of Stridon, which was on the border of Dalmatia and Pannonia...
's report is consistent with the prior accounts of Irenaeus and Eusebius.
It is not clear if and how Gospel of the Ebionites is related to the Gospel of the Hebrews and the Gospel of the Nazoraeans. All the Jewish-Christian Gospels survive only as fragments in quotations, so it is difficult to tell if they are independent texts or variations of each other. Klijn concluded that the Gospel harmony composed in Greek appears to be a distinctive text known only to Epiphanius. It's putative relationship to the Gospel text known to Origen as the Gospel of the Twelve remains a speculation. as well as it's relationship to a hypothetical original Gospel of Matthew
Hebrew Gospel hypothesis
The modern mainstream consensus is that all of the books of the New Testament including the Gospel of Matthew were written in a form of Koine Greek....
.
The Recognitions of Clement contains a source document (Rec. 1.27–71), conventionally referred to by scholars as the Ascents of James, which is believed to be of Jewish-Christian origin. The Ascents shares a similarity to the Gospel of the Ebionites with regard to the command to abolish the Jewish sacrifices, adding that a Christian water baptism
Baptism
In Christianity, baptism is for the majority the rite of admission , almost invariably with the use of water, into the Christian Church generally and also membership of a particular church tradition...
is to be substituted for the remission of sins.
Inferences about the Ebionites
The Ebionites known to Irenaeus (first mentioned in Adversus HaeresesAdversus Haereses
Adversus Haereses is the standard name of two books on Gnosticism and other Christian heresies, which are also known as:*On the Detection and Overthrow of the So-Called Gnosis, written by Irenaeus in the 2nd century AD...
1.26.2, written around 185
185
Year 185 was a common year starting on Friday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Lascivius and Atilius...
) and other Church Fathers prior to Epiphanius were described as a Jewish sect that regarded Jesus as the Messiah but not as divine
God the Son
God the Son is the second person of the Trinity in Christian theology. The doctrine of the Trinity identifies Jesus of Nazareth as God the Son, united in essence but distinct in person with regard to God the Father and God the Holy Spirit...
. They insisted on the necessity of following Jewish religious law and rites
Torah
Torah- A scroll containing the first five books of the BibleThe Torah , is name given by Jews to the first five books of the bible—Genesis , Exodus , Leviticus , Numbers and Deuteronomy Torah- A scroll containing the first five books of the BibleThe Torah , is name given by Jews to the first five...
and they used only the Jewish-Christian Gospel. The Ebionites rejected the epistles of Paul of Tarsus
Paul of Tarsus
Paul the Apostle , also known as Saul of Tarsus, is described in the Christian New Testament as one of the most influential early Christian missionaries, with the writings ascribed to him by the church forming a considerable portion of the New Testament...
, who they regarded as an apostate from the Law.
In Epiphanius' polemic against the Ebionites found in Panarion 30, a complex picture emerges of the beliefs and practices of the 4th century Ebionites that cannot easily be separated from his method of combining together disparate sources. While scholars such as H.J. Schoeps literally interpreted Epiphanius' account as describing a later syncretistic development of Ebionism, more recent scholarship has found it difficult to reconcile his report with those of the earlier Church Fathers, leading to a conjecture that a second group of Hellenistic
Hellenistic Judaism
Hellenistic Judaism was a movement which existed in the Jewish diaspora that sought to establish a Hebraic-Jewish religious tradition within the culture and language of Hellenism...
-Samaritan
Samaritan
The Samaritans are an ethnoreligious group of the Levant. Religiously, they are the adherents to Samaritanism, an Abrahamic religion closely related to Judaism...
Ebionites may also have been present. The rejection of the Jewish sacrifices and the implication of an end-time prophet Christology due to the lack of a birth narrative lend support for the association of the Gospel of the Ebionites with a group or groups of Ebionites different than the Ebionites known to Irenaeus.
Primary sources
- Bernhard PickBernhard PickBernhard Pick was a German-American Lutheran pastor and scholar.He studied at Union Theological Seminary in New York City and after became a pastor. As a scholar he contributed many articles to the Schaff-Herzog Encyclopaedia of Religious Knowledge and McClintock and James Strong's Cyclopaedia of...
1902 Gospel of the Ebionites
External links
- http://books.google.com/books?id=TDW0PeFSvGEC&printsec=frontcover&dq=%22New+Testament+Apocrypha:+Gospels+and+related+writings%22&hl=en&ei=kNlFTaf4HdOxhQf6l6TXAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CD0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=falseNew Testament Apocrypha: Volume 1: Gospels and related writings, section IV 2: The Gospel of the Ebionites (pg 166–172), ed Wilhelm Schneemelcher, translated by Robert McLachlan Wilson] Google books. ISBN 066422721X