On the link between Capernaum and Ebionites

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Giuseppe
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On the link between Capernaum and Ebionites

Post by Giuseppe »

Capernaum means "place of expiation (for sins)", hence Heracleon was right about Capernaum meaning the lower heavens.

But when Capernaum was interpreted (wrongly or deliberately) as the Capernaum (a spring, not a village) mentioned by Josephus, then Capernaum became a "village of Galilee". So Jesus had to start now from Galilee (and not more from Sheol).

Who was the first to link Jesus with Galilee via Capernaum as village of Galilee?

Obviously they were anti-marcionite Judaizers.

Capernaum, interpreted as village of Galilee, means "village of Nahum". Now, Nahum was from the town of Elkosh (Nahum 1:1). Elkosh is behind the name of Elchasaites, a sect of Judaizers.

Epiphanius says that the Elchasaites influenced the ebionites insofar they became followers of a "high christology" :

At first this Ebion (the putative founder of the sect), as I said, determined that Christ was from the seed of a man, Joseph. But from a certain time up to now among his followers different things are told about Christ, since they have turned their minds to chaotic and impossible things. I suppose that perhaps after Elxaios joined them − the false prophet <whom I mentioned before> in connection with the so-called Sampsenes and Ossenes and Elkesaeans − they tell some fantasy about Christ and about the Holy Spirit, in the same way as he did. For some of them say that Christ is also Adam, the first man created and breathed into by God’s inspiration. But others among them say that he is from above and that he was created before all (…) that he comes into the world whenever he wishes, as he also came in Adam and appeared to the patriachs putting on a body (…)

Panarion 30.3.1-6.

So Elxaios was simply the first ebionite(s) who started to confuse (deliberately or not, it doesn't difference) the marcionite celestial Capernaum (=Sheol or lower heavens) with the earthly Galilean Capernaum (=village of Nahum). He was called "Elxaios" since Elkosh, the village of Nahum, was for him "Capernaum". Elxaios, an ebionite, was the true euhemerizer of the marcionite Jesus (still evidently a celestial deity), by reducing him to a mere man starting his preaching from Galilee, where Capernaum is localized.


Once the marcionite Jesus was made descend not more to Sheol, but to a mere village of Galilee, the option for the ebionites were two:
  • increase the christological status of this Jesus from Galilee, or...
  • ...reduce the christological status of this Jesus from Galilee.

The ebionites (considered by a lot of scholars as the true followers of the Pillars), were really only the Judaizing euhemerizers of the marcionite Jesus. By converting the originally celestial "Capernaum" in only another name for Elkosh, the village of Nahum.

And that is why the Galilee was introduced in the fiction.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
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