Epiphanius on the Ebionites

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
John2
Posts: 4309
Joined: Fri May 16, 2014 4:42 pm

Re: Epiphanius on the Ebionites

Post by John2 »

Regarding the idea that DSS are Sadducaic, not only do I disagree with this because they refer to resurrection and use other writings that do, like Daniel and Enoch (contrary to what all sources say about them), they also refer to themselves as "poor" (in several ways, including ebionites) and rail against "riches" (which constitute the first of the three "nets of Belieal" that "catch" Israel in the Damascus Document), and Josephus says the Sadducees appealed only to the rich (Ant. 13.10.6: "the Sadducees are able to persuade none but the rich").

And regarding the idea of early Christianity being a non-violent movement, I see it as being a spectrum, with the violent proto-Ebionites in Acts being on one end and Jewish Christian leaders on the other, like the Fourth Philosophy on the whole, which consisted of moderates like Niger of Perea (who was killed by extremists for wanting to make peace with the Romans) on one end and sicarii and zealots on the other.

And to me it ultimately doesn't matter if the moderates didn't want to fight the Romans if what they were trying to accomplish by other means resulted in the same thing, i.e., "the "kingdom of heaven" (or "innovations and changes of the government," as Josephus puts it in War 2.13.4).

Mt. 11:12:

From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force.



But what difference does it really make if Jesus thought he was going to "take it" when he returned as a spiritual being, Daniel's "son of man," given that this figure is said to have been "given authority, glory and sovereign power; all nations and peoples of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed"?

Jesus' philosophy was just a different way of accomplishing the same thing other Fourth Philosophers were trying to do, i.e., to bring about "innovations and changes of the government," i.e., the "kingdom of heaven," by suffering and dying first, then returning as a spiritual being to do it.
You know in spite of all you gained, you still have to stand out in the pouring rain.
Secret Alias
Posts: 18362
Joined: Sun Apr 19, 2015 8:47 am

Re: Epiphanius on the Ebionites

Post by Secret Alias »

That's why the main text was originally identified as the 'Zadokite Document' - because there's no way it can be Sadducean! You can't make this shit up. You just can't make this shit up.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
John2
Posts: 4309
Joined: Fri May 16, 2014 4:42 pm

Re: Epiphanius on the Ebionites

Post by John2 »

And like the DSS, James also rails against the rich in his letter (5:1-7):

Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming on you. Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days. Look! The wages you failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter. You have condemned and murdered the innocent one, who was not opposing you. Be patient, then, brothers and sisters, until the Lord’s coming.



Now, whether you take the "Lord's coming" as a reference to God (like Ben) or Jesus (like me), this is in keeping with Jesus' philosophy of suffering and dying first and then waiting for a spiritual being to bring on the "kingdom of heaven" (i.e., "changes of the government").

And while Jesus may not have been violent when he was alive, he was certainly disruptive, by rejecting the oral Torah of the Pharisees (e.g., Mk. 7:1-13), which Josephus says was the law of the land, and saying things like in Mk. 8:15 and Mt. 10:34-37:

"Be careful,” Jesus warned them. “Watch out for the yeast of the Pharisees and that of Herod.”
Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn “a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household." Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.
You know in spite of all you gained, you still have to stand out in the pouring rain.
User avatar
Ben C. Smith
Posts: 8994
Joined: Wed Apr 08, 2015 2:18 pm
Location: USA
Contact:

Re: Epiphanius on the Ebionites

Post by Ben C. Smith »

Secret Alias wrote: Wed Nov 06, 2019 11:37 am That's why the main text was originally identified as the 'Zadokite Document' - because there's no way it can be Sadducean!
From the editio princeps:

Solomon Schechter, Documents of Jewish Sectaries, Volume 1, page xxi: The term Zadokites naturally suggests the Sadducees; but the present state of knowledge of the latter's doctrines and practices does not offer enough points of resemblance to justify the identification of them with our Sect.

ΤΙ ΕΣΤΙΝ ΑΛΗΘΕΙΑ
John2
Posts: 4309
Joined: Fri May 16, 2014 4:42 pm

Re: Epiphanius on the Ebionites

Post by John2 »

Secret Alias wrote: Wed Nov 06, 2019 11:37 am That's why the main text was originally identified as the 'Zadokite Document' - because there's no way it can be Sadducean! You can't make this shit up. You just can't make this shit up.

Josephus says that one of the founders of the Fourth Philosophy was a Pharisee named Zadok.


Ant. 18.1.1;

Yet was there one Judas … who, taking with him Zadok, a Pharisee, became zealous to draw them to a revolt ...

This is why, aside from rejecting the oral Torah (like Jesus and the DSS do) and instigating rebellion (which Jesus did to some extent when he was alive and expected to fully happen when he returned as a spiritual being), Josephus says Fourth Philosophers "agree[d] in all other things with the Pharisaic notions," such as the resurrection of the dead (like Jesus and the DSS do).


Sadducees weren't the only ones who could lay claim to the name Zadok or Ezekiel's concept of the sons of Zadok (which pre-dates the existence of the Sadducees). And Josephus says that the Sadducees deferred to the rulings of the Pharisees (Ant. 18.1.4: "But they are able to do almost nothing of themselves; for when they become magistrates, as they are unwillingly and by force sometimes obliged to be, they addict themselves to the notions of the Pharisees, because the multitude would not otherwise bear them"), and the DSS adamantly oppose them (like Jesus does).
Last edited by John2 on Wed Nov 06, 2019 1:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.
You know in spite of all you gained, you still have to stand out in the pouring rain.
Secret Alias
Posts: 18362
Joined: Sun Apr 19, 2015 8:47 am

Re: Epiphanius on the Ebionites

Post by Secret Alias »

Solomon Schechter, Documents of Jewish Sectaries, Volume 1, page xxi: The term Zadokites naturally suggests the Sadducees; but the present state of knowledge of the latter's doctrines and practices does not offer enough points of resemblance to justify the identification of them with our Sect.
And our main sources of information on the Sadducees happens to be sources absolutely hostile to the Sadducees. I've been saying the same thing with regards to the Marcionites. We've got to just stop 'cutting and pasting' source material and think critically about the source material. And the garbage about 'Zadok' it's not possible that a community of the same would be founded given that the Sadducees already existed. This isn't fucking difficult. Schiffman's arguments are the best regarding the beliefs of the community. No question in my mind. He's a nice guy too.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Secret Alias
Posts: 18362
Joined: Sun Apr 19, 2015 8:47 am

Re: Epiphanius on the Ebionites

Post by Secret Alias »

And let me take it one step further to bring it back to the OP. It is one thing if someone doesn't know the sources. You have to know the sources. Fine. But on the other hand I think we at time OVERVALUE the source material. Let's look at the source material again:

Josephus, New Testament material, early Patristic evidence, Justin, Irenaeus, Hippolytus, Tertullian, early rabbinic material, Eusebius, Epiphanius

I don't see ANY of these sources as the equivalents of photographs or actual evidence of what happened or what was going on. They all suck to varying degrees. Not sure other people see it that way. The canonical gospels and Paul are in some way seen as 'the original exemplars' or close to it of the founding documents of Christianity. No not at all. 1 Clement is really the letter written by the original author or Justin or even Irenaeus. No, no, no. There is just an incredible amount of interpolated information added to the lost original. Even our earliest sources tell us that. But we pretend like 'the DSS don't match certain things said about the Sadducees.' Is that really surprising? The sources are terrible.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Secret Alias
Posts: 18362
Joined: Sun Apr 19, 2015 8:47 am

Re: Epiphanius on the Ebionites

Post by Secret Alias »

And personally I think the overvaluation of these sources is perpetuated now by scholars as they were formerly by priests. The motivation is the same - job security.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
John2
Posts: 4309
Joined: Fri May 16, 2014 4:42 pm

Re: Epiphanius on the Ebionites

Post by John2 »

Secret Alias wrote: Wed Nov 06, 2019 12:51 pm
Solomon Schechter, Documents of Jewish Sectaries, Volume 1, page xxi: The term Zadokites naturally suggests the Sadducees; but the present state of knowledge of the latter's doctrines and practices does not offer enough points of resemblance to justify the identification of them with our Sect.
And our main sources of information on the Sadducees happens to be sources absolutely hostile to the Sadducees. I've been saying the same thing with regards to the Marcionites. We've got to just stop 'cutting and pasting' source material and think critically about the source material. And the garbage about 'Zadok' it's not possible that a community of the same would be founded given that the Sadducees already existed. This isn't fucking difficult. Schiffman's arguments are the best regarding the beliefs of the community. No question in my mind. He's a nice guy too.

Josephus doesn't seem hostile to the Sadducees to me, but rather fairly neutral, and he says he had even joined them when he was younger. And that he doesn't give them a lot of space in his writings applies to the Pharisees too, which even Baumbach notes (pg. 174):

Yet, it is surprising that, with his individual presentations [of the Pharisees, Sadducees and Essenes], he begins with the Essenes and describes their doctrine and life in forty-three paragraphs ... thereafter devoting only two paragraphs each to the Pharisees ... and Sadducees ... together with a single paragraph on both the Pharisees and Sadducees together. The author's sympathy in this survey is so clearly with the Essenes ...


https://books.google.com/books?id=lV70m ... ees&f=true

You could thus argue in this respect that Josephus was hostile to the Pharisees too (even though he was one, just as he had once been a Sadducee).

But given that he was a Pharisee and had once been a Sadducee and says that the Sadducees deferred to the rulings of the Pharisees, I don't get the impression that he had any issue with them. The worst thing he seems to say about them is that they argued with each other a lot (as Baumback notes), which makes sense considering that they did not have an oral Torah (i.e., an agreed upon body of interpretation).


War 2.8.14:
... but the behavior of the Sadducees one towards another is in some degree wild, and their conversation with those that are of their own party is as barbarous as if they were strangers to them.



And the DSS community called themselves lots of things besides "sons of Zadok," and only call themselves the latter esoterically, in keeping with their unique method of interpretation, and even alter the underlying OT verse by adding vavs to it and making a wordplay on "Levites" to make the original one thing ("the priests the Levites, the sons of Zadok") into three things (as noted by your favorite scholar Eisenman). Thus they don't mean that they are literally sons of Zadok, just like the Levites aren't literally Levites and the priests aren't literally priests.


Ezek. 44:15:

But the priests the Levites, the sons of Zadok, that kept the charge of my sanctuary when the children of Israel went astray from me, they shall come near to me to minister unto me, and they shall stand before me to offer unto me the fat and the blood, saith the Lord God.

Cf., Damascus Document col. 3 and 4:

As God ordained for them by the hand of the Prophet Ezekiel, saying, "The Priests and the Levites and the Sons of Zadok, who kept the service of the Temple, when the Sons of Israel strayed from me, will offer me the fat and blood." The Priests are the Penitents of Israel, who went out from the Land of Judah and the joiners [nilvim, playing on "Levites" and arguably meaning Gentiles] with them. And the Sons of Zadok are the Elect of Israel, called by name, who will stand up [which arguably means be resurrected, in keeping with Ezekiel's resurrected bones passage, which uses a form of the same word in 37:10, and other parts of the Damascus Document and contrary to what all sources say about the Sadducees] in the Last Days.
You know in spite of all you gained, you still have to stand out in the pouring rain.
Secret Alias
Posts: 18362
Joined: Sun Apr 19, 2015 8:47 am

Re: Epiphanius on the Ebionites

Post by Secret Alias »

Josephus doesn't seem hostile to the Sadducees to me, but rather fairly neutral, and he says he had even joined them when he was younger.
There are meager references to the Sadducees where in many instances they are portrayed as athiests (cf. Baumbach, Stemberger). While this is not a big charge for us - among religious Jews it would be the ultimate blasphemy. Josephus indicates there that the Sadducees' rejection of the Pharisees' tradition “of the fathers” caused much conflict. This is the context for all statements about the Sadducees - viz. whatever is said about the Sadducees is necessarily 'in relation to the Pharisees.' Without trying to push the comparison between Ben Sira and the Sadducees too far, it is probably reasonable to suppose that the Sadducees—like practically all ancient Jews, to be sure—believed in prophecy as well as divine election, even as they denied that fate controlled the decisions of individual human beings. We should go even one step further, to entertain the possibility that Josephus's Sadducees believed in divine providence. To be sure, we are told that the Sadducees reject fate—in the sense that particular human affairs are predestined and must, of necessity, take place irrespective of human decisions. But this in fact leaves room for the Sadducees to believe in providence—in the sense that (just as the libertarian Ben Sira would have it) God watches over humanity, rewards the righteous, and punishes the wicked in this world, in line with the decisions each person makes. The various statements of Josephus are similarly contextualized.

As Baumback notes "[t]his meager attestation of the Sadducees and their different mention in the War and in the Antiquities prompts the suspicion that our author was by no means without prejudice as regards Sadduceeism."
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Post Reply