What were the beliefs of Early Ebionaen Christianity?

[davidmartin]

Gakusi, Jesus in John acts just like a prophet, one on whom the spirit came (and Jesus seems to hammer this point home all the time)
i wonder if some of the divinisation of Jesus is importing the spirit's divinity onto him more literally
after all, 'the Word' in John's prologue in Syriac is feminine they could have used the masculine alternative and didn't, in that sense it would be perfectly orthodox to Judaism which has Wisdom flowing out Spirit-like from the one and Wisdom speaks Words. this stuff works smoother mystically but when questions get asked, its like the wave function collapses and schisms feed on the scattered particles

[GakuseiDon]

Gakusi, Jesus in John acts just like a prophet, one on whom the spirit came (and Jesus seems to hammer this point home all the time)
i wonder if some of the divinisation of Jesus is importing the spirit's divinity onto him more literally

I just don't see the Holy Spirit descending on Jesus "like a dove" as conferring divinity. The Holy Spirit imbuing people with power, yes, but not divinity.

Compare the following:

Acts.2
[1] And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.
[2] And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting.
[3] And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them.
[4] And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.

Luke 3
[22] And the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon him, and a voice came from heaven, which said, Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased.
Luke 4
[1] And Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost returned from Jordan, and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness

The disciples were filled with the Holy Spirit and consequently were able to perform miracles. But by receiving the spirit of God one didn't acquire divinity, if one views those passages through Ebionite-like eyes.

[davidmartin]

but the spirit does also let people prophecy and let God speak through them (in the first person)
i take the 'I am' statements in John to be the Holy Spirit speaking through a prophet cause we have so many examples of that
but does this confer divinity? hmm, you have a point! it sort of does if something divine goes into someone
i suppose the problem is how this would make Jesus any different from anyone else, but is Jesus really Jesus? is he not just another name for the Holy Spirit or something like that

[GakuseiDon]

i suppose the problem is how this would make Jesus any different from anyone else, but is Jesus really Jesus? is he not just another name for the Holy Spirit or something like that

IMHO the Ebionites believed that Jesus was really no different from anyone else, except that his perfection to God's law meant he was elected by God as Christ. But anyone similarly perfected would be the same.

Tertullian wrote:
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/t ... ian15.html

Well, but as bearing human nature, He is so far made inferior to the angels; but as bearing angelic nature, He to the same degree loses that inferiority. This opinion will be very suitable for Ebion, who holds Jesus to be a mere man, and nothing more than a descendant of David, and not also the Son of God; although He is, to be sure, in one respect more glorious than the prophets, inasmuch as he declares that there was an angel in Him, just as there was in Zechariah...

Now, that we may give a simpler answer, it was not fit that the Son of God should be born of a human father's seed, lest, if He were wholly the Son of a man, He should fail to be also the Son of God, and have nothing more than "a Solomon" or "a Jonas,"'--as Ebion thought we ought to believe concerning Him...

[ebion]

The idea is found in Hippolytus (c170-c236)
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/050107.htm

The Ebionaeans,9 however, acknowledge that the world was made by Him Who is in reality God, but they propound legends concerning the Christ similarly with Cerinthus and Carpocrates. They live conformably to the customs of the Jews, alleging that they are justified. according to the law, and saying that Jesus was justified by fulfilling the law. And therefore it was, (according to the Ebionaeans,) that (the Saviour) was named (the) Christ of God and Jesus,9 since not one of the rest (of mankind) had observed completely the law. For if even any other had fulfilled the commandments (contained) in the law, he would have been that Christ. And the (Ebionaeans allege) that they themselves also, when in like manner they fulfil (the law), are able to become Christs; for they assert that our Lord Himself was a man in a like sense with all (the rest of the human family)...

That is a lovely quote and one I didn't know by an author I have never read; thank-you.

It really adds something of great depth and beauty to Ebionaen Christianity - we each endeavour to be Christlike - and it gives full scope to mystical side of religious experience.

Perhaps just as importantly, at the same time, it completely destroys any dictatorial powers of a clergy or Church. We don't know how the Early Ebionaens were organized ecclesiastically, but if each member of the congregation is striving to be Christlike, then the clergy does not have the role of ordained intercessors between man and God. So unless there is evidence to the contrary, we can assume that the Eboinaen congregations organized themselves, like for example the Quakers, with Elders elected by the congregation. Or if there were presbyters bishops and metropolitans, then they were there for organization, and not as ordained intercession. That's really lovely.

As we develop this thread we can gather elements for a Statement of Faith:

The Ebionaeans allege that they themselves also are able to become Christs.

As to the phrase "acquired his divinity through his baptism" then I think the differences are semantic if we accept that all of us can "acquire our divinity through baptism by the Holy Spirit" and add Tertullian's caveat "although He is, to be sure, in one respect more glorious than the prophets." Thus if one views those passages through Ebionite-like eyes, "by receiving the spirit of God one acquires the divinity that we all can strive for".

I don't want to dwell on the semantics overly, because as you point out, these are the things that schisms are made of. Of more importance to me is to note that this Ebionaen view of Christ is in keeping with the view of prophethood in Islam, allowing for a fruitful dialog.

[davidmartin]

IMHO the Ebionites believed that Jesus was really no different from anyone else, except that his perfection to God's law meant he was elected by God as Christ. But anyone similarly perfected would be the same.

going to the Ode for help
The Son of the Most High appeared in His Father’s perfection and the light dawned from the Speech -She who was from the first in Him
The Messiah is one with Truth and He was known before the foundation of the world to make souls alive forever by the Truth of His Name

um, so typical of the Odes!
the pre-existing Messiah is the son - check (but all souls pre-exist in the Odes so that avenue of uniqueness seems lessened!)
he seems to be the 'image' of the Father depending on translation, or appeared but he is surely a man in the Odes. Doesn't seem to mean 'he suddenly appeared from no-where'
the speech is the Logos if it were in Greek, seemingly 'in him' always (which complicates a baptism but the Odes also have the dove descent)
his perfection isn't tied to keeping of the law so much as God's inbuilt quality of perfection
so the Odes dance around these themes quite happily, i'm trying to figure this out at the moment, um, no i haven't really got very far

[ebion]

James Tabor has a page Ebionites & Nazarenes: Tracking the Original Followers of Jesus that touches on the link between the Ebionaens and the Essenes. Some excepts (my underlining):

It seems significant that the Dead Sea community also used this term Ebionite or “Poor Ones” to refer to their own movement (CD 19:9; 1QSb 5:21). This movement, that Josephus and others label as Essene (possibly from ‘Ossim, meaning “Doers of Torah”), who wrote or collected the Dead Sea Scrolls, pioneered certain aspects of this “Way” over 150 years before the birth of Jesus. They were a wilderness (out in the Arava, near the Dead Sea–based on Isaiah 40:3), baptizing (mikveh of repentance as entrance requirement into their fellowship), new covenant, messianic/apocalyptic group. They believed they were the final generation and would live to see the end and the coming of the Messiahs of Aaron and of Israel (the two anointed ones–priest and king)... They too referred to themselves as the Way, the Poor, the Saints, the New Covenanters, Children of Light, and so forth. Perhaps their most common designation was the Yachad–the brotherhood or community, and they referred to themselves as brother and sister. They were bitterly opposed to the corrupt Priests in Jerusalem, to the Herods, and even to the Pharisees whom they saw as compromising with that establishment to get power and influence from the Hellenistic/Roman powers. They had their own developed Halacha (interpretation of Torah), some aspects of which Jesus picks up (ideal of no divorce, not using oaths, etc.). They followed one they called the True Teacher (Teacher of Righteousness) whom most scholars believe lived in the 1st century BCE and was opposed and possibly killed by the Hasmonean King/Priests at the instigation of the Pharisees. John the Baptizer seems to arise out of this context and rekindle the apocalyptic fervor of the movement in the early decades of the first century CE...

The variety of self-designations used by the John/Jesus/James movement, many of which had previously been used by the Essenes, is telling. Indeed, one might call the Jesus movement a further developed messianic “Essenism,” modified through the powerful, prophetic influence of Jesus as Teacher and the leadership of James his brother for nearly 40 years.

Later, when Christianity developed in the 3rd and 4th centuries and gradually lost its Jewish roots and heritage, largely severing its homeland connections, the Gentile, Roman Catholic Church historians began to refer to Ebionites and Nazarenes as two separate groups—and indeed, by the late 2nd century there might have been a split between these mostly Jewish followers of Jesus. The distinction these writers make (and remember, they universally despise these people and call them “Judaizers”), is that the Ebionites reject Paul and the doctrine of the Virgin Birth or “divinity” of Jesus, use only the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew, and are thus more extreme in their Judaism. They describe the Nazarenes more positively as those who accept Paul (with caution) and believe in some aspect of the divinity of Jesus, even possibly the virgin birth, but viewed him as “adopted” as Son of God at his baptism. What we have to keep in mind in reading these accounts from the Church fathers is that they are strongly prejudiced against any form of what they call “Judaizing” among Christians and they share the view that “Christianity” has replaced Judaism entirely overthrowing the Torah for both Gentile and Jew.

I think it best today to use the collective term Ebionite/Nazarene in an attempt to capture the whole of this earliest movement, and it would be useful to revive the term Yachad as a collective designation for the community of the Hasidim/Saints. Ebionite/Nazarene is a good historical designation to refer to those original, 1st century, mostly Jewish, followers of Jesus, gathered around James the brother of Jesus in Jerusalem, who were zealous for the Torah, but saw themselves as part of the New Covenant Way inaugurated by their “True Teacher” Jesus. James is a key and neglected figure in this whole picture (see essays on James). As the blood brother of Jesus, authority and rights of leadership were passed on to him. When he was brutally murdered in 62 CE by the High Priest Ananus (see Josephus, Antiquities 20.197ff), Simeon, a second brother [“cousin” according to Hegesippus] of Jesus took over the leadership of the Jerusalem based movement. Clearly we have the idea here of a blood-line dynasty, and according to the Gospel of Thomas, discovered in 1946 in upper Egypt, this dynastic succession was ordained by Jesus himself who tells his followers who ask him who will lead them when he leaves: “No matter where you are, you are to go to James the Just, for whose sake heaven and earth came into being” (Gospel of Thomas 12, and additional primary texts here). Indeed, when Simeon was crucified by the Emperor Trajan around 106 C.E., one Judas, perhaps an aged third brother of Jesus, or at least a close relative of the bloodline, took over the leadership of the community.

.. Based on what we can reliably put together from these sources we can say the Ebionite or Nazarene movement could be distinguished by the following views:

1) Jesus as a human being with father and mother but designated a “Prophet like Moses,” or “the Anointed of the Spirit,” who will be revealed in power as the “Son of Man coming in the Clouds of heaven,” following his rejection and death (Acts 7:37; Luke 4:18-19; Mark 10:35-45; 13:26-27).

2) Disdain for eating meat and even the Temple slaughter of animals, preferring the ideals of the pre-Flood diet and what they took to be the original ideal of worship (see Genesis 9:1-5; Jeremiah 7:21-22; Isaiah 11:9; 66:1-4). This reflects a general interest in seeking the “Path” reflected in the pre-Sinai revelation, especially the time from Enoch to Noah. For example, divorce was shunned, as violating the Edenic ideal, even though technically it was later allowed by Moses (Mark 10:2-11).

3) Dedication to following the whole Torah, as applicable to Israel and to Gentiles, but through the “easy yoke” or the “Torah of liberty” of their Teacher Jesus, which emphasized the Spirit of the Biblical Prophets in a restoration of the “True Faith,” the Ancient Paths (Jeremiah 6:16; Matthew 11:28-30; James 2:8-13; Matthew 5:17-18; 9:13; 12:7), from which, by and large, they believed the establishment Jewish groups of 2nd Temple times had departed.

4) Rejection of the “doctrines and traditions” of men, which they believed had been added to the pure Torah of Moses, including scribal alterations of the texts of Scripture (Jeremiah 8:8).

Generally, the movement came to have a very negative view of Paul as an “apostate from the Torah,” though it is possible that in the 2nd and 3rd centuries there were branches of the Nazarenes who were more tolerant of Paul as the “apostle to the Gentiles,” but who as Jews, nonetheless, insisted on Torah observance.

He also has a video on this on YewTube.

[ebion]

Perhaps just as importantly, at the same time, it completely destroys any dictatorial powers of a clergy or Church. We don't know how the Early Ebionaens were organized ecclesiastically, but if each member of the congregation is striving to be Christlike, then the clergy does not have the role of ordained intercessors between man and God. So unless there is evidence to the contrary, we can assume that the Eboinaen congregations organized themselves, like for example the Quakers, with Elders elected by the congregation. Or if there were presbyters bishops and metropolitans, then they were there for organization, and not as ordained intercession. That's really lovely.

There's support for this notion of Elders in Epiphanius' Panarion ch. 30:

Ebionites have elders and heads of synagogues, and they call their church a synagogue, not a church; and they take pride in Christ's name only.

This would imply that the Ebionaens did not follow the ecclesiastical structure of the Constantinian church, which would make sense if they did not see the priest/bishop as intercessor between Mand and the Divine, but rather an elder walking along the way of God in Truth with the congregation. This would put the Ebionaens more in tune with the Anabaptists, Quakers, Shakers and Valdensians than the Constantinian Church.

[ebion]

Jesus was connected with Samaria in some parables and episodes "to explain" implicitly his being Alien (to this world and the god of this world). To eclipse the embarrassing fact that the real reason of the being Alien is that Jesus was the Son of an Unknown Father ("Bar-Abbas").

A simpler explanation is that the Samaratains were the stauch enemies of the Pharisees, which would naturally make Jesus, and the writers of the Gospels, portray the Samaratains, their enemies, in a kindly light.

But Jesus goes further than that, much further:

These twelve Jesus sent forth, and commanded them, saying, Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not: (Matthew 10:5 [KJV])

The quote is from mid-Matthew, the most central part of the NT, and the way I read that, he's saying Christians should only preach/minister to non-Samaritan Hebrews:

But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. (Matthew 10:6 [KJV])

So that would be the Pharisees Sadducees Essenes and Kararites, only.

All of the proseletization and bible outreach of Churchianity is forbidden in Christianity.

[ebion]

Unloading Paul gives us a lot of room to see Christianity in a new light, without the Crowleyism of the Faulines. And I don't find the Paul-addled historians of much use. I'm more interested in looking into the Clementine Recognitions as apocrypha to see if they shed light on this, and examine "Simon Magus" more carefully using only Acts and nothing from the Faulines.

Epiphanius in the Panarion writes 1.30.15:1

they use certain other books as well—supposedly the so-called Travels of Peter written by Clement

What do I use for the "Travels of Peter written by Clement" or is that the Clementines?

Epiphanius in the Panarion writes 1.30.16:7

They lay down certain ascents and instructions in the supposed 'Ascents of James,' as though he were giving orders against the temple and sacrifices, and the fire on the altar—and much else that is full of nonsense.

The Ascents of James may be a part of the Clementines: What do I use as a basis set for the Clementines?

There's a new translation of the Latin and Syriac Acents of James which puts it as 1.33.3-1.71.5 of the Clemtines. I'm comparing it with the translation of the Syriac Clementine Recognitions and Homilies, both of which I presume to be unadulterated by Rufinus.