Ebionites (Ancient Greek: Ἐβιωναῖοι, romanized: Ebiōnaîoi, derived from the Hebrew word , , meaning 'the poor' or 'poor ones') were an adoptionist Mosaic law-observant Jewish-Christian movement that existed in and around Transjordan during the early centuries of the Common Era. They first appear in heresiographies from the latter half of the second century. Since original writings by Ebionites are scarce, fragmentary and contested, much of what is known or conjectured about them derives from the polemical reports by their proto-orthodox and later orthodox Christian opponents, the Church Fathers (Irenaeus, Origen, Eusebius, and Epiphanius of Salamis), who generally portrayed Ebionites as a heretical sect doctrinally distinct from other judaizing Jewish-Christian sects, such as the Nazarenes.; : "Following the devastation of the Jewish War, the Nazarenes took refuge in Pella, a community in exile, where they lay in anxious wait with their fellow Jews. From this point on it is preferable to call them the Ebionites. There was no clear demarcation or formal transition from Nazarene to Ebionite; there was no sudden change of theology or Christology."; : "While the writings of later church fathers speak of Nazarenes and Ebionites as if they were different Jewish Christian groups, they are mistaken in that assessment. The Nazarenes and the Ebionites were one and the same group, but for clarity we will refer to the pre-70 group in Jerusalem as Nazarenes, and the post-70 group in Pella and elsewhere as Ebionites."
Most Church Fathers characterize Ebionites as holding a functional adoptionist Christology that rejects the belief that Jesus was a divine person (God the Son) at any stage of his earthly life, whether before (pre-existence), during (incarnation), or after it (exaltation), and instead presents him as a righteous human being who, through faithful observance of the Law of Moses, was adopted by God at his baptism to fulfill the role of prophet and Jewish Messiah. Condemning Paul as a false apostle and an apostate from the Law,, an abridgement. Ebionites are said to have used a Hebrew version of the Gospel of Matthew, or one of the Jewish-Christian gospels, as their only additional scripture alongside the Hebrew Bible, and to have maintained faithful observance of the commandments of the Abrahamic and Mosaic covenants as binding on all followers of Jesus, with an emphasis on his authoritative teachings on the Law.
Some patristic heresiologists recognize variations in Christology among Ebionites: a majority did not believe Jesus was born of a virgin, affirming he was the natural son of Joseph and Mary, while a minority believed in the virgin birth, with both groups rejecting belief in the divinity of Jesus. Some scholars have suggested that the reported disagreement over the virgin birth reflects a patristic conflation of the Ebionites with the closely related Jewish-Christian Nazarenes, who accepted the virgin birth, and that the Ebionites themselves may have uniformly rejected it. Epiphanius is the only Church Father who claims Ebionites held a separationist "angelic possession" Christology, opposed animal sacrifice and embraced vegetarianism. Some modern commentators regard many of Epiphanius’ additional details as unreliable, so the theological diversity among Ebionites he describes cannot be taken at face value.
Critical scholars judge that the Church Fathers' condemnation of Ebionites as "heretics" reflects the inherently polemical perspective of Christian heresiographies. However, scholars debate whether or not core Ebionite beliefs rooted in late Second Temple Judaism, especially their emphasis on covenant faithfulness and their expectation of a fully human Messiah in the mold of a "prophet like Moses", preserve, whether through direct inheritance or later reconstruction, traditions resembling those of the early Jerusalem church under the leadership of James the Just, the brother of Jesus, and possibly certain elements of the teachings of the historical Jesus himself.
Name The hellenized Hebrew term Ebionite was first applied by Irenaeus in the second century without making mention of Nazarenes ().Antti Marjanen, Petri Luomanen "A companion to second-century Christian "heretics" p250 "It is interesting to note that the Ebionites first appear in the catalogues in the latter half of the second century. The earliest reference to the Ebionites was included in a catalogue used by Irenaeus in his Refutation and Subversion ..."Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible 2000 "EBIONITES Name for Jewish Christians first witnessed in Irenaeus (Adv. haer. 1.26.2; Gk. ebionaioi) ca. 180 ce". Origen wrote "for Ebion signifies 'poor' among the Jews, and those Jews who have received Jesus as Christ are called by the name of Ebionites." Tertullian was the first to write against a heresiarch called Ebion; scholars believe he derived this name from a literal reading of Ebionaioi as 'followers of Ebion', a derivation now considered mistaken for lack of any more substantial references to such a figure. The term the poor (Greek: ptōkhoí) was still used in its original, more general sense. Modern Hebrew still uses the Biblical Hebrew term the needy for almsgiving to the needy at Purim.
Scholar James Tabor argues that Ebionites most likely named themselves after "the poor in spirit", that is, people whose economic and social poverty foster spiritual humility and a conscious dependence on God. He connects this self-designation to the first of nine in-groups mentioned in the Beatitudes of Jesus in Matthew 5:3, who are described as blessed and as to whom the kingdom of heaven belongs.
History
Emergence Irenaeus (c. 180) documents the first use the term Ebionites to name a movement he labeled as a heretical sect of "Judaizers" for "stubbornly clinging to the Law".
Origen (c. 212) remarks that the name derives from the Hebrew word evyon, meaning 'poor'. Epiphanius of Salamis (c. 310–320 – 403) gives the most complete account in his heresiology called Panarion, denouncing eighty heretical sects, among them the Ebionites.: 30 Epiphanius mostly gives general descriptions of their religious beliefs and includes quotations from their gospels, which have not survived. According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, the Ebionite movement "may have arisen about the time of the destruction of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem" (70 CE). The tentative dating of the origins of this movement depends on Epiphanius writing three centuries later and relying on information for the Ebionites from the Book of Elchasai, which may not have had anything to do with the Ebionites.Hakkinen, Sakara. "Ebionites," in Marjanen, Antti, and Petri Luomanen, eds. A Companion to Second-Century Christian'Heretics. Vol. 76. Brill, 2008, 257–278, esp. 259
Paul talks of his collection for the "poor among the saints" in the early Jerusalem church, but this is generally taken as meaning the poorer members of the church as a whole.Some scholars see the title present already in Paul's references to a collection for the "poor" in Jerusalem (Gal.1:10). But in Rom.15:26 Paul distinguishes this movement from the other Jerusalem believers by speaking of "the poor among the saints." In 2 Cor.9:12 Paul further confirms the economic, or literal, aspect by speaking of the collection as making up for "the deficiencies of the saints". E. Stanley Jones, '"Ebionites", in Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible, Amsterdam University Press, 2000 .
The actual number of movements described as Ebionites is difficult to ascertain, as the contradictory patristic accounts in their attempt to distinguish various movements sometimes confuse them with each other. Other movements mentioned are the Carpocratians, the Cerinthians, the Elcesaites, the first century Nazarenes and the Sampsaeans, most of whom were Jewish Christian sects who held gnostic or other beliefs rejected by the Ebionites. Epiphanius, however, mentions that a sect of Ebionites came to embrace some of these beliefs despite keeping their name.
As the Ebionites are first mentioned as such in the second century, their earlier history and any relation to the Jerusalem church remains obscure and a matter of contention. There is no evidence linking the origin of the later movement of the Ebionites with the First Jewish-Roman War of 66–70 CE or with the Jerusalem church led by James. Eusebius relates a tradition, probably based on Aristo of Pella, that the early Christians left Jerusalem just prior to the war and fled to Pella,Eusebius, Church History 3, 5, 3; Epiphanius, Panarion 29,7,7-8; 30, 2, 7; On Weights and Measures 15. On the flight to Pella see: Jordan beyond the Jordan River, but does not connect this with Ebionites. They were led by Simeon of Jerusalem (d. 107) and during the Second Jewish-Roman War of 115–117, they were persecuted by the Jewish followers of Bar Kochba for refusing to recognize his messianic claims. As late as Epiphanius (310–403), members of the Ebionite movement resided in Nabatea, and Paneas, Moabitis, and Kochaba in the region of Bashan, near Adraa.Klijn & Reinink (1973), p. 29 (citing Epiphanius' Anacephalaiosis 30.18.1.) From these places, they dispersed and went into Asia (Anatolia), Rome and Cyprus.
According to Harnack, the influence of Elchasaites places some Ebionites in the context of the gnostic movements widespread in Syria and the lands to the east.
Disappearance After the end of the First Jewish–Roman War, the importance of the early Jerusalem church began to fade. Jewish Christianity became dispersed throughout the Jewish diaspora in the Levant, where it was slowly eclipsed by proto-orthodox Christianity, which then spread throughout the Roman Empire without competition from Jewish Christian movements. Once the Jerusalem church was eliminated during the Bar Kokhba revolt, which ended in 136 CE, the Ebionites gradually lost influence and followers. Although some scholars, such as Hyam Maccoby, argued the decline of the Ebionites was due to marginalization and persecution by both Jews and Christians, Maccoby's views as expressed in his works from the 1980s and 1990s have been nearly universally rejected by scholars. Following the defeat of the rebellion and the subsequent expulsion of Jews from Judea, Jerusalem became the Gentile city of Aelia Capitolina. Many of the Jewish Christians residing at Pella renounced their Jewish practices at this time and joined the mainstream Christian church. Those who remained at Pella and continued in obedience to the Law were labeled heretics. In 375, Epiphanius records the settlement of Ebionites on Cyprus, but by the 5th century, Theodoret of Cyrrhus reported that they were no longer present in the region.
The Ebionites are attested as definitely existing, though in marginal communities, down to the 5th century. Some modern scholars argue that the Ebionites survived much longer and identify them with a sect encountered by the historian Abd al-Jabbar ibn Ahmad around the year 1000. There is another possible reference to Ebionite communities that has them existing around the 11th century in northwestern Arabia, in Sefer Ha'masaot, the "Book of the Travels" of Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela, a rabbi from Spain. These communities were located in two cities, Tayma and "Tilmas", possibly Saada in Yemen. The 12th-century Muslim historian Muhammad al-Shahrastani mentions Jews living in nearby Medina and Hejaz who accepted Jesus as a prophetic figure and followed traditional Judaism, rejecting mainstream Christian beliefs. Some scholars propose that interactions between Ebionite communities and early Muslims played a role in shaping the Islamic perspective on Jesus.
Beliefs and practices Judaism, Gnosticism and Essenism Most patristic sources portray Ebionites as Jews who faithfully observed the Law of Moses, revered Jerusalem as the holiest city and restricted table fellowship only to God-fearing Gentiles who converted to Judaism.