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EBIONITES

Name for Jewish Christians first witnessed in Irenaeus (Adv. haer. 1.26.2; Gk. ebionaioi) ca. 180 c.e. The word derives from Heb. ʾeḇyônîm and means “the poor.”

The precise origin and referent of the name are uncertain. Parallel usage of the Hebrew in the Qumran writings renders it virtually certain that the name was originally an honorific self-designation: the “poor” are God’s favored people (e.g., 4QpPs37 2:9; 1QpHab 12:3; 1QM 11:9). The background of this usage is apparent in the OT (e.g., Amos 2:6-7; the synonym ʿānî is also common; cf. esp. the Psalms, e.g., Ps. 35:10) and in the broader ancient Orient.

How far back the designation goes among the followers of Jesus is disputed. Some scholars see the title present already in Paul’s references to a collection for the “poor” in Jerusalem (Gal. 2:10). But in Rom. 15:26 Paul distinguishes this group 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.” Nevertheless, Paul’s collection for the poor doubtless had a church-political aspect that involved recognition of Jerusalem as the center of the believers. It is hard to imagine any use of the word “poor” among the early believers without some religious overtones (cf. Matt. 5:3).

Other scholars think the term was only later adopted by one group of Jewish Christians, picking up in part on the saying of Jesus in Matt. 5:3. In the 19th century Adolf Hilgenfeld accepted the historicity of a founder named Ebion, first witnessed in Tertullian (De praescr. haer. 33.5) and Hippolytus (Ref. 7.35.1). Yet most likely the supposition of the existence of an Ebion derives from the heresiological urge to attribute the “heresies” to one particular heretical figure (here perhaps originally in Hippolytus’ lost Syntagma). No doubt the heresiologists are in part responsible for the application of the name Ebionites more broadly to all Jewish Christians. Thus Irenaeus, following his source, lumps all Jewish Christians under the title Ebionites and ascribes to them belief in the natural generation of Jesus by Joseph and Mary, use of only the Gospel of Matthew, rejection of Paul as an apostate from the law, and veneration of Jerusalem.

Stretches of modern scholarship have followed Epiphanius in distinguishing Ebionites from another branch of Jewish Christians, the Nazoreans. By linking Irenaeus’ description of the Ebionites with the stricter group of Jewish Christians mentioned without specific name in Justin Martyr Dial. 47-48, these scholars apply the name Ebionites to the stricter Jewish Christians and leave Nazoreans for the moderate ones. This is to be discouraged because it lacks historical justification. It furthermore neglects Epiphanius’ actual description of the Ebionite group or must postulate an additional “gnostic” variety of Ebionism. Epiphanius connects his Ebionites with the Pseudo-Clementines, with the anti-Pauline Ascents of James, and with a gospel conveniently called the Gospel of the Ebionites by modern scholars. While it is possible that Epiphanius received these writings from a 4th-century group who called themselves Ebionites, Epiphanius’ division of the Jewish Christians into Ebionites and Nazoreans may partially be due to the pressure to come up with his announced “80 heresies”; he invented and divided when possible, here broadly picking up on the earlier heresiological view that there were two types of Jewish Christians.

Bibliography. E. Bammel, “ptōchós,” TDNT 6:888-915; A. F. J. Klijn and G. J. Reinink, Patristic Evidence for Jewish-Christian Sects. NovTSup 36 (Leiden, 1973); G. A. Koch, A Critical Investigation of Epiphanius’ Knowledge of the Ebionites (Philadelphia, 1976); G. Strecker, “On the Problem of Jewish Christianity,” in W. Bauer, Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity (Philadelphia, 1971), 241-85.

F. Stanley Jones

Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

EBIONITES

Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)