point in the life of Jesus: from that moment He was endued with power necessary to fill His mission as Messiah; but He was still man. The Ebionites knew nothing of either pre-existence or divinity in connexion with Him. They are said to have freed themselves from the common Jewish notion that the Messiah was to be an earthly king; they were not shocked, as were so many of the Jews, at the humbleness of the birth, the sufferings, and crucifixion of Jesus; but they agreed with them in looking upon the advent of Messiah as future, and in deferring the restitution of all things to the millennium. The Ebionites proper insisted that the Law should be strictly observed not only by themselves but by all. They quoted the words of Jesus (Matt. v. 17), and pointed to His practice (cf. Matt. xxvi. 55;John vii. 14, etc.). It was the natural tendency of this view to diminish the value of faith in Christ and a corresponding life. Of far greater moment to them, and as necessary to salvation, was the due observance of circumcision, the sabbath, the distinction between clean and unclean food, the sacrificial offerings—probably with the later Pharisaic additions (cf. Eus. H.E. vi. 17)—and the refusal of fellowship or hospitality to the Gentiles (cf. Justin, c. xlvii.). They even quoted the words of Jesus (Matt. x. 24, 25) as their warrant, and affirmed their motto to be: "We also would be imitators of Christ" (Origen, quoted by Schliemann). Jesus, they asserted, "was justified by fulfilling the Law. He was the Christ of God, since not one of the rest of mankind had observed the Law completely. Had any one else fulfilled the commandments of the Law, he would have been the Christ." Hence "when Ebionites thus fulfil the law, they are able to become Christs" (Hippolytus, Refut. Omn. Haer. vii. 34).
As might be expected, the Apostle Paul was especially hateful to them. They repudiated his official character, they reviled him personally. In language which recalls that of the Judaizers alluded to in Corinthians and Galatians, they represented him as a teacher directly opposed to SS. Peter, James, and John; they repudiated his Apostolical authority because (as they affirmed) he had not been "called of Jesus Christ Himself," nor trained in the Church of Jerusalem. They twisted into a defamatory application to himself his employment of the term "deceiver" (II. Cor. vi. 8); he was himself one of the "many which corrupted the word of God" (ii. 17); he proclaimed "deliverance from the Law" only "to please men" (Gal. i. 10) and "commend himself" (II. Cor. iii. 1). His personal character was held up to reproach as that of one who "walked according to the flesh" (x. 2), puffed up with pride, marked by levity of purpose (iii. 1) and even by dishonesty (vii. 2). They rejected his epistles, not on the ground of authenticity, but as the work of an "apostate from the Law " (Eus. iii. c. 27; Iren. l.c.). They even asserted that by birth he was not a Jew, but a Gentile (wresting his words in Acts xxi. 39 who had become a proselyte in the hope of marrying the High Priest's daughter, but that having failed in this he had severed himself from the Jews and occupied himself in writing against circumcision and the observance of the sabbath (Epiph. adv. Haer. I. xxx. 16, 25).
In common with the Nazarenes and the Gnostic-Ebionites, the Pharisaic Ebionites used a recension of the Gospel of St. Matthew, which they termed the "gospel according to the Hebrews." It was a Chaldee version written in Hebrew letters, afterwards translated into Greek and Latin by Jerome, who declared it identical with the "gospel of the Twelve Apostles" and the "gospel of the Nazarenes" (see Herzog, Real-Encyklopädie, "Apokryphen d. N. Test." p. 520, ed. 1877). In the Ebionite "gospel" the section corresponding to the first two chapters of St. Matt. was omitted, the supernatural character of the narrative being contradictory to their views about the person of Jesus Christ. It is difficult to say with certainty what other books of the N.T. were known to them; but there is reason to believe that they (as also the Gnostic-Ebionites) were familiar with the Gospels of St. Mark and St. Luke. The existence among them of the "Protevangelium Jacobi" and the Περιοδοὶ τοῦ Πέτρου indicates their respect for those Apostles.
(b) Essene or Gnostic Ebionism.—This, as the name indicates, was a type of Ebionism affected by external influences. The characteristic features of the ascetic Essenes were reproduced in its practices, and the traces of influences more directly mystical and oriental were evident in its doctrines. The different phases through which Ebionism passed at different times render it, however, difficult to distinguish clearly in every case between Gnostic and Pharisaic Ebionism. Epiphanius (adv. Haer. xxx.) is the chief authority on the Gnostic Ebionites. He met them in Cyprus, and personally obtained information about them (cf. R. A. Lipsius, Zur Quellen-Kritik d. Epiphanios, pp. 138, 143, 150 etc.).
Their principal tenets were as follows: Christianity they identified with primitive religion or genuine Mosaism, as distinguished from what they termed accretions to Mosaism, or the post-Mosaic developments described in the later books of O.T. To carry out this distinction they fabricated two classes of "prophets," προφῆται ἀληθείας, and προφῆται συνέσεως οὐκ ἀληθείας. In the former class they placed Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Aaron, Moses, and Jesus; in the latter David, Solomon, Isaiah, Jeremiah, etc. In the same spirit they accepted the Pentateuch alone among the O.T. writings, and emasculated it; rejecting whatever reflected questionably upon their favourites. They held that there were two antagonistic powers appointed by God—Christ and devil; to the former was allotted the world to come, to the latter the present world. The conception of Christ was variously entertained. Some affirmed that He was created (not born) of the Father, a Spirit, and higher than the angels; that He had the power of coming to this earth when He would, and in various modes of manifestation; that He had been incarnate in Adam, and had appeared to the patriarchs in bodily shape; others identified Adam and Christ. In these last days He had come in the person of Jesus. Jesus was therefore to them a successor of Moses, and not of higher
