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The Ebionites

the Gentiles, and most probably a native either of Italy or of some of the Latin provinces. At his persuasion, the most considerable part of the congregation renounced the Mosaic law, in the practice of which they had persevered above a century. By this sacrifice of their habits and prejudices they purchased a free admission into the colony of Hadrian, and more firmly cemented their union with the Catholic church.21

When the name and honours of the church of Jerusalem had been restored to Mount Sion, the crimes of heresy and schism were imputed to the obscure remnant of the Nazarenes which refused to accompany their Latin bishop. They still preserved their former habitation of Pella, spread themselves into the villages adjacent to Damascus, and formed an inconsiderable church in the city of Beroa, or, as it is now called, of Aleppo, in Syria.22 The name of Nazarenes was deemed too honourable for those Christian Jews, and they soon received from the supposed poverty of their understanding, as well as of their condition, the contemptuous epithet of Ebionites. 23 In a few years after the return of the church of Jerusalem, it became a matter of doubt and controversy whether a man who sincerely acknowledged Jesus as the Messiah, but who still continued to observe the law of Moses, could possibly hope for salvation. The humane temper of Justin Martyr inclined him to answer this question in the affirmative; and, though he expressed himself with the most guarded diffidence, he ventured to determine in favour of such an imperfect Christian, if he were content to practise the Mosaic ceremonies, without pretending to assert their general use or necessity.

21 Eusebius, 1. iv. c. 6. Sulpicius Severus, ii. 31. By comparing their unsatisfactory accounts, Mosheim (p. 327, &c.) has drawn out a very distinct representation of the circumstances and motives of this revolution.

22 Le Clerc (Hist. Ecclesiast. p. 477, 535) seems to have collected from Eusebius, Jerome, Epiphanius, and other writers, all the principal circumstances that relate to the Nazarenes, or Ebionites. The nature of their opinions soon divided them into a stricter and a milder sect; and there is some reason to conjecture that the family of Jesus Christ remained members, at least, of the latter and more moderate party. [The earliest mention of the Ebionites is in Irenæus, Adv. Hær. i. 22. The earlier Ebionites (= Nazarenes) must be distinguished from the later, Gnostic Ebionites. For the former see the anti-heretical treatises of Tertullian and Hippolytus, for the latter that of Epiphanius.]

23 Some writers have been pleased to create an Ebion, the imaginary author of their sect and name. But we can more safely rely on the learned Eusebius than on the vehement Tertullian or the credulous Épiphanius. According to Le Clerc, the Hebrew word Ebjonim may be translated into Latin by that of Pauperes. See Hist. Ecclesiast. p. 477. [The name was assumed by themselves in reference to the poverty of their condition; the Fathers contemptuously referred it to their understanding.]

r of But, when Justin was pressed to declare the sentiment of the host church, he confessed that there were very many among the sale orthodox Christians, who not only excluded their Judaizing → a brethren from the hope of salvation, but who declined any hey intercourse with them in the common offices of friendship, ind hospitality, and social life.24 The more rigorous opinion pre

vailed, as it was natural to expect, over the milder; and an em external bar of separation was fixed between the disciples of nd Moses and those of Christ. The unfortunate Ebionites, rejected es from one religion as apostates, and from the other as heretics, ill found themselves compelled to assume a more decided character; es and, although some traces of that obsolete sect may be dis- covered as late as the fourth century, they insensibly melted daway either into the church or the synagogue.25

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While the orthodox church preserved a just medium between The Gnostics ed excessive veneration and improper contempt for the law of as Moses, the various heretics deviated into equal but opposite In extremes of error and extravagance. From the acknowledged it truth of the Jewish religion the Ebionites had concluded that an it could never be abolished. From its supposed imperfections 10 the Gnostics as hastily inferred that it never was instituted by y the wisdom of the Deity. There are some objections against T the authority of Moses and the prophets, which too readily 1, present themselves to the sceptical mind; though they can only be derived from our ignorance of remote antiquity, and from our incapacity to form an adequate judgment of the =, divine œconomy. These objections were eagerly embraced, and as petulantly urged, by the vain science of the Gnostics.26

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24 See the very curious Dialogue of Justin Martyr with the Jew Tryphon. The conference between them was held at Ephesus, in the reign of Antoninus Pius, and about twenty years after the return of the church of Pella to Jerusalem. For this date consult the accurate note of Tillemont, Mémoires Ecclésiastiques, tom. iL. p. 511.

Of all the systems of Christianity, that of Abyssinia is the only one which still adheres to the Mosaic rites (Geddes's Church History of Ethiopia, and Dissertations de La Grand sur la Relation du P. Lobo). The eunuch of the queen Candace might suggest some suspicions; but, as we are assured (Socrates, i. 19, Sozomen, ii. 24, Ludolphus [Hist. Eth.], p. 281) that the Æthiopians were not converted till the fourth century, it is more reasonable to believe that they respected the Sabbath, and distinguished the forbidden meats, in imitation of the Jews, who, in a very early period, were seated on both sides of the Red Sea. Circumcision had been practised by the most ancient Ethiopians, from motives of health and cleanliness, which seem to be explained in the Recherches Philosophiques sur les Américains, tom. ii. p. 117. [Cp. Art. "Ethiopic Church" in Dict. Chr. Biography.]

Beausobre, Histoire du Manichéisme, 1. i. c. 3, has stated their objections, particularly those of Faustus, the adversary of Augustin, with the most learned impartiality. [Perhaps the best introduction to the study of Gnosticism (and of

As those heretics were, for the most part, averse to the pleasures of sense, they morosely arraigned the polygamy of the patriarchs, the gallantries of David, and the seraglio of Solomon. I The conquest of the land of Canaan, and the extirpation of the unsuspecting natives, they were at a loss how to reconcile with i the common notions of humanity and justice. But, when they recollected the sanguinary list of murders, of executions, and of massacres, which stain almost every page of the Jewish annals, they acknowledged that the barbarians of Palestine had exercised as much compassion towards their idolatrous enemies as they had ever shewn to their friends or country-1 men.27 Passing from the sectaries of the law to the law itself, they asserted that it was impossible that a religion which consisted only of bloody sacrifices and trifling ceremonies, and whose rewards as well as punishments were all of a carnal and temporal nature, could inspire the love of virtue, or restrain the impetuosity of passion. The Mosaic account of the creation and fall of man was treated with profane derision by the Gnostics, who would not listen with patience to the repose of the Deity after six days' labour, to the rib of Adam, the garden of Eden, the trees of life and of knowledge, the speaking serpent, the forbidden fruit, and the condemnation pronounced against human kind for the venial offence of their first progenitors. 28 The God of Israel was impiously represented by the Gnostics as a being liable to passion and to error, capricious in his favour, implacable in his resentment, meanly jealous of his superstitious worship, and confining his partial providence to a single people and to this transitory life. In such a char

Ebionism) is the work of R. A. Lipsius, Quellenkritik des Epiphanios, and his article on Gnosticismus in Ersch and Gruber's Encyclopædia. The theories of Harnack and Hilgenfeld as to the origin of Gnosticism are briefly stated in App. 2. The chief sources for early Gnosticism are: Irenæus, Adv. Hær. (esp. for the Valentinian heresy), Tertullian, Adv. Hær. (esp. for Marcionism), and two works of Hippolytus, of which (a) "Against all Heresies" is formally lost, but has been practically restored, by the ingenuity of Lipsius, from citations of later writers; and (6) the "Refutation of all Heresies," of which the greater part was recovered in this century, in a Ms. found on Mount Athos (the authorship of Hippolytus was finally proved by Döllinger); which discovery led to the identification of the Philosophumena (of "Pseudo-Origen ") as the first book of the same treatise. It is to be observed that both Irenæus and Hippolytus apply the word Gnostic in a wide sense to a whole class of cognate views, not (like Epiphanius) to a special sect; Hippolytus, however, chiefly uses it of the Ophites and Syrian Gnostics.]

Apud ipsos fides obstinata, misericordia in promptû: adversus omnes alios hostile odium. Tacit. Hist. v. 4. Surely Tacitus had seen the Jews with too favourable an eye. The perusal of Josephus must have destroyed the antithesis.

29 Dr. Burnet (Archæologia, 1. ii. c. 7) has discussed the first chapters of Genesis with too much wit and freedom.

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lea acter they could discover none of the features of the wise and the omnipotent father of the universe.29 They allowed that the non religion of the Jews was somewhat less criminal than the the idolatry of the Gentiles; but it was their fundamental doctrine with that the Christ whom they adored as the first and brightest hey emanation of the Deity appeared upon earth to rescue mankind and from their various errors, and to reveal a new system of truth ish and perfection. The most learned of the fathers, by a very ine singular condescension, have imprudently admitted the sophistry ous, of the Gnostics. Acknowledging that the literal sense is rery- pugnant to every principle of faith as well as reason, they deem elf, themselves secure and invulnerable behind the ample veil of on- allegory, which they carefully spread over every tender part of nd, the Mosaic dispensation.30

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It has been remarked, with more ingenuity than truth, that Their sects, in the virgin purity of the church was never violated by schism or infuence on heresy before the reign of Trajan or Hadrian, about one hundred The years after the death of Christ.31 We may observe, with much more propriety, that, during that period, the disciples of the Messiah were indulged in a freer latitude both of faith and ng practice than has ever been allowed in succeeding ages.

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the terms of communion were insensibly narrowed, and the -spiritual authority of the prevailing party was exercised with increasing severity, many of its most respectable adherents, who were called upon to renounce, were provoked to assert, their of private opinions, to pursue the consequences of their mistaken principles, and openly to erect the standard of rebellion against the unity of the church. The Gnostics were distinguished as the most polite, the most learned, and the most wealthy of the Christian name, and that general appellation which expressed a superiority of knowledge was either assumed by their own pride or ironically bestowed by the envy of their adversaries.32 They were almost without exception of the race of the Gentiles, and their principal founders seem to have been

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"The milder Gnostics considered Jehovah, the Creator, as a Being of a mixed nature between God and the Dæmon. Others confounded him with the evil principle. Consult the second century of the general history of Mosheim, which gives a very distinct, though concise, account of their strange opinions on this subject.

30See Beausobre, Hist. du Manichéisme, 1. i. c. 4. Origen and St. Augustin were among the Allegorists.

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"Hegesippus, ap. Euseb. 1. iii. 32, iv. 22. Clemens, Alexandrin. Stromat. vii.

22 [It is not necessary to suppose that Gnosticism is referred to in the first Epistle to Timothy, ad fin.]

natives of Syria or Egypt, where the warmth of the climate disposes both the mind and the body to indolent and con templative devotion. The Gnostics blended with the faith o Christ many sublime but obscure tenets which they derived from oriental philosophy, and even from the religion of Zoro aster, concerning the eternity of matter, the existence of tw principles, and the mysterious hierarchy of the invisible world. As soon as they launched out into that vast abyss, they delivered themselves to the guidance of a disordered imagination; and, as the paths of error are various and infinite, the Gnostics were imperceptibly divided into more than fifty particular sects, of whom the most celebrated appear to have been the Basilidians, the Valentinians, the Marcionites, and, in a still later period, the Manichæans. Each of these sects could boast of its bishops and congregations, of its doctors and martyrs,35 and, instead of the four gospels adopted by the church, the heretics produced a multitude of histories, in which the actions and discourses of Christ and of his apostles were adapted to their respective tenets. 36 The success of the Gnostics was rapid and extensive. $7 They covered Asia and Egypt, established themselves in Rome, and sometimes penetrated into the provinces of the West. For

33 In the account of the Gnostics of the second and third centuries, Mosheim is ingenious and candid; Le Clerc dull, but exact; Beausobre almost always an apologist; and it is much to be feared that the primitive fathers are very frequently calumniators. [Gnosticism originated in Syria, and entered upon a second stage when it passed to Egypt, and came under the influence of Greek philosophy (Basilides, for instance, was affected by the doctrines of the Stoics, Valentinus by Platonism). A later development is presented in the treatise Pistis Sophia, a precious relic of Gnostic literature, preserved in Coptic, edited by Schwartze and Petermann, with Latin translation, in 1851. See Appendix 2.]

34 See the catalogues of Irenæus and Epiphanius. It must indeed be allowed that those writers were inclined to multiply the number of sects which opposed the unity of the church.

35 Eusebius, 1. iv. c. 15. Sozomen, 1. ii. c. 32. See in Bayle, in the article of Marcion, a curious detail of a dispute on that subject. It should seem that some of the Gnostics (the Basilidians) declined, and even refused, the honour of martyrdom. Their reasons were singular and abstruse. See Mosheim, p. 359.

36 See a very remarkable passage of Origen (Proem. ad Lucam). That indefatigable writer, who had consumed his life in the study of the scriptures, relies for their authenticity on the inspired authority of the church. It was impossible that the Gnostics could receive our present gospels, many parts of which (particularly in the resurrection of Christ) are directly, and as it might seem designedly, pointed against their favourite tenets. It is therefore somewhat singular that Ignatius (Epist. ad Smyrn. Patr. Apostol. tom. ii. p. 34, [§ iii. 2]) should choose to employ a vague and doubtful tradition, instead of quoting the certain testimony of the evangelists.

37 Faciunt favos et vespæ; faciunt ecclesias et Marcionitæ, is the strong expression of Tertullian, which I am obliged to quote from memory. [Adv. Marc. iv. 5. In the time of Epiphanius (advers. Hæreses, p. 302), the Marcionites were very numerous in Italy, Syria, Egypt, Arabia, and Persia.

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