Wednesday, November 01, 2006
MORE ON THE EBIONITES
H. P. Blavatsky mentions them in ISIS UNVEILED, Part Two, Chapter IV:
But who then were the first Christians, may still be asked? Doubtless the Ebionites; and in this we follow the authority of the best critics. "There can be little doubt that the author (of the Clementine Homilies) was a representative of Ebionitic Gnosticism, which had once been the purest form of primitive Christianity. . . ."* And who were the Ebionites? The pupils and followers of the early Nazarenes, the kabalistic Gnostics. In the preface to the Codex Nazaraeus, the translator says: "That also the Nazarenes did not reject . . . the AEons is natural. For of the Ebionites who acknowledged them (the AEons), these were the instructors."**
We find, moreover, Epiphanius, the Christian Homer of The Heresies, telling us that "Ebion had the opinion of the Nazarenes, the form of the Cerinthians (who fable that the world was put together by angels), and the appellation of Christians."*** An appellation certainly more correctly applied to them than to the orthodox (so-called) Christians of the school of Irenaeus and the later Vatican. Renan shows the Ebionites numbering among their sect all the surviving relatives of Jesus. John the Baptist, his cousin and precursor, was the accepted Saviour of the Nazarenes, and their prophet. His disciples dwelt on the other side of the Jordan, and the scene of the baptism of the Jordan is clearly and beyond any question proved by the author of Sod, the Son of the Man, to have been the site of the Adonis-worship.**** "Over the Jordan and beyond the lake dwelt the Nazarenes, a sect said to have existed already at the birth of Jesus, and to have counted him among its number. They must have extended along the east of the Jordan, and southeasterly among the Arabians (Galat. i. 17, 21; ii. 11), and Sabaeans in the direction of Bosra; and again, they must have gone far north over the Lebanon to Antioch, also to the northeast to the Nazarian settlement in Beroea, where St. Jerome found them. In the desert the Mysteries of Adonis may have still prevailed; in the mountains Aiai Adonai was still a cry."*****
"Having been united (conjunctus) to the Nazarenes, each (Ebionite) imparted to the other out of his own wickedness, and decided that Christ was of the seed of a man," writes Epiphanius.
And if they did, we must suppose they knew more about their contemporary prophet than Epiphanius 400 years later. Theodoret, as shown elsewhere, describes the Nazarenes as Jews who "honor the Anointed as a just man," and use the evangel called "According to Peter." Jerome finds the authentic and original evangel, written in Hebrew, by Matthew the apostle-publican, in the library collected at Caesarea, by the martyr Pamphilius. "I received permission from the Nazaraeans, who at Beroea of Syria used this (gospel) to translate it," he writes toward the end of the fourth century.* "In the evangel which the Nazarenes and Ebionites use," adds Jerome, "which recently I translated from Hebrew into Greek,** and which is called by most persons the genuine Gospel of Matthew," etc.
The Societas Rosicruciana in Canada speaks of them:
To the Ebionite Jews, Jesus became God’s son at baptism. He was thus not divine by nature, or at birth, but only by "adoptionism". It remains unclear whether Jesus remained human throughout his life or was transformed to a semi-divine status after his "adoption".3
To the Nazorean Jews, writing in Aramaic, Jesus is presented in much the same terms as in the canonical Matthew, although with "corrections".
The Cambrian Episcopal Church of the Grail speaks of the Ebionites, the Essenes, the Nazoraeans, the Desposyni, "The Way", Albigensians, Freemasonry, and Tarot Cards. The material is too long to quote here. Check it out at the website. Their homepage indicates they are organized around house churches.
The Nazarene Way of Essenic Studies mentions the Ebionites:
Jerome's description, taken along with the name (cf. Acts 24:5) and geographical position of the sect, strongly suggest that the Nazarenes of the 4th century interacted with the Ebionites in spite of Epiphanius' distinction.
Earlier church fathers such as Justin Martyr, Origen and Eusebius mention other groups who, to varying extent, accepted Jesus as Messiah while continuing to observe the Jewish Law. It is often suggested that these are the same as the groups identified by Jerome and Epiphanius as Nazarenes. One such group were the Ebionites, referred to in second century writings. There Epiphanius draws a comparative distinction between the Nazarenes and the Ebionites.
Another page in the Nazarene Way website offers a contrast between "The Way" of James and "The Church" of Paul, indicating at the top of the website that "Essenes, Nazarenes, Ebionites and others" practiced "The Way".
