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TOPIC: Post-Nicene Fathers Vol 01 (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 21.02.16 Book III Part 6
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5 And among these some have placed also the Gospel according to the Hebrews,hyperlink with which those of the Hebrews that have accepted Christ are especially delighted. And all these may be reckoned among the disputed books.hyperlink
6 But we have nevertheless felt compelled to give a catalogue of these also, distinguishing those works which according to ecclesiastical tradition are true and genuine and commonly accepted,hyperlink from those others which, although not canonical but disputed,hyperlink are yet at the same time known to most ecclesiastical writers-we have felt compelled to give this catalogue in order that we might be able to know both these works and those that are cited by the heretics under the name of the apostles, including, for instance, such books as the Gospels of Peter,hyperlink of Thomas,hyperlink of Matthias,hyperlink or of any others besides them, and the Acts of Andrewhyperlink and Johnhyperlink and the other apostles, which no one belonging to the succession of ecclesiastical writers has deemed worthy of mention in his writings.
7 And further, the character of the style is at variance with apostolic usage, and both the thoughts and the purpose of the things that are related in them are so completely out of accord with true orthodoxy that they clearly show themselves to be the fictions of heretics.hyperlink Wherefore they are not to be placed even among the rejectedhyperlink writings, but are all of them to be cast aside as absurd and impious.
Let us now proceed with our history.
Chapter XXVI. Menander the Sorcerer.
1 Menander,hyperlink who succeeded Simon Magus,hyperlink showed himself in his conduct another instrument of diabolical power,hyperlink not inferior to the former. He also was a Samaritan and carried his sorceries to no less an extent than his teacher had done, and at the same time reveled in still more marvelous tales than he.
2 For he said that he was himself the Saviour, who had been sent down from invisible aeons for the salvation of men;hyperlink and he taught that no one could gain the mastery over the world-creating angels themselveshyperlink unless he had first gone through the magical discipline imparted by him and had received baptism from him. Those who were deemed worthy of this would partake even in the present life of perpetual immortality, and would never die, but would remain here forever, and without growing old become immortal.hyperlink These facts can be easily learned from the works of Irenaeus.hyperlink
3 And Justin, in the passage in which he mentions Simon, gives an account of this man also, in the following words:hyperlink "And we know that a certain Menander, who was also a Samaritan, from the village of Capparattea,hyperlink was a disciple of Simon, and that he also, being driven by the demons, came to Antiochhyperlink and deceived many by his magical art. And he persuaded his followers that they should not die. And there are still some of them that assert this."
4 And it was indeed an artifice of the devil to endeavor, by means of such sorcerers, who assumed the name of Christians, to defame the great mystery of godliness by magic art, and through them to make ridiculous the doctrines of the Church concerning the immortality of the soul and the resurrection of the dead.hyperlink But they that have chosen these men as their saviours have fallen away from the true hope.
Chapter XXVII. The Heresy of the Ebionites.hyperlink
1 The evil demon, however, being unable to tear certain others from their allegiance to the Christ of God, yet found them susceptible in a different direction, and so brought them over to his own purposes. The ancients quite properly called these men Ebionites, because they held poor and mean opinions concerning Christ.hyperlink
2 For they considered him a plain and common man, who was justified only because of his superior virtue, and who was the fruit of the intercourse of a man with Mary. In their opinion the observance of the ceremonial law was altogether necessary, on the ground that they could not be saved by faith in Christ alone and by a corresponding life.hyperlink
3 There were others, however, besides them, that were of the same name,hyperlink but avoided the strange and absurd beliefs of the former, and did not deny that the Lord was born of a virgin and of the Holy Spirit. But nevertheless, inasmuch as they also refused to acknowledge that he pre-existed,hyperlink being God, Word, and Wisdom, they turned aside into the impiety of the former, especially when they, like them, endeavored to observe strictly the bodily worship of the law.hyperlink
4 These men, moreover, thought that it was necessary to reject all the epistles of the apostle, whom they called an apostate from the law;hyperlink and they used only the so-called Gospel according to the Hebrewshyperlink and made small account of the rest.
5 The Sabbath and the rest of the discipline of the Jews they observed just like them, but at the same time, like us, they celebrated the Lord's days as a memorial of the resurrection of the Saviour.hyperlink
6 Wherefore, in consequence of such a course they received the name of Ebionites, which signified the poverty of their understanding. For this is the name by which a poor man is called among the Hebrews.hyperlink
Chapter XXVIII. Cerinthus the Heresiarch.
1 We have understood that at this time Cerinthus,hyperlink the author of another heresy, made his appearance. Caius, whose words we quoted above,hyperlink in the Disputation which is ascribed to him, writes as follows concerning this man:
2 "But Cerinthus also, by means of revelations which he pretends were written by a great apostle, brings before us marvelous things which he falsely claims were shown him by angels; and he says that after the resurrection the kingdom of Christ will be set up on earth, and that the flesh dwelling in Jerusalem will again be subject to desires and pleasures. And being an enemy of the Scriptures of God, he asserts, with the purpose of deceiving men, that there is to be a period of a thousand yearshyperlink for marriage festivals."hyperlink
3 And Dionysius,hyperlink who was bishop of the parish of Alexandria in our day, in the second book of his work On the Promises, where he says some things concerning the Apocalypse of John which he draws from tradition, mentions this same man in the following words:hyperlink
4 "But (they say that) Cerinthus, who founded the sect which was called, after him, the Cerinthian, desiring reputable authority for his fiction, prefixed the name. For the doctrine which he taught was this: that the kingdom of Christ will be an earthly one.
5 And as he was himself devoted to the pleasures of the body and altogether sensual in his nature, he dreamed that that kingdom would consist in those things which he desired, namely, in the delights of the belly and of sexual passion, that is to say, in eating and drinking and marrying, and in festivals and sacrifices and the slaying of victims, under the guise of which he thought he could indulge his appetites with a better grace."
6 These are the words of Dionysius. But Iranaeus, in the first book of his work Against Heresies,hyperlink gives some more abominable false doctrines of the same man, and in the third book relates a story which deserves to be recorded. He says, on the authority of Polycarp, that the apostle John once entered a bath to bathe; but, learning that Cerinthus was within, he sprang from the place and rushed out of the door, for he could not bear to remain under the same roof with him. And he advised those that were with him to do the same, saying, "Let us flee, lest the bath fall; for Cerinthus, the enemy of the truth, is within."hyperlink
Footnotes
240 This Gospel, probably composed in Hebrew (Aramaic), is no longer extant, but we possess a few fragments of it in Greek and Latin which are collected by Grabe, Spic. I. 15-31, and by Hilgenfeld, N. T. Extra Can. rec. II. The existing material upon which to base a judgment as to the nature of the lost Gospel and as to its relation to our canonical gospels is very limited. It is certain, however, that it cannot in its original form have been a working over of our canonical Matthew (as many have thought); it contains too many little marks of originality over against our Greek Matthew to admit of such a supposition. That it was, on the other hand, the original of which our Greek Matthew is the translation is also impossible; a comparison of its fragments with our Matthew is sufficient to prove this. That it was the original source from which Matthew and Luke derived their common matter is possible-more cannot be said. Lipsius (Dict. of Christ. Biog. II. 709-712) and Westcott (Hist. of the Canon, p. 515 sqq.) give the various quotations which are supposed to have been made from it. How many of them are actually to be traced back to it as their source is not certain. It is possible, but not certain, that Papias had seen it (see chap. 39, note 28), possible also that Ignatius had, but the passage relied on to establish the fact fails to do so (see chap. 36, note 14). It was probably used by Justin (see Westcott, ibid. p. 516, and Lipsius, ibid. p. 712), undoubtedly by Hegesippus (see below, Bk. IV. chap. 22), and was perhaps known to Pantaenus (see below, Bk. V. chap. 10, note 8). Clement of Alexandria (Strom. II. 9) and Origen (in Johan. II. 6 and often) are the first to bear explicit testimony to the existence of such a gospel. Eusebius also was personally acquainted with it, as may be gathered from his references to it in III. 39 and IV. 22, and from his quotation in (the Syriac version of) his Theophany, IV. 13 (Lee's trans. p. 234), and in the Greek Theophany, §22 (Migne, VI. 685). The latter also shows the high respect in which he held the work. Jerome's testimony in regard to it is very important, but it must be kept in mind that the gospel had undergone extensive alterations and additions before his time, and as known to him was very different from the original form (cf. Lipsius, ibid. p. 711), and therefore what he predicates of it cannot be applied to the original without limitation. Epiphanius has a good deal to say about it, but he evidently had not himself seen it, and his reports of it are very confused and misleading. The statement of Lipsius, that according to Eusebius the gospel was reckoned by many among the Homologoumena, is incorrect; e/ toutoij refers rather to the noqoi among which its earlier acceptance by a large part of the Church, but present uncanonicity, places it by right. Irenaeus expressly states that there were but four canonical gospels (Adv. Haer. III. 2, 8), so also Tertullian (Adv. Marc. IV. 5), while Clement of Alexandria cites the gospel with the same formula which he uses for the Scriptures in general, and evidently looked upon it as, if not quite, at least almost, on a par with the other four Gospels. Origen on the other hand (in Johan. II. 6, Hom. in Jer. XV. 4, and often) clearly places it upon a footing lower than that of the four canonical Gospels. Upon the use of the gospel by the Ebionites and upon its relation to the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew, see chap. 27, note 8.
The literature upon the Gospel according to the Hebrews is very extensive. Among recent discussions the most important are by Hilgenfeld, in his Evangelien nach ihrer Entstehung (1854); in the Zeitschrift f. wiss. Theol., 1863, p. 345 sqq.; in his N. T. extra Canon. rec. (2d ed. 1884); and in his Einleitung z. N. T. (1875); by Nicholson, The Gospel according to the Hebrews (1879); and finally, a very thorough discussion of the subject, which reached me after the composition of the above note, by Handmann, Das Hebräer-Evangelium (Gebhardt and Harnack's Texte und Untersuchungen, Bd. V. Heft 3, Leipzig, 1888). This work gives the older literature of the subject with great fullness. Still more recently Resch's Agrapha (ibid. V. 4, Leipzig, 1889) has come to hand. It discusses the Gospel on p. 322 sq.
241 twn antilegomenwn.
242 anwmologhmenaj.
243 ouk endiafhkouz men, alla kai antilegomenaj. Eusebius, in this clause, refers to the noqoi, which, of course, while distinguishedfrom the canonical Antilegomena, yet are, like them, disputed, and hence belong as truly as they to the more general class of Antilegomena. This, of course, explains how, in so many places in his History, he can use the words noqoi and antilegomena interchangeably (as e.g. in chap. 31, §6). In the present passage the noqoi, as both uncanonical and disputed, are distinguished from the canonical writings,-including both the universally accepted and the disputed, - which are here thrown together without distinction. The point to be emphasized is that he is separating here the uncanonical from the canonical, without regard to the character of the individual writings within the latter class.
244 See chap. 3, note 5.
245 The Gospel of Thomas is of Gnostic origin and thoroughly Docetic. It was written probably in the second century. The original Gnostic form is no longer extant, but we have fragmentary Catholic recensions of it in both Latin and Greek, from which heretical traits are expunged with more or less care. The gosvel contained many very fabulous stories about the childhood of Jesus. It is mentioned frequently by the Fathers from Origen down, but always as an heretical work. The Greek text is given by Tischendorf, p. 36 sqq., and an English translation is contained in the Ante-Nicene Fathers, VIII. 395-405. See Lipsius in the Dict. of Christ. Biog. II. p. 703-705.
246 This gospel is mentioned by Origen (Hom. in Lucam I.), by Jerome (Praaef. in Matt.), and by other later writers. The gospel is no longer extant, though some gragments have been preserved by Clement of Alexandria, e.g. in Strom. II. 9, Strom. III. 4 (quoted below in chap. 30), and Strom. VII. 13, which show that it had a high moral tone and emphasized asceticism. We know very little about it, but Lipsius conjectures that it was "identical with the paradoseij Matqiou which were in high esteem in Gnostic circles, and especially among the Basilidaeans." See Lipsius, ibid. p. 716.
247 Eusebius so far as we know is the first writer to refer to these Acts. But they are mentioned after him by Epiphanius, Philaster, and Augustine (see Tischendorf's Acta Apost. Apoc. p. xl.). The Acts of Andrew (Acta Andraeae) were of Gnostic origin and circulated among that sect in numerous editions. The oldest extant portions (both in Greek and somewhat fragmentary) are the Acts of Andrew and Matthew (translated in the Ante-Nicene Fathers, VIII. 517-525) and the Acts of Peter and Andrew (ibid. 526-527). The Acts and Martyrdom of the Holy Apostle Andrew (ibid. 511-516), or the so-called Epistle of the Presbyters and Deacons of Achaia concerning the Passion of Andrew, is a later work, still extant in a Catholic recension in both Greek and Latin. The fragments of these three are given by Tischendorf in his Acta Apost. Apoc. p. 105 sqq. and 132 sqq., and in his Apocal. Apoc. p. 161 sq. See Lipsius in the Dict. of Christ. Biog. I. p. 30.
248 Eusebius is likewise, so far as we know, the first writer to refer to these Acts. But they are afterward mentioned by Epiphanius, Photius, Augustine, Philaster, &c. (see Tichendrof, ibid. p. lxxiii.). They are also of Gnostic origin and extant in a few fragments (collected by Thilo, Fragmenta Actum S. Johannis a Lencio Charino conscriptorum, Halle, 1847). A Catholic extract very much abridged, but containing clear Gnostic traits, is still extant and is given by Tischendorf, Acta Apost. Apoc. p. 266 sq. (translated in the Ante-Nicene Fathers, VIII. 560-564).
The last two works mentioned belong. to a collection of apocryphal Acts which were commonly ascribed to Leucius, a fictitious character who stands as the legendary author of the whole of this class of Gnostic literature. From the fourth century on, frequent reference is made to various Gnostic Acts whose number must have been enormous. Although no direct references are made to them before the time of Eusebius, yet apparent traces of them are found in Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Origen, &c., which make it probable that these writers were acquainted with them, and it may at any rate be assumed as established that many of them date from the third century and some of them even from the second century. See Salmon's article Leucius in the Dict. of Christ. Biog. III. 703-707, and Lipsius' article in the same work, I. 28.
249 airetikwn andrwn anaplasmata.
250 en nofoij.
251 Justin, in the passage quoted just below, is the first one to tell us about Menander. According to him, he was a Samaritan and a disciple of Simon Magus, and, like him, deceived many by the practice of magic arts. Irenaeus (Adv. Haer. I. 23) gives a somewhat fuller account of him, very likely Based upon Justin's work against heresies which the latter mentions in his Apol. I. 26, and from which Irenaeus quotes in IV. 6. 2 (at least he quotes from a Contra Marcionem, which was in all probability a part of the same work; see Bk. IV. chap. 11, note 22), and perhaps in V. 26. 2. From this account of Irenaeus that of Eusebius is drawn, and no new particulars are added. Tertullian also mentions Menander (De Anima, 23, 50) and his resurrection doctrine, but evidently knows only what Irenaes has already told; and so the accounts of all the early Fathers rest wholly upon Justin and Irenaeus, and probably ultimately upon Justin alone. See Salmon's article Menander in the Dict. of Christ. Biog.
252 Upon Simon Magus, see above, Bk. II. chap. 13, note 3.
253 "Instrument of diabolical power," is an embellishment of Eusebius' own, quite in keeping with his usual treatment of heretics. It is evident, however, that neither Justin nor Irenaeus looked upon Menander with any greater degree of allowance.
254 Simon (Irenaeus, I. 23. 1) taught that he himself was the Supreme Power; but Menander, according to Irenaeus (ibid. §5), taught that the Supreme Power continues unknown to all, but that he himself (as Eusebius here says) was sent forth as a saviour for the deliverance of men.
255 He agreed with Simon in teaching that the world was formed by angels who had taken their origin from the Ennoea of the Supreme Power, and that the magical power which he imparted enabled is followers to overcome these creative angels, as Simon had taught of himself before him.
256 This baptism (according to Irenaeus "into his own name"), and the promise of the resurrection as a result, seem to have been an original addition of Menander's. The exemption from death taught by Menander was evidently understood by Irenaeus, Tertullian (De Anima, 50), and Eusebius in its physical, literal sense; but the followers of Menander must of course have put a spiritual meaning upon it, or the sect could not have continued in existence for any length of time. It is certain that it was flourishing at the time of Justin; how much longer we do not know. Justin himself does not emphasize the physical element, and he undoubtedly understood that the immortality taught was spiritual simply. Hegesippus (quoted below, in Bk. IV. chap. 22) mentions the Menandrianists, but this does not imply that he was himself acquainted with them, for he draws his information largely from Justin Martyr.
257 Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. I. 23. 5. In III. 4. 3 he mentions Menander again, making him the father of all the Gnostics.
258 Justin, Apol. I. 26.
259 The situation of the village of Capparattea is uncertain. See Harnack's Quellen-Kritik des Gnosticismus, p. 84.
260 Menander's Antiochene activity is reported only by Justin. It is probable, therefore, that Tertullian used Irenaeus alone in writing his account of Menander, for it is unlikely that both of them would have omitted the same fact if they drew independently from Justin.
261 Cyril of Jerusalem (Cat. XVIII. 1) says that the denial of the resurrection of the body was a peculiarly Samaritan heresy, and it would seem therefore that the heresy of these Menandrianists was in that direction, i.e. that they taught rather a spiritual immortality and denied a bodily resurrection (as suggested in note 6); evidently, however, this was not Eusebius' idea. He probably looked upon them as discrediting the Christian doctrine of a resurrection by teaching a physical immortality, which of course was soon proved contrary to truth, and which thus, being confounded by the masses with the doctrines of the Christians, brought the latter also into contempt, and threw discredit upon immortality and resurrection of every kind.
262 The Ebionites were not originally heretics. Their characteristic was the more or less strict insistence upon the observance of the Jewish law; a matter of cultus, therefore, not of theology, separated them from Gentile Christians. Among the early Jewish Christians existed all shades of opinion, in regard to the relation of the law and the Gospel, from the freest recognition of the uncircumcised Gentile Christian to the bitterest insistence upon the necessity for salvation of full observance of the Jewish law by Gentile as well as by Jewish Christians. With the latter Paul himself had to contend, and as time went on, and Christianity spread more and more among the Gentiles, the breach only became wider. In the time of Justin there were two opposite tendencies among such Christians as still observed the Jewish law: some wished to impose it upon all Christians; others confined it to themselves. Upon the latter Justin looks with charity; but the former he condemns as schismatics (see Dial. c. Trypho. 47). For Justin the distinguishing mark of such schismatics is not a doctrinal heresy, but an anti-Christian principle of life. But the natural result of these Judaizing tendencies and of the involved hostility to the apostle of the Gentiles was the ever more tenacious clinging to the Jewish idea of the Messiah; and as the Church, in its strife with Gnosticism, laid an ever-increasing stress upon Christology, the difference in this respect between itself and these Jewish Christians became ever more apparent until finally left far behind by the Church in its rapid development, they were looked upon as heretics. And so in Irenaeus (I. 26. 2) we find a definite heretical sect called Ebionites,whose Christology is like that of Cerinthus and Carpocrates, who reject the apostle Paul, use the Gospel of Matthew only and still cling to the observance of the Jewish law; but the distinction which Justin draws between the milder and stricter class is no longer drawn: all are classed together in the ranks of heretics, because of their heretical Christology (cf. ibid. III. 21. 1; IV. 33. 4; V. 1. 3). In Tertullian and Hippolytus their deviation from the orthodox Christology is still more clearly emphasized, and their relation to the Jewish law drops still further into the background (cf. Hippolytus, Phil. VII. 22; X. 18; and Tertullian, De Carne Christi, 14, 18, &c.). So Origen is acquainted with the Ebionites as an heretical sect, but, with a more exact knowledge of them than was possessed by Irenaeus who lived far away from their chief centre, he distinguishes two classes; but the distinction is made upon Christological lines, and is very different from that drawn by Justin. This distinction of Origen's between those Ebionites who accepted and those who denied the supernatural birth of Christ is drawn also by Eusebius (see below, §3). Epiphanius (Haer. XXIX. sqq.) is the first to make two distinct heretical sects-the Ebionites and the Nazarenes. It has been the custom of historians to carry this distinction back into apostolic, times, and to trace down to the time of Epiphanius the continuous existence of a milder party-the Nazarenes-and of a stricter party-the Ebionites; but this distinction Nitzsch (Dogmengesch. p. 37 sqq.) has shown to be entirely groundless. The division which Epiphanius makes is different from that of Justin, as well as from that of Origen and Eusebius; in fact, it is doubtful if he himself had any clear knowledge of a distinction, his reports are so contradictory. The Ebionites known to him were most pronounced heretics; but he had heard of others who were said to be less heretical, and the conclusion that they formed another sect was most natural. Jerome's use of the two words is fluctuating; but it is clear enough that they were not looked upon by him as two distinct sects. The word "Nazarenes" was, in fact, in the beginning a general name given to the Christians of Palestine by the Jews (cf. Acts xxiv. 5), and as such synonymous with "Ebionites." Upon the later syncretistic Ebionism, see Bk. VI. chap. 38, note 1. Upon the general subject of Ebionism, see especially Nitzsch, ibid., and Harnack, Dogmengeschichte, I. p. 226 sqq.
263 The word Ebionite comes from the Hebrew wyb)
, which signifies "poor." Different explanations more or less fanciful have been given of the reason for the use of the word in this connection. It occurs first in Irenaeus (I. 26. 2), but without a definition of its meaning. Origen, who uses the term often, gives different explanations, e.g., in Contra Celsum, II. 1, he says that the Jewish converts received their name from the poverty of the law, "for Ebion signifies poor among the Jews, and those Jews who have received Jesus as Christ are called by the name of Ebionites." In De Prin. IV. 1. 22, and elsewhere, he explains the name as referring to the poverty of their understanding. The explanation given by Eusebius refers to their assertion that Christ was only a common man, born by natural generation, and applied only to the first class of Ebionites, a description of whom follows. For the same name as applied to the second class (but see note 9) who accepted Christ's supernatural birth, he gives a different reason at the end of the chapter, the same which Origen gives for the application of the name to Ebionites in general. The explanation given in this place is so far as we know original with Eusebius (something similar occurs again in Epiphanius, Haer. XXX. 17), and he shows considerable ingenuity in thus treating the name differently in the two cases. The various reasons do not of course account for the existence of the name, for most of them could have become reasons only long after the name was in use. Tertullian (De Praescr. Haer. 33, De Carne Christi, 14, 18, &c.) and Hippolytus (in his Syntagma,-as can be gathered from Pseudo-Tertullian, Adv. Haer. chap. 3, and Epiph. Haer. XXX.,-and also in his Phil. chap. 23, where he mentions Ebion incidentally) are the first to tell us of the existence of a certain Ebion from whom the sect derived its name, and Epiphanius and later writers are well acquainted with the man. But Ebion is a myth invented simply for the purpose of explaining the origin of Ebionism. The name Ebionite was probably used in Jerusalem as a designation of the Christians there, either applied to them by their enemies as a term of ridicule on account of their poverty in worldly goods, or, what is more probable, assumed by themselves as a term of honor,-"the poor in spirit,"-or (as Epiphanius XXX. 17, says the Ebionites of his day claimed) on account of their voluntarily taking poverty upon themselves by laying their goods at the feet of the apostles. But, however the name originated, it became soon, as Christianity spread outside of Palestine, the special designation of Jewish Christians as such, and thus when they began to be looked upon as heretical, it became the name of the sect.
264 wj mh an dia monhj thj eij tdn xoiston pistewj kai tou kat authn biou swfhsomenoij. The addition of the last clause reveals the difference between the doctrine of Eusebius' time and the doctrine of Paul. Not until the Reformation was Paul understood and the true formula, dia monhj thj eij ton xriston pistewj, restored.
265 Eusebius clearly knew of no distinction in name between these two classes of Ebionites such as is commonly made between Nazarenes and Ebionites,-nor did Origen, whom he follows (see note 1, above).
266 That there were two different views among the Ebionites as to the birth of Christ is stated frequently by Origen (cf. e.g. Contra Cels. V. 61), but there was unanimity in the denial of his pre-existence and essential divinity, and this constituted the essence of the heresy in the eyes of the Fathers from Irenaeus on. Irenaeus, as remarked above (note 1), knows of no such difference as Eusebius here mentions: and that the denial of the supernatural birth even in the time of Origen was in fact ordinarily attributed to the Ebionites in general, without a distinction of the two classes, is seen by Origen's words in his Hom. in Luc. XVII.
267 There seems to have been no difference between these two classes in regard to their relation to the law; the distinction made by Justin is no longer noticed.
268 This is mentioned by Irenaeus (I. 26. 2) and by Origen (Cont. Cels. V. 65 and Hom. in Jer. XVIII. 12). It was a general characteristic of the sect of the Ebionites as known to the Fathers, from the time of Origen on, and but a continuation of the enmity to Paul shown by the Judaizers during his lifetime. But their relations to Paul and to the Jewish law fell more and more into the background, as remarked above, as their Christological heresy came into greater prominence over against the developed Christology of the Catholic Church (cf. e.g. the accounts of Tertullian and of Hippolytus with that of Irenaeus).
The "these" (onroi de) here would seem to refer only to the second class of Ebionites; but we know from the very nature of the case, as well as from the accounts of others, that this conduct was true as well of the first, and Eusebius, although he may have been referring only to the second, cannot have intended to exclude the first class in making the statement.
269 Eusebius is the first to tell us that the Ebionites used the Gospel according to the Hebrews. Irenaeus (Adv. Hae. I. 26. 2, III. 11. 7) says that they used the Gospel of Matthew, and the fact that he mentions no difference between it and the canonical Matthew shows that, so far as he knew, they were the same. But according to Eusebius, Jerome, and Epiphanius the Gospel according to the Hebrews was used by the Ebionites, and, as seen above (chap. 25, note 18), this Gospel cannot have been identical with the canonical Matthew. Either, therefore, the Gospel used by the Ebionites in the time of Irenaeus, and called by him simply the Gospel of Matthew, was something different from the canonical Matthew, or else the Ebionites had given up the Gospel of Matthew for another and a different gospel (for the Gospel of the Hebrews cannot have been an outgrowth of the canonical Matthew, as has been already seen, chap. 25, note 24). The former is much more probable, and the difficulty may be most simply explained by supposing that the Gospel according to the Hebrews is identical with the so-called Hebrew Gospel of Matthew (see chap. 24, note 5), or at least that it passed among the earliest Jewish Christians under Matthew's name, and that Irenaeus, who was personally acquainted with the sect, simply hearing that they used a Gospel of Matthew, naturally supposed it to he identical with the canonical Gospel. In the time of Jerome a Hebrew "Gospel according to the Hebrews" was used by the "Nazarenes and Ebionites" as the Gospel of Matthew (cf. in Matt. XII. 13; Contra Pelag. III. 2). Jerome refrains from expressing his own judgment as to its authorship, but that he did not consider it in its existing form identical with the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew is clear from his words in de vir. ill. chap. 3, taken in connection with the fact that he himself translated it into Greek and Latin, as he states in chap. 2. Epiphanius (Haer. XXIX. 9) says that the Nazarenes still preserved the original Hebrew Matthew m full, while the Ebionites (XXX. 13) had a Gospel of Matthew "not complete, but spurious and mutilated"; and elsewhere (XXX. 3) he says that the Ebionites used the Gospel of Matthew and called it the "Gospel according to the Hebrews." It is thus evident that he meant to distinguish the Gospel of the Ebionites from that of the Nazarenes, ie. the Gospel according to the Hebrews from the original Hebrew Matthew. So, likewise. Eusebius' treatment of the Gospel according to the Hebrews and of the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew clearly indicates that he considered them two different gospels (cf. e.g. his mention of the former in chap. 25 and in Bk. IV. chap. 22, and his mention of the latter in chap. 24, and in Bk. IV. chap. 10). Of course he knew that the former was not identical with the canonical Matthew, and hence, naturally supposing that the Hebrew Matthew agreed with the canonical Matthew, he could not do otherwise than make a distinction between the Gospel according to the Hebrews and the Hebrew Matthew, and he must therefore make the change which he did in Irenaeus' statement in mentioning the Gospel used by the Ebionites, as he knew them. Moreover, as we learn from Bk. VI. chap. 17, the Ebionite Symmachus had written against the Gospel of Matthew (of course the canonical Gospel), and this fact would only confirm Eusebius in his opinion that Irenaeus was mistaken, and that the Ebionites did not use the Gospel of Matthew.
But none of these facts militate against the assumption that the Gospel of the Hebrews in its original form was identical with the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew, or at least passed originally under his name among Jewish Christians. For it is by no means certain that the original Hebrew Matthew agreed with the canonical Matthew, and, therefore, lack of resemblance between the Gospel according to the Hebrews and the canonical Matthew is no argument against its identity with the Hebrew Matthew. Moreover, it is quite conceivable that, in the course of time, the original Gospel according to the Hebrews underwent alterations, especially since it was in the hands of a sect which was growing constantly more heretical, and that, therefore, its resemblance to the canonical Matthew may have been even less in the time of Eusebius and Jerome than at the beginning. It is possible that the Gospel of Matthew, which Jerome claims to have seen in the library at Caesarea (de vir. ill. chap. 3), may have been an earlier, and hence less corrupt, copy of the Gospel according to the Hebrews.
Since the writing of this note, Handmann's work on the Gospel according to the Hebrews (Das Hebräer-Evangelium, von Rudolf Handmann. Von Gebhardt and Harnack's Texte und Untersuchugen, Bd. V. Heft 3) has come into my hands, and I find that he denies that that Gospel is to be in any way identified with the traditional Hebrew Matthew, or that it bore the name of Matthew. The reasons which he gives, however, are practically the same as those referred to in this note, and, as already shown, do not prove that the two were not originally identical. Handmann holds that the Gospel among the Jewish Christians was called simply "the Gospel," or some general name of the kind, and that it received from others the name "Gospel according to the Hebrews," because it was used by them. This may well be, but does not militate at all against the existence of a tradition among the Jewish Christians that Matthew was the author of their only gospel Handmann makes the Gospel according to the Hebrews a second independent source of the Synoptic Gospels alongside of the "Ur-Marcus," (a theory which, if accepted, would go far to establish its identity with the Hebrew Matthew), and even goes so far as to suggest that it is to be identified with the logia of Papias (cf. the writer's notice of Handmann's book, in the Presbyterian Review, July, 1889). For the literature on this Gospel, see chap. 25, note 24. I find that Resch in his Agrapha emphasizes the apocryphal character of the Gospel in its original form, and makes it later than and in part dependent upon our Matthew, but I am unable to agree with him.
270 The question again arises whether Eusebius is referring here to the second class of Ebionites only, and is contrasting their conduct in regard to Sabbath observance with that of the first class, or whether he refers to all Ebionites, and contrasts them with the Jews. The subject remains the same as in the previous sentence; but the persons referred to are contrasted with ekeinoi, whom they resemble in their observance of the Jewish Sabbath, but from whom they differ in their observance of the Lord's day. The most natural interpretation of the Greek is that which makes the outoi de refer to the second class of Ebionites, and the ekeinoi to the first; and yet we hear from no one else of two sharply defined classes separated by religious customs, in addition to doctrinal opinions, and it is not likely that they existed. If this interpretation, however, seems necessary, we may conclude that some of them observed the Lord's day, while others did not, and that Eusebius naturally identified the former with the more, and the latter with the less, orthodox class, without any especial information upon the subject. It is easier, too, to explain Eusebius' suggestion of a second derivation for the name of Ebionite, if we assume that he is distinguishing here between the two classes. Having given above a reason for calling the first class by that name, he now gives the reason for calling the second class by the same.
271 See note 2.
272 The earliest account which we have of Cerinthus is that of Irenaeus (Adv. Haer. I. 26. 1; cf. III. 3. 4, quoted at the end of this chapter, and 11. 1), according to which Cerinthus, a man educated in the wisdom of the Egyptians, taught that the world was not made by the supreme God, but by a certain power distinct from him. He denied the supernatural birth of Jesus, making him the son of Joseph and Mary, and distinguishing him from Christ, who descended upon him at baptism and left him again at his crucifixion. He was thus Ebionitic in his Christology, but Gnostic in his doctrine of the creation. He claimed no supernatural power for himself as did Simon Magus and Menander, but pretended to angelic revelations, as recorded by Caius in this paragraph. Irenaeus (who is followed by Hippolytus, VII. 21 and X. 17) says nothing of his chiliastic views, but these are mentioned by Caius in the present paragraph, by Dionysius (quoted by Eusebius, VII. 25, below), by Theodoret (Haer. Fab. II. 3), and by Augustine (De Haer. I. 8), from which accounts we can see that those views were very sensual. The fullest description which we have of Cerinthus and his followers is that of Epiphanius (Haer. XXVIII.), who records a great many traditions as to his life (e.g. that he was one of the false apostles who opposed Paul, and one of the circumcision who rebuked Peter for eating with Cornelius, &c.), and also many details as to his system, some of which are quite contradictory. It is clear, however, that he was Jewish in his training and sympathies, while at the same time possessed of Gnostic tendencies. He represents a position of transition from Judaistic Ebionism to Gnosticism, and may be regarded as the earliest Judaizing Gnostic. Of his death tradition tells us nothing, and as to his dates we can say only that he lived about the end of the first century. Irenaeus (III. 2. 1) supposed John to have written his gospel and epistle in opposition to Cerinthus. On the other hand, Cerinthus himself was regarded by some as the author of the Apocalypse (see Bk. VII. chap. 25, below), and most absurdly as the author of the Fourth Gospel also (see above, chap. 24, note 1).
273 See Bk. II. chap. 25, §7. Upon Caius, see the note given there. The Disputation is the same that is quoted in that passage.
274 Cf. Rev. xx. 4. On chiliasm in the early Church, see below, chap. 39, note 19.
275 It is a commonly accepted opinion founded upon this passage that Caius rejected the apostolic authorship of the Apocalypse and considered it a work of Cerinthus. But the quotation by no means implies this. Had he believed that Cerinthus wrote the Apocalypse commonly ascribed to John, he would certainly have said so plainly, and Eusebius would just as certainly have quoted his opinion, prejudiced as he was himself against the Apocalypse. Caius simply means that Cerinthus abused and misinterpreted the vision of the Apocalypse for his own sensual purposes. That this is the meaning is plain from the words "being an enemy to the Divine Scriptures," and especially from the fact that in the Johannine Apocalypse itself occur no such sensual visions as Caius mentions here. The sensuality was evidently superimposed by the interpretation of Cerinthus. Cf. Weiss' N. T. Einleitung, p. 82.
276 Upon Dionysius and his writings, see below, Bk. VI. chap. 40, note 1.
277 The same passage is quoted with its context in Bk. VII. chap. 25, below. The verbs in the portion of the passage quoted here are all in the infinitive, and we see, from Bk. VII. chap. 25, that they depend upon an indefinite legousin, "they say"; so that Eusebius is quite right here in saying that Dionysius is drawing from tradition in making the remarks which he does. Inasmuch as the verbs are not independent, and the statement is not, therefore, Dionysius' own, I have inserted, at the beginning of the quotation, the words "they say that," which really govern all the verbs of the passage. Dionysius himself rejected the theory of Cerinthus' authorship of the Apocalypse, as may be seen from Bk. VII. chap. 25, §7.
278 Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. I. 26. 1.
279 See ibid. III. 3. 4. This story is repeated by Eusebius, in Bk. IV. chap. 14. There is nothing impossible in it. The occurrence fits well the character of John as a "son of thunder," and shows the same spirit exhibited by Polycarp in his encounter with Marcion (see below, Bk. IV. chap. 14). But the story is not very well authenticated, as Irenaeus did not himself hear it from Polycarp, but only from others to whom Polycarp had told it. The unreliability of such second-hand tradition is illustrated abundantly in the case of Irenaeus himself, who gives some reports, very far from true, upon the authority of certain presbyters (e.g. that Christ lived fifty years; II. 22. 5). This same story, with much more fullness of detail, is repeated by Epiphanius (Haer. XXX. 24), but of Ebion (who never existed), instead of Cerinthus. This shows that the story was a very common one, while, at the same time, so vague in its details as to admit of an application to any heretic who suited the purpose. That somebody met somebody in a bath seems quite probable, and there is nothing to prevent our accepting the story as it stands in Irenaeus, if we choose to do so. One thing, at least, is certain, that Cerinthus is a historical character, who in all probability was, for at least a part of his life, contemporary with John, and thus associated with him in tradition, whether or not he ever came into personal contact with him.