JUDEOCHRISTIANS. — These are converts to the Christian faith from Judaism, who originally constituted the entire community of the Church of Jerusalem and had as its head the apostle s. James called the Minor, a relative of the Lord. Although they believed in the messiahship of Jesus and in his Resurrection, they retained the mentality and ritual practices of Judaism and intended that these practices, including circumcision, should also be observed by those who came to the Church from paganism. Regarding the controversy that agitated the early period of the Jerusalem community in the face of the universalistic vision upheld and practiced by s. Paul the Apostle, V. APOLLO, santo.
The siege of Jerusalem by the army of Vespasian and Titus (A.D. 70) forced a large part of the city’s Judeo-Christian community to withdraw to Pella under the leadership of s. Simeon, cousin of the Lord and successor of James the Minor, who had suffered martyrdom by order of Agrippa I; then, after the destruction of the city by Hadrian (130), the remaining j. (Simeon had already suffered martyrdom under Trajan around 107) dispersed throughout Transjordan, Galilee, and Perea.
The prestige that accrued to the small community from having initially been governed by «brothers of the Lord» (Δεσπόσυνοι); its cohesion, maintained by the use of its own Gospel, that «according to the Hebrews», partly echoing the Gospel of s. Matthew; its hostility toward s. Paul, considered a deserter from Judaism; its habit of a withdrawn and poor life, which eventually caused them to be confused with the Ebionites (v.); all this meant that the j. preserved their own distinctive character until the end. After the fourth century every trace of them disappears.
The principal source for the history of the j. is s. Epiphanius (Haer., 29-30). Epiphanius distinguishes the Nazoreans and the Ebionites. «Nazoreans» would initially have been the designation of all Christians; later (or earlier) they would also have been called Jesseans, from Jesse, the father of David (ibid., 29, 1, 3), or from the name of Jesus (ibid., 29, 4, 9). They observe the law and circumcision (ibid., 29, 4, 4), and the Sabbath (ibid., 29, 7, 5); and they must not be confused either with the Nazirites of the Old Testament (ibid., 29, 5, 7), or with the Jewish sect of the Nazoreans (ibid., 29, 6, 1), which Epiphanius discusses in Haer., 18. They possess the New Testament and the canon of the Old Testament (ibid., 29, 7, 2), and teach the Resurrection, creation, and monotheism (ibid., 29, 7, 3). Regarding their Christological doctrine, Epiphanius knows nothing precise (ibid., 29, 7, 6). The Nazoreans live in the vicinity of Berea, in the regions of Pella and in Kokaba. The Nazoreans at Pella would be descendants of the j. of Jerusalem, who before the destruction of that city received God’s command to go to Pella (Eusebio, Hist. eccl., III, 5, 3; Epifanio, ibid., 29, 7, 8). The Nazoreans are hated by the Jews and three times a day are anathematized by them in their prayers (ibid., 29, 9, 2). They possess a complete Gospel of Matthew in the Hebrew language. In contrast, however, with this assertion that their Gospel of Matthew was complete stands the assertion of Epiphanius himself that he did not know whether this Gospel contained Christ’s genealogy (ibid., 29, 9, 4).
As can be seen, this account by Epiphanius is not overly unfavorable to the Nazoreans.
Epiphanius’s criticism of the Ebionites, on the other hand, is much harsher; he discusses them in Haer., 30. Their founder is said to have been a certain Ebion (ibid., 30, 1, 1; the name ’ebhūm would mean poor (ibid., 30, 17, 1, 2). He is said to have united all the Jewish and Judeo-Christian heresies (ibid., 30, 1, 3). According to Epiphanius, Ebion taught that Jesus was the natural son of Joseph (ibid., 30, 2, 2; 3, 1; 14, 4); he observed the law, the Sabbath, and circumcision (ibid., 30, 3, 2), was a Baptist, and continually purified himself whenever he touched a foreigner or encountered a woman. The washing took place with the garments on (ibid., 30, 3, 5). Ebion is said to have taken this scrupulousness in purification from the Samaritans. He was nevertheless opposed to the ideal of virginity and continence (ibid., 30, 2, 7), although previously the ideal of virginity was supposedly also known among the Ebionites because of otherwise unknown writings of James to presbyters and virgins (ibid., 30, 2, 7). After the destruction of Jerusalem and before the Nazoreans, Ebion is said to have gone to Kokaba (ibid., 30, 7, 8; cf. 18, 1), where the Nazoreans and Ebionites supposedly exchanged their ideas, and where a fusion with the ideas of Elkesai also took place (ibid., 30, 3, 2). According to Epiphanius, the Ebionites are characterized by the great variety of their Christological opinions. According to some, Christ would be identical with Adam (ibid., 30, 3, 3); others teach that Christ was created before all things, that he is the Spirit, and that he exercises dominion over all the angels (ibid., 30, 3, 4; according to 30, 16, 4, Christ himself would be one of the archangels); according to others, Christ appeared among the patriarchs and at the end clothed himself with Adam’s body (ibid., 30, 3, 5); finally, others believe that Christ was the spirit who clothed Jesus (ibid., 30, 3, 6). The Ebionites use exclusively the Gospel of Matthew (ibid., 30, 3, 7), which they call the Gospel according to the Hebrews (30, 3, 7). Of this Gospel of the Ebionites Epiphanius gives several notable quotations (ibid., 30, 13). Epiphanius asserts that this Gospel was also the Gospel of Cerinthus and Carpocrates (ibid., 14, 1). The account of Jesus’ infancy and his genealogy were absent from this Gospel. The narrative begins with John the Baptist (ibid., 14, 2). Through the Ebionites they knew the journeys of Peter, which, however, were said to have been falsified (ibid., 15, 1-3), and then the two letters of Clement himself to the virgins (ibid., 15, 2). According to Epiphanius, the Ebionites are hemerobaptists (ibid., 15, 3 and 16, 1) and do not eat meat (ibid., 15, 3), because meat comes from carnal union (ibid., 15, 4). They also know the Sacrament of Baptism (ibid., 16, 1), but in the Eucharist they use unleavened bread and drink water (ibid., 16, 1). According to their Gospel, Jesus came to abolish sacrifices (ibid., 16, 5). They do not possess the Acts of the Apostles by Luke, but other Acts. They reject the Apostle to the Gentiles, who was supposedly originally a pagan as well and became a Jew only out of desire for a priest’s daughter (ibid., 30, 16, 8, 9). The Ebionites have presbyters and archisynagogues and call their churches synagogues (ibid., 18, 2). They explain their name by reference to the community of goods in Jerusalem (ibid., 17, 2). They acknowledge the patriarchs and reject the prophets (ibid., 18, 4, and 18, 9); they call Jesus the prophet of truth, who after many moral efforts became «Son of God» with divine assistance (ibid., 18, 5). They do not accept the entire Pentateuch. They make a selection from the text (18, 7) and say that it is no longer necessary to read the Law since the Gospel has come, grounding this also on (private) revelations of Christ (30, 18, 7-9). It is therefore unsurprising that they possessed many apocryphal writings under the names of James, Matthew, John, and other disciples of the Lord (30, 23, 1-2). Such is Epiphanius’s account of the Ebionites.
As for this information concerning nations and ebionites, this distinction between two groups among the Jewish Christians is not an innovation of Epiphanius, but was an old Christian tradition (Origen, C. Celsum, 5, 61-65). The false innovation, rather, is that the two groups received the distinct designations of nations and ebionites. Origen still spoke of two groups of ebionites. It is evident that in reality nations and ebionites were general names for all Jewish Christians. They were called nations as adherents of Jesus of Nazareth (the explanation of the name as «observant», defended anew by H. J. Schoeps, Theologie und Geschichte des Judenchristentums, Tübingen 1949, p. 10, n. 2, has been challenged by H. H. Schaeder, in G. Kittel, Theolog. Wörterbuch, IV, p. 879 ff.); «ebhōnīm means «poor», as aspirants to the world to come, while in this world they are oppressed and poor. Epiphanius explains the distinction by mentioning the founder of one group, Ebion, probably mentioned for the first time by Hippolytus. There may perhaps be some truth in the acceptance of a person who possessed theological authority among the Jewish Christians, but the name of this person has been lost, and only the nickname remains: Ebion.
Epiphanius states that the Jewish Christians reached the places he had mentioned shortly before or after the destruction of the Temple. This is partly true. But perhaps they had already been in these regions much earlier; in fact, St. Paul went to Arabia (that is, Nabataea) after his conversion (Gal. 1, 17), and he may have become acquainted there with certain Judaeo-Christian traditions that can be traced in his letters. It is possible that the great variety of theological opinions among the Jewish Christians was also partly caused by sociological reasons. Already in the Christian community of Jerusalem, alongside the group that lived a common life (Act. 2, 44), there were others who remained outside II. This must have led to two distinct forms of life, with possible ideological consequences. Epiphanius’s ebionites explain their name by reference to the community of goods in Jerusalem (Haer., 30, 17, 2); that is, their poverty means an ascetic renunciation, and
this is interesting because it suggests the existence of Judaeo-Christian ascetics in forms that seem to anticipate the later Palestinian asceticism. Epiphanius found conflicting ideas among the Jewish Christians concerning sexual asceticism.
Some are said to have favoured virginity, while others are said instead to have recommended marriage at a young age. But this contrast could perhaps be partly resolved by the hypothesis that ascetic groups existed alongside a local community. That the organization of the local communities of these Jewish Christians followed the example of the Jews is unsurprising (Haer., 30, 18, 2); but the assertion that the Sabbath was observed is probably incomplete, since we know from Eusebius (Hist. ecc., III, 27, 5, source unknown) that the ebionites celebrated Sunday as well as the Sabbath. Epiphanius had not been in contact with the Jewish Christians in Palestine, and for this reason his account is an indigestible mass of material. He knew what had been written about Elkesai and had read a Catholic recension of the pseudo-Clementine writings, but he was unable to place the information he had read within a historical framework. Consequently, his assertions concerning a fusion between Elkesaites and ebionites and concerning the purifications (Samaritan!) are suspect. On the other hand, he lacked knowledge of the Jewish Christian doctrine concerning sin, and likewise of their eschatological ideas. His information about the various Christologies is not very illuminating. The distinction between those who taught that Jesus was the natural son of Joseph and others who accepted the virginal birth of Mary lacks precision, because even acceptance of the virginal birth did not yet necessarily contain (as is clear from Origen, In Math. comm., XVI, 12, and Eusebius, Hist. ecc., III, 27, 3) the affirmation of the dogma of the divine Incarnation. Epiphanius took the information concerning the identification of Christ with Adam from the pseudo-Clementine writings. More interesting is his attribution of the doctrine of Christ as archangel (Haer., 30, 3, 4 and 16, 4) to the ebionites, on account of the analogous doctrine in the Shepherd of Hermas. For the reconstruction of Judaeo-Christian doctrines, a simple collection of texts in which nations and ebionites are mentioned is not sufficient; the entire patristic literature must be consulted in order to reach the underlying ideas that led to the development of Judaeo-Christianity and that had, especially in Syria, a much greater importance than is generally believed for the history of the Church.