The Gospel of the Ebionites
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In The Other Gospels, Cameron makes the following observations: "The Gospel of the Ebionites (Gos. Eb.) is a gospel harmony preserved in a few quotations in the writings of Epiphanius (a church writer who lived at the end of the fourth century C.E.). The original title of this gospel is unknown. The designation customary today is based on the fact that this was the gospel probably used by the Ebionites, a group of Greek-speaking Jewish Christians who were prominent throughout the second and third centuries. Epiphanius incorrectly entitles this the 'Hebrew' gospel, and alleges that it is an abridged, truncated version of the Gospel of Matthew. Whereas the Gospel of the Ebionites is indeed closely related to Matthew, examination of the extant fragments reveals that much of the text is a harmony, composed in Greek, of the Gospels Matthew and Luke (and, probably, the Gospel of Mark as well). Although Irenaeus (late in the second century) attests to the existence of this gospel, we are dependent solely upon the quotations given by Epiphanius for our knowledge of the contents of the text."

The Gospel of the Ebionites omits the infancy narratives. The gospel presents both John the Baptist and Jesus as vegetarians, and Jesus says that he has come to abolish sacrifices. Cameron says, "Together with the sayings about the passover, this intimates a polemic against the Jewish Temple." This indicates that the Gospel of the Ebionites, like the Gospel of Matthew, addresses the issue of "Jewish identity after the destruction of the Temple." The solution offered to this problem is "to believe in Jesus, the true interpreter of the Law."

Ebionite, member of an early ascetic sect of Jewish Christians. The Ebionites were one of several such sects that originated in and around Palestine in the first centuries AD and included the Nazarenes and Elkasites. The name of the sect is from the Hebrew ebyonim, or ebionim (“the poor”); it was not founded, as later Christian writers stated, by a certain Ebion.

Little information exists on the Ebionites, and the surviving accounts are subject to considerable debate, since they are uniformly derived from the Ebionites’ opponents. The first mention of the sect is in the works of the Christian theologian St. Irenaeus, notably in his Adversus haereses (Against Heresies; c. 180); other sources include the writings of Origen and St. Epiphanius of Constantia. The Ebionite movement may have arisen about the time of the destruction of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem (AD 70). Its members evidently left Palestine to avoid persecution and settled in Transjordan (notably at Pella) and Syria and were later known to be in Asia Minor and Egypt. The sect seems to have existed into the 4th century.

Most of the features of Ebionite doctrine were anticipated in the teachings of the earlier Qumrān sect, as revealed in the Dead Sea Scrolls. They believed in one God and taught that Jesus was the Messiah and was the true “prophet” mentioned in Deuteronomy 18:15. They rejected the Virgin Birth of Jesus, instead holding that he was the natural son of Joseph and Mary. The Ebionites believed Jesus became the Messiah because he obeyed the Jewish Law. They themselves faithfully followed the Law, although they removed what they regarded as interpolations in order to uphold their teachings, which included vegetarianism, holy poverty, ritual ablutions, and the rejection of animal sacrifices. The Ebionites also held Jerusalem in great veneration.