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Home , Ebionites, Panarion

THE qOSPEL OFTHE 1t

Gospel. This is shown, for example, in the reference to the diet of , in which the canonical statement that he ate locusts (i.e., meat) and wild honey was modifred by the change of simply one letter, so that now The Çospel of the Baptist, in anticþation of the Ebionites themselves, maintains a vege- tarian cuisine: here he is said to have eaten pancakes and wild honey. It is difficult to assign a date to this Gospel, but since it betrays a the Ebionites knowledge of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and presupposes a thriving com- munity of Jewish Christians, it is perhaps best to locate it sometime early in the second century. The following extracts are all that remain of the Gospel, drawn from Epiphanius's work, the (:The Medícine Cåesr), Book 30.

rbignftes were a group of Jewish christians located in different regions lrg The beginning of the Gospel they John. When he came up out of the water, of the Mediterranean from at least the second to the fourth centuries.r úIhat 4 distinguished I u.e reads as follows: 'And so in the opened and he saw the Holy this group of christians from many others was their attempt to the days of Herod, King of Judea, John Spirit in the form of a dove, descending combine Jewish views and lifestyles with the belief that was tie In particular, came baptizing a baptism of repentance and entering him. And a voice came from lessiah. they were said to have emphasized beliefin only one in the River. He was said to have , 'You are my beloved Son, in you God to such an extent that they denied, as a consequence, Jesus,own . the come from the tribe of Aaron, the priest, I am well pleased.'Then it said, 'Today At same time, the Ebionites differed from non-christian Jews in asserting that and was the child ofZacharias and Eliz- I have given you birth.' Immediately a Jesus was the sacrifice for the sins of the world and that all other sacrifices abeth. And everyone went out to him." great light enlightened the place. When had therefore become meaningless. Among other things, this belief led (Bpiphanius, Panarion, 30, 13, 6) John saw this," it says, "he said to him, them to embrace.a vegetarian diet, since most meat was procured, 'Who are you Lord?'Yet again a voice in the ancient world, through the religious act of sacrificing an animal. For by chopping off the genealo- came from heaven to him, 'This is my 2 gies of Matthew they make their beloved Son, with whom I am well One of the sacred books these Jewish Ch¡istians appealed to in support Gospel begin as we indicated before, with pleased.' And then," it says, "John fell of their views was known in antiquity as the Gospel of the Ebionites. Regrettably- the words: 'And so in the days of Herod, before him and said, 'I beg you, Lord- the book as whole has been lost; but we are fortunate to have some quotations King of Judea, when Caiaphas was high you baptize me ! ' But Jesus restrained him of it in the writings of an opponent of the Ebioniæs, the priest, a certain one named John came by saying, 'læt it be, for it is fitting that fourtli-century -hunter, Epiphanius of salamis. These quotations give us a good idea baptizing a baptism of repentance in the all things be fulfilled in this way.' " (Epi- of what the entire Gospel must have looked like. It was w-ritten ." (Epiphanius, Panarion, 3O, phanius, Panarion, 30, 13, 3-4) in Greek, and represented a kind of harmony of the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, t4,3) and Luke. This can be seen most clearly in the accàunt of thevoice at Jesus' In the GÒspel that they call "ac- baptism. In the three canonicar accounts, the voice says slightly different And so John was baptizing, and cording to Matthew"-which is things. These differences are harmonized, however, in the 5 Gospel according 3 Pharisees came to him and were not at all complete, but is falsified and to the Ebionites, where the voice comes from heaven th¡ee times, baptized, as was all of . John mutilated-which they refer to as the He- saying something slightly different on each occasion, corre_ wore a gannent of camel hair and a brew Gospel, the following is found: sponding to the words found in each of the three earlier Gospels. Some Ieather belt around his waist: and his food 'And so there was a certain man named of the Ebionites' distinctive concems are embodied in their was wild honey that tasted like manna, Jesus, who was about thirty years old. He like a cake cooked in oil. (Epiphanius, is the one who chose us. When he came tSæ Panarion,30, 13,4-5) to Capernaum he entered the house of Ehmm, lrrr Cå rßtianìt¡es, chap. 6. Simon, also called Peter, and he opened Translation by Bart D. Ehrman based on the Greek text found in Egbert Schlarb and And after a good deal more, it says: his mouth to say, As I was passing by Diêter LtlhÌmann, Fragrcnte apocryph geword,ener Evangelien in griechischer und 4 "When the people were baptized, the lake of Tiberias I chose John and Inteinischer Spracåe (Marburg: N. G. Elwert, ZOOO) ¡S_¡ó. Jesus also came and was baptized by James, the sons of Zebedee, and Simon, 12 14 NON-CANONTCAL qOSPE[5

Andrew, Thaddaeus, Simon the Zealot, was created as one of the archangels, yet and Judas Iscariot; and I called you, Mat, was made greater than they, since he rules thew, while you were sitting at the tax over the angels and all things made by collector's booth, and you followed me. the Almighty. And, as found in thei¡ Gos- I want you, therefore, to be the twelve pel, they say that when he came he The Çospel According as a witness to Israel." (Epiphan- taught, "I have come to destroy the sac- ius, Panarion, 30, 13, 2-3) rifices. And if you do not stop making to the Hebrews sacrifice, God's wráth will not stop af- Again they deny that he was a man, flicting you." (Epiphanius, Panarion, 30, 6 even basing their view on the word 16, 4-5) the Savior spoke when it was reported to him, "See, your mother and brothers are They have changed the saying and standing outside." "Who," he asked, "is B abandoned its true sequence, as is my mother and brothers?" Stretching out clear to everyone who considers the com- his hand to his disciples he said, "These bination of the words. For they have the are my brothers and mother and sisters- disciples say, "Where do you want us to The Gospel according to the Hebrews is quoted by a number of church those who do the will of my Father." make preparations for you to eat the Pass- fathers connected with the city of Alexandria, Egypt-Clement, , (Epiphanius, Panarion, 30, 14, 5) over lamb?" And they indicate that he Didymus the Blind, and (who studied with Didymus in Alexandria); responded, "I have no desire to eat the for this reason, scholars assume that it was used, and possibly written, there, They do not allege that he was bom meat of this lamb with you.', probably during the fi¡st half of the second century. Regrettably, the book 7 from God the Father, but that he (Epiphanius, Panarion, 30, 22, 4) no longer survives intact, but only in the scattered references to it in these other authors' writings. Its name probably derives from the circumstance that it was used principally by Jewish-Christians in that large and thriving mehopolis-i.e., it was called this by outsiders of that communit¡ not by those who actually used it. The Gospel according to the Hebrews was written in Greek and narrated important events of Jesus' life, including his baptism, temptation, and res- urrection. It appears, however, that these stories were not simply taken over and modified from the Gospels that came to be included in the New Testament, They were instead alternative forms of these traditions that had been passed along orally until the unknown author of this Gospel heard them and wrote them down. The Jewish emphases of the Gospel are evident in a several of the surviving quotations, such as fragment 5, which presupposes the importance of James, the brother of Jesus, the head of the Jewish-Christian community in Jerusalem after Jesus' death. Yet some of the sayings of the Gospel have a Gnostic tone to them (see fragment l, which is quite similar to Coptic Gospel of Thomas 2).t It may be, then, that this particular Jewish-Christian community was more sympathetic than others to the prominent Gnostic teachers in Alexandria in the second century. In any event, the Gospel evidently contained a number of Jesus' ethical teachings (fragments 4 and 7). And some of its accounts were highly legendary-including the post-

f On , we Ehmñ,Inst Christ¡anítìes, 713-34.

Translation by Bart D. Ehrman, based on the Greek, Latin, and Syriac texts in A. F. J. Kijin,Jewísh-ChristlanGospelTladitlon (VC Supp 17; L¡iden: E. J. Brill, 1992) 47-1 15.

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