GakuseiDon

I know that it is general consensus that there was no historical Ebion, but what are the reasons for this conclusion? Looking at the earliest references, there doesn't appear to be anything that signifies non-historicity. I suppose that "Ebion" seems an obvious name for the founder of "Ebionites", and the fact that it also means "poor" is suspicious. But how did a consensus arise that there probably was no historical Ebion? Tertullian, for example, lived at a time when the Ebionites existed, and believed that there was an Ebion. Why is he regarded as unreliable on this?

I've included the earliest references to Ebion and the Ebionites that I could find (I haven't included Justin Martyr, who refers to Jewish Christians but not to Ebionites by name):

Ireneaus (c130-c200)
http://www.earlychristianwritings.co...eus-book1.html

1. Cerinthus... represented Jesus as having not been born of a virgin, but as being the son of Joseph and Mary according to the ordinary course of human generation, while he nevertheless was more righteous, prudent, and wise than other men...

2. Those who are called Ebionites agree that the world was made by God; but their opinions with respect to the Lord are similar to those of Cerinthus and Carpocrates. They use the Gospel according to Matthew only, and repudiate the Apostle Paul, maintaining that he was an apostate from the law.

Tertullian (c160-c225)
http://www.earlychristianwritings.co...tullian15.html

This opinion will be very suitable for Ebion, who holds Jesus to be a mere man, and nothing more than a descendant of David, and not also the Son of God; although He is, to be sure, in one respect more glorious than the prophets, inasmuch as he declares that there was an angel in Him, just as there was in Zechariah...

Now, that we may give a simpler answer, it was not fit that the Son of God should be born of a human father's seed, lest, if He were wholly the Son of a man, He should fail to be also the Son of God, and have nothing more than "a Solomon" or "a Jonas,"'--as Ebion thought we ought to believe concerning Him...

Again, there is an answer to Ebion in the Scripture: "Born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God."

Hippolytus (c170-c236)
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/050107.htm

The Ebionaeans,9 however, acknowledge that the world was made by Him Who is in reality God, but they propound legends concerning the Christ similarly with Cerinthus and Carpocrates. They live conformably to the customs of the Jews... And the (Ebionaeans allege) that they themselves also, when in like manner they fulfil (the law), are able to become Christs; for they assert that our Lord Himself was a man in a like sense with all (the rest of the human family)...

Forcibly appropriating, however, (his notions of) Christ from the school of the Gnostics, and of Cerinthus and Ebion, he alleges that (our Lord) appeared in some such manner as I shall now describe. (According to this, Theodotus maintains) that Jesus was a (mere) man, born of a virgin, according to the counsel of the Father, and that after he had lived promiscuously with all men, and had become pre-eminently religious, he subsequently at his baptism in Jordan received Christ, who came from above and descended (upon him) in form of a dove.

Origen (c185-254)
http://www.earlychristianwritings.co...origen162.html

Here he has not observed that the Jewish converts have not deserted the law of their fathers, inasmuch as they live according to its prescriptions, receiving their very name from the poverty of the law, according to the literal acceptation of the word; for Ebion signifies "poor" among the Jews, and those Jews who have received Jesus as Christ are called by the name of Ebionites.

Roger Pearse

We have a conflict in the data. Origen tells us how the term Ebionites arises; while Tertullian supposes a founder Ebion, just as for Valentinians etc. People have chosen to follow Origen, rather than Tertullian, since presuming a mistake by Tertullian simplifies the number of hypothesese needed. But is Origen's etymology correct, I wonder?

All the best,

Roger Pearse

GakuseiDon

Hi Roger. Yes, that's what I wonder as well. There's certainly a parallel here where Tatian and Tertullian say that they are called "Christians" because they are anointed by the oil of God. Origen doesn't rule out an Ebion, and if a founder (or key person) had taken the name it may have been deliberately to associate himself with the poor. Thus potentially both Origen and Tertullian could be correct.

aa5874

What exactly is the presumed mistake by Tertullian? Tertullian, 155-230 CE, wrote long before Eusebius, c275-339 CE probably by at least 100 years. Tertullian would be more likely to have firsthand information about the Ebonites than Eusebius. I would really like to see what you classify as Tertullian's presumed mistake.

Ben C Smith

Roger mentioned nothing about Eusebius. The comparison was between Tertullian and Origen, not between Tertullian and Eusebius.

Ben.

Roger Pearse

As Ben remarked, I'm not sure how Eusebius comes into this? Origen is only slightly later than Tertullian.

The data is contradictory; Tertullian says that Ebion was a person; Origen suggests that the term Ebionite has another origin. If we presume that Tertullian, knowing of Ebionites, presumed that this was yet another group founded by someone (e.g. Valentinians, founded by Valentinus, etc), and therefore supposed the existence of an Ebion on that basis, then this is a possible theory as to why Tertullian wrote as he did. We then suppose Origen to be correct, and Tertullian in a mistake. This, I believe, is the common opinion as to how the contradiction in the data should be resolved, and always has been.

Tertullian lived in Carthage, in the Latin west, whereas Origen lived in Caesarea, knew Hebrew, and may have known Ebionites personally. He certainly knows the mysterious "Gospel according to the Hebrews" which these may have used (pardon me if I skip over a shed-load of uncertainties about this lost work or works), since he quotes from it; Jerome, in the same locale somewhat later, does the same. So eastern authors are in a generally better position to be informed on Ebionites than Tertullian is.

All speculation, of course.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

aa5874

I made an error. Thanks for the correction. However, since you are just speculating, I won't proceed any further

mountainman

At the end of the day, Eusebius must come into the picture
because it is he and he alone who has originally gathered and
tendered the literature presented by GDon in the initial post.

Either way Eusebius is implicated. On the one hand you can
accept as true and integrous the information furnished via
Eusebius, as being understood to discussions relating to any
of the above purported authors. On the other hand you can
reject as false the Eusebian testament - either in part, or in
its entirety.

andrewcriddle

The extreme absence of early biographical information about Ebion, his status as a bare name, does rather suggest that he was deduced by back formation from the word Ebionite.

Andrew Criddle

Doug Shaver

Reliability needs to be established, not assumed. I have done little reading about Tertullian, but in that little bit, I have seen no case made for thinking him a reliable source of information about sects he considers heretical.

"Reliable until proven otherwise" is not a good principle to follow when examining ancient documents. Or most modern ones, for that matter.