Christian Texts and History • Re: What were the beliefs of Early Ebionaen Christianity?

This stuff is not easy to sort out and I appreciate your input and help. Ireneaus doesn't help by using a broad tarbrush with "their opinions with respect to the Lord are similar to those of Cerinthus ". So I'll try to sort it out to what I think and then try to back it up: it could be we are saying the same thing.

Ebionites believed that Jesus was Christ by election, i.e. he was so perfect with performing God's Law that God made him Christ. It could happen to anyone who was perfect.

I had never considered "It could happen to anyone who was perfect" and have to agree: God is all-powerful and could bestow his Grace on another - and I expect the Ebionaens would agree.

Cerinthus, again, a man who was educated in the wisdom of the Egyptians, taught that the world was not made by the primary God, but by a certain Power far separated from him, and at a distance from that Principality who is supreme over the universe, and ignorant of him who is above all.

That is the two-Gods of Cerinthus that I'm told is a basis for the two Gods of Marcion, so the broad tarbrush of Ireneaus does not apply to that because "their opinions with respect to the Lord are opposite to those of Cerinthus " - the Ebionaens were very much Hebrew/mono-theistic/Shemaers.

That leaves the 2 parts in the middle:

He [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.

If Cerinthus believed that then he agrees with the Ebionaens so I agree with Ireneaus.

Moreover, after his baptism, Christ descended upon him in the form of a dove from the Supreme Ruler, and that then he proclaimed the unknown Father, and performed miracles.

If Cerinthus believed that then he agrees with the Ebionaens so I agree with Ireneaus, but (respectfully) disagree with you: "I don't think the Ebionites regarded Jesus as divine until he ascended to heaven." No, as I cited "the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove which descended and entered into him" at his baptism, and the Ebionaens hold to what is written in Hebrews and recounted in the Panarion. I contend that Epiphany, the celebration of Christ's baptism, is a big Ebionaen Christian holiday, as it is even today with the Greek Orthodox.

Does that help clarify things?

PS: This raises a side question in my mind: is there a consensus as to who wrote Hebrews? Definitely it's not Fauline. It's anti-Fauline: does that make it written after the Faulines?

Statistics: Posted by ebion — Wed Jan 17, 2024 4:18 am

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