LECT. IV. Gnostics to distinguish between Jesus and Christ;

Testimony of Irenæus

the heresy of the

Ebionites.

the former designation being understood as referring to our Lord's humanity, the latter to the Eon, or celestial emanation, which became resident in his human nature from his baptism. Another Gnostic peculiarity was a denial of the miraculous conception. Now it is to be remembered, that all these opinions were professed by the Ebionites;* and if the paganized philosophy whence they were derived, contained other absurdities which this body cannot be shown to have acknowledged, there is enough in their education as Jews to serve as an explanation of such exceptions.

Accordingly, Irenæus, the disciple of Polycarp, concerning in his great work against the heresies of his times, has repeatedly classed the Ebionites with the different sects of Gnostics, whose errors it was his great object to refute, affirming that the opinions of the sect so named, if persisted in, must be fatal to salvation. It is true, Dr. Priestley has denied that Irenæus has thus represented the case of the Ebionites, and insists that he merely describes them as a people who held some "vain" opinions, and of whom, in consequence, he had "some dislike."+ But it should have been remembered, that the term vain, as applied to

* Epiphanius Adversus Hæreses,-Ebionei Hæresis. Burton's Inquiry, Note 83. Jamieson's Vindication of the Primitive Faith, II. 231-255.

Early Opinions, III. c. 10.

the Ebionite doctrine, is the very term applied, LECT. IV. and in this particular connexion, with reference to the nature of all the heresies which the writer enumerates, and which he is labouring to confute. The passage says nothing concerning the most impious speculations of the Gnostics, which it does not say concerning the tenets of Ebion.

Having described the creed of this heresiarch, as opposed alike to that of the Scriptures and of the church, and as conducting his disciples to perdition, it must appear strange, to the uninitiated in the arts of controversy, that Irenæus, of all men, should have been noticed as judging very leniently of the Ebionite heresy. But he shall speak for himself on this matter. Adverting to the Saviour, he says" Those who affirm "that he is no more than man, begotten of Joseph, persisting in the bondage of their

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original disobedience, they perish, not receiving "the word of God the Father, nor liberty from "the Son as he has said, If the Son make you

free, ye shall be free indeed. But being igno"rant of Him, who, of a Virgin, is Emmanuel,

they are deprived of his gift, which is eternal "life but not receiving the Word of incorrup"tion (or the incorruptible Word) they continue "in mortal flesh, and are debtors to death, re"jecting the antidote of life."*

*Rursus autem qui nude tantum hominem eum dicunt "ex Joseph generatum, perseverantes in servitute pristinæ inobedientiæ moriuntur, nondum commixtum Verbum Dei "Patris, neque per Filium percipientes libertatem, quemad

LECT. IV.

This extract alone is enough to show, that a more unauthorized appeal could not well have been made, than is that which has been made in this instance, and with so much confidence, by Dr. Priestley. Irenæus, in his many notices of the Ebionites, invariably describes them as he retics. He traces their origin, in common with that of the other heretical sects of whom he is treating, to Simon Magus. He speaks of them as one class of those offenders who receive but a few fragments of revelation, but who are nevertheless condemned by what they do receive. They are denounced also as men who are judged, or convicted of their errors, by every spiritual or true believer. And beside the passage we have just cited, which, if language has meaning, sets them forth as a people perishing in their perverse infidelity; there are others, in a subsequent part of the same work, to the same effect.*

modum ipse ait: Si Filius vos manumisserit, verè liberi "eritis. Ignorantes autem eum, qui ex Virgine est Emmanuel, privantur munere ejus, quod est vita eterna : non recipientes autem Verbum incorruptionis, perseverant in carne mortali, et sunt debitores mortis, antidotum vitæ non "accipientes."-Lib. III. c. 19.-not 21, as in Horsley and "6 Jamieson.

Tanta est autem circa evangelia hæc firmitas, ut et ipsi heretici testimonium reddant eis, et ex ipsis egrediens unusquisque eorum coneter suam confirmare doctrinam. "Ebeonei etenim, eo evangelio quod est secundum Mathæum, "solo utentes, ex illo ipso convincuntur non recte præsumentes de Domino. Marcion autem id quod est secundum Lucam circumcidens, ex his quæ adhuc servantur penes eum, "blasphemus in solum existentem Deum ostenditur."

Ebionites and

were they

the same

The identity of the Ebionites with the people LECT. IV. known in ecclesiastical history under the name Nazarenes of Nazarenes, is a point which has been largely discussed, and one on which there is still a dif. people? ference of opinion. If the evidence of antiquity, in this particular, be only partially adduced, either conclusion which it may be intended to establish will appear highly probable; but taken entirely, and fairly, the amount of testimony on the side of a difference from the beginning, between the people to whom these different names were applied, will, I conceive, appear very much the strongest. The term Nazarene, however, though it certainly seems to have been always used to denote a sect distinct from the Ebionites, is never so used as to indicate that even the Nazarenes were regarded as properly orthodox. The writers who affirm that both these names were assigned to one and the same people, maintain also that the one people so designated consisted of the only Jewish professors of Christianity in early times; and that, in consequence, the Ebionites are the people so frequently alluded to by ancient writers as acknowledged Christians.*

Lib. III. c. xi. Similar passages occur in the first, third, fourth, and fifth books.

* Ittigius, De Hæresiarchis Ævi Apost. sect. i. c. vi. vii. Tillemont, Hist. Eccles. II. 104-110, 481, 486. The reader may find this topic largely discussed in Dr. Priestley's Early Opinions, III. 158-190, 201-219; Bishop Horsley's Tracts; Dr. Jamieson's Vindication of the Primitive Faith,

LECT. IV.

Testimony of

doxy of

Jewish con

verts.

But this theory is a mere assumption. The Hegesippus testimony of Hegesippus alone is enough to to the ortho- refute it. The person bearing this name was a Jewish convert, who wrote about the middle of the second century. That he was himself orthodox is evident from the manner in which his authority is introduced by Eusebius; and from the fact that he was in communion with the church at Rome while under the superintendence of three successive orthodox pastors-Anicetus, Soter, and Eleutherus.* Now according to Hegesippus, the church at Jerusalem continued sound in the faith, agreeably to his views of soundness, until the martyrdom of Symeon, which brings us down to the dispersion of the Christians resident in that city after its siege under Vespasian. In short, the persons intended by the fathers, when they speak of Hebrews professing Christianity, and who were really Christians, were neither the Ebionites nor the Nazarenes, but those orthodox Jewish converts who had constituted the church at Jerusalem, Vol. II. B. V. c. v. sect. 2, 3; and in the notes to Dr. Burton's Inquiry, p. 514-519. All these writers plead for a distinction between the two sects. The last author, who is, perhaps, the best modern guide on the question, insists, that the fathers who distinguished between the Ebionites and Nazarenes, always speak of the latter as being in some shape heretics, in common with the former, and would thus annihilate the theory of Dr. Priestley by a different process from that adopted by Bishop Horsley and Dr. Jamieson.

+ Irenæus, whose own orthodoxy is not questioned, testifies to that of these persons, Contra Hæreses, Lib. III. c. iii. iv.