CHAPTER THIRD. Of the Hebrew church, and ils sects. IT must strike the learned reader, that the Nazarenes mentioned by St Jerome, in the passage to which I now refer of his annotations on Isaiah, must have been a different people from those mentioned by him with such contempt in his epistle to St Austin, and described by Epiphanius. The Nazarenes, here mentioned by St Jerome, held the scribes and pharisees in detestation; their traditions in contempt; and the apostle St Paul in high veneration. And yet these Nazarenes, of the best sort, were still a distinct set of people from the Hebrews believing in Christ; that is, from the orthodox church of Jerusalem, divested, in consequence of Adrian's edicts against the Jews, of what, until the time of those edicts, it had retained of the exterior form of Judaism. These remarks lead, I think, to a more distinct notion of the different sects of Hebrews professing the Christian religion, than I have met with in writers of ecclesiastical antiquity; a much more distinct one, I confess, than I had myself formed, * See St Jerome in Is. ix, 1, 2, 3, et viii. 14, 19—22, when I delivered the Charge to the clergy of my archdeaconry, which gave the beginning to this controversy; a notion however perfectly consistent with every thing which I then maintained; and tending to establish the points, in which I differ from Dr Priestley. As the question about the Hebrew sects is of great importance, I shall here briefly state the sum of what I have found concerning them in ancient writers, and then propound my own conclusions. 2. The Nazarenes are not mentioned by Irenæus. Irenæus says of the Ebionites,* that they acknowledged God for the maker of the world ;that they resembled not Cerinthus or Carpocrates in their opinions about Christ;-that they used only the Gospel by St Matthew ;-were over curious in the exposition of the prophets;-disowned the apostle Paul, calling him an apostate from the law ;-circumcised, and retained the Jewish law and Jewish customs. This description of the Ebionites occurs in that part of the great work of Irenæus, which is extant only in a barbarous Latin translation. In the In the passage which relates to their opinions about Christ, Cotelerius suspects a corruption; and for non similiter, he would read consimiliter; supposing that Irenæus Irenæus, lib. i. c. 26. must have affirmed, and that he could not deny, their resemblance of Cerinthus and Carpocrates in that article; and this indeed is agreeable, as will appear, to the descriptions given of the Ebionites by other writers. 3. Irenæus in another place insinuates, that for wine, in the Eucharist, the Ebionites substituted pure water.* 4. Tertullian says, that Ebion made Jesus a mere man, of the seed of David only, that is, not also the Son of God; in some respect higher in glory than the prophets. In another place ‡ he says, that Ebion was the successor of Cerinthus ; not agreeing with him in every particular, inasmuch as he allowed that the world was made by God, not by angels: that as a consequence of Christ's mere humanity, he maintained the lasting obligation of the Mosaic law; because it is written, that the disciple is not above the master, nor the servant above his lord. Tertullian says nothing expressly about the agreement, or disagreement of Ebion and Cerinthus, in their notions of Christ; but the impiety of maintaining that he was a mere man, the son of Joseph, he ascribes to Carpocrates and Cerinthus as well as Ebion; Irenæus, lib. v. c. 2. + De carne Christi, c. 14 which renders the emendation, proposed by Cotelerius, in the Latin version of Irenæus, consimiliter for non similiter, very probable: especially, as a further agreement of the Ebionites and Gnostics, in their notions about Christ, is maintained by other writers. Tertullian again in another place, having mentioned "that St Paul, writing to the Galatians, inveighs against the observers and defenders of circumcision and the law," adds, "this was Ebion's heresy."* This however is no argument, that Ebion lived when that epistle was written. Tertullian means only to remark, that Ebion's tenets, in this article, were clearly confuted by St Paul's writings. In the same place he mentions the denial of the resurrection of the body, by Marcion, Apelles, and Valentinus, as an error reproved in St Paul's first epistle to the Corinthians. But no one, I imagine, would thence conclude that Marcion, Apelles, and Valentinus, were contemporaries of the apostle. 5. Origen, in the second book against Celsus, seems to comprehend the whole body of the Hebrew Christians under the name of Ebionites; and affirms, that they adhered to the law of their fathers. But in another place, where he profes De Præscript. Hæret. c. 33. + Contra Cels. lib, ii. sec. 1. ses to describe the Christianity of the Hebrews with the greatest accuracy, he divides the whole body into three sects. The first, like other Christians, entirely discarded the Mosaic law; the second retained the observation of the law in the letter of the precept, admitting however the same spiritual expositions of it, which were set up by those who discarded it; the third sort not only observed the law according to the letter, but rejected all spiritual expositions of it.* 6. Eusebius divides the Ebionites into two sorts, both denying our Lord's divinity; but the better sort believing the miraculous conception.† Both rejected the epistles of St Paul, whom they called an apostate from the law. They used the Gospel according to the Hebrews, and held the canonical gospels in little esteem. They kept both the Jewish Sabbath and the Christian Sunday. Origen and Eusebius, like Irenæus, mention not the Nazarenes by name. 7. St Jerome, in his commentary upon Isaiah, mentions Hebrews believing in Christ; and, as a distinct set of people from these believing Hebrews, he mentions Nazarenes who observed the law, but despised the traditions of the pharisees, Contra Cels. lib. ii. sec. 3. + Hist. Ecc. lib. iii. c. 27. § Ibid. and viii. 14, 19—21. |