it may, with equal clearness of evidence be inferred, that they were the same people with the Cerinthians likewise." I answer, they were the same people, as far as Jerome then considered them, because they were equally zealous for the law of Moses.

It has been said, that Austin's answer to Jerome shews, that he considered them as different persons. But Austin only enumerates all the names that Jerome had mentioned, and whether the differences were real or nominal, great or little, it signified nothing to him. He himself, in his Catalogue of Heresies, makes a difference between the Ebionites and Nazarenes, but by no means that which makes the latter to have been believers in the divinity of Christ, and the former And as it was a common opinion, especially in the West, that there was some difference between them, (though the writers who speak of it could never be certain in what it consisted,) it was very natural in Austin to mention them separately, whether Jerome had made them the same or not.

not.

I find that Suicer, in his Thesaurus, under the article Ebion, makes the same use of this passage of Jerome that I have done, and considers the Nazarenes as a branch of the Ebionites. Sandius also draws the same inference from this passage.†

That the unbelieving Jews should call the Christian Jews Nazarenes, is natural; because that was the opprobrious appellation by which they had been distinguished from the beginning. According to Tertullian, they called them so in his time. Agobard says they did the same when he wrote.§ But it was not so natural that this should be adopted by the Gentile Christians, because they had been used to regard that appellation with more respect. When, therefore, they came to distinguish themselves from the Jewish Christians, and to dislike their tenets, it was natural for them to adopt some other appellation than that of Nazarenes; and the term Ebionites, given them likewise by their unbelieving brethren, equally answered their purpose.

The term Miner is from the Hebrew on (minim) which signifies sectaries, and is that by which the Jews, in all their writings, distinguish the Christians.

It is something remarkable, that Justin Martyr does not

* Mon. Rev. LXIX. p. 216, Note.

† Hist. Eccles. p. 4. (P.)

"Unde et ipso nomine nos Judæi Nazarenos appellant per eum." Adv. Marcionem, L. iv. Sect. viii. p. 418. (P.)

§ "Quod autem Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum et Christianos in omnibus orationibus suis sub Nazarenorum nomine quotidie maledicant." De Insolentia Judæorum, Opera, p. 63. (P.)

use the term Ebionite, or any other expressive of dislike. Irenæus is the first who uses it, or who speaks of the Jewish Unitarians with the least disrespect.

It is an argument in favour of the identity of the Nazarenes and Ebionites, that the former are not mentioned by name by any writer who likewise speaks of the Ebionites, before Epiphanius, who was fond of multiplying heresies, though the people so called were certainly known before his time. The term Ebionites only occurs in Irenæus, Tertullian, Origen, and Eusebius. None of them make any mention of Nazarenes; and yet it cannot be denied, that they must have been even more considerable in the time of those writers, than they were afterwards.

The conduct of all these writers is easily accounted for on the suppositions, that in the time of Justin Martyr, the Jewish Christians, though all Unitarians, and even disbelieving the miraculous conception, were not known by any opprobrious appellation at all; that afterwards they were first distinguished by that of Ebionites; and that it was not till the time of Epiphanius, (when such writers as he, who wrote expressly on the subject of heresy, made a parade of their learning by recounting a multiplicity of heresies,) that the term Nazarenes, by which the unbelieving Jews still continued to call the Christians among them, was laid hold of, as signifying a sect different from that of the Ebionites.

Mosheim* makes a doubt whether there was such a person as Ebion or not. I have seen no evidence at all that any person of that name ever existed. There is no founder of a sect, of whose history some particulars have not been handed down to posterity; but this is vox et præterea nihil. The term Ebionite was also long prior to that of Ebion. They who first used this term, say nothing about the man, from others, and they were too late to know any thing of him themselves.

It must be more particularly difficult to account for the conduct of Eusebius, on the supposition either of there having been such a person as Ebion, or of there having been any distinction between the Ebionites and Nazarenes, since it was his business, as an historian, to have noticed both.

The opinion that the Ebionites and Nazarenes were the same people, † is maintained by Le Clerc, and the most

Commentaries (Cent. ii. Sect. xl.) 1813, II. p. 202, Note z.

↑ See Vol. XVIII. pp. 9-11, 55-61, 162-172, 477; Lardner, VII. pp. 20, 21.

eminent critics of the last age. What Mr. Jones, (who is remarkable for his caution in giving an opinion,) says on this subject, is well worth quoting.

"It is plain, there was a very great agreement between these two ancient sects; and though they went under different names, yet they seem only to have differed in this, that the Ebionites had made some addition to the old Nazarene system. For Origen expressly tells us, Kaι Escova χρηματίζεσι, δι απο Ιεδαίων τον Ιησεν ὡς Χριστον παραδεξα μενοι. They are called Ebionites who from among the Jews own Jesus to be the Christ.' And though Epiphanius seems to make their Gospels different, calling one Anperratov, more entire,' yet this need not move us. For if the learned Casaubon's conjecture should not be right, that we should read the same ou wλngerTatov, in both places, (which yet is very probable for any thing that father Simon has proved to the contrary,) yet will the difficulty be all removed at once, by this single consideration; that Epiphanius never saw any Gospel of the Nazarenes. For though he calls it πληρεστατον, yet he himself says (ουκ οίδα δε ει τας γενεαλογίας περιειλον) he did not know whether they had taken away the genealogy, as the Ebionites had done; that is, having never seen the Nazarene Gospel, for aught he knew, it might be the very same with that of the Ebionites, as indeed it most certainly was.' "'*

In my opinion, Jerome has sufficiently decided this last question. Could he have had any other idea than that these two sects (if they were two) used the same Gospel, when he said, "In the Gospel used by the Nazarenes and Ebionites, which is commonly called the authentic Gospel of Matthew, which I lately translated from Hebrew into Greek," &c?†

Farther, the peculiar opinions of the Ebionites and the Nazarenes are represented by the most respectable authorities as the very same; only some have thought that the Nazarenes believed the miraculous conception, and the Ebionites not. But this has no authority whatever among the ancients.

Epiphanius says, in the middle of his second section relating to the Ebionites, that Ebion (whom in the twenty

* On the Canon, I. p. 386. (P.) See Vol. XVIII. p. 16.

ተ "In evangelio, quo utuntur Nazareni et Ebionitæ (quod nuper in Græcum de Hebræo sermone transtulimus et quod vocatur à plerisque Matthæi authenticum).” In Matt. xii. 13, Opera, VI. p. 21. (P.)

See Lardner, VII. pp. 20, 21.

fourth section he makes to be contemporary with the apostle John) "borrowed the abomination from the Samaritans, his opinion (any) from the Nazarenes, his name from the Jews, &c." And he says, in the beginning of the second section," He was contemporary with the former, and had the same origin with them; and first he asserted that Christ was born of the commerce and seed of man, namely, Joseph, as we signified above," referring to the first words in his first section," when we said that in other respects he agreed with them all, and differed from them only in this, viz. in his adherence to the laws of the Jews with respect to the sabbath, circumcision, and other things that were enjoined by the Jews and Samaritans. He moreover adopted many more things than the Jews, in imitation of the Samaritans," the particulars of which he then proceeds to mention.

In the same section, he speaks of the Ebionites as inhabiting the same country with the Nazarenes, and adds that, "agreeing together, they communicated of their perverseness to each other."§ Then, in the third section, he observes that, afterwards, some of the Ebionites entertained a different opinion concerning Christ, than that he was the son of Joseph; supposing that, after Elraus joined them, they learned of him some fancy concerning Christ and the Holy Spirit. ||

Concerning the Nazarenes, in the seventh section of his account of them, he says, that they were Jews in all respects, except that they "believed in Christ; but I do not know whether they hold the miraculous conception or not."¶ This amounts to no more than a doubt, which he afterwards abandoned, by asserting that the Ebionites held the same opinion concerning Christ with the Nazarenes, which opinion he expressly states to be their belief, that Jesus was a mere man, and the son of Joseph.

As to any properly orthodox Nazarenes, that is, believers

"With which the Ebionites held other people." See Vol. XIX. p. 486. † Σαμαρείτων μεν γαρ και έχει το βδελυρον, Ιεδαίων τε το όνομα, Οσσαίων δε και Ναζωραίων, και Νασαραιων την γνωμην-και Χρισιανων βελείαι εχειν την προσηγορίαν. Hær. xxx. Sect. i. p. 125. (P.)

See Note t, p. 444, supra. (P.)

§ Ενθεν αρχείαι της κακής αυτο διδασκαλίας, ὅθεν δηθεν και Ναζαρηνοι οι ανομοι προ δεδηλωνται. Συνθάφεις γαρ έτος εκείνοις, και εκείνοι τείῳ, ἑκατέρος από της ἑαυτε μοχθη pics TW ETEPH METEOWKE. Hær. xxx. Sect. ii. pp. 125, 126. (P.)

|| Φαντασίαν τινα περι Χριςε διηγείται, και περι πνευματος άγιο. Ibid. Sect. iii. p. 127. (P.)

* Περι Χρισε δε ουκ οίδα ειπειν ει και αυτοί τη των προσειρημένων περί Κηρίνθου και Μηρινθου μοχθηρια αχθεντες, ψιλον ανθρωπον νομίζεσιν, η καθως η αλήθεια έχει, δια πνευματος, άγιο γεγενησθαι εκ Μαρίας, διαβεβαιενται. Hær. xxix. Sect. vii. I. p. 123. (P.)

in the pre-existence or divinity of Christ, I find no traces of them any where. Austin says, that the Nazarenes were by some called Symmachians, from Symmachus, who is not only generally called an Ebionite, but who wrote expressly against the doctrine of the miraculous conception. How then could the Nazarenes be thought to be different from the Ebionites, or to believe any thing of the divinity of Christ, or even the miraculous conception, in the opinion of those who called them Symmachians? Austin, who mentions this, does not say that they were miscalled.

Theodoret, who, living in Syria, had a great opportunity of being acquainted with the Nazarenes, describes them as follows: "The Nazarenes are Jews who honour Christ as a righteous man, and use the Gospel according to Peter."* This account of the faith of the Nazarenes was evidently meant to represent them as differing from the orthodox with respect to the doctrine concerning Christ; and is to be understood as if he had said, "they believe him to have been nothing more than a righteous man, and a divine teacher," (för, claiming to be such, he could not otherwise have been a righteous man,) "but they do not believe in his pre-existence or divinity." Orthodox persons, who believe these doctrines, are never described by any of the ancients as Theodoret has described the Nazarenes.

In the passage quoted from Epiphanius, in which he gives an account of the motives for John's writing his Gospel, it is evident, both that he considered the Nazarenes as existing at that time, and also that they stood in as much need of being taught the pre-existence and divinity of Christ as the Ebionites. In another place this writer compares the Nazarenes to persons who, seeing a fire at a distance, and not understanding the cause, or the use of it, run towards it, and burn themselves. "So these Jews," he says, "on hearing the name of Jesus only, and the miracles performed by the apostles, believe on him; and knowing that his mother was with child of him at Nazareth, that he was brought up in the house of Joseph, and that on that account he was called a Nazarene, (the apostles styling him a man of Nazareth, approved by miracles and mighty deeds,) imposed that name upon themselves."†t This can never agree with

* Οι δε Ναζωραιοι Ιεδαίοι εισι, τον Χριςον τιμωνίες ως ανθρωπον δικαιον, και τῳ καλομενω κατα Πετρον ευαγγελιῳ κεχρημένοι. Hær. fol. L. ii. C. ii. Opera, IV. p. 219. (Ρ.) † Ακεσαντες γαρ μόνον ονομα το Ιησε, και θεασαμενοι τα θεοσημεία τα δια χειρών των αποτόλων γινομενα, και αυτοί εις αυτόν πιςεύεσι, γνοντες δε αυτον, εκ Ναζαρέτ εν γας μι εγκυμονηθενία, και εν οίκῳ Ιωσηφ ανατραφενία, και δια τετο εν τω ευαγίελίῳ Ιησεν Ναζω