Ebionites From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Ebionites, or Ebionaioi (Greek: ; derived from Hebrew ebyonim, ebionim, meaning

g "the poor" or "poor ones"), is a patristic term referring to aJewish Christian sect or sects that existed during the early centuries of the Christian Era.[1] They regarded Jesus as the Messiah[2] and insisted on the necessity of following Jewish law and rites.[3] The Ebionites used only one of the Jewish Gospels, revered James the Just and rejected Paul of Tarsus as an apostate from the Law.[4] Their name suggests that they placed a special value on voluntary poverty. Since historical records by the Ebionites are scarce, fragmentary and disputed, much of what is known or conjectured about the Ebionites derives from the Church Fathers, who wrote polemics against the Ebionites, whom they deemed heretical Judaizers.[5][6] Consequently, very little about the Ebionite sect or sects is known with certainty, and most, if not all, statements about them are conjectural. Many scholars distinguish the Ebionites from other Jewish Christian groups, e.g., the Nazarenes;[7] others consider them identical with the Nazarenes.[8] Name The term Ebionites derives from the common adjective for "poor" in Hebrew (singular: evyn, plural: evynim),[9][10][11] which occurs fifteen times in the Psalms and was the self-given term of some pious Jewish circles (e.g. Psalm 69:33 "For the LORD heareth the poor,"1 QpHab XII, 3.6.10, etc.).[12] The term "the poor" was at first a common designation for all Christians - a reference to their material as well as their voluntary poverty.[10][13][14] The graecized Hebrew term "Ebionite" (Ebionai) was first applied by Irenaeus in the 2nd century without making mention of Nazarenes (c.180 CE).[15][16] Origen says "for Ebion signifies poor among the Jews, and those Jews who have received Jesus as Christ are called by the name of Ebionites."[17][18] Tertullian was first to write against a non-existent heresiarch called Ebion and scholars believe he derived the name Ebion from a literal reading of Ebionaioi as meaning "followers of Ebion", a derivation now considered mistaken.[10][12] The term "the poor" (Greek ptkho) was still used in its original, more general sense.[10][12] Modern Hebrew still uses the Biblical Hebrew term "the needy" both in histories of Christianity for "Ebionites" () and for almsgiving to the needy at Purim.[19] History The earliest reference to a group that might fit the description of the later Ebionites appears in Justin Martyr's Dialogue with Trypho (c. 140). Justin distinguishes between Jewish Christians who observe theLaw of Moses but do not require its observance upon others, and those who believe the Mosaic Law to be obligatory on all.[20] Irenaeus (c. 180) was probably the first to use the term "Ebionites" to describe a heretical judaizing sect, which he regarded as stubbornly clinging to the Law.[21] Origen (c. 212) remarks that the name derives from the Hebrew word "evyon," meaning "poor."[22] Epiphanius of Salamis in the 4th century gives the most complete but also questionable account in his heresiology called Panarion, denouncing eighty heretical sects, among them the Ebionites. [23][24] Epiphanius mostly gives general descriptions of their religious beliefs and includes quotations from their gospels, which have not survived. According to the Encyclopdia Britannica (2011), the Ebionite movement may have arisen about the time of the destruction of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem (AD 70).[25] Paul talks of his collection for the "poor among the saints" in the Jerusalem church, but this is generally taken as meaning "the poorer members of the church" rather than a schismatic group.[26] The actual number of groups described as Ebionites is difficult to ascertain, as the contradictory patristic accounts in their attempt to distinguish various sects, sometimes confuse them with each other.[12]Other groups mentioned are the Carpocratians, the Cerinthians, the Elcesaites, the 4th century Nazarenes, and the Sampsaeans, most of whom were Jewish Christian sects who held gnostic or other views rejected by the Ebionites. Epiphanius, however, mentions that a group of Ebionites came to embrace some of these views despite keeping their name. [27] As the Ebionites are first mentioned as such in the 2nd century, their earlier history and any relation to the first Jerusalem church[disambiguation needed] remains obscure and a matter of contention. There is no evidence linking the origin of the later sect of the Ebionites with the First Jewish-Roman War of 6670 CE, or that prior to that they formed part of the Jerusalem church led by Jesus' brother James. Eusebius relates a tradition, probably based on Aristo of Pella, that the early Christians left Jerusalem just prior to the war and fled to Pella beyond the Jordan River, but does not connect this with Ebionites.[10][12] They were led by Simeon of Jerusalem (d. 107) and during the Second Jewish-Roman War, they were persecuted by the Jewish followers of Bar Kochba for refusing to recognize his messianic claims.[27] According to Harnack the influence of Elchasaites places some Ebionites in the context of the gnostic movements widespread in Syria and the lands to the east.[12][28] After the end of the First Jewish-Roman War, the importance of the Jerusalem church[disambiguation needed] began to fade. Jewish Christianity became dispersed throughout the Jewish diaspora in the Levant, where it was slowly eclipsed by gentile Christianity, which then spread throughout the Roman Empire without competition from "judaizing" Christian groups.[29] Once the Jerusalem church, still headed by Jesus' relatives, was eliminated during the Bar Kokhba revolt in 135, the Ebionites gradually lost influence and followers. According to Hyam Maccoby (1987) their decline was due to marginalization and "persecution" by both Jews and Christians.[4]Following the defeat of the rebellion and the expulsion of all Jews from Judea, Jerusalem became the Gentile city of Aelia Capitolina. Many of the Jewish Christians residing at Pella renounced their Jewish practices at this time and joined to the mainstream Christian church. Those who remained at Pella and continued in obedience to the Law were deemed heretics.[30] In 375, Epiphanius records the settlement of Ebionites on Cyprus, but by the mid-5th century, Theodoret of Cyrrhus reported that they were no longer present in the region.[27] Last days of the Ebionite sect Some scholars argue that the Ebionites survived much longer and identify them with a sect encountered by the historian Abd al-Jabbar ibn Ahmad around the year 1000.[31] Another possible reference to surviving Ebionite communities in northwestern Arabia, specifically the cities of Tayma and Tilmas, around the 11th century, appears in Sefer Ha'masaot, the "Book of the Travels" of Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela, a rabbi from Spain.[32] 12th century Muslim historian Muhammad al-Shahrastani mentions Jews living in nearby Medina and Hejaz who accepted Jesus as a prophetic

figure and followed traditional Judaism, rejecting mainstreamChristian views.[33] Some scholars argue that they contributed to the development of the Islamic view of Jesus due to exchanges of Ebionite remnants with the first Muslims.[12][34] Views and practices Judaic and Gnostic Ebionitism Most patristic sources[citation needed] portray the Ebionites as traditional Jews, who zealously followed the Law of Moses, revered Jerusalem as the holiest city,[21] and restricted table fellowship only to Gentiles who converted to Judaism.[20] Yet some Church Fathers describe some Ebionites as departing from traditional Jewish principles of faith and practice. For example, Epiphanius of Salamis stated that the Ebionites engaged in excessiveritual bathing,[35] possessed an angelology which claimed that the Christ is a great archangel who was incarnated in Jesus and adopted as the son of God,[36][37] opposed animal sacrifice,[37] denying parts or most of the Law,[38] and practiced Jewish vegetarianism,[39] and celebrated a commemorative meal annually,[40] on or around Passover, with unleavened bread and water only, in contrast to the daily ChristianEucharist.[23][41][42] However, the reliability of Epiphanius' account of the Ebionites is questioned by some scholars. [5][43] Shlomo Pines, for example, argues that the heterodox views and practices he ascribes to some Ebionites originated in Gnostic Christianity rather than Jewish Christianity, and are characteristics of the Elcesaite sect, which Epiphanius mistakenly attributed to the Ebionites.[31] Another Church Father who described the Ebionites as departing from Christian Orthodoxy was Methodius of Olympus, who stated that the Ebionites believed that the prophets spoke only by their own power, and not by the power of the Holy Spirit. [44] While mainstream biblical scholars do suppose some Essene influence on the nascent Jewish-Christian Church in some organizational, administrative and cultic respects, some scholars go beyond that assumption. Among them, some [who?] hold theories[which?] which have been discredited and others which remain controversial.[45] Regarding the Ebionites specifically, a number of scholars have different theories on how the Ebionites may have developed from an Essene Jewish messianic sect. Hans-Joachim Schoeps argues that the conversion of some Essenes to Jewish Christianity after the Siege of Jerusalem in 70 CE may be the source of some Ebionites adopting Essene views and practices;[34] while some conclude that the Essenes did not become Jewish Christians but still had an influence on the Ebionites.[46] However, Epiphanius of Salamis, in his book Panarion, 30:17:5, said the following: "But I already showed above that Ebion did not know these things, but later, his followers that associated with Elchasai had the circumcision, the Sabbath and the customs of Ebion, but the imagination of Elchasai". Doing so, Epiphanius made it clear that the original Ebionites were different from those heterodox Ebionites that he described. [47][citation needed] Ebionite views on John the Baptist In the Gospel of the Ebionites, as quoted by Epiphanius, John the Baptist and Jesus are portrayed as vegetarians.[48][49][50] Epiphanius states that the Ebionites had amended "locusts" (Greek akris) to "honey cake" (Greek ekris). This emendation is not found in any other New Testament manuscript or translation.[51][52] Though a different vegetarian reading is found in a late Slavonic version of Josephus' War of the Jews.[53] Pines (1966) and others view that the Ebionites were projecting their own vegetarianism onto John the Baptist.[31] Jesus See also Jesus in the Talmud The majority of Church Fathers[citation needed] agree that the Ebionites rejected many of the precepts central to Nicene orthodoxy, such as his preexistence, divinity, virgin birth, atoning death, and physical resurrection.[5] On the other hand, an Ebionite story has Jesus eating bread with his brother Jacob ("James the Just") after the resurrection, which indicates that the Ebionites, or at least the ones who accepted this version of the Gospel of the Hebrews, very much believed in a physical resurrection for Jesus. [54] The Ebionites are described as emphasizing the oneness of God and the humanity of Jesus as the biological son of both Mary and Joseph, who by virtue of his righteousness, was chosen by God to be the messianic "prophet like Moses" (foretold in Deuteronomy 18:1422) when he was anointed with the Holy Spirit at his baptism.[4] Origen (Contra Celsum 5.61)[55] and Eusebius (Historia Ecclesiastica 3.27.3) recognise some variation in the Christology of Ebionite groups; for example that while all Ebionites denied Christ's pre-existence there was a sub-group which did not deny the virgin birth.[56] Theodoret, while dependent on earlier writers,[57] draws the conclusion that the two subgroups would have used different Gospels.[58] Of the books of the New Testament, the Ebionites are said to have accepted only a Hebrew (or Aramaic) version of the Gospel of Matthew, referred to as the Gospel of the Hebrews, as additional scripture to the Hebrew Bible. This version of Matthew, Irenaeus reports, omitted the first two chapters (on the nativity of Jesus), and started with the baptism of Jesus by John.[21] The Ebionites believed that all Jews and Gentiles must observe the commandments in the Law of Moses,[20] in order to become righteous and seek communion with God,[59] but these commandments must be understood in the light of Jesus' expounding of the Law, revealed during his sermon on the mount, and other evangelical counsels.[60] The Ebionites may have held a form of "inaugurated eschatology" positing that the ministry of Jesus had ushered in the Messianic Age so that the kingdom of God might be understood as present in an incipient fashion, while at the same time awaiting consummation in thefuture age.[4] James and the Ebionites One of the popular primary connections of the Ebionites to James is that noted by William Whiston in his edition of Josephus (1794) where he notes regarding the murder of James the Just, "we must remember what we learn from the Ebionite fragments of Hegesippus, that these Ebionites interpreted a prophecy of Isaiah as foretelling this very murder"[61] That Hegesippus made this connection from Isaiah is undisputed,[62] however Whiston's identification of Hegesippus as an Ebionite, while common in 18th and 19th century scholarship, is debatable. [63] The other popularly proposed connection is that the Ascents of James in the Pseudo-Clementine literature are related to the Ebionites.[64] The Book of Acts begins by showing Peter as leader of the Jerusalem church - the only church in existence immediately after the ascension. Though several years later Paul lists James prior to "Cephas" (Peter) and John as those considered "pillars" (Greek styloi) of the Jerusalem Church.[65] Eusebius records that Clement of Alexandria wrote that Peter, James, and John chose James the Just as bishop of Jerusalem, but Eusebius also subjects James to the authority of all the apostles.[66] Peter baptised Cornelius the Centurion, introducing uncircumcised Gentiles into the church in

Judea.[67][68] Paul, Apostle to the Gentiles, established many churches[69] and developed a Christian theology (see Pauline Christianity). At the Council of Jerusalem (c 49),[68] Paul argued to abrogate Mosaic observances[70] for non-Jewish converts. When Paul recounted the events to the Galatians (Galatians 2:9-10), he referred only to the remembrance of the poor rather than conveying the four points of the Council of Jerusalem (Acts 15:1921). James Dunn[71] notes the conciliatory role of James as depicted in Acts in the tension between Paul and those urging the Law of Moses upon Gentiles. According to Eusebius, after the death of James the Jerusalem church[disambiguation needed] fled to Pella, Jordan[72] to escape the siege of the future Emperor Titus, and then after the Bar Kokhba revolt the Jerusalem church was permitted to remain in the renamed Aelia Capitolina, but notably from this point onward all bishops of Jerusalem bear Greek rather than evidently Jewish names.[73][74] However some scholars argue for some form of continuity of the Jewish Jerusalem church[disambiguation needed] into the 2nd and 3rd centuries, and that the Ebionites regarded James the Just as their leader. These scholars include Pierre-Antoine Bernheim, Robert Eisenman, Will Durant, Michael Goulder, Gerd Ludemann, John Painter, and James Tabor,[75][76][77][78][79][80] Against this scholars including Richard Bauckham distinguish the high Christology practiced by the Jerusalem Church under James with the low Christology later adopted by the Ebionites.[81] Tabor argues[82][83] that the Ebionites claimed a dynastic apostolic succession for the relatives of Jesus. Epiphanius relates that the Ebionites opposed the Apostle Paul, whom they saw as responsible that gentile Christians did not have to be circumcised, nor otherwise follow the Law of Moses, and named him an apostate.[21] Epiphanius further relates that some Ebionites alleged that Paul was a Greek who converted to Judaism in order to marry the daughter of a high priest of Israel but apostatized when she rejected him.[84][85] As an alternative to the traditional view of Eusebius, that the Jerusalem church simply became integrated with the Gentile church, other scholars, such as Richard Bauckham, suggest immediate successors to the Jerusalem Church under James and the relatives of Jesus were the Nazoraeans, who accepted Paul, while the Ebionites were a later offshoot of the early 2nd century.[86][87] Ebionite Writings Few writings of the Ebionites have survived, and these are in uncertain form. The Recognitions of Clement and the Clementine Homilies, two 3rd century Christian works, are regarded by general scholarly consensus as largely or entirely Jewish Christian in origin and reflect Jewish Christian beliefs. The exact relationship between the Ebionites and these writings is debated, but Epiphanius's description of some Ebionites in Panarion 30 bears a striking similarity to the ideas in the Recognitions and Homilies. Scholar Glenn Alan Koch speculates that Epiphanius likely relied upon a version of the Homilies as a source document.[24] Some scholars also speculate that the core of the Gospel of Barnabas, beneath a polemical medieval Muslim overlay, may have been based upon an Ebionite or gnostic document.[88] The existence and origin of this source continues to be debated by scholars.[89] John Arendzen (Catholic Encyclopedia article "Ebionites" 1909) classifies the Ebionite writings into four groups.[90] Gospel of the Ebionites Irenaeus stated that the Ebionites used Matthew's Gospel exclusively.[91] Eusebius of Caesarea later wrote that they used only the Gospel of the Hebrews.[92] From this the minority view of James R. Edwards(2009) and Bodley's Librarian Edward Nicholson (1879) claims that there was only one Hebrew gospel in circulation, Matthew's Gospel of the Hebrews. They also note that the title Gospel of the Ebionites, was never used by anyone in the early Church.[93][94][95] Epiphanius contended that the gospel the Ebionites used, was written by Matthew and called the Gospel of the Hebrews.[96] Because Epiphanius said that it was "not wholly complete, but falsified and mutilated...",[97] writers such as Walter Richard Cassels (1877), and Pierson Parker (1940) consider it a different "edition" of Matthew's Hebrew Gospel.[98][99]However, internal evidence from the quotations in Panarion 30.13.4 and 30.13.7 suggest that the text was a Gospel harmony originally composed in Greek.[100] Mainstream scholarly texts, such as the standard edition of the New Testament Apocrypha edited by Wilhelm Schneemelcher generally refer to the text Jerome cites as used by the Ebionites as the Gospel of the Ebionites, though this is not a term current in the Early Church.[101][102] Clementine literature The collection of New Testament apocrypha known as the Clementine literature included three works known in antiquity as the Circuits of Peter, the Acts of the Apostles and a work usually titled the Ascents of James. They are specifically referenced by Epiphanius in his polemic against the Ebionites. The first-named books are substantially contained in the Homilies of Clement under the title of Clement's Compendium of Peter's itinerary sermons, and also in the Recognitions attributed to Clement. They form an early Christian didactic fiction to express Jewish Christian views, i.e. the primacy of James the Just, their connection with the episcopal see of Rome, and their antagonism to Simon Magus, as well as gnostic doctrines. Scholar Robert E. Van Voorst opines of the Ascents of James (R 1.3371), "There is, in fact, no section of the Clementine literature about whose origin in Jewish Christianity one may be more certain".[43] Despite this assertion, he expresses reservations that the material is genuinely Ebionite in origin. Symmachus Symmachus produced a translation of the Hebrew Bible in Koine Greek, which was used by Jerome and is still extant in fragments, and his lost Hypomnemata, written to counter the canonical Gospel of Matthew. Although lost, the Hypomnemata [103][104] is probably identical to De distinctione prceptorum mentioned by Ebed Jesu (Assemani, Bibl. Or., III, 1). The identity of Symmachus as an Ebionite has been questioned in recent scholarship.[105] Elkesaites Hippolytus of Rome (c.230) reports that a Jewish Christian, Alcibiades of Apamea, appeared in Rome teaching from a book which he claimed to be the revelation which a righteous man, Elkesai, had received from an angel. Though Hippolytus suspected that Alcibiades was himself the author.[106] Shortly afterwards Origen records a group, the Elkesaites, with the same beliefs.[107] Epiphanius claimed the Ebionites also used this book as a source for some of their beliefs and practices (Panarion 30.17).[24][108][109] Epiphanius explains the origin of the name Elkesai to be Aramaic El Ksai, meaning "Hidden Power" (Panarion 19.2.1). Scholar Petri Luomanen believes the book to have been written originally in Aramaic as a Jewish apocalypse, probably in Babylonia, in 116-117.[110] Religious and critical perspectives

The mainstream Christian view of the Ebionites is partly based on interpretation of the polemical views of the Church Fathers who portrayed them as heretics for rejecting many of the central Christian views of Jesus, and allegedly having an improper fixation on the Law of Moses at the expense of the grace of God.[90] In this view, the Ebionites may have been the descendants of a Jewish Christian sect within the early Jerusalem church[disambiguation needed] which broke away from its mainstream theology.[111] Baur, Maccoby, Schonfield, Tabor and Eisenmann Hyam Maccoby (1987), Robert Eisenman, James Tabor, Hugh Schonfield (1961) and others argued that the Ebionites were more faithful to the authentic teachings of Jesus and constituted the mainstream of the Jerusalem church before being gradually marginalized by the followers of Paul of Tarsus.[4][34][112][113][114][115] There is no evidence for the name Ebionaioi prior to Irenaeus.[citation needed] Some[citation needed] scholars use it in a more restricted sense, reserving the designation "Nazarene" before the flight to Pella in c70 CE, and "Ebionite" for Pella and afterwards.[4][8] Mainstream scholarship commonly uses the term in the restricted sense.[10][12] Maccoby's (1987) view of the Ebionites is that they were Jewish heretics due to their refusal to see Jesus as a false prophet and failed Jewish Messiah claimant but also for wanting to include their gospel into the canon of the Hebrew Bible.[4] Modern movements The counter-missionary group Jews for Judaism favorably mentions the historical Ebionites in their literature in order to argue that "Messianic Judaism", as promoted by missionary groups such as Jews for Jesus, is Pauline Christianity misrepresenting itself as Judaism.[116] Some Messianic groups have expressed concern over leaders in Israel that deny Jesus' divinity and the possible collapse of the Messianic movement due to a resurgence of Ebionitism.[117][118] In a recent polemic, a Messianic leader asked whether Christians should imitate the Torah-observance of "neo-Ebionites".[119] The website "Judaism vs Christianity" rejects Paul, and along with him, Peter and Luke (who acknowledge Paul's ministry), in favor of a more Jewish Christianity.[120] Islam Mainstream Islam charges mainstream Christianity with having distorted the pure monotheism of Jesus through the doctrines of trinity and through the veneration of icons. Paul Addae and Tim Bowes (1998) write that the Ebionites were faithful to the original teachings of Jesus and thus shared Islamic views about Jesus' humanity, though the Islamic view of Jesus may conflict with the view of some Ebionites regarding the virgin birth and the crucifixion.[121] One of the first men to believe in the prophethood of Muhammad was an Ebionite monk named Waraqah ibn Nawfal, whom Muslims highly honor as a pious man with deep knowledge of the Christian scriptures.[122] Ebionite, member of an early ascetic sect of Jewish Christians. The Ebionites were one of several such sects that originated in and around Palestine in the first centuries AD and included the Nazarenes and Elkasites. The name of the sect is from the Hebrew ebyonim, or ebionim (the poor); it was not founded, as later Christian writers stated, by a certain Ebion. Britanska enciklopedija Little information exists on the Ebionites, and the surviving accounts are subject to considerable debate, since they are uniformly derived from the Ebionites opponents. The first mention of the sect is in the works of the Christian theologian St. Irenaeus, notably in his Adversus haereses(Against Heresies; c. 180); other sources include the writings of Origen and St. Epiphanius of Constantia. The Ebionite movement may have arisen about the time of the destruction of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem (AD 70). Its members evidently left Palestine to avoid persecution and settled in Transjordan (notably at Pella) and Syria and were later known to be in Asia Minor and Egypt. The sect seems to have existed into the 4th century. Most of the features of Ebionite doctrine were anticipated in the teachings of the earlier Qumrnsect, as revealed in the Dead Sea Scrolls. They believed in one God and taught that Jesus was the Messiah and was the true prophet mentioned in Deuteronomy 18:15. They rejected the Vi rgin Birth of Jesus, instead holding that he was the natural son of Joseph and Mary. The Ebionites believed Jesus became the Messiah because he obeyed the Jewish Law. They themselves faithfully followed the Law, although they removed what they regarded as interpolations in order to uphold their teachings, which included vegetarianism, holy poverty, ritual ablutions, and the rejection of animal sacrifices. The Ebionites also held Jerusalem in great veneration. The early Ebionite literature is said to have resembled the Gospel According to Matthew, without the birth narrative. Evidently, they later found this unsatisfactory and developed their own literaturethe Gospel of the Ebionitesalthough none of this text has survived. JewishEncyclopedia.com The unedited full-text of the 1906 Jewish Encyclopedia EBIONITES (from = "the poor"): Sect of Judo-Christians of the second to the fourth century. They believed in the Messianic character of Jesus, but denied his divinity and supernatural origin; observed all the Jewish rites, such as circumcision and the seventh-day Sabbath; and used a gospel according to Matthew written in Hebrew or Aramaic, while rejecting the writings of Paul as those of an apostate (Irenus, "Adversus Hreses," i. 262; Origen, "Contra Celsum," ii. 1; Eusebius, "Hist. Eccl." iii. 27; Hippolytus, "Refutatio Hresium," vii. 34; Jerome, Commentary on Isaiah, i. 3, 12; on Matt. xii. 13). Some Ebionites, however, accepted the doctrine of the supernatural birth of Jesus, and worked out a Christology of their own (Origen, l.c. v. 61). The origin of the Ebionites was, perhaps intentionally, involved at an early date in legend. Origen ("De Principiis," iv. 1, 22; "Contra Celsum," ii. 1) still knew that the meaning of the name "Ebionim" was "poor," but refers it to the poverty of their understanding (comp. Eusebius, l.c.), because they refused to accept the Christology of the ruling Church. Later a mythical person by the name of Ebion was invented as the founder of the sect, who, like Cerinth, his supposed teacher, lived among the Nazarenes in Kokabe, a village in the district of Basan on the eastern side of the Jordan, and, having spread his heresy among the Christians who fled to this part of Palestine after the destruction of the Temple, migrated to Asia and to Rome (Epiphanius, "Hreses," xxx. 1, 2; Hippolytus, l.c. vii. 35, x. 22; Tertullian, "De Prscriptione Hreticorum," 33). The early Christians called themselves preferably "Ebionim" (the poor; comp. Epiphanius, l.c. xxx. 17; Minucius Felix Octavius, ch. 36), because they regarded self-imposed poverty as a meritorious method of preparation for the Messianic kingdom, according to Luke vi. 20, 24: "Blessed are ye poor: for yours is the kingdom of God"; and "Woe unto you that are

rich! for ye have received your consolation" (=Messianic share; Matt. v. 3, "the poor in spirit," is a late modification of the original; comp. Luke iv. 18, vii. 22; Matt. xix. 21 et seq., xxvi. 9 et seq.; Luke xix. 8; John xii. 5; Rom. xv. 26; II Cor. vi. 10, viii. 9; Gal. ii. 10; James ii. 5 et seq.). Accordingly they dispossessed themselves of all their goods and lived in communistic societies (Acts iv. 34 et seq.). In this practise the Essenes also were encouraged, partly by Messianic passages, such as Isa. xi. 4, xlix. 3 (comp. Ex. R. xxxi.), partly by Deut. xv. 11: "The poor shall never cease out of the land"a passage taken to be a warning not to embark upon commerce when the study of the Law is thereby neglected (Ta'an. 21a; comp. also Mek., Beshalla , ii., ed. Weiss, 56; see notes). Origen (l.c. ii. 1), while not clear as to the precise meaning of the term "Ebionim," gives the more important testimony that all Judo-Christians were called "Ebionites." The Christians that fled to the trans-Jordanic land (Eusebius, "Hist. Eccl." iii. 5, 3), remaining true to their Judean traditions, were afterward regarded as a heretic sect of the Ebionites, and hence rose the legend of Ebion. To them belonged Symmachus, the Bible translator (ib. vi. 17). Bibliography: Herzog-Hauck, Real-Encyc. s.v. Ebioniten; Harnack, History of Dogma, pp. 299-300, Boston, 1895; Hilgenfeld, Ketzergeschichte, 1884, pp. 421-446, where the legendary Ebion is treated as a historical person. THE CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA Ebionites By this name were designated one or more early Christian sects infected with Judaistic errors. The word Ebionites, or rather, more correctly, Ebionans (Ebionaioi), is a transliteration of an Aramean word meaning "poor men". It first occurs inIrenaeus, Adv. Haer., I, xxvi, 2, but without designation of meaning. Origen (Against Celsus II.1; De Princ., IV, i, 22) and Eusebius (Church History III.27) refer the name of these sectaries either to the poverty of their understanding, or to the poverty of the Law to which they clung, or to the poor opinions they held concerning Christ. This, however, is obviously not the historic origin of the name. Other writers, such asTertullian (De Praescr., xxxiii; De Carne Chr., xiv, 18), Hippolytus (cfr. Pseudo-Tert., Adv. Haer., III, as reflecting Hippolytus's lost "Syntagma"), and Epiphanius (Haeres., xxx) derive the name of the sect from a certain Ebion, its supposed founder. Epiphanius even mentions the place of his birth, a hamlet called Cochabe in the district of Bashan, and relates that he travelled through Asia and even came to Rome. Of modern scholars Hilgenfeld has maintained the historical existence of this Ebion, mainly on the ground of some passages ascribed to Ebion by St. Jerome (Comm. in Gal., iii, 14) and by the author of a compilation of patristic texts against the Monothelites. But these passages are not likely to be genuine, andEbion, otherwise unknown to history, is probably only an invention to account for the name Ebionites. The name may have been self-imposed by those who gladly claimed the beatitude of being poor in spirit, or who claimed to live after the pattern of the first Christians in Jerusalem, who laid their goods at the feet of the Apostles. Perhaps, however, it was first imposed by others and is to be connected with the notorious poverty of the Christians in Palestine (cf. Galatians 2:10). Recent scholars have plausibly maintained that the term did not originally designate any hereticalsect, but merely the orthodox Jewish Christians of Palestine who continued to observe the Mosaic Law. These, ceasing to be in touch with the bulk of the Christian world, would gradually have drifted away from the standard of orthodoxy and become formal heretics. A stage in this development is seen in St. Justin's "Dialogue with Trypho the Jew", chapter xlvii (about A.D. 140), where he speaks of two sects of JewishChristians estranged from the Church: those who observe the Mosaic Law for themselves, but do not require observance thereof from others; and those who hold it of universal obligation. The latter are considered heretical by all; but with the former St. Justin would hold communion, though not all Christians would show them the same indulgence. St. Justin, however, does not use the term Ebionites, and when this term first occurs (about A.D. 175) it designates a distinctly heretical sect. The doctrines of this sect are said by Irenaeus to be like those of Cerinthus and Carpocrates. They denied the Divinity and the virginal birth ofChrist; they clung to the observance of the Jewish Law; they regarded St. Paul as an apostate, and used only a Gospel according to St. Matthew (Adv. Haer., I, xxvi, 2; III, xxi, 2; IV, xxxiii, 4; V, i, 3). Their doctrines are similarly described by Hippolytus (Philos., VIII, xxii, X, xviii) and Tertullian (De carne Chr., xiv, 18), but their observance of the Law seems no longer so prominent a feature of their system as in the account given by Irenaeus. Origen is the first (Against Celsus V.61) to mark a distinction between two classes of Ebionites, a distinction which Eusebiusalso gives (Church History III.27). Some Ebionites accept, but others reject, the virginal birth of Christ, though all reject His pre-existence and His Divinity. Those who accepted the virginal birth seem to have had more exalted views concerning Christ and, besides observing the Sabbath, to have kept the Sunday as a memorial of His Resurrection. The milder sort of Ebionites were probably fewer and less important than their stricter brethren, because the denial of the virgin birth was commonly attributed to all. (Origen, Hom. in Luc., xvii) St. Epiphanius calls the more hereticalsection Ebionites, and the more Catholic-minded, Nazarenes. But we do not know whence St. Epiphanius obtained his information or or how far it is reliable. It is very hazardous, therefore, to maintain, as is sometimes done, that the distinction between Nazarenes and Ebionites goes back to the earliest days of Christianity. Besides these merely Judaistic Ebionites, there existed a later Gnostic development of the same heresy. These Ebionite Gnostics differed widely from the main schools of Gnosticism, in that they absolutely rejected any distinction between Jehovah the Demiurge, and the Supreme Good God. Those who regard this distinction as essential to Gnosticism would even object to classing Ebionites as Gnostics. But on the other hand the general character of their teaching is unmistakably Gnostic. This can be gathered from the Pseudo-Clementines and may be summed up as follows: Matter is eternal, and an emanation of the Deity; nay it constitutes, as it were, God's body. Creation, therefore, is but the transformation of pre-existing material. God thus "creates" the universe by the instrumentality of His wisdom which is described as a "demiurgic hand" ( cheir demiourgousa) producing the world. But this Logos, or Sophia, does not constitute a different person, as in Christian theology. Sophia produces the world by a successive evolution of syzygies, the female in each case preceding the male but being finally overcome by him. This universe is, moreover, divided into two realms, that of good and that of evil. The Son of God rules over the realm of the good, and to him is given the world to come, but the Prince of Evil is the prince of this world (cf. John 14:30; Ephesians 1:21; 6:12). This Son of God is the Christ, a middle-being between God and creation, not a creature, yet not equal to, nor even to be compared with, the Father (autogenneto ou sygkrinetai "Hom.", xvi, 16). Adam was the bearer of the first revelation, Moses of the second, Christ of the

third and perfect one. The union of Christ withJesus is involved in obscurity. Man is saved by knowledge (gnosis), by believing in God the Teacher, and by being baptized unto remission of sins. Thus he receives knowledge and strength to observe all the precepts of the law. Christ shall come again to triumph over Antichrist as light dispels darkness. The system is Pantheism, Persian Dualism, Judaism, and Christianity fused together, and here and there reminds one of Mandaisticliterature. The "Recognitions", as given us in Rufinus's translation (revision?), come nearer to Catholic teaching than do the "Homilies". Amongst the writings of the Ebionites must be mentioned: Their Gospel. St. Irenus only states that they used the Gospel of St. Matthew. Eusebius modifies this statement by speaking of the socalled Gospel according to the Hebrews, which was known to Hegesippus (Eusebius, Church History IV.22.8), Origen (Jerome, Illustrious Men 2), and Clem. Alex. (Stromata II.9.45). This, probably, was the slightly modified Aramaic original of St. Matthew, written in Hebrewcharacters. But St. Epiphanius attributes this to the Nazarenes, while the Ebionites proper only possessed an incomplete, falsified, and truncated copy thereof (Adv. Haer., xxix, 9). It is possibly identical with the Gospel of the Twelve. Their Apocrypha: "The Circuits of Peter" (periodoi Petrou) and Acts of the Apostles, amongst which the "Ascents of James" (anabathmoi Iakobou). The first-named books are substantially contained in the Clementine Homilies under the title of Clement's "Compendium of Peter'sitinerary sermons", and also in the "Recognitions" ascribed to the same. They form an early Christian didactic novel to propagate Ebioniteviews, i.e. their Gnostic doctrines, the supremacy of James, their connection with Rome, and their antagonism to Simon Magus. (SeeCLEMENTINES.) The Works of Symmachus, i.e. his translation of the Old Testament (see VERSIONS OF THE BIBLE; SYMMACHUS THE EBIONITE), and his "Hypomnemata" against the canonical Gospel of St. Matthew. The latter work, which is totally lost (Eusebius, Church History VI.17; Jerome,Illustrious Men 44), is probably identical with "De distinctione prceptorum", mentioned by Ebed Jesu (Assemani, Bibl. Or., III, 1). The book of Elchesai, or of "The Hidden power", purporting to have been written about A.D. 100 and brought to Rome about A.D. 217 by Alcibiades of Apamea. Those who accepted its doctrines and its new baptism were called Elchesaites. (Hipp., "Philos.", IX, xiv-xvii; Epiph., "Haer.", xix, 1; liii, 1.) Of the history of this sect hardly anything is known. They exerted only the slightest influence in the East and none at all in the West, where they were known as Symmachiani. In St. Epiphanius's time small communities seem still to have existed in some hamlets of Syria and Palestine, but they were lost in obscurity. Further east, in Babylonia and Persia, their influence is perhaps traceable amongst the Mandeans, and it is suggested by Uhlhorn and others that they may be brought into connection with the origin of Islam. Judeo-hriani Prvobitni jevrejski hriani (poznati kao judeohriani) su bili prvi Isusovi uenici meu Jevrejima, koji su pored Isusovog uenja takoer potivali Mojsijev zakon i druge jevrejske obiaje. Kada je hrianstvo poelo da se iri meu nejevrejima, u zajednici je dolo do podele oko obaveznosti jevrejskih zakona za nejevreje koji prime hrianstvo. Naprvom Saboru hrianske crkve u Jerusalimu, preovladao je stav Pavlove frakcije, da nije potrebno nametati jevrejske obiaje nejevrejskim prozelitima. Nakon toga su judeohriani, koji su i dalje verovali u optevanost jevrejskih obiaja, pogrdno nazivani judaisti (judaizanti, judaizeri). Ovi izvorni Isusovi sledbenici su vremenom "odbaeni od jedne religije kao otpadnici, a od druge kao jeretici".[1] Povest [uredi - ] Raanje hrianstva [uredi - ] Isus, odnosno Jeua, je bio poboni Jevrejin vrsto ukorenjen u judaizmu svog doba[2], u vreme mesijanskih i apokaliptinih oekivanja Drugog hrama.[3][4] Krstio ga je Jovan Krstitelj, apokaliptini propovednik ije je uenje verovatno sledio. [2] Jeua se direktno pozivao na Boiju volju i na svete knjige, bez obaziranja na usmeno predanje koje su razradili fariseji.[2] On je u vie navrata afirmisao Mojsijev zakon, Toru, i nije ju smatrao balastom koji treba odbaciti.[2] Mojsijev zakon je tumaio na obuhvatniji nain, usreujui se na duh zakona, za razliku od jevrejskih pravnika i fariseja koji su se drali slova zakona, u sopstvenom tumaenju. Ljudima je govorio da e im gresi biti oproteni ukoliko se u pokajanju okrenu Bogu, te da nema potrebe za ritualnim proisenjem, niti za prinoenjem rtava u Hramu.[5] Jevrejske stareine su njegovo uenje smatralibogohulnim, a Rimljani delovanje buntovnikim. Oko 30. godine Isus i njegovi uenici su izazvali nerede u jerusalimskom Hramu tokom jevrejskog praznika Pashe, to je dovelo do hapenja i pogubljenja Isusarazapinjanjem na krst. U Jeruzalemu se hrianska zajednica najprije sabrala, ondje se ona nazvala crkvom ( ekklesia).[6] U jerusalimskoj zajednici bilo je nekoliko hiljada jevrejskih hriana koji su se pridravali Mojsijevog zakona. Prvi jevrejski hriani su ili u sinagoge, tumaei jevrejsku religiju u skladu da Isusovim tumaenjem Mojsijevih zakona. Oni su Isusa poeli da smatraju jevrejskim Mesijom. Usled toga, prvi progoni doli su od strane jevrejskih voa, koji su ih tretirali kao heretike. Prvi hrianski muenik Stefan je, neposredno nakon Isusovog pogubljenja, kamenovan pod optubom za blasfemiju, jer je nauavao da e Isus ukinutiJerusalimski Hram i izmeniti obiaje koje je Mojsije predao (Dela 6:14). Uprkos odbacivanju od zvaninog judaizma, mnogi jevrejski hriani nisu eleli da se odreknu svoje revnosti za Mojsijev zakon, insistirajui da je potrebno obrezati mnogoboce i narediti im da se dre Boijeg zakona. Oni su prihvatali Isusa kao jevrejskog mesiju, objavljujui univerzalnost Mojsijevog zakona: ako se ne obreete po Mojsijevom obiaju, ne moete se spasiti (Dela 15:1). Sirijska Antiohija, veliki grad na oko 150 kilometara severno od Jerusalima, je bila sredite helenizovanih Jevreja koji su govorili grki jezik. Apostoli su tamo propovedali ne objavljujui re nikom drugom nego samo Judejima(Dela 11:19). U Antiohiji je ponikao grki naziv "hriani" po kojem su Isusovi sledbenici postali poznati u svetu. [7] Propovedanje narodima Nakon Isusove smrti njegovi uenici su isprva propovedali dobru vest samo Jevrejima (Dela 11:19). Propovedajui na grkom jeziku helenizovanim Jevrejima u sinagogama irom Mediterana, privukli su i prve nejevrejske sledbenike. Ubrzo su se okrenuli i svim ostalim narodima. Propovedali su Paranima, Meanima i Elamitima, stanovnicima Mesopotamije, Judeje, Kapadokije, Ponta, Azije, Frigije i Pamfilije, [8] zatimEgipanima, Libijcima, Rimljanima, Krianima i Arapima. Preobraenici iz tih krajeva bili su Judeji i prozeliti.[9] Izrazom prozelit izvorno su nazivani obraenici na judaizam.

Svi prvi inovjerci koji su u prihvatili hrianstvo su takoer prihvatili i judaizam, to ukljuuje obrezanje, ishranu koju dozvoljava Mojsijev zakon i svetkovanje subote (abata). Prihvatanjem hrianstva automatski se prihvatao i judaizam. Osnivaju se mjesne kranske zajednice po svijetu, ali Crkva Majka u Jeruzalemu ostaje sredinjica, ona ima primat. Crkva u Jeruzalemu bila je metropola graana Novog Saveza.[10] Podele unutar zajednice Prvim hrianima je obrezanje bilo simbol celokupnog Mojsijevog zakona. Ono je simbolizovalo savez koji je Jahve napravio sa prorokom Abrahamom (Postanje, 17). To je bilo naslee za sve Abrahamove potomke. Obrezivanje je identifikovalo oveka kao vernika, a i sam Isus je bio obrezan kada je bio star samo osam dana (Luka 2:21). Stoga su judeohriani zahtevali da preobraenike treba obrezati i narediti im da dre Mojsijev zakon (Dela 15:5). Sa druge strane, preobraenik Pavle iz Tarza, i njegovi istomiljenici su tvrdili da je Isusovo evanelje vee od Mojsijevog zakona i da sam zakon ne moe nikoga spasiti (Dela 13:38-39). Ljudi su se podelili, neki su podravali stav jevrejskih hriana, a neki apostola (Dela 14:4). Jeruzalemski sabor (50) Neslaganje oko toga da li nejevrejski prozeliti treba da slede Boiji zakon objavljen Mojsiju postalo je toliko vano da je sazvan poseban sabor u Jerusalimu kako bi se zajednica dogovorila o tom pitanju. Sabor je okupio voe mlade hrianske zajednice priblino 49. ili 50. godine u Jerusalimu. Poto su postojale dve struje, jerusalimska, koju je predstaljao voa judeohrianske zajednice Jakov Pravedni, i prozelitska, koju je zastupao novopeeni hrianski misionar Pavle iz Tarsa. Apostol Petar je, nakon inicijalnog sukoba sa Pavlom, na kraju podrao njegovo stanovite reima: to hoete da nametnete uenicima na vrat jaram, koji ni nai oevi ni mi nismo mogli da ponesemo? (Dela 15:10). Dela apostolska Petrovu promenu miljenja pripisuju viziji koju je neposredno pre sabora imao u Jopi. Dok se molio na krovu jedne kue, ekajui obrok, u transu je video kako se nebo otvara i sa njega sputa veliko platno na kome su bile sve etvoronone ivotinje, i gmizavci zemaljski, i ptice nebeske. uo je glas koji mu je naredio da ustane i zakolje da bi jeo, ali je odbio jer nikada nije pojeo nita neisto ili pogano. Glas je tada rekao, to je Bog uinio istim ne nazivaj poganim. (Dela 10:9-16). Levitski zakonik (11:4, 11:13, 20:25) zabranjuje vernicima da jedu odreene vrste ivotinja, kao to su kamila, zec, svinja, gavran, noj, sova, labud, svraka, roda i slino. Na kraju je Jakov predloio zajedniki dogovor: nejevreji koji su eleli da postanu lanovi zajednice trebalo je da ispune samo najnunije uslove, da budu moralno isti i da se uzdre od oboavanja idola i jedenja krvi: Odluismo, naime, Duh Sveti i mi, da vas ne optereujemo niim drugim osim ovih potrebnih stvari: da se uzdravate od mesa koje je rtvovano idolima, i od krvi, i od udavljenog, i od bluda; ako se od svega ovoga uvate, dobro ete initi. Djela apostolska 15:28-29. Apostoli su tako na Jerusalimskom koncilu ukinuli opte vaenje Mojsijevog zakona. Posledice sabora [uredi - ] Mnogi judeo-hriani, poput apostola Barnabe, su u poetku pomagali i podravali Pavla u njegovoj propovednikoj misiji (Dela 9:26 -28). Meutim, nakon sabora u Jerusalimu, Pavle sve otvorenije govori o ukidanju jevrejskih zakona i obiaja, ne samo nejevrejskim preobraenicima, ve hrianima uopte. U svojim poslanicama Pavle pie da spasenje dolazi pomou vere u Hrista, a ne obavljanjem radnji koje propisuje jevrejski zakon.[11] Zajednice koje su sledile uenja Pavla uveliko su prisvojile njegovo ubeenje da je "Hrist kraj zakona za svakoga ko veruje, bio on Jevrejin ili nejevrejin". Veina vernika tumaila je to kao tvrdnju da su obrezivanje, koer ishrana i jevrejski obiaji u suprotnosti sa hrianstvom.[12] Usled toga, naputaju ga ne samo bliski prijatelji poput Barnabe[13], ve dolazi do otvorenog neprijateljstva izmeu njega i judeo-hriana koji mu irom hrianskog sveta osporavaju apostolski ugled i poslanje (vidi npr. Poslanica Galatima). Godine 62. je tadanji prvosveenik Jeruzalema Anan ben Anan sazvao Sanhedrin i osudio Isusovog brata Jakova i jo nekolicinu na smrt kamenovanjem, zbog optube da su krili Zakon. Pad Jerusalima (70) [uredi - ] Glavni lanak/ci: Prvi jevrejsko-rimski rat i Opsada Jeruzalema (70) 66. godine dolazi do Veliki jevrejskog ustanka protiv Rimljana, koji prerasta u etvorogodinji rat koji je ostavio katastrofalne i nesagledive posledice po jevrejski svet.Jerusalim je pao 70. godine, nakon viemesene opsade, a Rimljani su potpuno unitili jerusalimski Hram. Eusebije pie da su se hriani iz Jerusalima povukli iz grada pre nego to je do sukoba dolo. Prema Euzebiju, hristijani su napustili Jerusalim zbog rata i pobegli u oblinji grad Pela, predvoeni Simeonom Jerusalimskim. Isusovi sledbenici su odbili da se bore u ratu protiv Rimljana ne zato to su prihvatali argument o rimskoj nepobedivosti, koji su upotrebljavali Josif Flavije i vii slojevi. Hriani su verovali da je borba protiv Rimljana besmislena zato to su katastrofalni dogaaji nakon Isusovog raspea bili znaci kraja" kada e ceo svet biti razbijen i preobraen. Neki su verovali kako te katastrofe izaziva gnevni Bog kako bi kaznio sop stveni narod zbog toga to je zloinaki odbacio bogomdanog Mesiju.[12] Pad Jeruzalema se kasnije uglavnom tumaio posljedicom zala koje su Jevreji nanijeli Isusu[14], ali je takoer povezivan i sa zlostavljanjem Jakova od jevrejskih vlasti, neposredno uoi rata s Rimljanima.[15] Posledice pada [uredi - ] Nakon prvog judeo-rimskog rata judeo-hriani su rasuti po jevrejskoj dijaspori i marginalizovani, matina Crkva u Jerusalimu je unitena, a centar celokupnog hrianskog pokreta se premeta u centar svijeta, Rim. Poslije pada Jeruzalema 70. godine, Rimljani su izgnali Jevreje iz Judeje, na ruevinama Jeruzalema su podigli rimski grad Elija Kapitolina, a na mestu razorenog Hramanaselje sa paganskim oltarima. U raseljenim jevrejskim zajednicama dolazi do promene odnosa snaga. Prvosvetenika partija i sadukeji povezani sa bivim Hramom, su odstranjeni. Rukovodee uloge preuzela je rastua grupa uitelja, fariseja, koja je irila svoju vlast kroz celu Judeju, obuhvativi jevrejske zajednice irom sveta.[16] Dok su ranije glavni hrianski protivnici bili visoki svetenici i Jerusalemski pisari, nakon rata to postaju fariseji.[12] Ovo se odraava u Evanelju po Mateju, hrianskom spisu iz tog vremena (oko 80. godine), u kom se autor suoava prvenstveno sa rivalstvom farisejskih rabina koji su se nametnuli irom jevrejskog sveta kao autoritativni tumai Tore.[17] Tekoe i ponienja usled poraza zaotrili su

podele u razbacanim jevrejskim zajednicama. Mnogi Jevreji su se oseali izdanim u eshatolokim oekivanjima, usled ega se razvija neortodoksna idovska apokaliptika literatura, koju karakterie pobuna protiv Boga tvorca i svijeta koji je stvorio. Iz nje se razvijaju razni judeo hrianski gnostiki pravci.[18] Epifanije pominje da je nakon razorenja Jeruzalema, jedno od sredita judeo-hrianstva bilo u okolici grada Pella, sjeverno od Jerusalima.[19] Rat i njegove posledice su takoe polarizovali Isusove sledbenike, pogotovu kada je re o njihovim odnosima s drugim jevrejskim zajednicama. [12] Isusovi sledbenici su sve vie teili da se odvoje od ostalih Jevreja, radije se molei u kuama lanova nego u sinagogama. Ova situacija rastuivala je mnoge koji nisu eleli da odbace tradicionalne obiaje. Nakon 70. godine kranski pokret se brzo irio meu nejevrejima ( Gentiles), ali, na njihovu alost, uglavnom nisu uspeli da privuku Jevreje. U posleratnoj Palestini, oko 80-90. godine, Isusovi sledbenici su postali marginalna grupa protiv koje je bila vladajua partija fariseja, koja je dola na vlast u Jerusalimu nakon rimskog rata. Potkraj veka, oko 90-100. godine, Isusovi jevrejski sledbenici su bili izbaeni iz domaih sinagoga zbog svoje tvrdnje da je Isus Mesija, i otueni od jevrejske zajednice. estok sukob ranog hrianstva i judaizma oslikava Evanelje po Jovanu, u kom Jevreji postaju nepomirljivi Isusovi protivnici.[12][20] Mnogi strunjaci veruju da Evanelje po Jovanu predstavlja gledite radikalne sekte, izbaenih iz domaih sinagoga zbog tvrdnje da je Jeua Mesija, i otuenih od jevrejske veine.[12] Naunici smatraju da je ovaj traumatini razdor definisao autopercepciju Johaninske zajednice koja vidi sebe kao malenu manjinu Bojih ljudi koju svet mrzi," i koja podstie svoje lanove da odbace celokupni drutveni i religijski kontekst u kojem su roeni. [21][22][23][24] Judeo-hrianska zajednica biva sve vie marginalizovana i podeljena, dok Rimska Crkva od nekadanje Jeruzalemske Crkve preuzima primat nad mnogim kranskim opinama. Neki judeo-hriani su u potpunosti raskinuli sa judaizmom i prihvatili uspostavljene hrianske dogme u celosti. Meutim, judeo-hrianske zajednice koje ostaju pri starim ubeenjima i nastavljaju odravanje jevrejskih obiaja, od katolike crkve bivaju proglaene za herezu. Meu raseljenim judeo-hrianima se razvijaju razni pravci miljenja, a neki delovi zajednice se priklanjaju judejskom gnosticizmu. Euzebije navodi da su hriani za vreme drugog jevrejsko-rimskog rata (115-117) bili gonjeni od Bar Kohbe jer su odbili da prihvati njegove mesijanske tvrdnje. Justin Filozofpominje progone hriana u Palestini oko 135. godine.[25] Irinej Lionski (oko 180) je prvi upotrebio termin ebioniti (siromani), radi opisivanja "heretike" judeo-hrianske sekte, za koju je tvrdio da se tvrdoglavo drala zakona. Epifanije 375. godine spominje grupu ebionita na Kipru. Uenje Glavni lanak: Rano hrianstvo Judeohrianski spis Propovedanja Petrova izlae judeo-hriansku teologiju ija je osnovna ideja ne samo da nema nikakvog diskontinuiteta izmeu Mojsijeva Zakona i kranstva nego da je kranstvo, u stvari, pravi Mojsijev Zakon koji je Isus samo oistio od natruha unesenih u Svete knjige poslije Mojsija.[26] Hristologija Glavni lanak/ci: Hristologija i Adopcionizam Jevrejski hriani su bili striktni monoteisti i bila im je strana tvrdnja da je Isus Bog. Karakteristina crta prvobitnog hrianstva je verovanje da je Jeua roen kaoovek a boanstven je postao kasnije u ivotu.[27] Prema ovom gleditu, Jeua iz Nazareta, koji je roen kao i svaki drugi ovek, postao je jevrejski Mesija (gr.Hristos) svojom bezgrenom posveenou bojoj volji. Hebrejski izraz mesija znai pomazanik (heb. M - pomazan), odnosno osoba pomazana svetim uljem. Da bi neko stekao zvanje pomazanika morao je proi obred pomazanja. Levitski zakonik opisuje kako svetenik "kome se na glavu izlije ulje pomazanja" postaje posveen od "Boga njegovog".[28] Prema jevrejskom shvatanju, Jeua je morao da dokae svoju svetost da bi ga Bog uzdigao kao mesiju i sina Bojeg. Poto se posebno istakao svojom pravednou u vrenju bojeg zakona, od Boga je izbran da bude mesijanski prorok, poput Mojsija. Verovalo se da ga je Bog prihvatio kao sina prilikom krtenja na reci Jordan kodJohanana, kada je glas sa neba objavio da je on Boiji sin.[11] Ovo gledite se naziva adopcionistikim jer pretpostavlja akt adopcije - ovjek je uzdignut do Boga; on je usvojen kao Boji sin, kako se obino verovalo, pri njegovom krtenju.[11] Ova rana kristologija se nadovezuje na judaistiki pojam mesije koji je izabran od Boga da bi zaveo carstvo pravednosti i ljubavi.[27] Ovo verovanje je bilo uobiajeno u ranom hrianstvu, pre nego to je od protivnika nazvano adopcionizam i osueno kao jeres. Vremenom je ova najstarija doktrina o Kristu potisnuta drugim, obuhvatnijim doktrinama.[27] Judeo-hrianska kristologija je slina onoj koju je kasnije preuzeo islam (vidi Isus u islamu), pa je mogue da su postojali dodiri izmeu judeohriana i poetaka islama na Bliskom Istoku.[26] Spisi [uredi - ] Neki do spisa koji su izvorno nastali unutar judeo-hrianske zajednice su: Didahe Jakovljeva poslanica Evanelje po Hebrejima Evanelje po Mateju Propovijedanja Petrova Takoe, meu spise koji crpu iz judeo-hrianske predaje ubrajaju se i Prvo i Drugo otkrivenje po Jakovu. Izvori [uredi - ] Gibbon: Decline & Fall of the Roman Empire, v.1, p.416 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Isus, Enciklopedija ivih religija (str. 316-318), Nolit, Beograd, 2004. Sanders, E. P. The historical figure of Jesus. Penguin, 1993. John Dickson, Jesus: A Short Life. Lion Hudson 2009, pp. 138-9. Kembridova ilustrovana istorija religije (str. 232-236), Stylos, Novi Sad, 2006. ISBN 86-7473-281-X Irenej, Adv. haer. 3, 12, 5 Verner Jeger, Rano hrianstvo i grka paideja (str. 10-13), Slubeni glasnik, Beograd, 2007. Dela apostolska 1:8; 2:9-11 i 17-21. Dela apostolska 2:11.

 Irenej, Adv. haer. 3, 12, 5 11.0 11.1 11.2 Bart Ehrman - Isus to nije rekao (scribd) 12.0 12.1 12.2 12.3 12.4 12.5 Elejn Pejgels - Poreklo Satane (scribd) ...doe do zaotrenosti, tako da se rastae jedan od drugoga (Dela 15:39) vidi Origen, Contra Celsum 2.13; Euzebije, H.e. 3.7 Hegezip u Euzebije, H. E. 2.23 Jacob Neusner, Formative Judaism: Religious, Historical, and Literary Studies. Brown Judaic Studies, No. 91. Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1983. Videti detaljne analize u: Alan F. Segal. Matthew's Jewish Voice" i J. Andrew Overman.Matthew's Gospel's and Formative Judaism. Jean Danilou, Nuova storia delta Chiesa, I, str. 104105. Epifanije, Panarion 30, 1, 7 Lindars 1990 p. 53. William Horbury, The Benediction of the Minim and Early Jewish-Christian Controversy". Journal of Theological Studies 33 (1982): 19-61 T. C G. Thornton. Christian Understandings of the Birkath ha-Minim in the Eastern Roman Empire". Journal of' Theological Studies 38 (1987): 419-31 Asher Finkel. Yavneh's Liturgy and Early Christianity". Journal of Ecumenical Studies 18: 2 (1981): 231-50 Alan F. Segal. Ruler of This World: Attitudes about Mediator Figures and the Importance Sociology for Self-Definition". In E. P. Sanders, ed. Jewish and Christian Self-Definition. Vol 2, pp. 245-68. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1980. Justin Filozof, Dijalog sa Trifonom 110.4. 26.0 26.1 Tomislav J. agi-Buni - Povijest kranske literature (svezak I) (scribd) 27.0 27.1 27.2 Erich Fromm, Dogma o Kristu (scribd) Levitski zakonik 21:10-12 CHRISTIANITY IN ITS RELATION TO JUDAISM: Christianity is the system of religious truth based upon the belief that Jesus of Nazareth was the expected Messiah, or Christ, and that in him all the hopes and prophecies of Israel concerning the future have been fulfilled. While comprising creeds which differ widely from one another in doctrine and in practise, Christianity as a whole rests upon the belief in the God of Israel and in the Hebrew Scriptures as the word of God; but it claims that these Scriptures, which it calls the Old Testament, receive their true meaning and interpretation from the New Testament, taken to be the written testimonies of the Apostles that Jesus appeared as the end and fulfilment of all Hebrew prophecy. It furthermore claims that Jesus, its Christ, was and is a son of God in a higher and an essentially different sense than any other human being, sharing in His divine nature, a cosmic principle destined to counteract the principle of evil embodied in Satan; that, therefore, the death of the crucified Christ was designed by God to be the means of atonement for the sin inherited by the human race through the fall of Adam, the first man; and, consequently, that without belief in Jesus, in whom the Old Testament sacrifice is typified, there is no salvation. Finally, Christianity, as a world-power, claims that it represents the highest form of civilization, inasmuch as, having made its appearance when the nations of antiquity had run their course and mankind longed for a higher and deeper religious life, it regenerated the human race while uniting Hebrew and Greek to become the heir to both; and because it has since become the ruling power of history, influencing the life of all nations and races to such an extent that all other creeds and systems of thought must recede and pale before it. These three claims of Christianity, which have frequently been asserted in such a manner as directlyor implicitly to deny to Judaism, its mother religion, the purpose, if not the very right of its continued existence, will be examined from a historical point of view under three heads: (1) the New Testament claim as to the Christship of Jesus; (2) the Church's claim as to the dogmatic truths of Christianity, whether Trinitarian or Unitarian; and (3) the claim of Christianity to be the great power of civilization. The attitude taken by Jews toward Christianity in public debates and in literary controversies will be treated under Polemics and Polemical Literature; while the New Testament as literature and the personality of Jesus of Nazareth will also be discussed in separate articles. The Messianic Movement. I. It is a matter of extreme significance that the Talmudic literature, which is based on tradition at least a century older than Christianity, has not even a specific name for the Christian belief or doctrine, but mentions it only occasionally under the general category of "Minim" (literally, "distinctive species of belief"), heresies, or Gnostic sects. As one of these it could only be regarded in the second century, when Christianity was in danger of being entirely absorbed by Gnosticism. At first it was viewed by the Jews simply as one of the numerous Messianic movements which, aimed against Roman rule, ended tragically for their instigators, and from which it differed only in one singular fact; viz., that the death of the leader, far from crushing the movement, gave, on the contrary, rise to a new faith which gradually, both in principle and in attitude, antagonized as none other the parent faith, and came to manifest the greatest hostility to it. There is no indication in Jewish literature that the appearance of Jesus, either as a teacher or as a social or political leader, made at the time a deep or lasting impression on the Jewish people in general. Outside of Galilee he was scarcely known. This at least seems to be the only explanation of the fact that the Talmudic passages, some of which are old, confound Jesus, on the one hand, with Ben Sada, who was tried in Lyddaprobably identical with Theudas "the magician," the pseudo-Messiah who appeared in 44 (Josephus, "Ant." xx. 5, 1; Acts v. 36) and, on the other, with the Egyptian "false prophet" who created a Messianic revolt a few years later ("Ant." xx. 8, 6; idem, "B. J." ii. 13, 5; Acts xxi. 38; see Tosef., Sanh. x. 11; Sanh. 67a, 107b; Shab. 104b; Soah 47a; compare Matt. xxiv. 11 and 24). As to Jesus ben Pandera, or Jesus the pupil of R. Joshua ben Perayah, seeJesus in Jewish Legend. The only reference to Jesus in contemporary Jewish literature is found in Josephus, "Antiquities" xviii. 3, 3, a passage which has been interpolated by Christian copyists, but appears to have originally contained the following words (see Theodore Reinach, in "Rev. Etudes Juives," xxxv. 1-18; A. v. Gutschmid, "Kleine Schriften," 1893, iv. 352): "There was about that time [a certain] Jesus, a wise man; for he was a worker of miracles, a teacher of men eager to receive [new (revolutionary) tidings], and he drew over to him many Jews and also many of the Hellenic world. He was [proclaimed] Christ; and when, on denunciation by the principal men amongst us, Pilate condemned him to be crucified, those that were first [captivated] by him did not cease to adhere to him; and the tribe of Christians, so named after him, is not extinct at this day."

John the Baptist. The Gospel records agree upon one essential point confirmed by Josephus ( l. c. 5, 2; compare Matt. iii. 1-13; Mark i. 2-9; Luke iii. 1-21; John iii. 22 et seq.; Acts xiii. 24); viz., that the main impulse to the Christian movement was given by John the Baptist, an Essene saint, whoamong the many that, by penitence, fasting, and baptisms, prepared themselves for the coming of the Messiah (Luke ii. 25, 36 et seq.; Mark xv. 43; compare ib. ii. 18; Matt. ix. 14, xi. 18; compare Pesi R. xxxiii., xxxiv.; Josephus, "Vita," 2)stood forth as the preacher of repentance and "good tidings," causing the people to flock to the Jordan to wash themselves clean of their sins in expectation of the Messianic kingdom. Some of his followers were known afterward as a class of Baptists under the name "Disciples of John" (Acts viii. 25; xix. 3, 4), and seem partly to have joined the Mandaus (Brandt, "Die Mandische Religion," pp. 137 et seq., 218 et seq., 228; see also Hemerobaptists). Jesus, however, being one of John's disciples, the moment the latter had been put in prison stepped to the front as a preacher of the "Kingdom of Heaven" in the very language of his master (Matt. iv. 12 et seq., xiv. 3-5; Mark i. 14). Still, to the very last he had to admit in his argument with the elders (Matt. xx. 26; Mark xi. 32; compare ib. viii. 28) that John was universally acknowledged prophet, while he was not. Indeed, Herod Antipas, upon learning of Jesus' miraculous performances, expressed the belief that John the Baptist had risen from the dead (Matt. xiv. 2, xvi. 14; Mark vi. 14). Nor did Jesus himself, according to the older records, lay claim to any title other than that of a prophet or worker by the Holy Spirit, like any other Essene saint (Matt. xiii. 57; xxi. 11, 46; Luke vii. 16, 39; xiii. 33; xxiv. 19; John iv. 19, 44; compare Josephus, "B. J." i. 3, 5; ii. 8, 12; idem, "Ant." xiii. 10, 7; Luke ii. 25, 36). Gradually, however, the fame of Jesus as "healer" and "helper" of those stricken with disease so eclipsed that of John, at least in Galilean circles, that the latter was declared to have been only the forerunner of the one destined to subdue the whole kingdom of Satanthat is, the Elijah of the Messianic kingdomand a declaration to this effect was finally put into the mouth of John as though made by him at the very start (Mark i. 2, ix. 13, xi. 2-19; Luke i. 17). Jesus as a Man of the People. Jesus, as a man of the people, deviated from the practise of the Essenes and Pharisees in not shunning contact with the sinners, the Publicans and the despised 'Amha-are, as contaminating, and in endeavoring to elevate them; following the maxim, "They that are whole need not a physician, but they that are sick" (Matt. ix. 12, and parallels; compare Antisthenes, in Diogenes Laertius, vi. 6). He felt the calling to preach the gospel to the poor (Luke iv. 16 et seq., after Isa. lxi. 1 et seq.), and truly became the redeemer of the lower classes, who were not slow to lift him to thestation of the Messiah. Still, he apparently made no such claim before his entrance into Jerusalem, as is evidenced by the warning given to the disciples and to the spirits of the possessed not to disclose the secret of his being the Son of David (Matt. xii. 16, xvi. 20; Mark i. 24, iii. 12, viii. 30; Luke iv. 41). His reference to himself as the "Son of man," after the manner of Dan. vii. 13, and Enoch, xlvi. 2 et seq., in Matt. xx. 18, and Mark x. 33, has no historical value; whereas in Mark ii. 28 and Matt. viii. 20 "Son of man" stands for "man" or "myself." While the eschatological predictions in Matt. xxiv., xxv.; Luke xvii. 22 et seq., and elsewhere have been taken over literally from Jewish apocalypses and put into the mouth of Jesus, the teachings and doings of Jesus betray, on closer analysis, rather an intense longing after the Messianic time than joy and satisfaction over its arrival. And as the so-called "Lord's Prayer"an exquisite compilation of asidic prayer formulas (Luke xi. 1-13; Matt. vi. 9-13; see Charles Taylor, "Sayings of the Jewish Fathers," 1901, p. 176) is, like the addish, a petition rather than a thanksgiving for the Messianic kingdom, so is the entire code of ethics laid down by Jesus for his disciples in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. v.-vii., x.; Luke vi. 20, xi.-xii., and elsewhere) not a law of conduct for a world rejoicing in a redeemer that has come, but a guide for a few of the elect and saintly ones who wait for the immediate downfall of this world and the rise of another (Matt. x. 23, xix. 28, xxiv. 34-37). Only later events caused the allusion to the "Son of man" in these sayings to be referred to Jesus. As a matter of fact, a spirit of great anxiety and unrest permeates the sayings of Jesus and the entire New Testament epoch, as is indicated by such utterances as "Watch, therefore; for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come" (Matt. xxiv. 42, xxv. 13); "The kingdom of God cometh not with observation [that is, calculation], but suddenly, imperceptibly it is among you" (Luke xvii. 20, 21); compare the rabbinical saying: "The Messiah cometh [when least expected], like a thief in the night" (Sanh. 97a, b). See, further, Matt. xxiv. 43; I Thess. v. 2; II Peter iii. 10; Rev. iii. 3. A number of sayings allude to the sword, to contention, and to violence, which do not altogether harmonize with the gentle and submissive character assigned generally to Jesus. Such are the following: "Think not that I came to send peace on the earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword" (Matt. x. 34, R. V.); "Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division. . . . The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against the father," etc. (Luke xii. 51-53); "From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force" (Matt. xi. 12) words hardly reconcilable with the concluding sentences of the chapter: "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden. . . . Take my yoke upon you . . . and ye shall find rest" ( l.c. xi. 28-30). The advice given by Jesus to his disciples to provide themselves each with a sword (Luke xxii. 36; compare ib. verse 49; John xix. 10, though disavowed in Matt. xxvi. 52, 53); the allusion by Simeon the saint to the sword and to the strife as resulting from Jesus' birth (Luke ii. 34, 35); and the disappointment voiced by Cleopas, "We trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel" (Luke xxiv. 21; compare Matt. i. 21, where Jesus is explained as , Joshua, who shall "save his people from sin")all these point to some action which gave cause for his being handed over to Pontius Pilate as one who was "perverting the nation, and forbidding to give tribute to Csar" (Luke xxiii. 2); though the charge was refuted by the saying, "Render unto Csar the things that are Csar's" (Matt. xxii. 21; Mark xii. 17; Luke xx. 25, R. V.). He was tried and crucified as "King of the Jews" or "Messiah"; and all the alleged charges of blasphemy, in that he called himself "Son of God" in the Messianic sense, or announced the destruction of the Temple, prove, in the light of the ancient Jewish law, to be later inventions (Matt. xxvi. 63-65; Mark xiv. 58; Luke xxii. 70). See Crucifixion of Jesus. The Risen Christ. That the movement did not end with the crucifixion, but gave birth to that belief in the risen Christ which brought the scattered adherents together and founded Christianity, is due to two psychic forces that never before had come so strongly into play: (1) the great personality of Jesus, which had so impressed itself upon the simple people of Galilee as to become a living power to them even after his death; and (2) the transcendentalism, or otherworldliness, in which those penance doing, saintly men and women of the common classes, in their longing for godliness, lived. In entranced visions they beheld their crucified Messiah expounding the Scriptures for them, or breaking the bread for them at their love-feasts, or even assisting them when they were out on the lake fishing (Luke xxiv. 15, 30, 31, 36; John xx. 19, xxi.). In an atmosphere of such perfect navet the miracle of the Resurrection seemed as natural as had been the miracle of the healing of the sick. Memory and vision combined to weave the stories of Jesus walking on the water (compare Matt. xiv. 25, Mark vi. 49, and John vi. 19 with John xxi. 1-14), of the transfiguration on the Mount (compare Matt. xvii. 1-13, Mark ix. 2-13, and Luke ix. 29-36 with Matt. xxviii. 16 et seq.), and of his moving through the air to be near the divine throne, served by the angels and the holy (not "wild")

beasts ("ayyot"), and holding Scriptural combats with Satan (Mark i. 12, 13; Matt. iv. 1-11; compare with Acts vii. 15, vii. 55). The Messiahship of Jesus having once become an axiomatic truth to the "believers," as they called themselves, his whole life was reconstructed and woven together out of Messianic passages of the Scriptures. In him all the Testament prophecies had "to be fulfilled" (Matt. i. 22; ii. 5, 15, 17; iii. 3; iv. 14; viii. 17; xii. 17; xiii. 14, 35; xx. 14; xxvi. 56; xxvii. 19; John xii. 38; xiii. 18; xv. 25; xvii. 12; xviii. 9; xix. 24, 36). Thus, according to the Jewish view, shared by many Christian theologians, there grew up, through a sort of Messianic Midrash, the myths of Jesus' birth from a virgin (after Isa. vii. 14), in Bethlehem, the city of David (after Micah v. 1 et seq.; there was a town of Bethlehem also in Galilee, which Grtz identifies with Nazareth; see "Monatsschrift," xxix. 481); the genealogies in Luke iii. 23-38 andin Matt. i. 1-17, with the singular stress laid upon Tamar, Rahab, and Ruth, the converted sinners and heathens, as mothers of the elect one (compare Gen. R. ii.; Hor. 10b; Nazir 23b; Meg. 14b); likewise the story of Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem riding upon a young ass (after Zech. ix. 9), and of his being hailed by the people's "Hosanna" (after Ps. cxviii. 26; compare Midr. Teh. to the passage; also Matt. xxi. 111, and parallels). Similarly, his healing powers were made proofs of his Messiahship (after Isa. xxxv. 5, 6; compare Gen. R. xcv. and Midr. Teh. cxlviii.), also his death on the cross was taken, with reference to Isa. liii. and old Essene tradition of the suffering Messiah (Pesi . R. xxxiv.-xxxvii.), to be the atoning sacrifice of the Lamb of God slain for man's sin (John i. 29; Acts viii. 32. Rev. xiii. 8; compare Enoch xc. 8), and his resurrection the beginning of a new life (after Zech. xiv. 5: I Chron. iii. 24; Sibyllines, ii. 242; Matt. xxiv. 30; I Thess. iv. 16). Men held their love-feasts in his memoryturned into paschal feasts of the new covenant (Matt. xxvi. 28, and parallels; John xix. 33 et seq.)and led lives of voluntary poverty and of partial celibacy (Acts ii. 44; Matt. xix. 12). Jesus' Teachings. Out of these elements arose the life-picture of Jesus, shaped after later events and to a great extent reflecting the hostile sentiments entertained against the Jewish people by the new sect when, in the final struggle with Rome, the latter no longer shared the views and destinies of the former. Many antinomistic views put into the mouth of Jesus have their origin in Paulinei.e., anti-Judeancircles. Thus the saying, "Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man" (Matt. xv. 11, and parallels), is irreconcilable with Peter's action and vision in Acts xi. 1-10. What Jesus actually said and did is difficult to determine. Many of his teachings can be traced to rabbinical sayings current in the Pharisaic schools; and many sentences, if not entire chapters, have been taken over from Essene writings (see Didascalia; Essenes; Golden Rule; Jesus of Nazareth;Matthew). On the other hand, there are utterances of striking originality and wondrous power which denote great genius. He certainly had a message to bring to the forlorn, to "the lost sheep of the house of Israel" (Matt. x. 6, xv. 24), to the outcast, to the lower classes, to the "'am ha-are," to the sinners, and to the publicans. And whether the whole life-picture is reality or poetic imagination, in him the Essene ideal reached its culmination. But it is not correct to speak, as Christian theologians do, of a possible recognition or an actual rejection of Jesus' Christship by the Jews. Whatever his greatness as teacher or as friend of the people, this could not establish his claim to the Messianic title; and whether his Galilean followers were justified in according it to him, or the authorities at Jerusalem in denying it and in denouncing him to the Roman prefectprobably more from fear than from spite (John xix. 15)is not a matter that can be decided from the scanty records (compare Matt. xxvi. 5; Luke xiii. 31; xix. 47, 48; xx. 19; xxiii. 43 with Matt. xxvii. 25-28; Mark xv. 14; Luke xxiii. 23 (see Crucifixion). The vehement language of Jesus, in denouncing Sadducean misrule and the hypocrisy and narrowness of the Pharisaic leaders, was not altogether new and unheard of: it was the privilege of the Essene preachers, the popular Haggadists (See Pharisee and Sadducees). Most of his teachings, a great number of which echo rabbinical sayings, and have been misunderstood or misapplied altogether by the late Gospel compilers (see Gospels, The Four), were addressed to a circle of men who lived in a world of their own, far away from the centers of commerce and industry. His attitude toward Judaism is defined by the words: "Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil" (Matt. v. 17). The rejection of the Law by Christianity, therefore, was a departure from its Christ, all the New Testament statements to the contrary notwithstanding. He himself declined even the title of "good master," because he wanted to reserve this epithet for God alone ("Matt. xix. 17): Christianity, contrary to all his teaching, turned him into a God. Paul's Antinomistic and Gnostic Views. II. This radical change was brought about by Saul of Tarsus or Paul, the real founder of the Christian Church, though Peter formed the first community of the risen Christ (Matt. xvi. 16; Acts i. 15; I Cor. xv. 5). Having, under the influence of a vision, turned from an earnest persecutor of the new sect into its vigorous champion (Acts ix. 1-14, xxii. 3-16, xxvi. 9-18; I Cor. ix. 1, xv. 8 et seq.; Gal. i. 16), he construed the belief in the atoning death of Christ held by the rest into a system altogether antagonistic to Judaism and its Law, claiming to have received the apostleship to the heathen world from the Christ he beheld in his visions. Operating with certain Gnostic ideas, which rendered the Messiah as Son of God a cosmic power, like Philo's "logos," aiding in the world's creation and mediating between God and man, he saw both in the Crucifixion and in the Incarnation acts of divine self-humiliation suffered for the sake of redeeming a world polluted and doomed by sin since the fall of Adam. Faith alone in Christ should save man, baptism being the seal of the belief in God's redeeming love. It meant dying with Christ to sin which is inherited from Adam, and rising again with Christ to put on the new Adam (Rom. vi. 14; I Cor. xv.; Gal. iii.-iv.). See Baptism. On the other hand, Paul taught, the law of Moses, the seal of which was Circumcision, failed to redeem man, because it made sin unavoidable. By a course of reasoning he discarded the Law as being under the curse (Gal. iii. 10 et seq.), declaring only those who believed in Christ as the Son of God to be free from all bondage (Gal. iv.). In opposition to those who distinguished between full Proselytes and "proselytes of the gate," who only accepted the Noachidian laws (Acts xv. 20), he abrogated the whole Law; claiming God to be the god of the heathen as well as of the Jews (Rom. iii. 29). Yet in enunciating this seemingly liberal doctrine he deprived faith, as typified by Abraham (Gen. xv. 6; Rom. iv. 3), of its naturalness, and forged theshackles of the Christian dogma, with its terrors of damnation and hell for the unbeliever. God, as Father and the just Ruler, was pushed into the background; and the Christwho in the Gospels as well as in the Jewish apocalyptic literature figured as judge of the souls under God's sovereignty (Matt. xvi. 27, xxv. 31-33; compare Enoch, iv. xiv. et seq.; II Esd. vii. 33 with Rom. xiv. 10; II Cor. v. 10)was rendered the central figure, because he, as head and glory of the divine kingdom, has, like Bel of Babylonian mythology fighting with the dragon, to combat Satan and his kingdom of evil, sin, and death. While thus opening wide the door to admit the pagan world, Paul caused the influx of the entire pagan mythology in the guise of Gnostic and anti-Gnostic names and formulas. No wonder if he was frequently assailed and beaten by the officials of the synagogue: he used this very synagogue, which during many

centuries had been made the center of Jewish propaganda also among the heathen for the pure monotheistic faith of Abraham and the law of Moses, as the starting-point of his antinomistic and anti-Judean agitations (Acts xiii. 14, xiv. 1, xvii. 1 et seq., xxi. 27). Early Christianity a Jewish Sect. For a long time Christianity regarded itself as part of Judaism. It had its center in Jerusalem (Irenus, "Adversus Hreses, i. 26); its first fifteen bishops were circumcised Jews, they observed the Law and were rather unfriendly to heathenism (Sulpicius Severus, "Historia Sacra," ii. 31; Eusebius, "Hist. Eccl." iv. 5; compare Matt. xv. 26), while they held friendly intercourse with the leaders of the synagogue (see Grtz, "Gesch. der Juden," iv. 373 et seq.; andEbionites, Minim, and Nazarenes). Many a halakic and haggadic discussion is recorded in the Talmud as having taken place between the Christians and the Rabbis (see Jacob the Gnostic). Probably the Christian Congregation, or Church of the Saints, did not distinguish itself in outward form from the "ehala addisha" at Jerusalem, under which name the Essene community survived the downfall of the Temple (Ber. 9b; compare Eccl. R. ix. 9: 'Edah edoshah). Of course, the destruction of the Temple and of the Judean state and the cessation of sacrifice could not but promote the cause of Christianity (see Justin, "Dial. cum Tryph." xi.); and under the impression of these important events the Gospels were written and accordingly colored. Still, Jew and Christian looked in common for the erection of the kingdom of heaven by the Messiah either soon to appear or to reappear (see Jol, "Blicke in die Religionsgesch." i. 32 et seq.). It was during the last struggle with Rome in the days of Bar Kokba and Akiba that, amidst denunciations on the part of the Christians and execrations on the part of the Jewish leaders, those hostilities began which separated Church and Synagogue forever, and made the former an ally of the arch-enemy. Pauline Christianity greatly aided in the Romanizing of the Church. It gravitated toward Rome as toward the great world-empire, and soon the Church became in the eyes of the Jew heir to Edom (Gen. xxvii. 40). The emperor Constantine completed what Paul had beguna world hostile to the faith in which Jesus had lived and died. The Council of Nice in 325 determined that Church and Synagogue should have nothing in common, and that whatever smacked of the unity of God and of the freedom of man, or offered a Jewish aspect of worship, must be eliminated from Catholic Christendom. Paganism Predominant. Three causes seem to have been at work in making the Pauline system dominant in the Church. First, the pagan world, particularly its lower classes, having lost faith in its old gods, yearned for a redeemer, a manlike god, and, on the other hand, was captivated by that work of redeeming love which the Christian communities practised, in the name of Jesus, in pursuance of the ancient Essene ideals (see Charity). Secondly, the blending of Jewish, Oriental, and Hellenic thought created those strange mystic or Gnostic systems which fascinated and bewildered the minds of the more educated classes, and seemed to lend a deeper meaning to the old beliefs and superstitions. Woman's Part in the Early Church. Thirdly, woman appeared on the scene as a new factor of Church life. While the women of Syria and of Rome were on the whole attracted by the brightness and purity of Jewish home life, women in the New Testament, and most of all in Paul's life and letters, are prominent in other directions. Aside from those visions of Mary Magdalene which lent support to the belief in the Resurrection (Matt. xxviii. 1, and parallels), there was an undisguised tendency on the part of some women of these circles, such as Salome; Thecla, the friend of Paul; and others (see "Gospel of the Egyptians," in Clement, "Stromata," iii. 964; Conybeare, "Apology and Acts of Apollonius and Other Monuments of Early Christianity," pp. 24, 183, 284), to free themselves from the trammels of those principles upon which the sanctity of home rested (see Eccl. R. vii. 26). A morbid emotionalism, prizing love as "the greatest of all things" in place of truth and justice, and a pagan view of holiness which tended to make life oscillate between austere asceticism (demanding virginity and eunuchism) on the one side, and licentiousness on the other (see Matt. xix. 12; Sulpicius Severus, "Dialogi Duo," i. 9, 13, 15; Eusebius, "Hist. Eccl." vi. 8; Clement, l.c. iii. 4; Cyprian, Ep. iv.; Rev. ii. 14), went hand in hand with Gnosticism. Against this exaggeration of the divine attribute of love and the neglect of that of justice, the Rabbis in the ancient Mishnah seem to utter their warning (Meg. iv. 9; Yer. Ber. i. 3). When, finally, the reaction set in, and Gnosticism both as an intellectual and as a sexual degeneracy (compare Sifre on Num. xv. 39) was checked by a strong counter-movement in favor of positive Christianity, two principles of extraordinary character were laid down by the framers of the Church: (1) the Trinitarian dogma with all its corollaries; and (2) a double code of morality, one for the world-fleeing monks and nuns and the clergycalled the really religious onesand another for the laity, the men of the world. Trinitarianism. The Trinitarian formula first occurs in Matthew (xxviii. 19, R. V.) in the words spoken by the risen Christ to the disciples in Galilee: "Go ye therefore,and make disciples of all the [heathen] nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost"; but it appears to have been still unknown to Paul (I Cor. vi. 11; Acts ii. 38). It is quite significant for the historian to observe that, while in the older Gospel (Mark xii. 29) Jesus began reciting the first commandment with the Jewish confession, "Hear, O Israel; the Lord our God, the Lord is one," this verse is omitted in Matt. xxii. 37. Christ, the preexistent Messiah (Gen. R. i.), being either identified with the Shekinah or divine glory (Rom. ix. 4; Col. i. 27; see Mayor, "Epistle of James," p. 75, notes), or with the "Memra" or "Logos," Philo's second god ("Fragments," ed. Mangey, ii. 625; compare "De Somniis," i. 39-41, ed. Mangey, i. 655 et seq.), was raised by Paul to the rank of a god and placed alongside of God the Father (I Cor. viii. 6, xii. 3; Titus ii. 13; compare I John v. 20); and in II Cor. xiii. 14 the Trinity is almost complete. In vain did the early Christians protest against the deification of Jesus ("Clementine Homilies," xvi. 15). He is in Paul's system the image of God the Father (II Cor. iv. 4; compare I Cor. viii. 6); and, being opposed "to Satan, the god of this world," his title "God of the world to come" is assured. However repugnant expressions such as "the blood," "the suffering," and "the death of God" (Ignatius, "Ad Romanos," iii., v. 13; idem, "Ad Ephesios," i. 1; Tertullian, "Ad Praxeam") must have been to the still monotheistic sentiment of many, the opponents of Jesus' deification were defeated as Jewish heretics (Tertullian, l.c.30; see Arianism and Monarchians). The idea of a Trinity, which, since the Council of Nice, and especially through Basil the Great (370), had become the Catholic dogma, is of course regarded by Jews as antagonistic to their monotheistic faith and as due to the paganistic tendency of the Church; God the Father and God the Son, together with "the Holy Ghost ["Rua ha-odesh"] conceived of as a female being," having their parallels in all the heathen mythologies, as has been shown by many Christian scholars, such as Zimmern, in his "Vater, Sohn, und Frsprecher," 1896, and in Schrader's "K. A. T." 1902, p. 377; Ebers, in his "Sinnbildliches: die Koptische Kunst," 1892, p. 10; and others. Persecution of Unitarians.

There was a time when the Demiurgos, as a second god, threatened to becloud Jewish monotheism (see Gnosticismand Elisha ben Abuyah): but this was at once checked, and the absolute unity of God became the impregnable bulwark of Judaism. "If a man says: 'I am God,' he lies, and if 'Son of man,' he will repent," was the bold interpretation of Num. xxiii. 18, given by R. Abbahu with reference to Christianity (Yer. Ta'an. ii. 1, 65b). "When Nebuchadnezzar spoke of the 'Son of God' (Dan. iii. 25), an angel came and smote him on the face," saying: "Hath God a son?" (Yer. Shab. vi. 8d). In the Church, Unitarianism was suppressed and persecuted whenever it endeavored to assert its birthright to reason; and it is owing chiefly to Justinian's fanatic persecution of the Syrian Unitarians that Islam, with its insistence on pure monotheism, triumphed over the Eastern Church. Henceforth Moslem and Jewish philosophy stood together for the absolute unity of God, not allowing any predicate of the Deity which might endanger this principle (see Attributes); whereas Christian philosophers, from Augustine to Hegel successively, attempted to overcome the metaphysical difficulties involved in the conception of a Trinity (see David Friedrich Strauss, "Glaubenslehre," i. 425-490). The next radical deviation from Judaism was the worship of the Virgin Mary as the mother of God; the canonical and, still more, the apocryphal writings of the New Testament offering the welcome points of support to justify such a cult. The Jew could only abhor the medieval adoration of Mary, which seemed to differ little from the worship of Isis and her son Horus, Isthar and Tammuz, Frig and Balder. Yet this was but part of the humanization of the Deity and deification of man instituted in the Church in the shape of image-worship, despite synods and imperial decrees, prohibitions and iconoclasm. The cross, the lamb, and the fish, as symbols of the new faith, failed to satisfy the heathen minds; in the terms of John of Damascus, they demanded "to see the image of God, while God the Father was hidden from sight"; and consequently the second commandment had to give way (see "Image-Worship," in Schaff-Herzog, "Encyc."). It is no wonder, then, that the Jews beheld idolatry in all this, and felt constrained to apply the law, "Make no mention of the name of other gods" (Ex. xxiii. 13; Mek. to the passage and Sanh. 63b), also to Jesus; so that the name of one of the best and truest of Jewish teachers was shunned by the medieval Jew. Still, the Jewish code of law offered some toleration to the Christian Trinity, in that it permitted semi-proselytes ("ger toshab") to worship other divine powers together with the One God (Tosef., Sanh. 63b; Shulan 'Aruk, Ora ayyim, 156, Moses Isserles' note). Medieval Image-Worship. It was, indeed, no easy matter for the Jew to distinguish between pagan idolatry and Christian image-worship (Shulan 'Aruk, Yoreh De'ah, 141). Moreover, image-worship went hand in hand with relic-worship and saint-worship; and so the door was opened wide to admit in the guise of saints the various deities of paganism, the policy of the medieval Church being to create a large pantheon of saints, apostles, and angels alongside of the Trinity in order to facilitate the conquest of heathen nations. In contrast to the uncompromising attitude of Judaism, the Church was ever ready for compromise to win the great multitudes. It was this spirit of polytheism which led to all those abuses the opposition to which was the chief factor of the Reformation whose aim and purpose were a return to Pauline Christianity and the New Testament with the help of a deeper study of the Old Testament at the hand of Jewish scholarship (see Luther; Reformation; Reuchlin). Mediatorship of Christ. But the Trinitarian dogma rested mainly upon Paul's conception of the mediatorship of Christ. For no sooner was the idea of the atoning powerof the death of the righteous (Isa. liii. 4-10; see Atonement) applied to Jesus (Matt. xx. 28; Luke xxii. 37; Acts viii. 32) than Christ became the necessary mediator, "delivering man from the power of Satan and the last enemy death" (I Tim. ii. 5; Col. i. 13; I Cor. xv. 26). While Judaism has no room for dualism, since God spoke through the seer, "I formed the light and created the darkness: I make peace and create evil" (Isa. xlv. 7); and while the divine attributes of justice and love, punitive wrath and forgiving mercy, are only contrasted ( , Ber. 7a; Philo, "Quis Rerum Divinarum Heres Sit," xxxiv.; Siegfried, "Philo," pp. 213 et seq.), but never divided into separate powers, the world of Satan and the world of Christ are arrayed against each other, and an at-one-ment by the blood of the cross is necessitated in the Pauline system (Col. i. 20; Rom. iii. 25). God had to reconcile the world to Himself through the death of Jesus (II Cor. v. 18) and render "the children of wrath" children of His grace (Ephes. ii. 3; Rom. iii. 25, v. 10). "The love of God required the sacrifice of his own begotten Son" (John iii. 16). This view is regarded as repugnant by the pure monotheistic sentiment of the Jew, itself grounded upon the spirituality and holiness of God, and was opposed by R. Akiba when he, with direct reference to the Christian doctrine, said: "Happy are ye, Israelites! Before whom do ye purify yourselves, and who is the one who purifieth you but your Father in heaven, for it is said: 'Israel's hope ["miweh," also interpreted as "source of purification"] is God'" (Jer. xvii. 13; Mishnah Yoma, end). But the whole dogma of Jesus' incarnation and crucifixion has for its background a world of sin and death ruled by Satan and his hosts of demons (II Cor. iv. 4; Ephes. ii. 1, vi. 12 et seq.; II Tim. ii. 26). In fact, the whole coming of Christ is viewed in the New Testament as a battle with Satan (see Matt. iv. 1 et seq., xii. 29; Luke x. 18; John xii. 31; John iii. 8). The story of Adam's fall, which caused the Book of Wisdom to say (ii. 24) that "through the envy of the devil death came into the world" (compare Ecclus. [Sirach] xxv. 24), was made by Paul (compare II Esdras iii. 7, 21, and Apoc. Baruch, xvii. 3) the keynote of the entire human history (Rom. v. 12). For those of the Rabbis who accepted this view the Law was an antidote against "the venom of the Serpent" that is, the germ or the inclination to sin ('Ab. Zarah, 22b; Shab. 146a); to Paul, who antagonized the Law, the "breath of the serpent" became a power of sin and everlasting doom of such a nature that none but God Himself, through Christ His son, could overcome it. The Doctrine of Original Sin. In adopting this view as the doctrine of Original Sin the Church deprived man of both his moral and his intellectual birthright as the child of God (Tertullian, "De Anima," xvi., xl.; Augustine, "De Nuptiis et Concupiscentiis," i. 24, ii. 34; Strauss, "Glaubenslehre," ii. 43 et seq.), and declared all the generations of man to have been born in sina belief accepted also by the Lutherans in the Augsburg Confession and by Calvin ("Institutes," II. i. 6-8; Strauss, l.c. ii. 49). In vain did Pelagius, Socinus, and the Arminians protest against a view which deprived man of his prerogative as a free, responsible person (Strauss, l.c. p. 53). No longer could the Christian recite the ancient prayer of the Synagogue: "My God, the soul which Thou gavest unto me is pure" (Ber. 60b). And while, in all Hellenistic or pre-Christian writings, Enoch, Methuselah, Job, and other Gentiles of old were viewed as prototypes of humanity, the prevailing opinion of the Rabbis being that "the righteous among the heathen have a share in the world to come" (Tosef., Sanh. xiii. 2; Sanh. 105a; see all the passages and the views of a dissenting minority in Zunz, "Z. G." pp. 373-385), the Church, Catholic and Protestant alike, consigns without exception all those who do not believe in Jesus to the eternal doom of hell (Strauss, l.c. ii. 686, 687). Christ's descent into hell to liberate his own soul from the pangs of eternal doom became, therefore, one of the fundamentals of the Apostolic creed, after I Peter iii. 18, iv. 6 (see SchaffHerzog, "Encyc." art. "Hell, Christ's Descent into"). It is obvious that this view of God could not well inculcate kindly feelings toward Jews and heretics; and the tragic fate of the medieval Jew, the persecutions he suffered, and the hatred he experienced, must be chiefly attributed to this doctrine.

Faith and Reason. Paul's depreciation of the Law and his laudation of faith (in Christ) as the only saving power for Jew and Gentile (Rom. iii. 28, x. 4; Gal. iii. 7 et seq.) had, in the Middle Ages, an injurious effect upon the mental progress of man. Faith, as exhibited by Abraham and as demanded of the people in the Old Testament and rabbinical writings, is a simple, childlike trust in God; and accordingly "littleness of faith"that is, want of perfect confidence in the divine goodnessis declared by Jesus as well as by the Rabbis in the Talmud as unworthy of the true servant and son of God (Gen. xv. 6; Ex. xiv. 31; Num. xiv. 11, xx. 12; Hab. ii. 4; II Chron. xx. 20; Mek. to Ex. xiv. 31; Matt. vi. 30; So ah 48b). Paul's theology made faith a meritorious act of saving quality (Rom. i. 16); and the more meritorious it is the less is it in harmony with the wisdom of the wise, appearing rather as "foolishness" (I Cor. i. 18-31). From this it was but one step to Tertullian's perfect surrender of reason, as expressed in, "Credo quia absurdum," or, more correctly, "Credibile quia ineptum; certum est quia impossibile est" (To be believed because it is foolish; certain because impossible"; "De Carne Christi," v.). Blind faith, which renders the impossible possible (Mark ix. 23, 24), produced a credulity throughout Christendom which became indifferent to the laws of nature and which deprecated learning, as was shown by Draper ("History of the Conflict between Science and Religion") and by White ("History of the Warfare of Science with Theology"). A craving for the miraculous and supernatural created ever new superstitions, or sanctioned, under the form of relic-worship, old pagan forms of belief. In the name of the Christian faith reason and research were condemned, Greek philosophy and literature were exterminated, and free thinking was suppressed. Whereas Judaismmade the study of the Law, or rather of the Torah which is learning, and included science and philosophy as well as religionthe foremost duty of each member of the household (Deut. vi. 7, xi. 19; Josephus, "Contra Ap." ii. 18, 26, 41), medieval Christianity tended to find bliss in ignorance, because knowledge and belief seemed incompatible (Lecky, "History of European Morals from Augustus to Charlemagne," ii. 203-210; idem, "History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism in Europe," i. 1-201). It was the resuscitated pagan thinkers, it was the Mohammedan and the Jew, who kept the lamps of knowledge and science burning; and to them in large measure the revival of learning, through scholastic philosophy in the Catholic cloisters and afterward in western Europe in general, is due. Not merely the burning of witches and heretics, but the charges, raised by priests and mobs against the Jews, of having poisoned the wells, pierced the consecrated host, and slain innocent children in order to use their blood, can mainly be traced to that stupor of the mind which beholds in every intellectual feat the working of Satanic powers, alliance with which was believed to be bought with blood. On the other hand, the Church was ever busy infusing into the popular mind the belief that those rites which served as symbolic expressions of the faith were endowed with supernatural powers, "sacrament" being the Latin word used for "mysterion," the name given to forms which had a certain magic spell for the believer. Both baptism and the eucharist were regarded as miracle-working powers of the Christian faith, on participation in which the salvation of the soul depended, and exclusion from which meant eternal damnation (see the literature in Schaff-Herzog, "Encyc." s.v."Sacrament"). Asceticism in the Monasteries. The expectation by early Christianity of a speedy regeneration of the world by the reappearance of Jesus exerted a strange influence also on the whole moral and social state of humanity. The entire Christian life being a preparation for the world to come (and this change being expected to take place soon; Matt. x. 23; I Cor. i. 7; I Peter i. 13), only those that renounced the joys of the flesh were certain of entering the latter. This view gave rise to asceticism in the monasteries, for which genuine religiosity was claimed; while marriage, home, and state, and all earthly comforts, were only concessions to the flesh. Henceforth the ideal life for the priest and recluse was to differ from that for the people at large, who were to rank as inferiors (Strauss, l.c. i. 41 et seq.). Whereas in Judaism the high priest was not allowed to officiate on the Day of Atonement unless he had a wife that made home sacred to him (Yoma. i. 1, after Lev. xvi. 11, 17), celibacy and virginity were prized as the higher virtues of the Christian elect, contempt of the world with all its material, social, and intellectual pursuits being rendered the ideal of life (see Ziegler, "Gesch. der Ethik," 1886, pp. 192-242). Thus, to the Jew Christendom, from the days of the emperor Constantine, presented a strange aspect. The Church, formerly the declared enemy of Rome-Babel (Rev. xvii.), had become her ally, accepting Edom's blessing, "By thy sword shalt thou live" (Gen. xxvii. 40), as her own; and, on the other hand, there appeared her priests ("galla" = hair-clipped) and monks ("kummarim"), in the guise of the old Hebrew Nazarites and saints, claiming to be the true heirs to Israel's prophecy and priesthood. Indeed, medieval Judaism and Christianity formed the greatest contrast. Children of the same household, invoking the same God and using the same Scriptures as His revealed word, they interpreted differently life and its meaning, God and religion. Their Bible, Sabbath, and festivals, their whole bent of mind and soul, had become widely divergent. They no longer understood each other. Medieval Jewish Views of Christianity. Yet, while neither Augustine nor Thomas Aquinas, the chief framers of the Church dogma, nor even Luther and Calvin, the Reformers, had any tolerance for Jew or Moslem, the authorities of the Synagogue accorded to Christianity and Islam a high providential mission in human history. Saadia (died 942), the first to examine the Christian dogma, says (in his "Emunot we-De'ot," ii. 5) that, unconcerned by the sensual Trinitarian belief of the common crowd, he would discuss only the speculative value given by Christian thinkers to the Trinity; and so, with penetrating acumen and profound earnestness and love of truth, he endeavors to lay bare either the metaphysical errors of those who, as he says, make of such attributes as life, power, and knowledge separate parts of the Deity, or the defects of the various philosophical constructions of the divinity of Jesus (see Kaufmann, "Gesch. der Attributenlehre," pp. 38-52; Guttmann, "Die Religionsphilosophie des Saadia," pp. 103-113). Grander still is the view of Christianity taken by Judah ha-Levi in the "Cuzari." After having rejected as incompatible with reason all the claims of the Trinity and of Christ's origin (i. 5), and remarked that both Christianity and Islam accepted the roots, but not the logical conclusions, of Israel's faith, (iv. 11)rather amalgamating the same with pagan rites and notionshe declares (iv. 23) that both form the preparatory steps to the Messianic time which will ripen the fruit in which adherents of those faiths, too, will have a share, all the branches thus proving to be "the one tree" of Israel (Ezek. xxxvii. 17; see D. Cassel, "Das Buch Kuzari," 337). This view is shared by Maimonides, who writes in "Yad," Melakim, xi. 4: "The teachings of the Nazarene and the Ishmaelite [Mohammed] serve the divine purpose of preparing the way for the Messiah, who is sent to make the whole world perfect by worshiping God with one spirit: for they have spread the words of the Scriptures and the law of truth over the wide globe; and, whatever of errors they adhere to, they will turn toward the full truth at the arrival of the Messianic time." And in his Responsa (No. 58) he declares: "The Christians believe and profess in common with us that the Bible is of divine origin and given through Moses, our teacher; they have it completely written down, though they frequently interpret it differently."

The great rabbinical authorities, R. Gershom of Mayence (d. 1040; see "Ha-oer," i. 2, 45); Rashiand his school; the French Tosafists of the twelfth century ('Ab. Zarah, 2a); Solomon ben Adret of Barcelona, of the thirteenth century; Isaac b. Sheshet of the fourteenth century (Responsa No. 119); Joseph Caro (Shulan 'Aruk, Ora ayyim, 156, end; Yoreh De'ah, 148; and oshen Mishpa, 266), and Moses Isserles of the sixteenth century declare that Christians are to be regarded as Proselytes of the Gate and not as idolaters, in spite of their image-worship. Still more emphatic in the recognition of Christianity, as teaching a belief in the Creator, revelation, retribution, and resurrection, is Joseph Yaabe , a victim of Spanish persecution (1492), who, in his "Ma'amar ha-Adut," iii., goes so far as to assert that "but for these Christian nations we might ourselves have become infirm in our faith during our long dispersion." Christianity Compared with Islam. The same generous view is taken by his contemporary Isaac Arama ("A edat Yia," lxxxviii.). Eliezer Ashkenazi (sixteenth century) warns his coreligionists, in his "Ma'ase ha-Shem," written in Turkey, "not to curse a whole Christian nation because a portion wrongs us, as little as one would curse one's own brother or son for some wrong inflicted." Jacob Emden at the middle of the eighteenth century wrote: "Christianity has been given as part of the Jewish religion by the Apostles to the Gentile world; and its founder has even made the moral laws stricter than are those contained in Mosaism. There are, accordingly, many Christians of high qualities and excellent morals who keep from hatred and do no harm, even to their enemies. Would that Christians would all live in conformity with their precepts! They are not enjoined, like the Israelites, to observe the laws of Moses; nor do they sin if they associate other beings with God in worshiping a triune God. They will receive reward from God for having propagated a belief in Him among nations that never heard His name; for 'He looks into the heart.' Yea, many have come forth to the rescue of Jews and their literature" ("Resen Mat'eh," p. 15b, Amsterdam, 1758, and "Leem ha-Shamayim" to Ab. v. 17). Leone del Bene (Judah Asahel Meha-ob) also may be mentioned, who, in his "Kis'ot le-Bet David," 1646, xxiv., xxvi., xlvi., xlviii., compares Mohammedanism with Christianity, and declares the latter as superior, notwithstanding its Trinitarian dogma. A highly favorable opinion of Jesus is expressed also in a Karaite fragment noted in Steinschneider, "O erot ayyim," Catalogue of the Michael Library, pp. 377 et seq., Hamburg, 1848. Compare Jew. Encyc. i. 223,s.v. Afendopolo. The persistent attacks of Christian controversialists against the Jewish belief gave rise, of course, to a number of polemical works, written in self-defense, in which both the Christian dogmas and the New Testament writings are submitted to unsparing criticism. Foremost among these not to mention Namanides' published disputation with Pablo Christianiis that of asdai Crescas, who, in a Spanish "tratado" on the Christian creeds (1396), showed the irrationality of the doctrines of Original Sin, the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Virginity of Jesus' Mother, and Transubstantiation, and who investigated the value of baptism and of the New Testament compared with the Old; beginning with the following three axioms: "(1) Reason can not be forced into belief; (2) God Himself can not alter the laws of a priori truth and understanding; (3) God's justice must comprise all His children." Another vigorous defender of Judaism against Christianity was Simon ben ema Duran (1361-1440), who, in his great work, "Magen Abot," reiterates the assertion that Jesus, according to his own words, did not come to abrogate the Law; and then exposes the many self-contradictory statements in the New Testament concerning Jesus. The "Iarim" of Joseph Albo is (not merely in ch. xxv. of sect. iii., but in its totality) a defense of liberal Jewish thought against Christian dogmatism; and it therefore dwells with especial emphasis on the fact which all Jewish thinkers from Saadia and Maimonides down to Mendelssohn accentuatedthat miracles can never testify to the verity of a belief, because every belief claims them for itself. As to the two Hebrew standard works of New Testament criticism in the Middle Ages, written for apologetic purposes, the "Sefer Ni aon" and the "izzu Emunah," see Mhlhausen; Lippmann, and Isaac ben Abraham Troki. Christianity's Historic Mission. III. To offer to the great Gentile world the Jewish truth adapted to its psychic and intellectual capacities this was the providential mission of Christianity. Yet, in order to become a unifying power for all the nations on the globe, shaping and reshaping empires, and concentrating the social, political, and spiritual forces of humanity in a manner never before attempted or dreamed of, it required an inspiring ideal of sublime grandeur and beauty, which should at once fascinate and stir souls to their very depths and satisfy their longings. Nothing less than the conquests of Cyrus the Lord's "anointed," called "to subdue nations and to break their prison doors" (Isa. xlv. 1, 2), than Alexander's great empire over the earth, still more than a kingdom that would encompass all that for which Rome and Alexandria and Jerusalem stood "a kingdom of the people of the saints of the Most High" (Dan. vii. 1727)nothing less than this was the goal which they that were told to "go forth and make disciples of all nations" (Matt. xxviii. 19) had in view. The Jewish propaganda, begun in the Babylonian Exile (Isa. xlv. 6; xlix. 6; lvi. 6, 7; lxvi. 21), and systematically pursued in Alexandria and Rome (Matt. xxiii. 15; Schrer, "Gesch." iii. 302 et seq., 420 et seq.), was to be left far behind, and, by battering down the barriers of the Law and the Abrahamic faith, was to be rendered elastic enough to suit the needs of a polytheistic world. Such was the view of the missionary of Tarsus. But it was, after all, the glad tidings of the Jew Jesus which won humanity for Abraham's God. Jewish righteousness, " edaab," which is the power of helpful love readjusting social inadequacies, was destined to go forth from the Synagogue in order to lift the burden of wo from suffering humanity and to organize everywhere works ofcharity. By this the Church, "the congregation of the Lord," conquered the masses of the vast Roman empire, and, as she learned the better to apply the Jewish system (see Essenes) to the larger field opened, achieved ever-increasing wonders with the mighty resources at her disposal. The poorhouse, or hospital, "transplanted as a branch of the terebinth of Abraham to Rome." (See Charity), became a mighty factor of human beneficence, and moved the deepest forces of the Church to glorious activity. Christianity, following the matchless ideal of its Christ, redeemed the despised and outcast, and ennobled suffering. It checked infanticide and founded asylums for the young; it removed the curse of slavery by making the humblest bondsman proud of being a child of God; it fought against the cruelties of the arena; it invested the home with purity and proclaimed, in the spirit of Ezek. xviii. and Yer. Sanh. iv. 22a, the value of each human soul as a treasure in the eyes of God; and it so leavened the great masses of the empire as to render the cross of Christ the sign of victory for its legions in place of the Roman eagle. The "Galilean" entered the world as conqueror. The Church became the educator of the pagan nations; and one race after another was brought under her tutorship. The Latin races were followed by the Celt, the Teuton, and the Slav. The same burning enthusiasm which sent forth the first apostle also set the missionaries aglow, and brought all Europe and Africa, and finally the American continent, under the scepter of an omnipotent Church. The sword and the cross paved the way through vast deserts and across the seas, and spread the blessings of a civilization claimed to be Christian because its end was the rule of Christ. Messianic Promises Not Fulfilled.

Judaism, however, denies the validity of this claim. As Isaac Troki (in his "izzu Emunah," i. 2, 4a, 6) says, "none of the Messianic promises of a time of perfect peace and unity among men, of love and truth of universal knowledge and undisturbed happiness, of the cessation of all wrong-doing, superstition, idolatry, falsehood, and hatred [Isa. ii. 1 et seq., 18; xi. 1-9, lxv. 19, 23; Jer. iii. 17; Ezek. xxxiv. 25, xxxvi. 25 et seq., xxxvii. 26; Zech. xiii. 2, xiv. 9; Zeph. iii. 13] have been fulfilled by the Church." On the contrary, the medieval Church divided men into believers and unbelievers, who are to inherit heaven and hell respectively. With the love which she poured forth as the fountain of divine grace, she also sent forth streams of hatred. She did not foster that spirit of true holiness which sanctifies the whole of life marriage and home, industry and commercebut in Jewish eyes seemed to cultivate only the feminine virtues, love and humility, not liberty and justice, manhood and independence of thought. She has done much in refining the emotions, unfolding those faculties of the soul which produce the heavenly strains of music and the beauties of art and poetry; but she also did all in her power to check intellectual progress, scientific research, and the application of knowledge. Her tutorship sufficed as long as the nations under her care were in the infant stage; but as soon as they awoke to self-consciousness and longed for freedom, they burst the shackles of dogma and of ecclesiastical authority. Thus the Church was broken up into churches. Under the influence of Judaism and of Arabic philosophy, Scholasticism arose, and then came the Reformation; and the process of disintegration continues throughout Protestantism. The tendency of historical inquiry and Biblical criticism is to leave nothing but the picture of the man Jesus, the Jew, as a noble type of humanity, and to return to simple monotheism (see Renan, "Le Judaisme et le Christianisme," 1883; idem, "L'Eglise Chrtienne," 1879, p. 248; Alexander von Humboldt, in Samter, "Moderne Judentaufen," and in A. Kohut, "Alexander von Humboldt und das Judenthum," 1871, p. 176; Berner, "Judenthum und Christenthum," 1891, p. 31; Alphonse de Candolle, in Jellinek, "Franzosen ber Juden," 1880, p. 27; Singer. "Briefe Berhmter Christ. Zeigenossen," p. 114. No human individual, however great in his own environment, can, according to the Jewish view, present a perfect ideal of humanity for all ages and phases of life. "No one is holy but God": to this Jewish conception of man Jesus also gave expression (Matt. xix. 17). Man as the image of God requires all the ages and historical conditions of progress to unfold the infinite possibilities of the divine life planted in him. "Each age has its own types of righteousness" (Tan., Mi e, Vienna ed., p. 48), and only by the blending of all human efforts toward the realization of the true, the good, and the beautiful can the highest perfection be attained at the end of history, "each mount of vision forming a stepping-stone to Zion as the sublime goal" (Midr. Teh. to Ps. xxxvi. 6). Christianity is not an end, but the means to an end; namely, the establishment of the brotherhood of man and the fatherhood of God. Here Christianity presents itself as an orb of light, but not so central as to exclude Islam, nor so bright and unique as to eclipse Judaism, the parent of both. Moreover, room is left for other spiritual forces, for whatever of permanent value is contained in Brahmanism, especially its modern theistic sects, and in Buddhism (see Eucken, "Der Wahrheitsgehalt der Religion," Leipsic, 1901; Happel, "Die Religisen und Philosophischen Grundanschauungen der Inder," 1902), and in the theosophic principles derived from it, and for all religious and philosophical systems that may yet be evolved in the process of the ages. In fact, whatever constitutes humanity and bears the image of God, whatever man does in order to unfold the divine life (Gen. i. 27; Lev. xviii. 5; Ps. viii. 6; Job xxviii. 28; Eccl. xii. 13)that helps to make up the sum of religion. For the modern tendency toward pure theistic and humanitarian views among the various systems of religious thought, see Ethical Culture; Unitarianism. Bibliography: Graetz, Hist. of the Jews, ii., iii., iv., passim; Hamburger, R. B. T. ii., s.v. Christenthum; Geiger, Das Judenthum und Seine Gesch. 1865, i., ii., Supplement; M. Schreiner, Die Jngsten Urtheile ber das Judenthum, 1902; Perles, What Jews May Learn from Harnack, in Jew. Quart. Rev. 1902; M. Gdemann, Das Judenthum, 1902; Toy, Judaism and Christianity, 1890; Harnack, History of Dogma, i.-v., Eng. transl. by N. Buchanan; D. Strauss, Die Christliche Glaubenslehre, 1840-41, i., ii.; Chwolson,Die Blutanklage und Sonstige Mittelalterliche Beschuldigungen, pp. 1-78, Frankfort-on-the-Main, 1901; Lecky,History of European Morals from Augustus to Charlemagne, 1874, i., ii.; Ziegler, Gesch. der Christlichen Ethik, 1886. David Einhorn, Unterscheidungslehre Zwischen, Judenthum und Christenthum, in Sinai, 1860, pp. 193 et seq., and 1861, pp. 100 et seq. ARIANISM: Table of Contents Among the Goths. Theodosius. Among the Goths. A heresy of the Christian Church, started by Arius, bishop of Alexandria (d. 336), who taught that the Son is not equivalent to the Father ( = consubstantialis), thereby provoking a serious schism in the Christian Church, which in turn affected the fortunes of the Jews in many countries. In view of the fact that most Germanic peoplessuch as the eastern and western Goths, as also the Franks, the Lombards, the Suevi, and the Vandals were baptized into Arian Christianity, and that these tribes settled in widely spread districts of the old Roman empire, a large number of Jews, already resident in those lands, fell under Arian domination. In contrast with the domination of the orthodox church, the Arian was distinguished by a wise tolerance and a mild treatment of the population of other faiths, conduct mainly attributable to the unsophisticated sense of justice characterizing the children of nature, but also traceable in some degree to certain points of agreement between the Arian doctrine and Judaism, points totally absent in the orthodox confession. The very insistence upon the more subordinate relationship of the Son that is, the Messiahto the God-father is much nearer to the Jewish doctrine of the Messiah than to the conception of the full divinity of the Son, as enunciated at Nica. This, the Germanic form of Arianism, which deviates essentially from the EgyptianSyriac, is hardly more Jewish than it is heathen (Helferich, "Der West-Gothische Arianismus," p. 16, Berlin, 1860;

"Monatsschrift," ix. 117, 1860). Still, Borozus of Sardica, about the year 390, was accused of "Judaizing" ("Dionysius," ed. Benedict, ii. 11, 68). To the Catholic Gregory of Tours ("Hist. Franc." v. 43) the Arian bishop Agila replied: "Blaspheme not a doctrine which is not thine. We on our part, although we do not believe what ye believe, nevertheless do not curse it. For we do not consider it a crime to think either thus or so." "To such noble sentiment," remarks Helferich (ib. p. 50), "the Jews owed the humane treatment which they received at the hands of the West-Gothic Arians." But the laws of the Visigoths ("Lex Visigothorum," Madrid, 1815), formulated under Reccared (584) and his successors, when the tribes had become converted to Catholic Christianity, give evidence of a most bitter feeling against the Jews; and the enactments for the persecution of Israel present a striking picture, strongly contrasting with the former happy circumstances of the Jews in the empire of the Visigoths of Spain and France, while these Visigoths were still Arians. The Jews were not then the downtrodden people which the harsh and exceptional laws of the Roman Christian emperor made of them. In Spain they formed a distinct nation beside Goths, Romans, Syrians, and Greeks (enumerated in the "Concilium Narbonense," iv.), and as such were in the main upon exactly the same footing as all others. Indeed, the ruling Visigoths may have preferred the Jews to the Catholics, for the latter were politically Romans, and confessionally adherents of the Nicene Creed (Grtz, "Die West-Gothische Gesetzgebung," p. 6), while from the former they had to fear neither political enmity nor the fanaticism of the conversionist. Marriages between Arian Christians and Jews were not infrequent (compare canon xvi. of the Synod at Elvira, Hefele, "Conciliengesch." i. 162); and it appears that the Jews exercised some sort of jurisdiction over the Catholics (Helferich, ib. p. 6), although Helferich's supposition that the Catholics were openly opposed by the allied Arians and Jews has been amply disproved by Felix Dahn ("Die Knige der Germanen," vi. 413, 2d ed.). Theodosius. The Ostrogoths were similarly disposed, and, upon heir attainment to power in Italy, they treated the Jews there according to the laws of justice and equity. The golden words of Theodoric the Great are familiar: "We can not command religion, for no man can be compelled to believe anything against his will." As clearly appears from his decrees, the religion of the Jews was certainly no less odious to the Arian king than was the Catholic; but his duty as king demanded that he should treat his Jewish subjects as human beings. Theodoric's decrees in favor of the Jews are, therefore, not the outcome of his Arianism, and appertain to the general history of the Jews rather than to the subject of this article. The persecutions of the Jews by the Catholics in Milan, Genoa, and Ravenna are, however, in so far connected with the religious circumstances of the country, that the Catholics thereby designed to revenge themselves for their own oppression by the Arians. The enmity between both Christian parties was so great that King Theodoric is said to have harbored the design, at the instigation of a Jew, to uproot Catholicism in Italy with the sword. A fanatical source calls Triva, the prpositus cubiculi (captain of the dormitory) of the emperor, "a heretic and a friend of the Jews" (Sartorius, "De Occup. Provinciarum Roman. per Barbaross." p. 108; Dahn, ib. ii. 201). The Arian creed no doubt contributed somewhat to the fact that Theodoric's successor, Theodosius, maintained a Jewish sorcerer (Procopius, "De Bello Adv. Gothos." i. 9). It is no wonder, therefore, that in 537 the Jews sided with their protectors, the Ostrogoths, in their courageous defense of Naples against the besieging armies of the Roman emperor (Jost, "Gesch. der Israeliten," v. 57; Grtz, "Gesch. d. Juden," v. 50). A senseless story has it that the Jews fought against the Arian Christians at the Battle of Pollentia, on Easter, 403, being urged thereto by Stilicho, the opponent of Alaric. This legend owes its origin to the fact that the general of Honorius happened to be named Saul, although he is expressly stated (see "Orosius," vii. 37) to have been a heathen (Jost, "Geschichte der Israeliten," v. 330; J. Bernays, "Gesammelte Abhandlungen," ii. 128, n. 48, Berlin, 1885). On the other hand, the Jews took an active part in the defense of the town of Arles in Gaul, possession of which, in 508, was disputed with the Visigoths by Clovis, king of the Franks, who had become a Catholic (Jost, ib. v. 48). They also successfully defended for the Visigoths the passes of the Pyrenees against the hostile Franks and Burgundians (deduced from "Concilium Toletanum," xvii. 6; Grtz, "Gesch." v. 72). The legislation of the Arian Lombards made no distinction between Jews and non-Jews. Further than this nothing is known of the history of the Jews among them; nor is there any information concerning the life of the Jews in North Africa under the Vandals, who were likewise Arians, and who treated the Catholics with great severity (Dahn, "Westgothische Knige," i. 251). In the speech of Augustine, Jews, heathens, and Arians were equally abused ("Concio ad Catechumenos Contra Judos, Paganos, et Arianos"; "Sitzungsberichte der Wiener Academie," 1889, cxix. 63); but this speech, fromwhich some information of earlier times might have been gleaned, is, unfortunately, no longer extant. Bibliography: Helferich, Westgothischer Arianismus und die Spanische Ketzergeschichte, 1860; Grtz, Die Westgothische Gesetzgebung in Betreff der Juden, 1858, in Jahresbericht des Jd. Theologischen Seminars in Breslau. , , . , , , - . . (325) . , , : () () ; () ; ("") , ; -, , . , . . , , , . . VI "" . 589 . I , .

 [] Hans Christof Brennecke: Studien zur Geschichte der Homer. Der Osten bis zum Ende der homischen Reichskirche, (BHTh 73), Mohr Siebeck, Tbingen 1988. ISBN 978-3-16-145246-8 Jean-Marie Mayeur, Luce Pietri, Andre Vauchez: Die Geschichte des Christentums. Altertum, Herder, Freiburg i. B. 2005 (Sonderausgabe, Bd. 2 und 3). ISBN 978-3-451-29100-5. Adolf Martin Ritter: Arianismus in: Theologische Realenzyklopdie (TRE) 3, S. 692719. De *Gruyter, Berlin 19762004. ISBN 3-11-002218-4 / ISBN 311-013898-0 / ISBN 3-11-016295-4; Studienausgabe: ISBN 3-11-013898-0 / ISBN 3-11-016295-4 Arianism From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia "Arian" redirects here. For other uses, see Arian (disambiguation). Not to be confused with "Aryanism", which is a racial theory. Arianism is the theological teaching attributed to Arius (ca. AD 250336), a Christian presbyter in Alexandria, Egypt, concerning the relationship of God to theSon of God (Jesus of Nazareth). Arius asserted that the Son of God was a subordinate entity to God the Father. Deemed a heretic by the Ecumenical First Council of Nicaea of 325, Arius was later exonerated in 335 at the regional First Synod of Tyre,[1] and then, after his death, pronounced a heretic again at the EcumenicalFirst Council of Constantinople of 381.[2] The Roman Emperors Constantius II (337361) and Valens (364378) were Arians or Semi-Arians. The Arian concept of Christ is that the Son of God did not always exist, but was created byand is therefore distinct fromGod the Father. This belief is grounded in the Gospel of John passage You heard me say, I am going away and I am coming back to you. If you loved me, you would be glad that I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I." (verse 14:28)[3] Arianism is defined as those teachings attributed to Arius which are in opposition to mainstream Trinitarian Christological doctrine, as determined by the first twoEcumenical Councils and currently maintained by the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Churches, the Oriental Orthodox Churches, the Assyrian Church of the East, all Reformation-founded Protestant churches (Lutheran, Reformed/Presbyterian, and Anglican), and a large majority of groups founded after the Reformation and calling themselves Protestant (such as Methodist, Baptist, most Pentecostals), with the exception of such groups as Oneness Pentecostals, theChurch of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and Jehovah's Witnesses.[4] "Arianism" is also often used to refer to other nontrinitarian theological systems of the 4th century, which regarded Jesus Christthe Son of God, the Logosas either a created being (as in Arianism proper and Anomoeanism), or as neither uncreated nor created in the sense other beings are created (as in Semi-Arianism). [edit]Origin Main articles: Arius and Arian controversy Arius taught that God the Father and the Son did not exist together eternally. Arians taught that the pre-incarnate Jesus was a divine being created by (and therefore inferior to) God the Father at some point, before which the Son did not exist. [5] In English-language works, it is sometimes said that Arians believe that Jesus is or was a "creature", in the sense of "created being". Arius and his followers appealed to Bible verses such as Jesus saying that the father is "greater than I" (John 14:28), and "The Lord created me at the beginning of his work" (Proverbs 8:22).[6] The latter quote has provided some controversy because it is technically speaking of wisdom. However, many people, notably Jehovah's Witnesses, believe that the wisdom in this proverb symbolizes Jesus Christ because he is later described in a similar way.[7] On the contrary, the verse "I and the Father are one" (John 10:30) delivers the Homoousian doctrine. Of all the various disagreements within the Christian Church, the Arian controversy has held the greatest force and power of theological and political conflict, with the possible exception of the Protestant Reformation. The conflict between Arianism and Trinitarian beliefs was the first major doctrinal confrontation in the Church after the legalization of Christianity by the Roman Emperors Constantine I andLicinius.[8] Controversy over Arianism arose in the late 3rd century and persisted throughout most of the 4th century. It involved most church membersfrom simple believers, priests and monks to bishops, emperors and members of Rome's imperial family. Such a deep controversy within the Church during this period of its development could not have materialized without significant historical influences providing a basis for the Arian doctrines. Some historians define and minimize the Arian conflict as the exclusive construct of Arius and a handful of rogue bishops engaging in heresy; but others recognize Arius as a defender of 'original' Christianity, or as providing a conservative response against the politicization of Christianity seeking union with the Roman Empire. Of the roughly three hundred bishops in attendance at the Council of Nicea, only two bishops did not sign the Nicene Creed, which condemned Arianism.[9] However, to minimize the extent of the movement ignores the facts that at least two Roman emperors, Constantius II andValens, became Arians, as did prominent Gothic, Vandal and Lombard warlords both before and after the fall of the Western Roman Empire. Lucian of Antioch had contended for a christology very similar to what would later be known as Arianism and is thought to have influenced its development. (Arius was a student of Lucian's private academy in Antioch.) After the dispute over Arianism became politicized and a general solution to the divisiveness was soughtwith a great majority holding to the Trinitarian positionthe Arian position was officially declared heterodox. Arianism thrived for several decades, even within the family of the emperor, the imperial nobility, and higher-ranking clergy. But, by the end of the 4th century, Trinitarianism prevailed in the Roman Empire. In western Europe, Arianism, which had been taught by Ulfilas, the Arian missionary to the Germanic tribes, was dominant among the Goths and Lombards (and, significantly for the late Empire, the Vandals); but it ceased to be the mainstream belief by the 8th century. It was crushed through a series of military and political conquests, culminating in religious and political domination of Europe over the next 1,000 years by Trinitarian forces in the Catholic Church. Trinitarianism remained the dominant doctrine in all major branches of the Eastern and Western Church and later within Protestantism until modern times. "In addition, if any writing composed by Arius should be found, it should be handed over to the flames, so that not only will the wickedness of his teaching be obliterated, but nothing will be left even to remind anyone of him. And I hereby make a public order, that if someone should be discovered to have hidden a writing composed by Arius, and not to have immediately brought it forward and destroyed it by fire, his penalty shall be death. As soon as he is discovered in this offence, he shall be submitted for capital punishment....." Edict by Emperor Constantine against the Arians[10]

[edit]Beliefs Because virtually all extant written material on Arianism was written by its opponents, the nature of Arian teachings is difficult to define precisely today. The letter of Auxentius,[11] a 4th-century Arian bishop of Milan, regarding the missionary Ulfilas, gives the clearest picture of Arian beliefs on the nature of the Trinity: God the Father ("unbegotten"), always existing, was separate from the lesser Jesus Christ ("only-begotten"), born before time began and creator of the world. The Father, working through the Son, created the Holy Spirit, who was subservient to the Son as the Son was to the Father. The Father was seen as "the only true God". First Corinthians 8:5-8:6 was cited as proof text: Indeed, even though there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth as in fact there are many gods and many lords yet for us there is one God (Gk. theos - ), the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord ( kyrios - ), Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist. NRSV A letter from Arius to the Arian Eusebius of Nicomedia succinctly states the core beliefs of the Arians: Some of them say that the Son is an eructation, others that he is a production, others that he is also unbegotten. These are impieties to which we cannot listen, even though the heretics threaten us with a thousand deaths. But we say and believe and have taught, and do teach, that the Son is not unbegotten, nor in any way part of the unbegotten; and that he does not derive his subsistence from any matter; but that by his own will and counsel he has subsisted before time and before ages as perfect God, only begotten and unchangeable, and that before he was begotten, or created, or purposed, or established, he was not. For he was not unbegotten. We are persecuted, because we say that the Son has a beginning, but that God is without beginning. Theodoret: Arius's Letter to Eusebius of Nicomedia, translated in Peters' Heresy and Authority in Medieval Europe, p. 41 [edit]First Council of Nicaea and its aftermath In 321, Arius was denounced by a synod at Alexandria for teaching a heterodox view of the relationship of Jesus to God the Father. Because Arius and his followers had great influence in the schools of Alexandriacounterparts to modern universities or seminariestheir theological views spread, especially in the eastern Mediterranean. By 325, the controversy had become significant enough that the Emperor Constantine called an assembly of bishops, the First Council of Nicaea, which condemned Arius' doctrine and formulated the original Nicene Creed of 325.[12] The Nicene Creed's central term, used to describe the relationship between the Father and the Son, is Homoousios (Ancient Greek: ), or Consubstantiality, meaning "of the same substance" or "of one being". (The Athanasian Creed is less often used but is a more overtly anti-Arian statement on the Trinity.) The focus of the Council of Nicaea was the divinity of Christ (see Paul of Samosata and the Synods of Antioch). Arius taught that Jesus Christ was divine and was sent to earth for the salvation of mankind but that Jesus Christ was not equal to the Father (infinite, primordial origin) and to the Holy Spirit (giver of life). Under Arianism, Christ was instead not consubstantial with God the Father [13] since both the Father and the Son under Arius were made of "like" essence or being (see homoiousia) but not of the same essence or being (see homoousia).[13] Ousia is essence or being, in Eastern Christianity, and is the aspect of God that is completely incomprehensible to mankind and human perception. It is all that subsists by itself and which has not its being in another,[14] God the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit all being uncreated.[15] According to the teaching of Arius, the preexistent Logos and thus the incarnate Jesus Christ was a created being; that only the Son was directly created and begotten by God the Father, before ages, but was of a distinct, though similar, essence or substance from the Creator; his opponents argued that this would make Jesus less than God, and that this was heretical.[13] Much of the distinction between the differing factions was over the phrasing that Christ expressed in the New Testament to express submission to God the Father.[13] The theological term for this submission is kenosis. This Ecumenical council declared that Jesus Christ was a distinct being of God in existence or reality (hypostasis), which the Latin fathers translated as persona. Jesus was God in essence, being and or nature (ousia), which the Latin fathers translated as substantia. Constantine is believed to have exiled those who refused to accept the Nicean creedArius himself, the deacon Euzoios, and the Libyan bishops Theonas of Marmarica and Secundus of Ptolemaisand also the bishops who signed the creed but refused to join in condemnation of Arius, Eusebius of Nicomedia andTheognis of Nicaea. The Emperor also ordered all copies of the Thalia, the book in which Arius had expressed his teachings, to be burned. However, there is no evidence that his son and ultimate successor, Constantius II, who was an Arian Christian, was exiled. Although he was committed to maintaining what the church had defined at Nicaea, Constantine was also bent on pacifying the situation and eventually became more lenient toward those condemned and exiled at the council. First he allowed Eusebius of Nicomedia, who was a protg of his sister, and Theognis to return once they had signed an ambiguous statement of faith. The two, and other friends of Arius, worked for Arius' rehabilitation. At the First Synod of Tyre in AD 335, they brought accusations against Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria, the primary opponent of Arius; after this, Constantine had Athanasius banished, since he considered him an impediment to reconciliation. In the same year, the Synod of Jerusalem under Constantine's direction readmitted Arius to communion in AD 336. Arius, however, died on the way to this event in Constantinople. Some scholars suggest that Arius may have been poisoned by his opponents.[16] Eusebius and Theognis remained in the Emperor's favour, and when Constantine, who had been a catechumen much of his adult life, acceptedbaptism on his deathbed, it was from Eusebius of Nicomedia.[citation needed] [edit]Theological debates The Council of Nicaea did not end the controversy, as many bishops of the Eastern provinces disputed the homoousios, the central term of the Nicene creed, as it had been used by Paul of Samosata, who had advocated a monarchianist Christology. Both the man and his teaching, including the term homoousios, had been condemned by the Synods of Antioch in 269. Hence, after Constantine's death in 337, open dispute resumed again. Constantine's son Constantius II, who had become Emperor of the eastern part of the Empire, actually encouraged the Arians and set out to reverse the Nicene creed. His advisor in these affairs was Eusebius of Nicomedia, who had already at the Council of Nicea been the head of the Arian party, who also was made bishop of Constantinople. Constantius used his power to exile bishops adhering to the Nicene creed, especially St Athanasius of Alexandria, who fled to Rome. In 355 Constantius became the sole Emperor and extended his pro-Arian policy toward the western provinces, frequently using force to push through his creed, even exiling Pope Liberius and installing Antipope Felix II.

As debates raged in an attempt to come up with a new formula, three camps evolved among the opponents of the Nicene creed. The first group mainly opposed the Nicene terminology and preferred the term homoiousios (alike in substance) to the Nicene homoousios, while they rejected Arius and his teaching and accepted the equality and coeternality of the persons of the Trinity. Because of this centrist position, and despite their rejection of Arius, they were called "semi-Arians" by their opponents. The second group also avoided invoking the name of Arius, but in large part followed Arius' teachings and, in another attempted compromise wording, described the Son as being like ( homoios) the Father. A third group explicitly called upon Arius and described the Son as unlike (anhomoios) the Father. Constantius wavered in his support between the first and the second party, while harshly persecuting the third. The debates among these groups resulted in numerous synods, among them the Council of Sardica in 343, the Council of Sirmium in 358 and the double Council of Rimini and Seleucia in 359, and no fewer than fourteen further creed formulas between 340 and 360, leading the pagan observer Ammianus Marcellinus to comment sarcastically: "The highways were covered with galloping bishops." None of these attempts were acceptable to the defenders of Nicene orthodoxy: writing about the latter councils, Saint Jerome remarked that the world "awoke with a groan to find itself Arian." After Constantius' death in 361, his successor Julian the Apostate, a devotee of Rome's pagan gods, declared that he would no longer attempt to favor one church faction over another, and allowed all exiled bishops to return; this resulted in further increasing dissension among Christians. The Emperor Valens, however, revived Constantius' policy and supported the "Homoian" party, exiling bishops and often using force. During this persecution many bishops were exiled to the other ends of the Empire, (e.g., St Hilary of Poitiers to the Eastern provinces). These contacts and the common plight subsequently led to a rapprochement between the Western supporters of the Nicene creed and the homoousios and the Eastern semi-Arians. [edit]Theodosius and the Council of Constantinople Main article: Theodosius I It was not until the co-reigns of Gratian and Theodosius that Arianism was effectively wiped out among the ruling class and elite of the Eastern Empire. Theodosius' wife St Flacilla was instrumental in his campaign to end Arianism. Valens died in the Battle of Adrianople in 378 and was succeeded by Theodosius I, who adhered to the Nicene creed. This allowed for settling the dispute. Two days after Theodosius arrived in Constantinople, 24 November 380, he expelled the Homoiousian bishop, Demophilus of Constantinople, and surrendered the churches of that city to Gregory Nazianzus, the leader of the rather small Nicene community there, an act which provoked rioting. Theodosius had just been baptized, by bishop Acholius of Thessalonica, during a severe illness, as was common in the early Christian world. In February he and Gratian had published an edict[17] that all their subjects should profess the faith of the bishops of Rome and Alexandria (i.e., the Nicene faith), or be handed over for punishment for not doing so. Although much of the church hierarchy in the East had opposed the Nicene creed in the decades leading up to Theodosius' accession, he managed to achieve unity on the basis of the Nicene creed. In 381, at the Second Ecumenical Council in Constantinople, a group of mainly Eastern bishops assembled and accepted the Nicene Creed of 381,[18] which was supplemented in regard to the Holy Spirit, as well as some other changes: see Comparison between Creed of 325 and Creed of 381. This is generally considered the end of the dispute about the Trinity and the end of Arianism among the Roman, non-Germanic peoples. [edit]Later debates Epiphanius of Salamis labelled the party of Basil of Ancyra in 358 "Semi-Arianism". [edit]Early medieval Germanic kingdoms Main articles: Gothic Christianity and Germanic Christianity However, during the time of Arianism's flowering in Constantinople, the Gothic convert Ulfilas (later the subject of the letter of Auxentius cited above) was sent as a missionary to the Gothic barbarians across the Danube, a mission favored for political reasons by emperor Constantius II. Ulfilas' initial success in converting this Germanic people to an Arian form of Christianity was strengthened by later events. When the Germanic peoples entered the Roman Empire and founded successor-kingdoms in the western part, most had been Arian Christians for more than a century. The conflict in the 4th century had seen Arian and Nicene factions struggling for control of the Church. In contrast, in the Arian German kingdoms established on the wreckage of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century, there were entirely separate Arian and Nicene Churches with parallel hierarchies, each serving different sets of believers. The Germanic elites were Arians, and the majority population was Nicene. Many scholars see the persistence of Germanic Arianism as a strategy that was followed in order to differentiate the Germanic elite from the local inhabitants and their culture and also to maintain the Germanic elite's separate group identity. [citation needed] Most Germanic tribes were generally tolerant of the Nicene beliefs of their subjects. However, the Vandals tried for several decades to force their Arian beliefs on their North African Nicene subjects, exiling Nicene clergy, dissolving monasteries, and exercising heavy pressure on non-conforming Christians. By the beginning of the 8th century, these kingdoms had either been conquered by Nicene neighbors (Ostrogoths, Vandals, Burgundians) or their rulers had accepted Nicene Christianity (Visigoths, Lombards). The Franks and the Anglo-Saxons were unique among the Germanic peoples in that they entered the empire as pagans and converted to Nicene (Catholic) Christianity directly, guided by their kings, Clovis[19] and thelberht of Kent. [edit]Remnants in the West, 5th-7th century However, much of southeastern Europe and central Europe, including many of the Goths and Vandals respectively, had embraced Arianism (the Visigoths converted to Arian Christianity in 376), which led to Arianism being a religious factor in various wars in the Roman Empire. [20] In the west, organized Arianism survived in North Africa, in Hispania, and parts of Italy until it was finally suppressed in the 6th and 7th centuries. Grimwald, King of the Lombards (662671), and his young son and successor Garibald (671), were the last Arian kings in Europe. [edit]"Arian" as a polemical epithet The term Arian bestowed by Athanasius upon his opponents in the Christological debate was polemical. Even in Athanasius Orations against the Arians, Arius hardly emerges consistently as the creative individual originator of the heresy that bears his name, even though it would have greatly strengthened Athanasius case to present him in that light. Arius was not really very important to general Arianism after his exile at Nicaea. The efforts to

get Arius brought out of exile on the parts of Eusebius of Nicomedia were chiefly political concerns and there is little evidence that any of Arius writings were used as doctrinal norms even in the East. Labels such as semi-Arian or neo-Arian are misleading, for those labelled so would have disavowed the importance of their relation to Arius. In many ways, the conflict around Arian beliefs in the fourth, fifth and sixth centuries helped firmly define the centrality of the Trinity in Nicene Christian theology. As the first major intra-Christian conflict after Christianity's legalization, the struggle between Nicenes and Arians left a deep impression on the institutional memory of Nicene churches.[citation needed] Thus, over the past 1,500 years, some Christians have used the term Arian to refer to those groups that see themselves as worshiping Jesus Christ or respecting his teachings, but do not hold to the Nicene creed. Despite the frequency with which this name is used as a polemical label, there has been no historically continuous survival of Arianism into the modern era.[citation needed] [edit]Arianism resurfaces after the Reformation, 16th century Following the Protestant Reformation from 1517, it did not take long for Arian and other non-trinitarian views to resurface. The first recorded English antitrinitarian was John Assheton who was forced to recant before Thomas Cranmer in 1548. At the Anabaptist Council of Venice 1550, the early Italian instigators of the Radical Reformation committed to the views of Miguel Servet (d.1553), and these were promulgated by Giorgio Biandrata and others into Poland and Transylvania.[21] The antitrinitarian wing of the Polish Reformation separated from the Calvinist ecclesia maior to form the ecclesia minor or Polish Brethren. These were commonly referred to as "Arians" due to their rejection of the Trinity, though in fact the Socinians, as they were later known, went further than Arius to the position of Photinus. The epithet "Arian" was also applied to the early Unitarians such as John Biddle though in denial of the pre-existence of Christ they were again largely Socinians not Arians.[22] In the 18th century the "dominant trend" in Britain, particularly in Latitudinarianism, was towards Arianism, with which the names of Samuel Clarke, Benjamin Hoadly, William Whiston and Isaac Newton are associated.[23] To quote the Encyclopdia Britannica's article on Arianism: "In modern times some Unitarians are virtually Arians in that they are unwilling either to reduce Christ to a mere human being or to attribute to him a divine nature identical with that of the Father."[24] However, their doctrines cannot be considered representative of traditional Arian doctrines or vice-versa.[citation needed] The Christology of Jehovah's Witnesses is also generally regarded as Arian,[25] given their views on development of the Trinity.[26] In connection with this Jehovah's Witnesses also believe the Holy Spirit is not an actual person but rather is Gods divine breath, God's power in action, [27] related to another ancient doctrine called Macedonianism, the adherents of which were called pneumatomachi (Greek for "fighters of the spirit"). Another group that may be considered Arian is the Church of God (7th day) - Salem Conference. We believe in one true God who is the creator of all. He is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. He sent his son to Earth to be a sacrifice for our sins. He is a separate being from his son, Jesus. The Holy Spirit is the power of God and not a separate being with a separate consciousness. We do not believe in the teaching of the Trinity, in which the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three parts of a single being who is God. We believe the Father and the Son are separate beings with separate consciousnesses and that the Holy Spirit is not a conscious being but instead the power of God. FAQs - Does the Church of God (7th Day) believe in the Trinity?[28] Other groups opposing the Trinity are not necessarily Arian. [why?] Oneness Pentecostalism is a grouping of denominations and believers within the Pentecostal movement with various non-trinitarian views. Christadelphians,[29] Church of God General Conference[30] and other "Biblical Unitarians" are typically Socinian in their Christology, not Arian. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints also rejects Trinitarian doctrine, although other churches that are part of the Latter-Day Saint movement still adhere to the Nicene Creed. Joseph Smithtaught that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are three separate and distinct entities, with the Father and the Son possessing physical bodies of flesh and bone but the Holy Ghost existing only as a spirit, enabling it to dwell within us. However, Mormon doctrine differs from Arianism in a number of ways, particularly in the doctrines of eternal progression and exaltation.