LrrKRATURE. — Gilbert, Student's Life of Jesus ; Schiirer, EJP, see Index; Gould, 'St. Mark' in Internat. Crit. Com. ; Gary, ' The Synoptic Gospels ' in Intemat. Handbooks to NT.
H. L. Jackson.
EATING AND DRINKING.-Eating and drink- ing are occasionally referred to in the Gospels as acts expressive of men's ordinary life. The simple natural life of Jesus was thus contrasted with the austere ways of the Baptist (Mt IV^, Lk 7**). The servant waits till the master has eaten and drunken, and afterwards he eats and drinks (Lk 17') ; in the days of Noah men went on eating and drinking, heedless of the coming flood (Lk 17"- ^) ; and the rich fool still says to his soul, ' Take thine ease, eat, drink, be merry ' (Lk 12'^). The careless self- indulgence of the servant who, in his loid's absence, began to eat and drink with the drunken (Mt 24-^, Lk 12^=) is condemned on the one hand ; and so, on the other hand, is that over anxiety which keeps saying, 'What shall we eat? or What shall we drmk ? or Wherewithal shall we be clothed ? ' (Mt e^-**, Lk 12---3J). The scribes and Pharisees com- plained that Jesus ate and drank with publicans and sinners (Lk 5^), which was His glory ; and it will be the glory of those who continue mth Him in His temptations that they will eat and drink at His table in His Kingdom (Lk 222"). ygg BREAD, Cup, Fasting, Food, Lord's Supper, Meals, Wine.
EBER (AV Heber). — The eponymous ancestor of the Hebrew s ; named in our Lord's genealogy as given in Lk. (3^).
EBIONISM.— It would be going beyond the scope of this Dictionary to enter with any fulness into a discussion of the obscure and elusive subject of Ebionism as it meets us in its varying forms in the history of the early Church. What immedi- ately concerns us is its bearing upon certain ques- tions connected with the origin of the Gospels and the history and person of Jesus Christ Himself. But as these questions cannot properly be handled till we have determined what we are to under- stand by Ebionism, a brief treatment of the general subject appears to be necessary.
i. Who and what were the Ebionites ?— The name Ebionites ('E^ion/aioO, it is generally agreed, is derived from the Hebrew 'ebuonim D'ji'aK ' the poor.' * It seems most probable that originally this name, like Nazarenes (Ac 24=), was applied to all Christians ; but whether it was first adopted by the followers of Christ themselves or given them by others it is impossible to say. The compara- tive povertj' of the great mass of Christians in the early days of the Church, especially in Jerusalem, where the name doubtless arose, might lead to its being used by outsiders as a term of contempt. On the other hand, the Christians of Jerusalem may themselves have adopted it because of the spiritual associations with which ' the poor' (o'yvDN, D"iv, D-W) are referred to in the OT {e.f/. Ps 34" 69^ 72", Is il" 1432 29'9; cf. S. R. Driver, art. 'Poor' in Hastings' DB ; G. A. Smith, Isaiah, vol. i. ch. xxix. 'God's Poor'), and the bles.sings pronounced upon them by Jesus Himself (Lk 6»>, Mt 5^). If it was first given as a name of reproach, it could very easily and naturally be accepted as a name of honour.t
* Certain of the Fathers attempt to derive the name from a supposed founder called Ebion, who is said to have spread his doctrines among the Christians who fled to Pella after the fall of Jerusalem (Tertullian, de prcescr. H(eret. 33 ; Epiphanius, Hrer. XXX. 1, 2). But though Hilgenfeld has laboured to give historical reality to the fi.'ure of Ebimi ( Kflzeniesch. pp. 422-424), modern scholti- !, . ■ pr i r' V .i_r- I t]iat he has onlv a mvthical exi<' ■ M • " ' ' '■ "hi, i. 299 ; Uhlhom
ntipathy to the
EBIONISiSr
EBIONISM
505
After the name 'Christian' (cf. Ac IV) had become the general designation for the disciples of Christ, ' Ebionites ' appears to have been reserved as a distinctive title for Jewish as distinguished from Gentile Christians ('E/Siuvaloi x/jij/iarlfoKo-ii' oi dirA 'lovdaiav rbv 'Iri<roOv lis XpiUTby vapaSe^dfi-evoi, Origen, c. Cels. ii. 1), but specifically for those Jewish Christians who, in some degree more or less pronounced, sought to maintain as essential to Christianity the now obsolete forms of the OT religion (the Fathers from the 2nd to the 4th cent. passim). Thus Ebionism becomes a synonym for Jewish Christianity in its antithesis to the uni- versalism of the Catholic Church ; and it is in this broad and yet pretty definite sense that the word is properly to be employed (Harnack, I.e. i. 289 ; Uhlhorn, I.e. ibid,). It is true that in the 4th cent, we find Jerome using the two names Nazarenes and Ebionites in speaking of the Jewish Christians, with whom he had become well acquainted in Palestine {Ep. ad August, cxxii. 13), and this has led some to suppose that he is making a distinc- tion between two entirely different sects {so especi- ally Zahn, Kanonsgcsch. ii. 648 IX.) ; but it is now generally held that in this case he was really using two names for the same thing, and that ' Nazarenes ' and ' Ebionites ' are both general designations for Jewish Cliristians as such (Har- nack, I.e. p. 301 ; cf. Uhlhorn's art. 'Ebionites' in Schaff-Herzog, En-cycl. of Bel. Knowledge, with his later art. ' Ebioniten ' in PRE^).