'It is decisive,* says Meyer, 'acrainst the assumption of any such polemical purpose that, in general, John nowhere in his Gospel allows any direct reference to the perverted tendencies of his day to appear ; while to search for indirect and hidden allusions of the kind, as if they were intentional, would be as arbitrary as it would be repugnant to the decided character of the Apostolic standpoint which be took up when in conscious opposition to heresies. . . . We see from his [First] Epistle how John would have carried on a controversy, had he wished to do so in his Gospel ' (,John, i. 44 f. ; cf . Westcott, John, p. xU).
The author doubtless has in view the heresies of Gnostic Ebionism, but in the Gospel he refutes them only by the full and positive exhibition of what he conceives to be the truth about Jesus Christ. He tells us himself that his purpose in writing is that those who read ' may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God' (20"). What he means by ' the Christ, the Son of God,' he lets us see in the prologue ; and his method in the rest of the work is to show by selected examples how this conception of the truth about Jesus Christ lias been historically realized.
iv. Ebionism axd the Person of Chri-st.— The distinctive feature of Judaic Christianity, when we first meet it, lies in its continued adher- ence to the Law ; but with the growth of more definite conceptions regarding the Person of Christ, the question of the keeping of the Law recedes into the background, and Christology becomes the matter of supreme imjiortance to the Church. From the beginning it was the tendency of Jewish Christianity to shrink from the idea of the Incar- nation, and to be content to regard Jesus as the last and greatest of the propliets. And when the Church defined its Christological position, the Jewish section was found to be lac-king at this particular and cnicial point, and so the term 'Ebionism' came to be almost synonymous ^vith the denial of Christ's Divinity and Virgin-birth. Irenjeus, after refeiTin" to tlie way in wliich the Ebionites clung to the Law of Moses and rejected Paul as an apostate, adds th.at, besides tliis, they te.'icli consimiliter ut Cerinthus et Carpocrates (cf. Hippolytus, Philos. vii. 34, t4 5^ irepl XpioTji- ojuoius 7-u KijpivBij) Kal KapTroKpAreL livBfiowrLv), denying the birth from the Virgin and holding Christ as a mere man. Origen, more than half a century later.
ECCE HOMO
EDUCATIOX
distinguishes between two classes of Ebionites (oi 5iTToi 'E/iiwi-aioi), one of whieli confesses, like the Church generally, that Jesus was born of a virgin, while the other affirms that He was born like the rest of men («. Cc/s. v. lil). According to Jerome, it appears that by the 4th cent, the Ebionites of .Palestine had made progress in their recognition of the Divinity of Christ and the Virgin-birth, for he says of them, <//(/ ,,.,/„„/ ,„ i 'h'ristum Jilium dei natum (h l'ir,/i,i, M'h-ki . . . m quern ct nos credimus {Ejj. ail Ainjial. i-wii. i:;i.
But while it may W- Uuu of tlie \ ulgar or non- Gnostic Ebionites, over whom, as Harnack says, 'the Church stalked with iron feet' (Hist, of Dogmtc, i. 301), that their distinction from the Church tended more and more to disappear, the case was ditlerent with the Gnostic or syncretistic variety, of whom Cerinthus may be taken as an early type. To Cerinthus, according to Irenseus (I. xxvi. 1 ; cf. Hi]ipolytus, Fhilos. vii. 33), Jesus was nothing mure than a naturally-begotten man — the son of Joseph and ilary— upon whom at His baptism the Christ came down from the absolute power (avBevTla.) of God, thus making him the re- vealer of the Father and the miracle - working Messiah ; but from whom this Christ -Spirit de- parted before the Passion, so that it was only the man Jesus who endured the cross, while the spiritual Christ remained untouched by suft'er- ing.
In the case of the Elkesaites of a later period, we find Jewish monotheism combining itself not only with Greek sjjeculation, but with strange heathen elements taken over hom the Asiatic religions. This syncretism w.is rharacteristic of the age, and in that fait (Im_- -li'imtli of Gnostic
Ebionism lay. It was niurh ui ijuressive than
Ebionisni of the sim]jlcr t ypu, au.i had a far more widely extended influence. Ul its fantastic and fugitive forms this is not the place to speak. But its Christology appears in general to have been akin to that of Cerinthus ; in other words it was essentially Docetic, and involved a denial of any real and abiding union of the Divine and human in the Person of our Lord.
Literature. — On the general subject tlie followinfj should be read: Neander, Church Histori/, vol. ii. pp. 8-41 (Clark's ed.); Harnack, Hist, of Doijma, i. 287-317 ; PliJi'-K artt. ' Ebioniten,' ^Elkesa.iten' ; Jeudsh Enci/c, art. 'Ebionites.' For particular points see the various references given in the article.
J. C. Lambert. ECCE HOMO.—' Behold, the man ! ' (Moil 6 dydpuTos or i"5e 6 Hfepoi-iroi) (Jn 19*) was the utterance of Pilate when our Lord came forth wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. We may believe that the words were spoken to excite the pity of the Jews. Pilate had given over our Lord to be scourged, and had allowed his soldiers to robe and crown Him in mockery, but all the time he was anxious to save Him from death ; and there Avas undoubtedly an appeal to the compassion of the bystanders in the words, 'Behold the man.' Probably it was to mock the Jews that the .soldiers had robed and crowned Him who was said to have claimed to be their king ; and Pilate himself, we can see, was not unwilling to deal somewhat scorn- fully with them. But he does not seem to have looked scornfully, he rather looked pitifully, on our Lord Himself. And when he said, ' Behold, the man ! ' he was, as it were, pointing out that Jesus had suttered enough. But although Pilate's words were those of a weak but not wholly unfeel- ing man who wanted to move to pity those whom he was afraid to send angry and revengeful fi'om his judgment-seat, he was really, although ail- unconsciously, paying an act of homage to our Lord. ' Ecce Homo.' He was bidding men look to the ijerfect man, the incarnate Son of God, men's