EBNERIAN MANUSCRIPT 22
EBONY
Among these Ijclong the Elkesaitas" (Sclmff, Ch. Hist, i, § OS, 214 ?(!.). The ])sciulo-Ch'ineiitiiie h(nnilies teach ii speculative form of Ebioiiism, essentially Judaiziiig in spirit and aim [see Clkjikntines, ii, p. 383] ; and ■conip. Schair, Ch. History, i, § 69; Dorner, Person of Christ, Edini). transl., p. 203 sq.).
4. Ebionism has rea])peared, since the Iteformation, in Socinianism (q. v.), and in the other forms of what is called Unitarianism (q. v.). Some Unitarian writ- ers have nndertaken to show that Ehionisni was the original form of Christian doctrine, and tliat the Church doctrine as to the person of Christ was a later develop- ment ; so Priestley, in his Uistorij of the Corruptions of Christianity (Birmingham, 1782). Bisiiop Horsley replied to Priestley in his Charcje to the Clergy of St. Albans (1783), and in other tracts, collected in Tracts in Controversy with Dr.Priestky (Dundee, 1812, od ed.). Horsley, in this controversy, made use of Bull's learn- ed treatment of the subject in his repl}' to Zwicker (see Bull, On the Trinity, Oxford, 1855, 3 vols. : i, 116; ii, 37G ; iii, 175 et al. See also Waterland, Works, Oxf. 184,-, G vols. : iii, 554 sq.). A far abler advocate of the Socinian view is Baur, in his Christenthum d. drti ersten Jahrhunderte ; Lehre v.d.Dre'einigleit Gottes ; Dogmen- geschichte, etc. Baur's position is clearh' stated, and refuted by professor Fisher (^Am. Presb. and Theolog. Rev. Oct. 1864, art. i). "Baur agrees with the old Socinians in the statement that the Jewish Christian- ity of the apostolic age was Ebionite. But, unlike them, ho holds that we find within the canon a great departure from, and advance upon, this humanitarian doctrine of Christ's person. lie professes to discover in the New Testament the consecutive stages of a progress which, beginning with the Unitarian creed, terminates in the doctrine of Christ's proper divinity. There occurred at the end, or before the end, of the apostolic age, a reaction of the Jewish Christianity, which with Baur is identical with the Judaizing or Ebionite element ; and this type of Christianity pre- vailed through the larger part of the second centniy." (See Fisher, I. c, for a criticism of this view, and for a brief but luminous sketch of Ebionism. On the other side, see N. Amer. Rev. April, 1864, p. 569 sq.). Literature. — See, besides the works already cited, Irenanis, Hcer. i, 26 (Ante-Nicene Library, v, 97); Gieseler, Uehcr die Nazarder vnd Ebioniten, in Archiv fiir A. & N. Kircheng., iv, 279 sq. (Leipsig, 1820) ; INIosheim, Commentaries, i, 220, 400 ; Neander, Church Hist, i, 344, 350; Schliemann, Die Clementinen (Hamb. 1844), p. 362 sq. ; Herzog, Reid-Encyklojnidie, iii, 621 sq. ; Martensen, Dogmatics (Edinburgh, 1866), § 128 ; Shedd, History of Doctrines, i, 106 sq. ; Burton, Eccles. History, Lect. xi ; Burton, Hampton Lectures (Oxford, 1829), notes 73-84.
Ebnerian Manuscript (Codf.x Ebneriantjs, usually ilesignated as No. 105 of the Gospels, 48 of the Acts, and 24 of the Pauline E])istles), a beautiful cur- sive Greek ]MS. of thp entire N. T. except Rev., con- sisting of 425 quarto vellum leaves ; assigned to the 12th century ; formerly belonging to Jerome Elmer von Eschenbach, of Nuremberg, and now in the Bodleian Library (No. 136). A fac-simile and description are given by Tregelles, in Home's Introd. p. 220. See Mantscripts, Biblical.
Eboda ('E/3<)^n), a city mentioned only by Ptole- my (xvii, 18) as situated in the soa-board (piarter of Arabia Petrsea (see Keland, P.d<rst. ]\ 16:!), in 65|-° and 30i'2, and marked on the Pentinger Tdd- as lying on the iioman road 23 Poman miles S. of Elnsa (q. v.). Dr. Robinson (Resenrrhes, i, 287) discovered the site in the modern el-Abdeh (otherwise Anjeh, ih. p. 560). eight hours from the site of Elusa, at the junction of "VVady es-Seram with Wady cl-Birein (ih. p. 284). It contains extensive ruins, situated on a rocky ridvcc from sixty to one hundred feet high ; especially the remains of an acropolis, of a capacious castle, and of a
large Greek church, with numerous walls, columns!, etc., still standing, and several wells or reservoirs, but no inhabitants (lb. p. 285, 286).
Ebony (""ZT^Jiobni', stony, q.d. stone-wood [comp. the Germ. Stelnholz, "fossil-wood"], only in the plur. Q"^:^!!, A')iwf?»' [text D''D^"n for D^jS'n, //oSenm'], Sept. [Ijy some confusion or misinterpretation, see Ro- senmiiller, Schol. in loc] toIc tiaayofiu'oic, Synima- chus t/3evoiic,Vulg. [dentes] hebeninos) occurs only in one passage of Scripture, where the prophet Ezekiel (xxvii, 15), referring to the commerce of Tyre, says, " The men of Dedan were thy merchants ; many isles were the merchandise of thine hand : they brought thee for a present horns of ivory and ebony." See Drc- DAN. The Hebrew word is translated "ebony" in all the European versions ; but, as Bochart states {Hitroz. i, 20, part ii), the Chaldee version, followed by R. Se- lomo and other Jews, as well as the Greek and Ara- bic versions, render it b}' pea fowl (pavones'). Some of the lleiirew critics, however, as Kimchi, also ac- knowledge that Arabian ebony is meant. Of the cor- rectness of this opinion there can now be no doubt. In the first place, we may allude to Dedan being con- sidered one of the ports of Aral ia on the Persian Gulf, or at least to the south of the Red Sea ; and, second- ly, as observed by Bochart, the terms hobnim and ebony are very similar, the latter word being varioush' writ- ten by ancient authors, as ij^irii, ijSfvoc, ijSsi'ov, ebe- nus and hehemis. The last form is used by Jerome in his Latin, and 'ifttvoc \^y Symmachus in his Greek version. The Arabs have abni'/s, which they apply to ebony, and by that name it is known in Northern India at the present day. Forskiil mentions abnus as one of the kinds of wood inq^orted in his time from India into Araliia. AVhether the Arabic name lie a corruption of the Greek, or the Greek a modilication, as is most likely, of some Eastern name, we require some other evidence besides the occurrence of the word in Arabic works on materia medica to deter- mine, since in these Greek words are sometimes em- ployed as the principal terms for substances with which the}' are not well acquainted. Bardiist is, how- ever, given b}' some as the Arabic name, ahniis as the Persian. Naturalists have found the latter ai])lied to ebony in north-west India, as did Forskiil on the Rod Sea.