The Jesus Problem: A Restatement of the Myth TheoryRobertson, J. M. (John Mackinnon)
Religion
The Jesus Problem: A Restatement of the Myth Theory
Robertson, J. M. (John Mackinnon)
Jesus Christ
From the biographical standpoint, the Ebionites and their counterparts
the Nazaræans are indeed enigmatic. It is important to have a clear
view of what is known as to both sects. [388] Origen, noting that the
Hebrew name of the former means "the poor," angrily implies that it was
given to them as describing their poverty of mind, [389] but leaves
open the rational inference that the name originally described their
chosen social status, which connected with a belief in the speedy end
of the world. In his book Against Celsus, [390] he tells that they
include believers in the Virgin Birth and deniers of it. Here arises
the surmise that the former were the socii Ebionitarum mentioned by
Jerome, who diverged from Judaic views, and may have been of the
general cast of the Nazaræans. [391] These bodies constituted the
mass of the Christians in Judæa in the second century. According to
the ecclesiastical tradition, the church of Jerusalem had withdrawn
during the siege to Pella and the neighbouring region beyond the
Jordan. In the reign of Hadrian, after the revolt and destruction of
the Messiah Bar-Cochab, who had attempted to rebuild the temple, the
new Roman city of Ælia Capitolina was built on the ruins of Jerusalem;
and in that no Jews were permitted to dwell. Only those Christians
who renounced Judaic usages, then, could enter; and a number of such
Christians, Jew and Gentile, did so. Others, probably including
both Ebionites and Nazaræans, remained at Pella, and these appear
to have furnished the types of heresy discussed by Irenæus, Origen,
Jerome, and Epiphanius under the head of Ebionism. Those who set up
in Jerusalem were in the way of substituting for "voluntary poverty"
a propaganda and organization which meant comfort. Those who stayed
behind would represent the primitive type.
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