Ebionites

The Ebionites (from Hebrew; Ebionim, "the poor ones") were a sect of Judean followers of John the Baptist and Jesus of Nazareth who existed in Iudaea Province (later Syria-Palestine) during the early centuries of the Common Era. The "Pauline Christians", those who were the spiritual antecedents of those who were ultimately successful in establishing a state-sanctioned church, did not consider Ebionites "real" Christians: the terms "Pauline Christians" and "Ebionites" are used in this article to distinguish these two threads in early Christianity. "Pauline Christians" not only included the orthodox, but also heretical gnostics such as Marcion, who considered Paul to be the true apostle and Peter to be a false apostle (Tertullian, "Against Marcion" 1.20, 4.3, 5.3). While the Ebionites undoubtedly drew their doctrines from ideas circulating in the first century, Robert Eisenman (Eisenman 1996) argues in great detail the extent to which they existed as a distinct group from the rest of "gentile" Christianity before the destruction of Jerusalem.

External links

• A Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature to the End of the Sixth Century A.D., with an Account of the Principal Sects and Heresies by Henry Wace. Said to be "the most balanced and thorough explication of the Ebionites and other non-Pauline Christian Jews on the Web, with references to contemporary documents,".
• Detailed comparison of Ebionite views with Islam
• Evidence of the Ebionites by Hyam Maccoby
• Nazarenes and Ebionites - An Introduction
• Ebionite Community Modern Ebionites
• Review of literature on the Ebionites
• Text of Recognitions and Homilies from ccel.org
• Jewish Encyclopedia: Ebionites
• Ebionites from the Catholic Encyclopedia