bath, circumcision, and other things that were enjoined by the Jews and Samaritans. He moreover adopted many more things than the Jews, in imitation of the Samaritans “,” the particulars of which he then proceeds to mention.

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In the same section he speaks of the Ebionites inhabiting the same country as the Nazarenes, and adds that, " agreeing together, they communicated of their perverseness to each other t.” Then, in the third section, he observes that afterwards some of the Ebionites entertained a different opinion concerning Christ, than that he was the son of Joseph; supposing that, after Elxæus joined them, they learned of him "some fancy concerning Christ and the holy spirit ‡."

Concerning the Nazarenes, in the seventh section of his account of them, he says that they were Jews in all respects, except " that they believed in Christ ; but I do not know whether they hold the miraculous conception, or not S.” This amounts to no more than

* Οὗτος γὰρ ὁ Εβιων συγχρονος μεν τούτων υπήρχεν, απ' αυτών δε συν αυτοίς ὁρμαται. τα πρώτα δε εκ παρατρίβης και σπέρματος ανδρος, τουτεστι του Ιωσήφ, τον Χριστον γεγενησθαι ελεγεν, ὡς και ηδη ἡμιν προείρηται, ότι τα ισα τοις άλλοις εν άπασι φρόνων, εν τούτῳ μόνῳ διεφερετο, εν τῳ τῳ νομῳ του Ιουδαϊσμου προσανέχειν, κατα σαββατισμόν, και κατά την περιτομην, και κατά τα άλλα παντα όσα περ παρα Ιουδαίοις και Σαμαρειται επιτελείται, ετι δε πλείω ούτος παρα τους Ιουδαίους ὁμοίως τοις Σαμαρείταις διαπράττεται. Hær. 30. sect. ii. p. 125, 126.

† Ενθεν άρχεται της κακής αυτου διδασκαλιας, ὅθεν δηθεν και οἱ Ναζαρηνοι οἱ ανομοι προδεδήλωνται. Συναφθεις γαρ ούτος εκείνοις, και εκείνοι τούτῳ, έκατερος απο της ἑαυτου μοχθηρίας τῳ ἑτέρῳ μετ τεδωκε. Ibid. sect. ii. p. 125, 126.

† φαντασίαν τίνα περι Χριστου διηγείται, και περι πνεύματος άγιου. Ibid. sect. iii. p. 127.

§ Περι Χριστου δε ουκ οίδα ειπειν ει και αυτοί, τη των προειρη μενων περι Κήρινθον και Μηρινθον μοχθηρια αχθέντες, ψιλον άνθρω τον νομίζουσιν η, καθως ή αληθεια εχει, δια πνευματος άγιου γεγενησθαι εκ Μαρίας διαβεβαιούνται. Hær. 29. sect. vii. p. 123.

a doubt, which he afterwards abandoned, by asserting that the Ebionites held the same opinion concerning Christ with the Nazarenes, which opinion he expressly states to be their belief, that Jesus was a mere man, and the son of Joseph.

I now appeal to yourself whether this does not abundantly justify my quoting the authority of Epiphanius, whatever that may be, in support of the Ebionites and Nazarenes having held the same opinion concerning Christ, though they might differ in other things. Please also to observe that these Nazarenes were prior to Ebion, who was himself cotemporary with the apostle John.

You acknowledge, p. 29, that, "in Jerom's time the Nazarenes were so far declined from the pure faith of the first race of Christians, and were become heretical to that degree, that Jerom considered them as a Jewish sect, rather than a Christian." How much earlier this general defection took place you do not say. It appears, however, as you do not deny, that the unbelieving Jews called all those of their race, who were christians, by the name of Ebionites, in the time of Origen. Indeed Origen's own words are too express to admit any doubt of this. "Those," says he, "of the Jews who believe that Jesus is the Christ, are called Ebionites*. And these Ebionites Origen says were of two sorts, one of them believing the miraculous conception, and the other not; but all of them considering Christ as a mere man.

You say, indeed, p. 35, that "the word Ebionite had, in the time of Origen, outgrown its original

* Εβιωναίοι χρηματιζουσιν οι απο Ιουδαίων τον Ιησον ὡς Χριστον xapadežaμero. In Celsum, lib. ii. p. 56.

meaning; for at last the Nazarenes, whose error was rather a superstitious severity in their practice, than any deficiency in their faith, were included by Origen in the infamy of the appellation." But for this I must require some other evidence than your bare conjecture; for then he ought to have made three sorts of Ebionites, and not two only, which he expressly does.

That the Ebionites comprised all the Jewish christians in the time of Origen, is evident from the passage which you yourself quote from him, p. 76. " When you consider what belief they, of the Jewish race, who believe in Jesus, entertain of their redeemer, some thinking that he took his being from Mary and Joseph, some indeed from Mary only and the divine spirit, but still without any belief of his divinity, you will understand," &c. Now I do not at all see how,allowing the object of Origen, in the place in which this passage is introduced, to be the spiritualizing of a plain story, you can be authorized to explain this otherwise than it is literally expressed. Whatever the discourse be, this is an incidental mention of a real fact in the course of it; and such is often the clearest of all evidences.

As to that reference to Origen which you say, p. 75, you are not able to trace, it is exactly as I have made it in my edition of his works in Latin; and in my opinion abundantly answers the purpose for which it was adduced, as he there speaks of all the Jews who believed in Jesus, as thinking him to be either the son of Joseph and Mary, or of Mary and the holy spirit, which certainly comprises the opinion which had been thought to be peculiar to the Nazarenes; so that it is impossible that Origen should have imagined that the

Nazarenes held an opinion concerning Christ that was not also held by some of the Ebionites. Moreover, as he is here speaking of the Jewish christians in general, without making any exception, it is natural to infer, that he had never heard of any Jewish christians besides those whom he elsewhere calls Ebionites, of the two sorts particularly specified by him; so that this passage is in effect the same with that which you have quoted, and proves more than I there quoted it for.

I have since procured Huetius's edition of Origen's Commentaries on the scriptures, and find that the passage which you have quoted exactly corresponds to that which I had made use of. But the original Greek is more expressly to my purpose than the Latin.

In a passage not far distant from this, Origen considers the Ebionites in general as not believing the miraculous conception, while the gentile christians in general, though with some exceptions, believed that doctrine. "By the men," he says, "who blamed the blind man, who represents the Ebionites (unbelievers in the miraculous conception), we may understand the gentiles, who, with few exceptions, think that Christ was born of the Virgin only *."

"That the Jewish converts were remarkably prone to the Ebionæan heresy, from which the gentile churches in general were pure, is the most," you say, p. 77, "that can be concluded from this passage, strengthened as it might be with another somewhat to the same purpose, in the Commentaries upon St. John's Gospel. But what if it were proved that the whole sect of the Nazarenes was absorbed in the Ebionæan

* Comment. in Matt. vol. i. p. 428.

heresy in the days of Origen? What evidence would that afford of the identity of the Nazarenes and the Ebionites in earlier times? And even that identity, if it were proved, what evidence would it afford, that the church of Jerusalem had been originally unitarian under her first bishops of the circumcision?"

I answer, that if the Jewish christians were universally Ebionites in the time of Origen, the probability is, that they were very generally so in the time of the apostles; and that their heresy, as it is called, did exist in the time of the apostles, is abundantly evident. Whole bodies of men do not very soon change their opinions. And if, as you allow, the Jewish christians were distinguished by the name of Nazarenes (whom I think I have proved to be the same with the Ebionites, who all believed Christ to be a mere man,) from the time that they were settled in the country beyond the sea of Galilee, you carry the opinions of the Ebionites, as universally held by the Jewish christians, to the very age of the apostles; for they retired into that country on the approach of the Jewish war, about which time the apostles went off the stage.

Since all the Jewish christians were called Nazarenes or Ebionites, and all the writers that mention them speak of the doctrine of those sects in general, and not those of their own time in particular, as being that Christ was a mere man; the natural inference is, that those sects, or the Jewish christians, did in all times, after they became so distinguished, (which is allowed to have been just before or presently after the destruction of Jerusalem,) hold that doctrine. And supposing this to have been the case, is it not almost certain, that the apostles themselves must have taught