The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1897-07-14
Tho Alleged New Sayings OF Christ.

Tho Alleged New Sayings OF Christ.
1t is we'll known that among the papyri
lately unearthed at Behneseh in Egypt by
Messrs. GRENFELL and HUNT was a small
page containing eight logia or sayings, each
beginning "JEsUs saith" OF these, tfkp
are ~indecipherable, and four are substU-
TALLY identical with familiar passages in
the Gospels. Two of them, however, do not
occur in any of the four Gospels admitted
into the New Testament canon and are new
in that sense, though probably in that sense
only. 1t was of these particular sayings
that on Tuesday we published TRANSACTIONS
from the original Greek text.
The first of the two sayings to which we
refer runs, We are told. as follows: JESUS
saith, except ye fast to the world, ye shall
in nowise find the kingdom of Con; and
urday, the Jewish Sabbath, is meant), We
shall not see the Father" On the face of it,
this saying is one of those that were current
among the Ebionites, and doubtless a care
full search would identify it among those
quoted by the early Fathers who dealt with
the Ebionitic heresy. 1t is probable enough
that the saying was recorded in that "Gos-
pei of the Hebrews" no longer e~xtant,
which was the earliest of all the evan
gelical documents of the Apostolic age,
and Is believed to lave been the original
of our Matthew. This Gospel of the
Hebrews had been in circulation from the
very earliest times. and many Of the
quotations made in Patristic writings,
but not to be verified in our four Gospels,
are supposed to nave been drawn from
it. When the New Testament canon was
formed, however, this Gospel was excluded
from 1t, because it supported what had
come to be thought the damnable doctrine
Of the Ebionites, that is to say. the doctrine
of those who held JESUS to have been a
man and who denied His divinity. 1t will
be remembered that, after the death of
CHRIST, the Apostle JAMES and the
Church at Jerusalem, although, since they
regarded JESUS Himself as the all-suf-
ficicnt sacrifice, they could afford to dis
ponse with the imperfect sacrifices of the
law, did, as a matter of fact, continue rig
orously to conform to its ceremonial OBJ
servances in reference to food, to personal
purity, to circumcision, to the observance
of the Sabbath and the like. After the
siege and destruction of Jerusalem by
TITUS, the survivors of the primitive Jeru-
salem Church sought refuge In the little
town of Pella on the eastern side of the Jor-
dan; there they continued to teach the doc
trines which had been delivered to them by
the personal disciples of the LORD. doctrines
which, the longer they continued to be
transmitted, reverted more and more to
the Judaism from which they originally
--..-- "k-.o I-At-.z -
ing in detail among different sects,
and In the degree to which they APP
proximated to pure Judaism, were even
tually Jumped together under the general
name of the Ebionitic heresy. The ground
common to nearly all of them was, as we
have said, that JESUS was u mere man,
born of JOSEPH and MARY, who had been
raised by piety to His exalted position, but
whose teachings formed no break, but were
rather n continuation of the law of MOSES,
which still remained as binding as before.
The strictest of these sects, the Ebionitea
proper, those who remained beyond the
Jordan far from contact with the Gentle
world, and who accepted the traditions of
the Pharisees as we'll as the law of MOSES,
made circumcision and the other rites OF
the law binding on the Gentle as well as
on the Jew. The ground occupied by them,
In a word, was precisely the opposite OF
that taken by the heresiarch MAROON,
who totally repudiatcd the law and the Old
Testament, and excluded from his canon,
which preceded that which has come
down to us, all Christian writings, in,
i. Guiding the Gospels of MATTHEW and
? MARK, which lent any c~ountenance
and support to the Jewish Bible. The in,
stinct Of self-defence impelled the early
Church to offer fierce and relentless opposi
ton to both the Marcionic and Ebioniti,
. h~eresies, but undoubtedly the orthodox
, would have felt for Ebionitism more intense
antagonism than they did, could they have
|. foreseen that. left isolated as 1t would be or
, the soil of Palestine, to lose itself apparent
, ly, as the centuries advanced, In the desert
/, sands, 1t would there become the parent:ol
that Mohammedanism which was destined
to play 80 great a part in the history of thu
. world and to prove so deadly to orthodo,
a Christianity In the East.
THAT the page discovered at Behnesel
was a part of the s~crap-book of an eclectic
collector OF sayings attributed by various
sects to JESUS is evident from the fact that
o side by sid with the Ebionitlc logior
+ above mentioned, was another saying
which can only be referred to the Gnostics
whose system, though really an out
o growth of the Neo. Platonic philosophy
G bears at first sight u resemblance Il
s Buddhistic pantheism. The legion II
question is the following: Jesus saith
o Wherever there arc there occurs a gapL anC