chapter one
complemented with a once-and-for-all rite that marks a person’s transi-
tion into a Christian community.^28 InPseudo-Clementines, Peter bathes
before eating or prayer (Hom. .; .;Rec. .; .). This would well fit
in with Judaism but marks him off as a special kind of Christian. How-
ever, a separate baptism is also known. It replaces the sacrifices (Rec. .)
and is necessary before a person is pure enough to eat with other Chris-
tians (Rec. .;Hom. .–; .–).
.Towhatextentaretheseorotherissuesimportantforinter-or
intra-group relations? What roles do they play in defining the borders and
identity of the group in question?
A discussion of the aboveindicatorswill yield aJewish-Christian profile
whichwillshowtowhatextentagrouphascharacteristicswhichare
today associated either with Judaism or Christianity. The above list is
not an exhaustive collection of the questions that may help to sketch a
Jewish-Christian profile of a community. Obviously, subcategories could
be added to every indicator and a number of other indicators might be
detected as well. However, in my view, the above list contains the core of
the questions that deserve to be discussed before phenomena are labeled
Jewish Christian.
The last point in the list also enables one to make a distinction between
simple Jewish-Christian inclinations, which might characterize several
Jewish and Christian communities, and independent Jewish-Christian
movements that stick so devoutly to some of their own border-marking
practices and ideas that they become socially distinguishable from other
Jewish and Christian movements. These questions that tap into the bor-
der-marking of communities are particularly significant in the case of
the Ebionites and Nazarenes, who are described as distinct groups by the
church fathers, Epiphanius in particular.
(^28) In rabbinic Judaism, circumcision, baptism and sacrifices were requirements set for
proselytes. It is a matter of contention whether baptism was understood as an initiation
rite in the Second Temple period or only later on. In any case, “Christian” baptism
differs from the rabbinic one in two respects. First, rabbinic sources do not indicate
that immersion—which was closely connected with the idea of washing away the impure
gentile life—was practiced in someone’s name. Second, rabbinic baptism supplemented,
but did not replace, circumcision and commitment to the Torah as the real “indicators”
of one’s conversion. The earliest description of a rabbinic conversion ceremony is to be
found inb. Yebam. a–b. For the analysis of this passage (and a later description inGerim
:), see Cohen , –.