patristic testimonies reconsidered and lustrations of the book as remedies for major sins, animal bites and
sicknesses (Hippolytus,Haer. ..–.).^31
Epiphanius connects theBook of Elchasaito both the Transjordanian
area and the area south and east of the Dead Sea since this is where he
locates the Ossaeans (Pan. ), the Ebionites (Pan. ), the Nazarenes
(Pan. ) and the Sampsaeans/Elkeseans (Pan. )—all of whom are said
to have used theBook of Elchasai.SinceEpiphaniuswasborninPales-
tine and had headed a monastery there for three decades, it is not unwar-
ranted to assume that he had some knowledge of the basic tenets of the
Transjordanian religious movements. It is likely that some ideas derived
from theBook of Elchasaiwere also circulating there among different syn-
cretistic Jewish and Jewish-Christian (Ebionite) movements.^32
Furthermore, because the activity of Elchasaite Jewish-Christian mis-
sionaries is attested in Rome, Apamea (Alcibiades’ hometown) and Cae-
sarea,itseemsnaturalthat,atsomepoint,theEbionitesinCyprusalso
became familiar with these practices. Ships regularly sailed from Cyprus
to both Caesarea and Seleucia, the city from which the Apamean Alcib-
iades probably embarked when he headed to Rome (cf. Acts :–; I
will come back to this hypothesis at the conclusion of this section). Thus,
the most plausible explanation for Epiphanius’ use of theBook of Elchasai
in his description of the Ebionites is that he acquired the book from the
Ebionites in Cyprus, along with the Pseudo-Clementine sources (which
he called theCircuits of Peterand theAscents of James), the Ebionites’
Acts of the Apostles and (excerpts from) the gospel used by the Ebion-
ites.
Several pieces of data indicate that the Elchasaite missionaries resem-
bled the traditional Irenaean picture of the Ebionites more than Epipha-
nius’ Ebionites did. According to Origen (apud Eusebius,Hist. eccl. .),
the Elchasaites were anti-Pauline and madeselectiveuse of every part the
Old Testament and the Gospels. Irenaeus’ Ebionites were also famous for
their anti-Paulinism, and such “selective use” of the Old Testament might
go a way towards explaining his characterization of their interpretation
of the prophets as “careful/curious” (cf. Irenaeus,Haer. ..). Selective
(^31) It is possible that the Ebionites also possessed such companions to theBook of
Elchasai. If worked into the text of the book itself, these additions would make a new
edition; a sort of manual for purification and repentance. Cf. Jones’ thesis (Jones ),
according to which theBook of Elchasaishould be classified as a primitive church order.
(^32) In contrast to Luttikhuizen (Luttikhuizen , –), who denies the use of the
Book of Elchasaiamong these movements.