E

One of the names applied to Jewish Christians by the church fathers. "Ebionites" in Greek is a transliteration of the Hebrew (more accurately, an Aramaic variation on the Hebrew), which means "poor." The precise origins of this name are not known. Paul was ordered to organize a collection for the "poor" in Jerusalem (Gal. 2:10), and this has sometimes been taken as evidence that the early Jerusalem congregation called itself "the poor," a term similarly used in the Qumran scrolls for the people with whom the writers were sympathetic (e.g., Commentary on Psalm 37 2.9; 3.10; Commentary on Habakkuk 12.3).