Chapter Earthmen to Ebionites of E by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

(eaves-drip). An eaves-dropper is one who places himself in the eaves-drip to overhear what is said in the adjacent house or field.

"Under our tents I'll play the eaves-dropper,
To hear if any mean to shrink from me."
Shakespeare: Richard III., v. 3.

Ebionism The doctrine that the poor only shall be saved. Ebion, plural ebionim (poor).

"At the end of the second century the Ebionites were treated as heretics, and a pretended leader (Ebion) was invented by Tertullian to explain the name." - Renan: Life of Jesus, chap. xi.

Ebionites (4 syl.). A religious sect of the first and second centuries, who maintained that Jesus Christ was merely an inspired messenger, the greatest of all prophets, but yet a man and a man only, without any existence before His birth in Bethlehem. (See above.)