Ebionites

Ebionites (Ancient Greek: Ἐβιωναῖοι, romanized: Ebiōnaîoi, derived from the Hebrew word אֶבְיוֹנִים, ʾEḇyōnīm, meaning 'the poor' or 'poor ones') were an adoptionist Mosaic law-observant Jewish-Christian movement that existed in and around Transjordan during the early centuries of the Common Era. They first appear in heresiographies from the latter half of the second century. Since original writings by Ebionites are scarce, fragmentary and contested, much of what is known or conjectured about them derives from the polemical reports by their proto-orthodox and later orthodox Christian opponents, the Church Fathers (Irenaeus, Origen, Eusebius, and Epiphanius of Salamis), who generally portrayed Ebionites as a heretical sect doctrinally distinct from other judaizing Jewish-Christian sects, such as the Nazarenes. Most Church Fathers characterize Ebionites as holding a functional adoptionist Christology that rejects the belief that Jesus was a divine person (God the Son) at any stage of his earthly life, whether before (pre-existence), during (incarnation), or after it (exaltation), and instead presents him as a righteous human being who, through faithful observance of the Law of Moses, was adopted by God at his baptism to fulfill the role of prophet and Jewish Messiah. Condemning Paul as a false apostle and an apostate from the Law, Ebionites are said to have used a Hebrew version of the Gospel of Matthew, or one of the Jewish-Christian gospels, as their only additional scripture alongside the Hebrew Bible, and to have maintained faithful observance of the commandments of the Abrahamic and Mosaic covenants as binding on all followers of Jesus, with an emphasis on his authoritative teachings on the Law. Some patristic heresiologists recognize variations in Christology among Ebionites: a majority did not believe Jesus was born of a virgin, affirming he was the natural son of Joseph and Mary, while a minority believed in the virgin birth, with...