is probably reliable. Likewise according to
Epiphanius (l. c. 17. 18), Theodotion was first a Marcionite and then a
Jew. The transition from Marcionitism to Judaism (for extremes meet) is
not in itself incredible.]

[Footnote 420: It follows from c. Cels II. 1-3, that Celsus could hardly
have known Jewish Christians.]

[Footnote 421: Iren. I. 26. 2; III 11. 7; III. 15. 1, 21. 1; IV. 33. 4;
V. 1. 3. We first find the name Ebionaei, the poor, in Irenaeus. We are
probably entitled to assume that this name was given to the Christians
in Jerusalem as early as the Apostolic age, that is, they applied it to
themselves (poor in the sense of the prophets and of Christ, fit to be
received into the Messianic kingdom). It is very questionable whether we
should put any value on Epiph. h. 30. 17.]

[Footnote 422: When Irenaeus adduces as the points of distinction between
the Church and the Ebionites, that besides observing the law and
repudiating the Apostle Paul, the latter deny the Divinity of Christ and
his birth from the Virgin, and reject the New Testament Canon (except
the Gospel of Matthew), that only proves that the formation of dogma has
made progress in the Church. The less was known of the Ebionites from
personal observation, the more confidently they were made out to be
heretics who denied the Divinity of Christ and rejected the Canon. The
denial of the Divinity of Christ and the birth from the Virgin was, from
the end of the second century, regarded as the Ebionite heresy _par
excellence_, and the Ebionites themselves appeared to the Western
Christians, who obtained their information solely from the East, to be a
school like those of the Gnostics, founded by a scoundrel named Ebion
for the purpose of dragging down the person of Jesus to the common
level. It is also mentioned incidentally, that this Ebion had commanded
the observance of circumcision and the Sabbath; but that is no longer
the main thing (see Tertull, de carne 14, 18, 24: de virg. vel. 6: de
praescr. 10. 33; Hippol, Syntagma, (Pseudo-Tertull, 11; Philastr. 37;
Epiph. h. 30); Hippol, Philos. VII. 34. The latter passage contains the
instructive statement that Jesus by his perfect keeping of the law
became the Christ). This attitude of the Western Christians proves that
they no longer knew Jewish Christian communities. Hence it is all the
more strange that Hilgenfeld (Ketzergesch. p. 422 ff.) has in all
earnestness endeavoured to revive the Ebion of the Wes