The Ebionites were a Jewish sect that regarded Jesus as the Messiah but not as divine, and insisted on the necessity of following Jewish religious law and rites. . The Ebionites used only the Jewish Gospels, revered James the Just as the head of the Jerusalem Church and rejected Paul of Tarsus as an apostate towards the Law. Their name suggests that they placed a special value on evangelical counsels about voluntary poverty. Much of what is known about the Ebionites derives from the Church Fathers, who wrote polemics against the Ebionites, whom they deemed heretical Judaizers. Many scholars distinguish the Ebionites from other Jewish Christian...more »