Note 401 — Chapter V
Neil Buchanan translation
Footnote 401:
(return)
The associations of the Encratites and the community founded by Apelles stood between the main body of Christendom and the Marcionite church. The description of Celsus (especially V. 61-64 in Orig.) shews the motley appearance which Christendom presented soon after the middle of the second century. He there mentions the Marcionites, and a little before (V. 59), the "great Church." It is very important that Celsus makes the main distinction consist in this, that some regarded their God as identical with the God of the Jews, whilst others again declared that "theirs was a different Deity who is hostile to that of the Jews, and that it was he who had sent the Son." (V. 61).