Note 23 — Chapter IV · THE EVOLUTION OF THE CULT
Reading edition
It soon becomes clear from a survey of these sects and movements (1) that a cult of a non-divine Jesus, represented by the Hebraic Ebionites, subsisted for a time alongside of one which, also among Jews, made Jesus a supernatural being. Only on the basis of an original rite can such divergences be explained. The Ebionites come before us, in the account of Epiphanius, as using a form of the Gospel of Matthew which lacked the first two chapters (an addition of the second or third century), denying the divinity of Jesus, and rejecting the apostleship of Paul.23 It is implied that they accepted the story of the Last Supper and the Crucifixion. Here then were Jewish believers in a Hero-Jesus, the Servant of God (as in the Teaching), not a Son of God in any supernatural sense. Ebionism had rigidly restricted the cult to a subordinate form.