Disputationis contra Ebionitas, Iesu Christi Domini nostri deitatem negantes & philou anthrōpou eum esse fingentes sōmatopoiēsis

CHAPTERS OF THE DISPUTATION
AGAINST THE EBIONITES, WHO PRE-
tend that our Lord Jesus Christ
is a Man only, and not also
the true God.

I.

A decorative drop cap Q features floral and scrollwork patterns.Since the ancient Ebionites attributed little faith to the books of the four Evangelists and minimal faith to the Pauline Epistles, for the reason that in all of them they saw the most evident testimonies and arguments of the eternal Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, we shall make the beginning of our Disputation from two sentences worthy of report, the former of which is by Augustine, the latter by John Chrysostom. From Scripture, he says, it is lighter to err in sense than to call Scripture false. But this man, not believing Scripture, he says, must be avoided like a madman. For it must be a matter of religion for us to listen to the Ebionites like jackals, if they look down from on high upon Swans and epos words/poems of the Prophets, the Evangelists and Paul, and the rest of the Apostles, and refuse to hear them.

II.

The state of the controversy between the Orthodox Church and the Ebionites is whether Jesus Christ is only a Man, or truly also the true and eternal God?

The Ebionites, by the testimony of Philastrius, acknowledged nothing of Divinity in Christ, because, as Theodoret reports, they thought him to be a psilos anthrōpos mere man. That the Ebionites received this foul error from the Pharisees as if handed down by hand, is clear from their history.