Early Jewish Christian sects

Ebionites (Ancient Greek: Ἐβιωναῖοι, romanized: Ebiōnaîoi, derived from the Hebrew word , , meaning 'the poor' or 'poor ones') were an adoptionist Mosaic Law-observant Jewish-Christian movement that existed in and around Transjordan during the early centuries of the Common Era. Since original writings by Ebionites are scarce, fragmentary and contested, much of what is known or conjectured about them derives from the polemical reports by their proto-orthodox and later orthodox Christian opponents, the Church Fathers (Irenaeus, Origen, Eusebius, and Epiphanius of Salamis), who generally portraye

sect of 4th-century Christianity described by Epiphanius of Salamis

Cerinthus (; fl. c. 50-100 CE) was an early Gnostic, who was prominent as a heresiarch in the view of the early Church Fathers. Contrary to the Church Fathers, he used the Gospel of Cerinthus, and denied that the Supreme God made the real world. In Cerinthus' interpretation, the Christ descended upon Jesus at baptism and guided him in ministry and the performing of miracles, but left him at the crucifixion. Similarly to the Ebionites, he maintained that Jesus was not born of a virgin, but was a mere man, the biological son of Mary and Joseph.

The Elcesaites, Elkasaites, Elkesaites or Elchasaites were an ancient Jewish Christian sect in Lower Mesopotamia, then the province of Asoristan in the Sasanian Empire that was active between the early second century and the fifth century CE. The members of this sect, which originated in the Transjordan, performed frequent baptisms for purification and had a Gnostic orientation.