The doctrine of the trinity, however, was much too entrenched to be easily
dismissed, and those who did not accept the belief were labeled as
non-Christian.
The Early Concepts
In Exploring Church History,
Howard Vos writes:
One of the earliest errors was Ebionism. Appearing in
fully developed
form in the second century, it was in reality only a continuation
of the Judaistic opposition to the apostle Paul. Some groups seem to have
been quite clear on the essentials of salvation but insisted on law keeping
as a way of life. Most appear to have denied the deity of Christ. These
views they held in an effort to retain a true monotheism. They put
much stress on the law in general and on circumcision and Sabbath keeping in
particular. Ebionism practically disappeared by the fifth century. It had
little if any lasting effect on the church.
Epiphanius with his customary confusion makes two separate sects,
Ebionites and Nazarenes. Both names, however, refer to the same
people, the latter going back to the designation of apostolic times
(Acts 24:5)
5 For we have found this man a pestilent fellow, and a mover of sedition
among all the Jews throughout the world, and a ringleader of the sect of the
Nazarenes.
And the former being the term usually applied to them in the ecclesiastical
literature of the 2nd and 3rd centuries. The origin of the Nazarenes or
Ebionites as a distinct sect is very obscure, but may be dated with much