Ib. p. 286.

It is very observable, that the Ebionites rejected three of the Gospels, receiving only St. Matthew’s (or what they called so), and that curtailed.  They rejected likewise all St. Paul’s writings, reproaching him as an apostate.  How unlikely is it that Justin should own such reprobates as those were for fellow-Christians!

I dare avow my belief—­or rather I dare not withhold my avowal—­that both Bull and Waterland are here hunting on the trail of an old blunder or figment, concocted by the gross ignorance of the Gentile Christians and their Fathers in all that respected Hebrew literature and the Palestine Christians.  I persist in the belief that, though a refuse of the persecuted and from neglect degenerating Jew-Christians may have sunk into the mean and carnal notions of their unconverted brethren respecting the Messiah, no proper sect of Ebionites ever existed, but those to whom St. Paul travelled with the contributions of the churches, nor any such man as Ebion; unless indeed it was St. Barnabas, who in his humility may have so named himself, while soliciting relief for the distressed Palestine Christians;—­“I am Barnabas the beggar.”  But I will go further, and confess my belief that the (so-called) Ebionites of the first and second centuries, who rejected the ‘Christopaedia’, and whose Gospel commenced with the baptism by John, were orthodox Apostolic Christians, who received Christ as the Lord, that is, as Jehovah ‘manifested in the flesh’.  As to their rejection of the other Gospels and of Paul’s writings, I might ask:—­“Could they read them?” But the whole notion seems to rest on an anachronical misconception of the ‘Evangelia’.  Every great mother Church, at first, had its own Gospel.

Ib. p. 288.

To say nothing here of the truer reading ("men of your nation"), there is no consequence in the argument.  The Ebionites were Christians in a large sense, men of Christian profession, nominal Christians, as Justin allowed the worst of heretics to be.  And this is all he could mean by allowing the Ebionites to be Christians.

I agree with Bull in holding [Greek:  apo tou hymeterou genous] the most probable reading in the passage cited from Justin, and am by no means convinced that the celebrated passage in Josephus is an interpolation.  But I do not believe that such men, as are here described, ever professed themselves Christians, or were, or could have been, baptized.

Ib. p. 292.

  Le Clerc would appear to doubt, whether the persons pointed to in
  Justin really denied Christ’s divine nature or no.  It is as plain as
  possible that they did.

Le Clerc is no favourite of mine, and Waterland is a prime favourite.  Nevertheless, in this instance, I too doubt with Le Clerc, and more than doubt.

Ib. p. 338.