Elkesaites

Elkesaites (see the account by Epiphanius) traced back the incarnations of Christ to Adam, and not merely to Abraham, we may see in this view of history the attempt to transform Mosaism into the universal religion.

History of Dogma, Volume 1 (of 7) Adolph Harnack 1890

Apart from the false doctrines opposed in the Epistle to the Colossians, and from Cerinthus, this syncretistic Jewish Christianity which aimed at making itself a universal religion, meets us in tangible form only in three phenomena: [433] in the Elkesaites of Hippolytus and Origen, in the

History of Dogma, Volume 1 (of 7) Adolph Harnack 1890

We learn here that the whole sacrificial service was removed from the Old Testament by the Elkesaites and declared to be non-Divine, that is non-Mosaic, and that fire was consequently regarded as the impure and dangerous element, and water as the good one. [

History of Dogma, Volume 1 (of 7) Adolph Harnack 1890

Elkesaites.] [Footnote 435: I formerly reckoned Symmachus, the translator of the

History of Dogma, Volume 1 (of 7) Adolph Harnack 1890