Virgin Birth Account Reliable? Part II

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Sayings of the Christian Church Fathers Concerning the Ebionites –

The new myth of the “Virgin Birth” was not accepted everywhere. Nazarenes and Ebionites regarded it as a pagan intrusion into their religion. In his Dialogue with the Jew Trypho, Justin Martyr concedes that some of his co-religionists reject the divine fathering and Virgin Birth of Jesus, because they sound too much like pagan myth. Justin refers to the myth of Danae, who was impregnated by Zeus:

It is quite true that some people of our kind acknowledge him to be Christ, but at the same time declare him to have been a man of men. I, however, cannot agree with them, and will not do so, even if the majority of Christians/Nazarenes insist on this opinion.

Can we give credence to the Ebionites? It seems so. According to Dr. James Tabor, one can accurately refer to the Ebionite/Nazarene movement as those earliest, mostly Jewish/Israelite, followers of Jesus, who were concentrated in Palestine and led by James the Just, brother of Jesus, flourishing between the years 30-80 CE. They were zealous for the Torah, and continued to walk in all the mitzvot (commandments) as enlightened by their Rabbi and Teacher, Jesus. The Ebionites reject the doctrine of the “Virgin Birth” or "divinity" of Jesus – being the child of a G-d and a mortal, used only the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew, and are thus more extreme in their Judaism. They rejected of the "doctrines and traditions of men,” which they believed had been illegally added to the pure Torah of Moses.

Eusebius: But the heresy of the Ebionites.... asserts that Messiah was born of Joseph and Mary, and supposes him to be a mere man, and insists upon an observance of the Torah too much after the manner of the Jews. (Ecclesiastical History, Book VI, Chapter XVII).

Irenaeus: The Ebionites assert that he was begotten by Joseph. (Against Heresies, Book III, Chapter XXI, 1) ...Jesus is a mere man, and nothing more than a descendant of David, and not also the Son of G-d (a divine Son, or born of a virgin). (On the Flesh of the Messiah, Chapter XIV, 4).

Origen: Let it be admitted, moreover, that there are some who accept Jesus, and who boast on that account of being the Messiah and yet would regulate their lives, like the Jewish multitude, in accordance with the Jewish law; and these are the twofold sect of Ebionites, who either acknowledge with us that Jesus was born of a virgin, or deny this, and maintain that he was begotten like other human beings. (Against Celsus, Book V, Chapter LXI.)

Source: http://countermissionary.org/articles/virginbirth.html