Elcesaites

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 100 and 400 CE. The members of this sect, which originated in the Transjordan, performed frequent baptisms for purification and had a Gnostic orientation. The name of the sect derives from the alleged founder, Elkhasaí (Ἠλχασαΐ in Hippolytus), Elksai (Ἠλξαί in Epiphanius), or Elkesai (Ελκεσαΐ in Eusebius, and Theodoret). The sect is directly mentioned only in the commentaries on "heresies" by Early Church Fathers. Hippolytus of Rome (Refutation of All Heresies, IX, 8–13) records that in the time of Pope Callixtus I (217–222 AD), a Jewish Christian called Alcibiades of Apamea came to Rome, bringing a book which he said had been received in Parthia by a just man named Elchasai. According to Alcibiades, the book had been revealed by an angel high (337,920 cubits), broad (56,230 cubits) and (84,480 cubits) across the shoulders, whose footprints were long, wide and deep. This giant angel was the Son of God, who was accompanied by his sister, the Holy Ghost, of the same dimensions. Alcibiades announced that a new remission of sins had been proclaimed in the third year of Trajan (100 AD), and he described a baptism which should impart this forgiveness even to the grossest sinners. Hippolytus' commentary starts in book 9, chapter 8. In his next section, Hippolytus recounts that Alcibiades teaches the natural birth, preexistence and reincarnation of Jesus, which Louis Ginzberg suggested in 1906 may relate to the concept of Adam Kadmon, and also that Alcibiades teaches circumcision and the Law of Moses. Hippolytus then goes on at length to describe the group's teaching on baptism. For all sins of impurity, even against nature, a second baptism is enjoined "in the name of the great and most high God and in the name of His Son the great King", with an adjuration of the seven witnesses written in the book (sky, water, the holy spirits, the angels of prayer, oil, salt and earth).