and they also abandoned circumcision, maintaining that baptism had taken its place, and they turned in prayer toward a direction different from that of the Jews. The Jews, for their part, had gone to extremes in vilifying the Messiah—peace be upon him—claiming that he was illegitimately born and that he was a lying sorcerer. In response, these people went to the opposite extreme in exalting the Messiah, declaring that he is God, the son of God, and the like.