5, 6). King Agripi)a, ' coming to Jerusalem in mucli greater prosperity than he had before, . . . ordered that many of the Nazirites should have their heads shorn ' (Josephus, Ant. XIX. vi. 1).
The destruction of the Temple was no doubt a fatal blow to Naziritism. It gradually disaji- peared in asceticism, and there is no trace of its survival beyond tlie early Christian centuries. (For a fuller account of Naziritism in liabbinical literature sec JK ix. 195 IV.)
5. Naziritism in the NT. — Nazirites are not definitely mentioned in the NT, and there is differ- ence of opinion as to the number of indirect references.
(a) Jesun. — Jesus had no connexion with Nazir- itism technically considered. Yet the names Nazareneand Nazortean applied to Him bear some resemblance to Nazirite. Late ecclesiastical writers like Eusebius, Tertullian, and Jerome show a tendency to confuse the three terms. And if Nazir were taken, not in its technical sense, but as meaning 'holy one' (it is actually so rendered twice in LXX, Jg 13' 16"), we can see how Jesus might popularly be called Nazir. By a play on words tlie people might say, 'Jesus — not Niizarene but Nazir.' (F'or a full discu.ssion of this point see E. A. Abbott, ' Nazarene and Nazoriean,' in Miscellanea Evangelica I., Cambridge, 1913.)
(b) John the Baptist. — Some hold that the Baptist was a Nazirite, but there is not evidence sufficient to justify this. It cannot be accepted that he 'is described as a Nazirite for life (Lk 1")' (HDB iii. 500). The only point in which it is predicted or enjoined that John shall resemble the Nazirites is his abstinence from wine, but there is no ground for believing that all who jiractised that self-denial were Nazirites. This verse describes him no more as a Nazirite than as an Essene, which some, as groundlessly, have held him to be.
(c) James the Just. — With full confidence we might recognize a life-long Nazirite in James ' the brother of the Lord,' if we could trust the descrip- tion of him quoted from the Commentaries of Hegesippus, bk. v., in Eusebius, HE II. xxiii. : ' This Apostle was consecrated from his mother's womb. He drank neither wine nor strong drink, nor ate animal food. A razor never came upon his head.' But the succeeding incredible statement, ' he alone was allowed to enter the Holy of Holies,' and the improbable account of his martyrdom which follows, and contrasts unfavourably with the account given by Josephus (Ant. XX. ix. 1), cast doubt on the trustworthiness of the historian, who probably took his information in part from theEbionitic Ascents of James (see HDB ii. 542).
(d) AclS'^. — This verse presents various difficul- ties. We may decide the grammatical difficulty by saying that, though the construction is ambigu- ous, it is St. Paul whose head w as shorn at Cen- chrese, 'for he had a vow.' Was it a Nazirite vow? There is no inherent improliability in the thought that St. Paul should take a Nazirite vow, rather the reverse. As we have seen, the vow was a common thing among Jews, and we could easily conjecture plausible grounds for St. Paul's taking it, e.g. deliverance from danger at Corinth (Ac 18''") or recovery from sickness, the ' thorn in the flesh ' to which he was subject. But the supreme difficulty in holding that , this was a Nazirite vow is that his head was shorn at Cen- chrea;, not at Jerusalem, where alone a. Nazirite vow could be completed. None of the various explanations that have been ofl'ered seems to be adequate. We have noted above that the Nazirite was permitted to cut his hair once a year, if his vow were for a lifetime. But this will hardly suit St. Paul's case. Again, he is on his way to keep a feast in Jerusalem (v.='). Why he should
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have his head shorn in Cenohrcie when in a few weeks he woiiUl be in Jerusalem is a mystery, if liis was a Nazirite vow. Nor does it meet the case to suggest tliat this sliearing was to purifj' himself on account of his sojourn among the heatlien. For, once again, why should he perform that in a heathen land and not wait till he was in Palestine? Some say that it was customary to shear one's locks at the heginning of a vow, and that St. Paul is not comiileling but beginning the period of his vow at Cenclirete. Those who say so quote no authorities for their view, and for a good reason. There is not a particle of evidence anywhere that shearing the hair was a token that a vow was beginning. ' To shear the head ' was a technical phrase meaning to complete a vow. Hence we must conclude that in all likelihood it was a private, not a Nazirite, vow that St. Paul conipleted at Cenchrea; (see EGT, in loc. ; of. A. C. McGill'ert, Hist, of Christ innily in the Apos- tolic Age, Edinburgh, 1897, p. 274, n. 4).
(e) Ac 21'"'^". — In this passage it is quite clear that it was a Nazirite vow that the four men had on them, and we have explained above what is meant by St. Paul being at charges for them, that they might shave their heads, viz. that he should defray the rather high cost of the necessary oH'er- ings. What is meant by St. Paul's purifying himself with them (vv.^*-^^)! The shortest period allowed for the duration of a Nazirite vow was 30 days (see above). An explanation like the follow- ing is very attractive : ' The law permitted a man to share the vow if he could find companions who had gone through the prescribed ceremonies and who permitted him to join their company. This permission was commonly granted if the new-comer paid all the fees required from the whole company . . ., and finished the vow along with the others' (T. M. Lindsay, Ads of the Ajmstles, Edinburgh, 1884, _ii. 113; cf. J. I. Still, The Early Gentile Christian Church, Edinburgh, 1913, p. 125). Un- fortunately, no authority is quoted in support of this view, nor have we been able to find any. (For a better suggestion, see HDB iii. 500.) No view iS' free from difficulty, but on the whole the sugges- tion of F. J. A. Hort is most satisfying, that St. Paul himself may have been about to otter sacrifices in connexion with a vow made previously, not necessarily a Nazirite vow (see Judaistic Chris- tianity, Cambridge, 1894, p. 109 f.).