world, but without much success (Zuschlag, in the Zeit- schriftfur die Luther ische Theologie, 1854, p. 417-446; Riggenbach in the Stud. u. Krit. 1855, p. 588, 612)" (Smith). See Jesus.
Nazarenes is the name of a Jewish Christian sect whose members continued to observe all the obligations and ceremonies of the law of Moses after the mother Church of Jerusalem had abandoned it. The sect was the Pella branch of the Jerusalem Church, which did not join in the change made on the appointment of jMarcus, the first Jerusalem bishop of the uncircumcision. See JuDAiziNG Christians. The Nazarenes are not named by the earlier historians and fathers of the Church ; Irenieus, Hippolytus, Tertullian, Origen, Clem- ent, and Eusebius are silent regarding them ; and the accounts and notices which we have of them are fur- nished by Epiphanius, Augustine, Theodoret, Philaster, Jerome, and Isidore ; but from these it is clearly appar- ent, as we shall presently show, that the Nazarenes and Ebionites were identical, and that the former, as has been supposed by some Unitarian scholars, was really composed only of such primitive Christian converts from Judaism who retained their Jewish prejudices despite their conversion ; and that their faith respecting Jesus Christ, which is unjustly claimed to have been Socinian — i. e. that Jesus was a mere man — is not to be taken as an illustration and evidence of the faith of the early Church. Eor the sake of clearing up this question we append a full examination of the early writers of the Church who have furnished us any clew regarding the Nazarenes and their relation to the early orthodox Church. See Nazar.eans.
I. Of the Church fathers who wrote regarding the Nazarenes, the earliest, Epiphanius, states that the Nazarenes flourished principally in Beroea, in Coele- Syria, in Decapolis at Pella, and in Basanitis, and that from thence, after the retreat from Jerusalem, the sect hail its beginning. Epiphanius adds that lie coidd not ascertain the date of the sect as compared with the Simonians, Corinthians, and others — a statement which points to a sect not formed by one leader Avhose date coidd not be ascertained, but to a party gradually sepa- rating from the Church. Jerome speaks {Catal. Scriptt. Eccl. s. v. 3fatthceus) of the Nazarenes who dwell at Beroea using St. Matthew's Hebrew Gospel, and this implies an early formation of the party. Epiphanius, in his pref- atory index, defines the Nazarenes as confessing Jesus to be Christ and the Son of God, but as living in all things according to the law. Augustine {Urnres. ix) describes them as confessing Christ to be the Son of God, but observing the law, which Christians are taught to keep, not carnally, but spiritually. From all this it is clear that the Nazarenes were Jewish Chris- tians, forming themselves into a party in Pella and its neighborhood after the retreat from Jerusalem, and passing by degrees into a distinct sect. But there ^vere two classes of Jewish Christians — the one apostolic and orthodox, who did not impose the observance of the law as necessary to salvation, who acknowledged the mission of St. Paul, and recognised the communion of the Gentiles; the other Pharisaic and sectarian, who maintained the universal obligation of the law, and denounced St. Paul as a transgressor. In inquiring to which of these two classes the Nazarenes belonged, it must be noticed, in the first place, that the community at Pella was composed of those converts who joined the Church of Jerusalem in her exile, of those Hellenistic fugitives whose national feelings and love of their city was not so strong as in the native Jews, and of those native Jews who had formed connections in their new residence which overpowered their national feelings. It was a community predisposed to accept in the spirit as well as the letter the decree of the Council of Jerusa- lem. In the next place the Ebionites and the Nazarenes are contrasted. But it was the Ebionites (q. v.) who held the universal obligation of the law. AVhen, there- fore, we read in Jerome (in Isa. i. t. 3, p. 4 [ed. 1616]),
NAZAREXES