7. Later Notices. — The Nazaritish vow was practiced with more or less frequency during all periods of the Old-Testament history. Ewald supposes that Nazarites for life were numerous in very early times, and that they multiplied in periods of great political and relig- ious excitement. We have already found traces of its observance in Judges and 1 Samuel. Amos introduces the Lord expostulating with the people, because, when he had raised up young men for Nazarites, they had I
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given them wine to drink (Amos ii, 11, 12). Jeremiah laments the miserable change that had come over the Nazarites (princes, Gesen., Blayney) in consequence of the desolations of the holy city and land (Lam. iv, 7, 8). This lamentable state of things was the natural result of the national liefection. The Nazaritish vow then sprang from an earnest heart as a solemn protest against the formality of the times. It was a cry from some one who had not bowed the 'knee to the Baal of the age— a welcome ray of hope amid the darkness that overshad- owed the Church. It was therefore to be expected' in the days of apostasy and peril. Individual piety and personal circumstances might bring it forth in all con- ditions of the Church militant.
In the time of Judas Maccabseus we find the devout Jews, when tliey were bringing their gifts to the priests, stirring up the Nazarites of days who had completed the time of their consecration to make the accustomed offerings (1 Mace, iii, 49). From this incident, in con- nection with what has been related of the liberality of Alexander Jannaius and Herod Agrippa, we may infer that the number of Nazarites must have been very con- siderable during the two centuries and a half which pre- ceded the destruction of Jerusalem. The instance of St. John the Baptist and that of St. James the Just (if we accept the traditional account) show that the Naza- rite for life retained his original character till later times; and the act of St. Paul in joining himself with the four Nazarites at Jerusalem seems to prove that the vow of the Nazarite of days was as little altered in its important features. The case of Helena, queen of Adi- abene, has already been cited. Griitz {Gesck. der Ju- den, iii, 80) compares Nazarites and Essenes (q. v.).
8. Litei-ature. — In addition to the works repeatedly cited above, especially the Talmudic treatise Nazir, and the commentary called Siphri, we may mention Mi- ch aelis. Laws of Moses, ii, 284 sq. ; Biihr, Sijmbolik des J/os. Cutos, i, 364 ; ii, 416, 430; llv/aXd, Alterthiim.^.^li sq. ; Critici Sacri ad loc. Num.; Hengstenberg, Egi/pt and Moses, p. 190 ; Keil, Bibl. Archdulogie, i, 322; and on Paul's vows the monograph of Reineccius, De Paulo Nasirao (Weissenf. 1720). Others are cited by Vol- beding. Index, p. 45, 168 ; and by Danz, Worterh. p. 689.
Nazarites, a Christian sect in Russia and Hungary. Originally they were only known in the neighborhood of Szegedin, but more recently they have spread over the greater part of Hungary. Between the Danube and the Theiss they now number 80,000. The most of their adherents are in the Magyar districts. They profess to derive their confession from the New Testament alone. They hold God to be one in essence, but three in person — Father, Son, ani| Spirit. Their sacraments are two— Bap- tism and the Lord's Supper; adults only being baptized, and that by immersion by any male member in good standing, and baptism being essential to salvation. They have no ministers, consider marriage a civil ceremony, recognise no Sabbath — for which they find no injunc- tion in the New Testament, though they worship oii that day for convenience' sake — are singularly charitable and moral in their daily lives, refuse to take oaths or to bear arms, and take no part in political affairs. In order to es- cape from the latter, the parents of the young men, or in case of inability the parishes, hire substitutes for them.
Nazarus, St., a martyr of the first ages of the Church, was put to death at Milan, and is still celebratr- ed in Brittany. Son of a superior Roman and pagan officer, and a Christian mother, whom the Church hon- ors under the name of St. Perpetua, he adopted the ma- ternal faith, renounced the employment of his father, and devoted himself to preaching. He was arrested at JMilan with a young boy, named Celsus (vulgarly called Ceols), and put to death under some pretext not well known. Their bodies, buried in the environs of Milan, were found about 395 by St. Ambrose, bishop of that^ city, and carried to the Church of the Apostles, which' this prelate had built. " Many relics of St. Nazarus are
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distributed," say fathers Eichard and Giraud, " so that it can scarcely be told which are the true cues." The Church celebrates the fete of St. Nazarus and St. Celsus on the 28th of July. See Hoefer, Nutiv. Biog. Gen. s. v.
Nazrey, Willis, an African bishop of the colored British ^kthddi.st Episcopal Church in Canada, was bom about l.s_'(). He entered the ministry in 1850, and preached fur some time in Canada, gaininj; friends ev- erywhere by his consistent Christian walk and work. He labored zealously for the promotion of the Gospel cause among his African brethren, and was linally se- lected by them as their bishop after the separation of the Canadian Church from the Methodist Episcopal Church of the United States. Besides the responsible work of the episco])acy, bishop Nazrey liad charj^e of the Messenfjer, the Canadian papor of the colored Meth- odists. Bishop Nazrey died in August, 1875, at Shel- burne, N. S.