NAZARENES (Nα(o>pαtoι), an obscure Jewish-Christian sect or “heresy,” existing at the time of Epiphanius in Ccele-Syria, Decapolis (Pella), and Basanitis (Cocabe). According to that authority (Pan., xxix. 7) they dated their settlement in Pella from the time of the flight of the Jewish Christians from Jerusalem, immediately before the siege in 70 a.d.; he characterizes them as neither more nor less than Jews pure and simple, but adds that they recognized the new covenant as well as the old, and believed in the resurrection, and in the one God and His son Jesus Christ. He is unable to say whether their christological views were identical with those of Cerinthus and the like, or whether they differed at all from his own. This lacuna is filled up by Jerome (Ep. 79, to Augustine), who expressly says that they believed in Christ the Son of God, born of the Virgin Mary, who suffered under Pontius Pilate, and rose again, but adds that, “desiring to be both Jews and Christians, they are neither the one nor the other.” They used the Aramaic recension of the Gospel according to Matthew, which they called the Gospel to the Hebrews, but, while themselves adhering as far as possible to the Mosaic economy as regarded circumcision, sabbaths, foods, and the like, they did not refuse to recognize the apostolicity of Paul or the rights of heathen Christians (Jer., Comm, in Isa., ix. 1 ). These facts, taken along with the name (comp. Acts xxiv. 5) and geographical position of the sect, lead to the conclusion that the Nazarenes of the 4th century were the direct representatives of the Jerusalem Christians of the 1st, who owned the presidency of James. Probably they are intended also by Origen (Contra Cels., V. 61) and Eusebius (II. E., iii. 27) when two classes of Ebionites are ...

or NAZARÆANS, a name originally given to Christians in general, on account of Jesus Christ’s being of the city of Nazareth; but was, in the second century, restrained to certain judaizing Christians, who blended Christianity and Judaism together. They held that Christ was born of a virgin, and was also in a certain manner united to the divine nature. They refused to abandon the ceremonies prescribed by the law of Moses; but were far from attempting to impose the observance of these ceremonies upon Gentile Christians. They rejected those additions that were made to the Mosaic institutions by the Pharisees and doctors of the law, and admitted the Scriptures both of the Old and New Testament. The fathers frequently mention the Gospel of the Nazarenes, which differs nothing from that of St. Matthew, but was afterward corrupted by the Ebionites. These Nazarenes preserved this first Gospel in its primitive purity. Some of them were still in being in the time of St. Jerome, who does not reproach them with any errors.