The Nazarenes

Jesus’s upbringing in the village of Nazareth is well-attested in the Gospel traditions and Matthew 2:23 tries to prove that it fulfilled biblical prophecy, likely connecting the place name to the promise about the messianic “branch” (netser) that would arise from the family of Jesse in Isaiah 11:1. In Acts 24:5, Paul is accused as a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes. This title continued to be used for non-Greek and non-Latin Jesus followers and the title was even added to the Rabbinic benediction cursing various minim (the label that the Rabbis originally used for Jewish heretics) sometime in the fourth century (cf. Epiphanius, Pan. 29.9.2; Jerome, Comm. Am. 1.11-12; Comm. Isa. 5.18-19; 49.7; 52.4-6).

However, in Panarion 29, Epiphanius treats the Nazarenes as a specific Jewish sect. He locates them in Beroea near Coelesyria, in the Decapolis near Pella, and in Bahanitis at Kokaba/Chochaba (29.7.7). He has a rather convoluted discussion about the antiquity of this name alongside other early titles (e.g., the Jessaeans) and of their origins (e.g., were they among the earliest followers of Jesus or originate after Jewish Christ followers fled to Pella during the Jewish War?); he even claims that Ebion was originally a member of the Nazarenes. He is unsure whether they shared Cerinthus’s Christology, in which Jesus was the son of Mary and Joseph who was later possessed by a divine spirit (29.7.6). Nevertheless, their beliefs seem to line up with other fourth-century Christians on the use of both the Old and New Testaments (though they read the Hebrew Bible and the Gospel of Matthew in Hebrew in 29.7.4 and 29.9.4), the confession of monotheism and Jesus’s divine sonship, and the hope for the future resurrection of the dead for believers (29.7.2-4). The only difference is that they continue to practice the Jewish Torah (29.7.5).

Jerome also seems to affirm that the Jewish, Torah-observant Nazarenes affirmed the Christian creedal confession about the virgin birth of the Son of God who suffered by the order of Pontius Pilate before rising again in his letter to Augustine (cf. Ep. 112.13). Moreover, he was comfortable positively referencing their writings, including their Gospel traditions (e.g., a distinct Gospel according to the Nazarenes or their own translation of and commentary on Matthew’s Gospel?) and commentary on the book of Isaiah. An analysis of the fragments from their commentary shows that they critically engaged with the Rabbis’ traditions and exegetical methods, though they made some errors about the history of the Rabbinic movement, and that they both accepted Paul’s mission to the Gentile and considered themselves to be part of the wider church. The only difference from their Gentile Christian peers is that they wanted to continue to practice the Torah.

How do we factor these fourth-century testimonies about the Nazarenes in with the early Patristic discussions of the Ebionites since Irenaeus in the late second-century. Scholars have taken three basic positions. First, some view the evidence as pointing to a Jewish, Torah-observant sect in the fourth century that was aligning their Christology and ecclesiology with the majority of Christians in their day. Second, other scholars argue that they (and not the Ebionites) were the original heirs of the Jerusalem Church and, when previous Patristic writers referred to Jewish believers who either affirmed the virgin birth (i.e. Origen, Eusebius) or did not compel Gentiles to adopt the Torah (i.e. Justin Martyr), they were really referring to the orthodox Nazarenes. Third, a few scholars have argued that the “Nazarenes” were just Catholic believers in non-Greek or non-Latin speaking areas, some of whom may have been ethnically Jewish, and that it was Epiphanius who transformed these believers into a distinct sect with their own lengthy history. For a bibliography on the Nazarenes:

• A.F.J. Klijn and G.J. Reinink, Patristic Evidence for Jewish-Christian Sects (Leiden: Brill, 1973).
• Andrew Gregory, “The Nazoraeans” in Shadowy Characters and Fragmentary Evidence: The Search for Early Christian Groups and Movements (ed. Elisabeth Hernitschenck, Josef Verheyden, and Tobias Nicklas; WUNT 1; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016), 125-40.
• Edwin K. Broadhead, Jewish Ways of Following Jesus: Redrawing the Religious Map of Antiquity (WUNT 266; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010).
• James Carleton Paget, Jews, Christians and Jewish Christians in Antiquity (WUNT 251; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010)
• Martinus C. de Boer, “The Nazoreans: Living at the Boundary of Judaism and Christianity” in Tolerance and Intolerance in Early Judaism and Christianity (ed. Graham N. Stanton and Guy G. Stroumsa; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 239-262.
• Petri Luomanen, Recovering Jewish Christian Sects and Gospels (Leiden: Brill, 2012)
• Petri Luomanen, “Nazarenes” in A Companion to Second-Century Christian “Heretics” (ed. Antti Marjanen & Petri Luomanen; SVC 76. Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2005), 279-314.
• Petri Luomanen, “The Nazarenes: Orthodox Heretics with an Apocryphal Canonical Gospel?” in The Other Side: Apocryphal Perspectives on Ancient Christian ‘Orthodoxies’ (ed. Candida R. Moss, Tobias Nicklas, Christopher Tuckett, and Joseph Verheyden), pp. 55-74.
• R. A. Pritz, Nazarene Jewish Christianity (Brill, 1988).
• Simon Claude Mimouni, Early Judeo-Christianity: Historical Essays (Peeters, 2012).
• Stephen G. Wilson, Related Strangers: Jews and Christians 70-170 CE (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005).
• Wolfram Kinzig, “The Nazoraeans” in Jewish Believers in Jesus: The Early Centuries (ed. Oskar Skarsaune and Reidar Hvalvik; Peabody: Hendrickson, 2007), 463-487.