Nazarene (sect)

The Nazarenes (or Nazoreans; Greek: Ναζωραῖοι, romanized: Nazōraioi) refers to either an early Jewish Christian sect in first-century Judaism or more likely a 2nd century sect or a Syrian sect from the 4th century, all of which believed in the divinity of Jesus and his virgin birth. The first use of the term is found in the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 24, Acts 24:5) of the New Testament, where Paul the Apostle is accused of being a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes ("πρωτοστάτην τε τῆς τῶν Ναζωραίων αἱρέσεως") before the Roman procurator Antonius Felix at Caesarea Maritima by Tertullus. At that time, the term simply designated followers of Jesus of Nazareth, as the Hebrew term נוֹצְרִי (nôṣrî), and the Arabic term نَصْرَانِي (naṣrānī), still do.

They considered as their holy scriptures: the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, which included the Gospel of Matthew in Hebrew or Aramaic. The Nazoreans believed that Jesus was the Christ, born of a virgin, suffered and resurrected again under Pontius Pilate, believed in the resurrection of the dead, and accepted Paul's mission to the gentiles.

As time passed, the term came to refer to a sect of Jewish Christians who continued to observe the Torah, in contrast to gentiles who eschewed Torah observance. They are mentioned and described by Epiphanius of Salamis and are mentioned later by Jerome and Augustine of Hippo. The writers made a distinction between the Nazarenes of their time and the "Nazarenes" mentioned in Acts 24:5.

Nazarenes as a Title

The English term Nazarene is commonly used to translate two related Greek words that appear in the New Testament: Nazōraios (Ναζωραῖος, Ναζαραῖος) ("Nazorean") and Nazarēnos (Ναζαρηνός) ("Nazarene"). The term Nazōraios may have a religious significance instead of denoting a place of origin, while Nazarēnos is an adjectival form of the phrase apo Nazaret "from Nazareth."

Because of this, the phrases traditionally rendered as "Jesus of Nazareth" can also be translated as "Jesus the Nazarene" or "Jesus the Nazorean." In the New Testament, the form Nazōraios or Nazaraios is more common than Nazarēnos (meaning "from Nazareth").