Nazarenes:

Christian Jews— Hebrews who believed in the words of God and believed that Jesus is the Messiah; that God indeed came in the flesh as foretold by Moses. Unlike Gentile Christianity, Nazarenes were considered sectaries of Judaism even into the 4th century AD. St. Jerome speaks of their congregations in Syria. Even 300 years after Jesus Christ, the Nazarenes were thus still thriving, though largely independent of the Gentile Christians. They read their own gospel in Hebrew. Jerome even boasts of making a Greek and Latin translation of their gospel, “Further, the Hebrew itself (or original) is preserved to this day in the library at Caesarea which was collected with such care by the martyr Pamphilus. I also had an opportunity of copying it afforded me by the Nazarenes who use the book, at Beroea, a city of Syria.” 

In fact, their Hebrew gospel, which was close to that of Matthew, was believed for hundreds of years to be Matthew’s original. Several of Jerome’s notes on the differences in the gospel from the Greek Matthew are significant, and they correct errors in Greek  Matthew and the other gospels. The Nazarenes only read their gospel, and did not read the Greek copies, though doubtless they were familiar with them. As such, they did not accept the dubious dialogue throughout the Gospel of John.

The Ebionites were considered a Gnostic heretical movement of the Nazarenes. They did not consider Christ to be divine, the tabernacle that God would make for his spirit as he swore in the Prophets. Despite being semi-Gnostic, they were feverish Jews, and they rejected Paul as an apostate, believing he taught contrary to Moses and the customs. The Nazarenes, however, were the spiritual descendants of James the Just, the brother of the Lord (according to the flesh). Yes, that is hard to understand. But God cannot be seen as he is. He said he would raise up a prophet like unto Moses from amongst us and in this manner he would speak to us direct again. Between that moment on Horeb and Christ, God never spoke direct to us because we could not bear it. There were only a couple of incredibly brief encounters when God spoke direct to a prophet, such as Samuel and Elijah.

James was born of the house of David, through which the Messiah would come and be “God with us.” James quickly became a pillar in the church at Jerusalem, and would not allow the Jews to become absorbed into the nations. Understanding that Paul was being misrepresented, he made him undergo an open show that he would not depart from the customs of Jewry. James’ instructions are some of the earliest and most reliable apostolic teachings that can be found recorded in the NT, and are found in Acts. Though the book of James was questioned by later Greek Christians because there was no evidence that it circulated amongst the earliest Greek Christians, it appears that the epistle does stem from the teachings of James ben Joseph. They counter the Gnostic and Greek hyper “spiritualism” that showed no tangible evidence for a new spirit existing within the Christian at salvation. The attitudes that James fought against are today called “hyper Calvinism”— a corruption of “salvation by grace” to give justification for doing absolutely no good deeds for others. James’ epistle probably was unknown to Greek Christians because it circulated more amongst the Nazarenes.

Sadly, after Catholicism became the state religion of the Roman Empire, the Nazarenes eventually died out, forced to become like the Gentile Christians (presumably) under the new power of the growing church and its attitudes that anything Jewish was “old.” (See “Old Testament”) It was not until the 20th century when this practice stopped. A new movement of Nazarenes began, those Jews refusing to be absorbed into Gentile traditionalism. God indeed works in mysterious ways. This has paved the way for more and more Jews until God’s hand is being made clear: he shall end the captivity.

During this same time, a new Gnosticism has arisen to combat the prophecies of Paul in Romans. This Gnosticism has sought to metaphorically portray Gentile Christians as true Israel. The context of Romans, however, clearly separates the two, as a future event is prophesied. Gentile Gnostics within Calvinism  have tried to make “I would not have you to be ignorant brethren that blindness in part has happened unto Israel until the fulness of the Gentiles has come in. And then all Israel shall be saved . . .” mean that when the last Gentile has been saved “true Israel” is now complete and the end of the world will come. Paul clearly never taught the “metaphysical Jew” teachings of modern Gnostic fundamentalists.

An event not centric to the current tradition is being taught, and this was not palatable to many in the new Christian Phariseeism, and within Catholicism, both of which ardently endorse Supersessionism. Their application of supersession, however, was not fulfillment, but a means by which to justify their own traditions developed contrary to Scripture. Their self-serving outlooks and their interpretations of the future, all of which did not include a chapter for the Jews, are a poor motive for interpreting scripture. Jews had to be saved “their way” and the evidence for salvation was not Christianity, but Gentile traditionalism.

There is one statement in the Gospel of the Hebrews that is felt here at Nabion keenly, and it is much rejoiced in. Christ said that even within the prophets, though they were anointed with the Holy Spirit of God, there was a “word of sin”— in other words, a morsel of sin; that the prophets, being mere men, were still sinners, even though God chose to move them with his spirit and speak through them. This clearly sets Christ apart. He was not anointed with the Holy Spirit of God a la some Gnostic fancy of it. He was not just a man anointed like the prophets. God spoke direct through him. His spirit was not a man’s spirit, as a prophet has; the spirit within Christ is God’s own spirit, and he fashioned for himself a tabernacle much more precious than any temple of stone. In essence, God fulfilled the Song of Moses.

     The purpose of the Nazarenes has always been to wait for God. Now that Israel has gone so far as to even forget what the Scriptures said, it is time to do according to the 11th Benediction of the Amidah. Come forward and bear witness that what God has done from the beginning is true.