Nazarene (sect)
First-century Christian sect / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The Nazarenes (or Nazoreans; Greek: Ναζωραῖοι, romanized: Nazorēoi)[1] were an early Jewish Christian sect in first-century Judaism. The first use of the term is found in the Acts of the Apostles (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.[2] At that time, the term simply designated followers of Jesus of Nazareth, as the Hebrew term נוֹצְרִי (nôṣrî),[3] and the Arabic term نَصْرَانِي (naṣrānī),[4] still do.
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.[5] They are described by Epiphanius of Salamis and are mentioned later by Jerome and Augustine of Hippo.[6][7] The writers made a distinction between the Nazarenes of their time and the "Nazarenes" mentioned in Acts 24:5.[8]