The Lord wants the Ninth Judge to be a Nazarite. Jerome (Epistle 79, to Augustine), on the other hand, says that though the Nazarenes believed in Christ the Son of God, born of the Virgin Mary, who suffered under Pontius Pilate, and rose again, desiring to be both Jews and Christians, they are neither the one nor the other.
They used the Aramaic Gospel of the Hebrews, also known as the Gospel of the Holy Twelve, but while adhering as far as possible to the Mosaic economy as regarded circumcision, Sabbaths, vegetarian foods and the like, they did refuse to recognize the apostolicity of Paul. (Jerome’s Commentary on Isaiah, ix. I).
There was no city of Nazareth, thus, Nazarene can not mean “from Nazareth”. Why this title, any way? It is said he is a ringleader of the Nazarenes. Does this mean a rebellion rose up from Nazareth? Why here? What rebellion? In Acts 24 it is said there is an “agitator among all the Jew throughout the world”. I thought Paul brought the message of the Nazarene to all parts of the world – and not to the Jews! Paul did encounter followers of John the Baptist in the Diaspora.
“We have, in fact, found this man a pestilent fellow, an agitator among all the Jews throughout the world, and a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes” (Acts 24:5, New Revised Standard Version).
Paul took the vow of the Nazarite and claims he is from the tribe of Benjamin. This would be the tribe the Messiah would come from…
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