The Nazarenes (or Nazoreans; Greek: Ναζωραῖοι, romanized: Nazorēoi)[1] were an early Jewish Christian sect in first-century Judaism.
The term Nazōraios may have a religious significance instead of denoting a place of origin, while Nazarēnos (Ναζαρηνός) is an adjectival form of the phrase apo Nazaret "from Nazareth.
[1] In Arabic however, Nasrani (نصراني), the name given to Christians in the quran can be interpreted as coming from the root verb n-ṣ-r, meaning victory, or support.
The meaning is elucidated on in Surah Al Imran, verse 52 where Jesus asks who will become his supporters (Ansar-i) for the sake of God, the Hawariyun (the Apostles\ Followers) answer that they will become the Ansar.
The Greek epithet Nazōraios is applied to Jesus 14 times in the New Testament, and is used once in Acts to refer to the sect of Christians of which Paul was a leader.
Tertullian (c. 160 – c. 220, Against Marcion, 4:8) records that the Jews called Christians "Nazarenes" from Jesus being a man of Nazareth, though he also makes the connection with Nazarites in Lamentations 4:7.
[16][17][18] According to Epiphanius in his Panarion, the 4th-century Nazarenes (Ναζωραῖοι) were originally Jewish converts of the Apostles[19] who fled Jerusalem because of Jesus' prophecy of its coming siege.
They fled to Pella, Peraea (northeast of Jerusalem), and eventually spread outwards to Beroea (Aleppo) and Basanitis, where they permanently settled (Panarion 29.3.3).
[23] As late as the eleventh century, Cardinal Humbert of Mourmoutiers still referred to the Nazarene sect as a Sabbath-keeping Christian body existing at that time.
[24] Modern scholars believe it is the Pasagini or Pasagians who are referenced by Cardinal Humbert, suggesting the Nazarene sect existed well into the eleventh century and beyond (the Catholic writings of Bonacursus entitled Against the Heretics).
The following creed is from a church at Constantinople at the same period, and condemns practices of the Nazarenes: "I renounce all customs, rites, legalisms, unleavened breads & sacrifices of lambs of the Hebrews, and all other feasts of the Hebrews, sacrifices, prayers, aspersions, purifications, sanctifications and propitiations and fasts, and new moons, and Sabbaths, and superstitions, and hymns and chants and observances and Synagogues, and the food and drink of the Hebrews; in one word, I renounce everything Jewish, every law, rite and custom and if afterwards I shall wish to deny and return to Jewish superstition, or shall be found eating with the Jews, or feasting with them, or secretly conversing and condemning the Christian religion instead of openly confuting them and condemning their vain faith, then let the trembling of Gehazi cleave to me, as well as the legal punishments to which I acknowledge myself liable.
Thomas Aquinas (1225–74) quotes Augustine of Hippo, who was given an apocryphal book called Hieremias (Jeremiah in Latin) by a "Hebrew of the Nazarene Sect", in Catena Aurea — Gospel of Matthew, chapter 27.
[31] The word Naṣuraiia may come from the root n-ṣ-r meaning "to keep", since although they reject the Mosaic Law, they consider themselves to be keepers of Gnosis.