Steven Carr

Acts 24:5 'He is a ringleader of the Nazarene sect and even tried to desecrate the temple; so we seized him'

Why would anybody call Christians 'the Nazarene sect'?

Is this like calling followers of John the Baptist 'the Jordananian sect'? Or calling Muslims the Meccan sect'? Or calling Platonists , 'the Athenian sect'?

Whatever Nazareth was in the first century, it was only small. It is not even named in Acts as a headquarters of the Nazarene sect. In fact it is not mentioned in connection with any Christian activity.

The church was based in Jerusalem, not Nazareth. None of the church leaders were reported to have come from Nazareth, and Acts never shows any of them ever mentioning Nazareth in speeches.

So why would outsiders decide to name this sect after the town where the dead founder grew up?



Would that not be like calling Mormons 'the Vermont sect', because Joseph Smith was born in Vermont? Who would do that?

Uncle Menno

Because they were understood to be the followers of someone identified as being from Nazareth, viz., "the sect of the Nazarene"?

Check out the history of the Twelfth of the Eighteen Benedictions, which are not part of the Christian tradition but are nevertheless very old. The Twelfth is called the Birkat Ha-Minim and contains a reference to the "Nazoreans" or "Nazarenes", which reference is arguably also to Christians.

Aristotle is sometimes known as "the Stagirite"--meaning "the one from Stagira".

Chili

Because a Nazarene is circumcised by nature. In Catholicism he is called a Jesuit and in Buddhism a Sotapanna. In reality it is the first stage of metamorphosis.

show_no_mercy

According to the articles on the Notzrim and Nazareth in wikipedia, the "Notzrim" were a sect of "gnostic" anti-Torah Samaritan Jews from the Northern kingdom of Israel circa 100 BCE. Some scholars say that "Notzrim" is the Hebrew version of what became "Nazarenes".

Also according to wiki, there's no evidence of a town today called "Nazareth" before circa 300 CE. So there might have been some confusion over the sect that Jesus was in by the gospel writers. Them being ignorant of the geography of ancient Palestine thought that Jesus being a "Nazarene" meant that he was from a town called "Nazareth", when in actuality Jesus was a "Notzrim" and the town "Nazareth" is sort of a "retcon"; being founded after it was assumed to exist.

Steven Carr

So followers of Aristotle would be called 'the Stagirite sect'?

And followers of Joseph Smith would have been called 'the Vermont sect'?

Ben C Smith

The Montanists were also called the Phrygians or Cataphrygians because Phrygia is where Montanus started the movement. Who would do that?

The Stoics got their name from the porch (the stoa) where Zeno used to speak. Who would do that?

Ben.

ETA: I agree, BTW, that calling the Christians Nazarenes based on the hometown of Jesus is odd. But I do not think that who would do that is a very good question to ask about it. Sometimes groups get their names from unexpected quarters.

Steven Carr

Sometimes they do.

Nazareth was not where Jesus started the movement, nor was Nazareth where Jesus used to speak , apart from Luke 4, when the people in Nazareth tried to murder him.

Nor is there any record of any early church in Nazareth.

Nor is it mentioned as a place of Christian activity in Acts.

Had Paul ever been to Nazareth, to be a part of 'the Nazarene sect', a sect whose leaders lived in Jerusalem?

It is not like the Montanists where Hippolytus called them 'Phrygians' because he thought they were Phyrgians, much in the same way we call people French if we believe they come from France.

Ben C Smith

Luke 4 disagrees with your first assertion; according to Luke, Nazareth was where Jesus began to preach; Luke, for one, starts the movement in Nazareth; and it is Luke who, in his second volume, you quoted for Paul.

Had all Montanists been to Phrygia?

Hippolytus is not the only one who called them Phrygians. Eusebius, for example, says that they were called Cataphyrgians, and is clearly aware that not all of them lived in Phrygia.

Ben.

No Robots

The sect was known by its own members as The Way. Outsiders had to call it something. Often outsiders label alien groups with something meant to be pejorative, like critics calling a group of radical painters "Impressionists." Calling followers of The Way Nazarenes links them directly to their humiliated leader.

Steven Carr

I thought outsiders called them 'Christians'. Or at least that is what Tacitus claimed the general populace called them.

Why call the members of the Way after a town none of them had been born in?

Unless it was as an oblique reference to Isaiah 11:1?