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YOGA.
471
Nazareth must have been a very unimportant place, for it is not mentioned at all in the Hebrew literature, and we do not even know the Hebrew spelling of the word. This has given rise to the idea entertained by some hypercritical minds that a village of that name did not exist in Christ's time. In all probability, it is the place now called en-Nasira, a little village in Galilee. *** That Jesus was a Nazarene (or, according to the Hebrew term, a Nazir) we have canonical testimony. The Nazirim *** are known, through a statement in the Acts, to have been a communistic sect who held all things in common. *** They kept the Mosaic Law and believed in Jesus as the Messiah " (The Age of Christ).
Paul, though not a Nazir himself, associated with them (The Acts, XXIV. 5). The early Christians were called Nazarenes, and their descendants are still known in the East as Nasaras, or Nasarees. Dr. William Benjamin Smith writes :
“The epithet Nazaræus is not derived from a city called Nazareth; there was, in fact, no such city at the beginning of our era. The epithet is an appellation primarily of a Deity; it is formed after the analogy of Hebrew proper names ending in iah, as Zachariah, the ish representing Jehovah and is derived from the familiar old Semitic nazar, meaning keep, guard, protect, so that the Syriac • Nazarya' is very nearly Guardian-Yah. The names Jesus and Nazaræus differ about as Salvator and Servator. The Nazarenes (or Nasarees) were in all likelihood the worshippers of Nazarya, and according to Epiphanius were before Christ and knew not Christ.'"'*
The sect in question did not originate with Jesus, nor did the expression—"Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth ?” (John, I. 46) acquire currency, for the first time, during his career. Samuel and Samson who preceded Jesus by at least a few centuries were both followers of this sect. There is a mention of the vow of the Nazarite in the Book of Numbers (chap. VI.
* The Lost Language of Symbolism, by Harold Bayley, vol. II., P. 286, foot-note.
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