Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

spin wrote: This seems to be a small load of pedantic bollox. Talking to me about "'Nazarenes'; 'Nazoreans', etc" is risible. If you don't have anything constructive to say on the subject, why not give the topic a miss and enjoy the night/day?

Your opening post was risible vague nonsense.

The evidence for Christians being called 'Nazarenes' in the region is not from Bauer but other sources.

Secret Alias wrote:The evidence for Christians being called 'Nazarenes' in the region is not from Bauer but other sources.

I have seen commentary that it was Jews who called Christians Nazarenes, but not reference to where or when this occurred.

spin,

While it is not directly related to your question I would look at the Acts of Archelaus to get a 'feel' for the organized Christianity in the region. The story told there (reworked no doubt several times) is that Mani came to Osroene to be recognized by a certain 'Marcellus' as the awaited Paraclete. Archelaus is a bishop of Christianity which recognizes Paul as the Paraclete. Mani argues from a shared gospel (= the Diatessaron?) that foretold the coming of another and that if he could get a fair hearing from 'Marcellus' he would realize that like Paul he only understood 'in part' re: the Paraclete. When Archelaus explains who this 'Marcellus' is he goes off on a tangent and says that there was another Marcellus (I think a senator but I forgot) who was extraordinarily wealthy who established a network of churches and hostels for pilgrims. The world loves this Marcellus and then shifts back to this other 'Marcellus' who hovers in the background of the debate. In the end Archelaus has to disprove Mani's claims (while Marcellus is silent) and eventually Marcellus hails Archelaus as the victor. This brief and perhaps not entirely faithful reproduction of the debate gives us a hint I suspect as to what it must have been like having Marcionism as the dominant 'Christianity' in the region and the challenges it faced from Manichaeanism.

But to answer your question there is no text or source that juxtaposes the Marcionites as 'Christians' in the East with the Nazarenes. You're confounding two separate lines of thought or evidence that never intersect in our sources. Tertullian mentions Lam 4:7 "Her Nazirites were whiter than snow" in Adv Marc 4. It seems to have some relationship with Nazareth in Luke. Ephrem references the fact that 'Nazareth' is replaced with 'Bethsaida' in his and Marcion's gospel.

The full quote in Tertullian - "The Christ of the Creator had to be called a Nazarene, according to prophecy ; whence the Jews also designate us, on that very account, Nazarenes after Him." and then the LXX Lam 4:7

It is worth noting that the Syriac adjective 'Nazarene/Nazorene' (= nzry, nzwry) might have something to do with continence (nzuwryā) http://dukhrana.com/lexicon//lookup.php?p=422&l=0 It might be behind the Greek term 'encratite.'

Secret Alias wrote: ..I would look at the Acts of Archelaus to get a 'feel' for the organized Christianity in the region ...

Jason Beduhn and Paul Mirecki (2007) Placing The Acts Of Archelaus Frontiers of Faith, pp 1-22 -

Overview
The Acts of Archelaus (AA), attributed to an otherwise unknown writer named Hegemonius, purports to give an account of an early missionary contact between Manichaeism and the Hellenized orthodox Christianity of the West. The AA can be dated to the first half of the fourth century, since some of its content is made use of by Cyril of Jerusalem (Catecheses 6.20-35) writing around 350 CE. Hegemonius makes the telling blunder of having Archelaus refer to "more than three hundred years" between Christ and Mani (AA 31.7), inadvertently placing his characters in his own temporal locale in the second quarter of the fourth century. Researchers have long considered the account of Manichaeism supplied by Turbo, the anti-hagiography of Mani attributed to Sisinnios, and the comparative discussion of other heresies at the end of the AA, to reflect independent materials that Hegemonius has fitted into his main narrative.
Keywords: Acts of Archelaus (AA); Hegemonius; Hellenized orthodox Christianity; heresies; Manichaeism

edit to add -

Secret Alias below wrote:

• Nonsense. This kind of scholarship is execrable.

I don't disagree. But it was the most recent commentary I could find.

What I thought was interesting was -

• "The AA can be dated to the first half of the fourth century, since some of its content is made use of by Cyril of Jerusalem (Catecheses 6.20-35) writing around 350 CE"

.

Nonsense. This kind of scholarship is execrable. The identification of Paul as the Paraclete is so unique to Pauline groups (cf. Origen Comm Luc). How did it get into this text? This is a Marcionite community. Mani comes to town because the church believes that Jesus came to herald the Paraclete but wrongly thought this individual was Paul. Without that fact the whole text falls apart. Like to beat these people over the head for oversimplifying.

One more thing you probably don't want to hear spin. I noticed that lurking in the back of Tertullian's text is a possible allusion to an etymology from נצר.

The Christ of the Creator had to be called a Nazarene according to prophecy; whence the Jews also designate us, on that very account, Nazerenes after Him. For we are they of whom it is written, "Her Nazarites were whiter than snow; " even they who were once defiled with the stains of sin, and darkened with the clouds of ignorance. But to Christ the title Nazarene was destined to become a suitable one, from the hiding-place of His infancy, for which He went down and dwelt at Nazareth, to escape from Archelaus the son of Herod.

If we suppose with Criddle that the original text of Adv Marc was written by someone who employed a gospel harmony and likely (me) in the lands of the East where the collection of Pauline letters began with Galatians (as we see in Ephrem) it is possible that Nazareth the 'hiding place' where Jesus was guarded (= נצר) derived its name from this act of guarding, hiding, preserving.

Consider the form נְצֻר֖וֹת in Isaiah 48:6

You have heard these things; look at them all. Will you not admit them? "From now on I will tell you of new things, of hidden things unknown to you.

The testimony in Mar Apa seems to imply that the followers of the messiah (the non-Marcionite group) were Christians in secret. The Hebrew term for Christian = נוֹצְרִי. Note also the kruptw in Romans 2:29

ἀλλ’ ὁ ἐν τῷ κρυπτῷ Ἰουδαῖος

The Marcionites are openly called Christians and the other group are essentially 'crypto-Christians' seeming to be Jews outwardly but something else secretly.