Judeo nazarenism

The Judeo-Christian context

The name of Nazarenes (Hebrew: NAZIR/NAZUR‎‎, "he who has vowed"; nothing to do with the radical N.Ts.H (hard, where does "Nazareth" (Netsarhi, which means "The Guard"))) was the very first Christians pray based on the title of the Nazarene or Nazareth gave Jesus (Matthew 2:23; Acts of the Apostles 2.22; 3.6; 4.10; 22.8; 26.9); but this meaning is probably multiple and fades away from us today. Gradually, from an unknown date between 40 and 110, it was left by the "Christian" Hellenized and the converted pagans, in favor of the disciples of the Messiah. (Greek: christianoï, Christians in French - mšiyayé in Aramaic). The name "Christian" had been given to these groups by the Romans and the latter from having a distinctly pejorative connotation and it seems like a "criminal qualification". Christian tradition says it was in Antioch that the name was given for the first time to "followers of the Way of the Lord". However, a group or groups preserved the name of Nazarenes. They are the subject of this article, and it should be appointed as the more accurate term, suggested by Ray A. Pritz, of "Judeo-Nazarenes" to avoid misunderstandings because of patristic writers: “They, evoking without interest, sometimes confused, rightly, with Gnostic groups, since part of the Judaizing who loved to return the name of the first Christians who were Gnostics.”

The advantage of the name "Judeo-Nazarenes" is to remind them Judean origin, at least for those of them, from the community of Jerusalem gathered around Jesus, brother said. Saint James the Just (James (brother of Jesus) was executed by the order of the High Priest to 62 СЕ. According to Christian tradition, all Jewish Christians had left Jerusalem to 68 СЕ, during the First Jewish-Roman War, until it was completely surrounded by the Romans. However, this is not historically documented, and the insistence of the Church Fathers on this point could be explained by the fact that they want their movement to be less assimilated to Zealots, Sicarii or Galilean movement who played a large role in the development of the revolt, as in the conduct of military operations. However, it is possible that part of the movement, led by Simeon of Cleophas (a cousin of Jesus) was actually gone to Pella for unknown reasons since most are returned after 70, when the last insurgents were defeated in the city. A group was organized in Syria: the "Judeo-Nazarenes." It should be mentioned that specialists of "ancient Judeo-Christianity" as François Blanchetière or Simon Claude Mimouni, they simply offer to call these groups by the name they gave themselves: Nazoreans.

Some Greek and Roman authors from the great Church as Irenaeus, Augustine, Jerome, Epiphanius have sometimes called the Ebionites (adjective which simply means poor-ebionim). From the outside, by pagans or even by Christians from pagan backgrounds, Jews believing in Jesus were easily assimilated them, and this error is still common on the West today. For antagonistic realities are thus grouped: believing that Jesus saves, or believe that he is only the Messiah, which is not at all the same thing. Conversely, in the first centuries, the Jewish view of the supporters of Jesus, appears to have only target the Nazoreans (notsrim in Hebrew), explaining that Christians have long been designated by them under the sole name of Nazarenes.

1. On the side of those who believe that Jesus saves, that is to say, those which alone should be called Judeo-Christians, it takes the Community of Jerusalem, who survived until at least the fourth century, but also Cyprus Community which disappeared very quickly with virtually genocidal repression of the revolt of the exiles to 117. The Great Church of the East may also be mentioned, based in Seleucia-Ctesiphon, called "Nestorian" in a very anachronistic: heir to the Judeo-Christian traditions of Judea and Mesopotamia, she kept theological and liturgical experiences say around those of the Apostles (what language - Aramaic - obviously facilitated).
2. As for other Jewish Christians, who denied that Jesus saves by itself, they consider the Judeo-Nazarenes all those they have raised or influenced, especially the Arians. The Judeo-Nazarenes are different from the majority of Christians while they are opposed to other Jews. Because of course, also existvarious Jewish communities who are under obedience Pharisee or not refused from the outset to recognize Jesus as the Messiah.
3. It must also include the communities of Edessa and Nisibis,t hey are difficult to relate to one of these two trends although they precede the birth of Ctesiphon community and they were probably created by Shlika same (Apostles). It may be that these communities come from the elcesaites.

The Jewish world of the first and the second centuries was marked by a large plurality; it sometimes simply explained by geographical reasons: most of the "Jews" lived outside of Palestine, until Chine (which also explains the rapid expansion of the Church of the East over there ). What is commonly called "Judaism" today is simply the form taken by the communities of Pharisees obedience from the Synod of Yavneh in Galilee, to 95, which form only became majority until much later.

Patristic indications are therefore to be seen in this context. For example, according to Epiphanes (Panarion 29.29), the 'profession of faith [Nazarene] is that of the Jews in everything but say they believe in Christ. At home, in fact, we profess that there is a resurrection of the dead and everything comes from God; they also proclaim one God and His son Jesus. "Jerome, in a letter to Augustine present their doctrine as "wanting to Jewish and Christian, but being neither one nor the other". This remark must be understood: in fact, this group, derived from the Judeo-Christian community of Jerusalem, believed to be formed only true Jews and true Christians only.

Here is the story that gives Acts of the Apostles following the stoning of Stephen to 37:

"They had dispersed the storm occurred about Stephen had gone as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus and Antioch, without announcing the word to none except Jews. Some of them yet, originating in Cyprus and Cyrene, once arrived at Antioch, also addressed to the Greeks the Good News of Jesus the Lord. The Lord lent to them the hand of help, so the great number of those who turned to the Lord, becoming believers. The news of this event reached the ears of the church which was at Jerusalem and it delegated Barnabas to Antioch. When he saw on the spot the grace of God at work, he rejoiced and urged them all to remain from the heart to the Lord. It was indeed a righteous man, filled with the Holy Spirit and faith. A large number of people as well joined to the Lord. Barnabas then left for Tarsus to look for Saul, he found him there and brought him to Antioch. They spent a whole year to work together in this Church and educate a large crowd. And it was in Antioch that for the first time called Christians ("Messiens" or "messianic") was given to the disciples " (Acts 11, 19-26).

In Jerusalem, in the priestly circles of the Temple, we had remained in the name of Nazarenes (Ναζωραίων) which is still used to designate 55 to Paul as ″a leader of opinion (hairesis) of the Nazarenes″.

The Judeo-nazaréisme will prove as a warrior ideology. To understand this, we must go back to its beginnings prior to the first century, in a Jewish world diverse and marked by deep antagonisms since the Hasmoneans, the Kings of Judea were not the descendants of David, and the High Priests are all llegitimated. This could only raise an opposition movement. The facts were traced at length by Jacqueline Genot-Bismuth especially in the scenario Damas and summarized in Volume I of the Messiah and his prophète (p 114-137.) The character of the "Teacher of Righteousness", many believe is most likely mythical Kohen Yossé ben Yo'ezer who opposed the worship of the Temple in Jerusalem in the second century BCE and died a victim of persecution during the expedition of General Bacchides, governor of Syria, came restore Alcimus in the function of High Priest -161. His death is described in the Midrash Genesis Rabbah (65:22). Far from silencing his supporters forced to disperse, his death strengthened their political culture of opposition exacerbated by a dream cultic purity, focused on the expectation of the Messiah who will purify worship and abroad will drive the Holy Land. This movement of the Zealots are a branch, is the origin of so-called literature "Dead Sea". These discoveries eliminate implausible assumptions that were devised following the 1950 excavations by archaeologists some caves of the Dead Sea: bringing the archaeological site of Qumran caves of literary content, that is to say, imagine the inhabitants of site "Essene monks' unique authors of manuscripts caves, and therefore very busy copy them in a scriptorium in the medieval style (which is an anachronism ten centuries!). These reconciliations are baseless, born in the 1950s in the Vaux's father's entourage who directed the excavations, were quickly challenged by archaeologists (including Robert and Pauline Donceel): the site of Qumran nothing of "monastic", he reflects on the contrary a very rich habitat; and implausible "scriptorium" is nothing but a living rooms as we found in other wealthy homes in the region at that time. As for the texts of the caves, it should release the fiction "Essene" which was built around them, denounced as an expert exegete of these manuscripts, André Paul in 2008.

The warof politico-religious ideas are therefore of pre-Christian origin, but it is still only nationalist messianism. It is not about to conquer the whole world but only the Holy Land, in order to restore the worship and legitimate royalty. Everything will change with the Judeo-nazaréisme, which is post-Christian but inherits this mode of thought and is seen in particular in versions from different periods of the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, some of which have obvious additions or rewrites, in development of universalisticmessianism. This is the entire earth that true believers are called to release (of Evil), and not only the Holy Land. The Messiah's second coming which is expected ( Jesus) will lead armies and wade in the blood of his vanquished enemies. In fact, this vast literature is not yet fully surrounded, or because they mistakenly class some of his writings as "Christians" by the mere fact that they make allusions to Jesus and to the Gospel (Matthew always see below) or because they are classified equally erroneously as "apocalyptic Jews" - as they are fundamentally anti-Jewish and anti-Christian. Also in the later versions of the Testaments, the Judeo-Nazarenes post-Christian writings are recognized in the fourth Book of Ezra, the Book of Baruch, the Book of Jubilees, the known fragments of the Gospel of the Ebionites, in the apocryphal Apocalyptic Warrior character and other apocryphal as the Acts of the Apostle Peter and Simon, and finally some of the sources used by the pseudo-Clementine literature. This vast project is underway.

Even on the basis of too partial documentation (what Frédéric Manns, Le judéo-christianisme, mémoire ou prophétie? Highlighted), former director of Jewish Studies, Simon Claude Mimouni, received the seed of Judaeonazaréisme into the birth of Islam, where "he played such a role that you wonder if it is not a large extent of the cause."

The doctrine of the "Nazarenes"

The difficulty of historians is to understand what had happened in the meantime. Jesus did not teach a doctrine of empowerment, which divides the world into "good" and "bad." If he spoke of the "son of light" and "son of darkness", he never was a spiritual entity. They do indeed correspond to any socio-political category but refers to what happens at the bottom of each soul. It is quite different in the Judeo-Nazarene doctrine, which reinterprets the expectation of Christ's return as the starting point for the eradication of the "son of darkness" and the establishment of God's Kingdom in the entire earth, and under the domination of the "son of light" kingdom of perfection and justice announced by Isaiah. It is far from words reported in the Gospel of John 18,36: "My Kingdom is not of this world."

The structuring of this ideology of universal war - the first of its kind – are the circumstances, whether the atrocities of the First Jewish-Roman War (or 73 to Massada for the last insurgents) or the unprecedented event of the destruction of the Temple. The whole issue was the interpretation of the disaster in terms of revelation (there is a connection with the signs of the end times, but the look here is singular). The main idea was not to return to Jerusalem, unless to conquer: it is primarily here that the world's salvation must be reiterant.

Meanwhile, they settled where circumstances had led them, beyond Apamea in Syria; the Judeans who were strangers to the insurgency madness indeed were asked to leave the country during the time of military operations. If radicalizing, James (brother of Jesus) I was venerating the memory (as evidenced by several apocryphal), they isolated themselves while waiting for better days, their "desert" being wherever they settled.

We see how the opposition to the faith of the Apostles is radical: to them, Jesus is not the savior for himself, so he has nothing divine (because only God can deliver from evil); it is only the Messiah, a super employee of God, miraculously born by the action of the Holy Spirit in Mary - this is exactly the position taken by the Muslims and the Quran, which employs four times the expression "Messiah Jesus "controversy vigorously against the" Jews "who deny the miraculous conception of Mary and treat her as prostitute (actually, it alludes in the Talmud-s and the ToseftaHullin). For example Eusebius (263-339) reports that some "Ebionites" - those who call themselves Nazarenes - "did not deny that the Lord was born of a virgin and of the Holy Spirit ... [but] they do not confess he was God the Word and Wisdom pre-existing "(Hist. eccl., III, from 27.44 to 45). In fact, the main criticism is to "Jews" they don’t believe and want to kill their Messiah, so be damned. Epiphane in his Panarion 30.7 indicates that Nazôraïoï "are the great enemies of the Jews. Not only Jews children are full of hatred towards them, but in the morning, at noon and night, three times a day, when they gather to pray in their synagogues, they curse them and anathematized saying, God cursed the Nazarenes "

Islam and the Third Temple

The study of Jewish-nazaréisme offers new perspectives in the question of the origins of Islam, although this approach is rejected by the majority of Muslims. A passage in the fourth book of Ezra gives an idea of kinship with the thought Coran which tells that the world has to come back, looks like a verse of Sura 7, especially as it is in the mouth of Moses: The Earth belongs to God. He makes whom he will inherit from his creatures, and the result belongs to the righteous (s.7,128). Earth must belong to the pious, just because they obey God and must realize the world of salvation as God will. According to Islamic narrations, Muhammad married Khadija whose cousin or uncle Waraka ibn Nawfal is a "nasraniy priest" who blesses their marriage - the word nasraniy here means clearly not Christian but Nazarene as evidenced by several passages of the Koran itself: in sura 2, verse 22 and 22.17, according to the very literal translation of the Quran made by the Saudi government IFTA [ref. required] plural nasârâ visited by Nazarenes.

A body of converging evidence suggests that Waraqa was part of the first generation of Arabs, before Muhammad, had been touched by the doctrine of judéo-nazaréens (which were geographically neighbors - René Dussaud finds traces in the Syrian topography, look at the attached map, western yellow / references of this work were incorporated into the map). Waraqa was probably mother judéonazaréenne and Arab father, but was not the only "bridge" between the two groups, at the end of the sixth century: all local judéonazaréenne community had undertaken to convert their Arab neighbors to their view of history and "Jesus Messiah" (in the words of the Koran). The intervention of Waraqa as support Muhammad in the beginning of the "revelation" made it possible to show that a person of Judeo-Christian tradition is fundamentally monotheistic, saw the truth in the message to Muhammad.

The Judeo-Nazarenes include new material presence as the second coming of the Messiah Jesus. This is also a message that Muhammad proclaimed to the Arabs, according to two independent sources, one of which is Muslim and the other Jewish:

1. "Abu Hurairah the Prophet said," By Him who holds my soul in His hand, the descent of Jesus son of Mary is imminent; he will be for you a fair judge... he will end the war and lavish goods such that no one will want more '"(Sahih al-Bukhari).
2. Remember that subsequent manipulations could not erase, it is intersected by the only contemporary witness, kept in the Doctrina Jacobi and from a letter sent by a Jewish rabbinical his brother; it says: "He [Muhammad] proclaimed the coming of the Messiah had to happen " This Messiah, word for one who has received the anointing of the King, the Koran specifies eleven times who he is: the "Messiah Jesus" (al-Masih'Îsa) and no other.

Among Francophone researchers, Alfred-Louis de Prémare, who died in 2006, is recognized as one of the most prominent, even in some universities in the Arab world. He said it must reread the sources of Islamic origin on which it was based until now to integrate them into a more open perspective.

Among American researchers, it should be mentioned Patricia Crone, of Swedish origin, who in 1977 published a thesis on the impossibility of Meccan trade, which led her to wonder how these people were able to survive before Mecca is the pilgrimage of Muslims (which is attested reliably until the end of the seventh century). It is towards the northwest of the Arabian Peninsula that reliable biographical indications still point, she says. But she returned a large part of this thesis in 2006 and now believes that such trade is likely, and the existence of pre-Islamic Mecca period. In Germany, the work of Christoph Luxenberg suggests that the language of the Quran is influenced by Syriac, in light of which many textual obscurities disappear.

However, there is a runway for bringing together all the data provided by the study of the origins of Islam. The node is the attempt, duly certified by the Greek historiography, the Arabs of Muhammad in 629, to the Holy Land and Jerusalem towards which, like the Judeo-Nazarenes, it turned to prayer. The small Muslim army was initially opposed to the Byzantine contingent at the Battle of Tabouk.

Three years later, the caliph Umar who finally managed to enter in 638 (or 637 end): to the city it has been opened, he made the square clear and built a "Cube" wood in dimensions the Holy of Holies in Solomon's temple, even where the Temple had once been built.

The expectations attached to this realization we are more familiar, and we also understand difficult disappointments that followed and which signed the disappearance of visible Jewish nazaréisme. The importance of this city in the Islamic religion is reflected in particular in the event of "Isra and Mi'raj" during which the Prophet won the mosque of Jerusalem from Mecca and went to Heaven. This trip is allusivement mentioned in the Koran. The place of the Holy Mosque in Jerusalem has significance for all Muslims - it is the Al Aqsa Mosque, the mosque extreme.

The Nazarene draft global conquest - which is the first of its kind - was primarily a "faith" view (which is true in all subsequent projects), and in this vision, taking the Holy Land (conducted in 634) and then of Jerusalem (which will take place eventually in 638) was of importance ideological capital in connection with the "blessing of God." Sophronius, bishop of the city, he understood it well.