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Macarios III Zaim's "Nazarenes"
#1
Greetings,

As this is my first post, perhaps I'll give a brief introduction.

My name is Grant Hall, and I was baptized as "Petros" or "Kefa". I'm a 28 year old father of three, and husband to a beautiful wife. Three years ago God radically got hold of me and changed my life. He took me from a life of alcoholism, drug abuse, and gang violence, and gave me a new heart, one that loves Him, and seeks Him.

My search for God led me to the Scriptures, where I would study for up to 8 hours a day, with my brother and best firend who God also brought out of the world, along with me. However it did not take long before we realised that what we were seeing in the Word, was not lining up with what we were seeing in the Church. Most notably, God's Law was not being taught.

This disheartened us greatly, and caused us great confusion, we all stumbled, and my brother fell. I am only just, through much pain, again taking up the Sword of the Spirit to make war against my flesh. During my confusion I asked many times, if I was a wolf, or a heretic, praying to God to kill me rather than to let me lead His sheep astray. It was a dark time of my life.

I began to read the Church Fathers hoping to find that they atleast kept God's Law, but other than a few writings (the first Epistle of Clement, Didache etc) I found that almost universily they rejected God's Law and condemned those who kept it as Heretics. I began to give up, and think that maybe they were right, as I did so, the sin in my life consumned me once more. It was then that the first flicker of light dawned on me. There in Justin Martyr's dialogue with Trypho the Jew, Justin made mention of Christians who kept the Law of Moses, he said there were those who kept the Law and did not force others to, he considered them brothers, then there were those that kept the Law and tried to teach others to also, he considered them heretics. I was in the latter camp, but I thought atleast this shows that there were others like me.

I continued to search and eventually found that there was a group called the Nazarenes, these were the first group of Torah-observant Christians that I had come across that weren't heretics (didn't deny the Deity of Messiah, the Virgin Birth, etc). It was then that I began to seek for them, were they still around. My first research told me they disapeared in the 4th Century, but then I found mention of them in the 10th and 11th Cetnuries, but by then they were a small group. I found mention of Nazarenes in India that may have stayed true to the faith right up til the 16th Century, but then the Portugese Catholics persecuted them as "Judaizers" and "converted" them.

I haven't given up hope yet, and I see that there are others too, that are searching, and fighting to Restore "the Faith which was once delivered unto the Saints". This gives me great hope and joy.

Finally, this brings us to the purpose of my posting here. During my research, I came across this quote, by Macarios III Zaim, the Patriarch of Antioch from 1647 to 1672.

Quote:God perpetuate the empire of the Turks for ever and ever! For they take their impost, and enter no account of religion, be their subjects Christians or Nazarenes, Jews or Samaritians; whereas these accursed Poles were not content with taxes and tithes from the brethren of Christ

My question is, who are these Nazarenes that he speaks of? Are they the very same Nazarenes mentioned by the early "Church Fathers"? Or are they a different group? I hope that someone here may have the answers I am searching for.

Thankyou for your time,

Shalom,
Kefa.
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#2
Shlama Kefa,

In the middle east, "Christians" = Greek-speaking believers. "Nazarenes" = Aramaic-speaking believers. The Nazarenes were first called "Christian" at Antioch, where large population of both camps (Aramaic and Greek) existed side-by-side.

Later on in the middle east, the native believers were still called Nazarenes, but those who were from the Greek-speaking areas (captives) were called "Christian" after their Greek name.

+Shamasha
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#3
Shlama again Kefa,

You've no doubt come across the same distinction of the two groups in the writings of the Parthian and Sassanid Shahs, and (later) Islamic Caliphs, I assume?

Shamasha
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#4
Shlama Paul,

Thankyou for your replies.
I have not yet been able to dig up ANY writings from the East, I'm not a professional researcher, and am limited to Google. Whenever I try to research anything about Church History I am bombarded by Western History. One could get the false impression that there was no Christianity outside of Rome :/

I would be greatful for any and all assistance to get past this "Wall".

Thankyou again,
Shalom,
Kefa.
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#5
Hi again Kefa,

Here is one quote:

Quote:And afterwards, when Bahram, the king of kings, the son of Shapur, died, Bahram,the king of kings, the son of Bahram, the generous, the just, the friendly, the beneficent and pious in the empire, came to reign. And for love of Ohrmazd and the gods,and for the sake of his own soul, he raised my rank and my titles in the empire ?And in all the provinces, in every part of the empire, the acts of worshiping Ohrmazd and the gods were enhanced. And the Zoroastrian religion and the Magi were greatly honoured in the empire. And the gods, ?water?, ?fire? and ?domestic animals? attained great satisfaction in the empire, but Ahriman and the idols suffered great blows and great damages. And the [false] doctrines of Ahriman and of the idols disappeared from the empire and lost credibility. And the Jews [yahud ], Buddhists [paman], Hindus [braman], Nazarenes [nasra], Christians [kristiyan], Mandaeans [makdag] and Manichaeans [zandik] were smashed in the empire, their idols destroyed, and the habitations of the idols annihilated and turned into abodes and seats of the gods

From "Ancient Persia" (Josef Wiesehofer):

Quote:In his inscriptions, the Zoroastrian high priest, Kirdir, states that thanks to his efforts under Shah Bahram II (AD 276-293), Zoroastrianism was promoted in the empire and other religious communities were persecuted. For us this report is particularly revealing because first of all, it refers to the different religious persuasions in the empire by name, and secondly, it points to a specific phase in the political approach to religious minorities, a phase that must be ex-amined in its historical context.

Terms referring to the ethnic, or rather geographical?cultural origin of the Christians are nasraye (the native) and krestyane (the erstwhile deported Christians and their descendants), corresponding with Kirdir?s nasra and kristiyan, while in narratives about the Passion, the word nasraye is almost exclusively put into the mouths of the persecutors. The Christians at this period referred to themselves as mshihaye, i.e. ?those who believe in the Messiah = Christ?, and later apparently as krestyane. It should be noted that their linguistic identity ? like the Manichaeans,the majority spoke Syriac, and the deported people and their successors must also have continued speaking Greek for quite a long time ? did not mark Christians as outsiders or a minority group. For one thing, Syriac was very widespread, and for another, Middle Persian, the language of the kings and priests, was not imposed as a state language in the multilingual Sasanian empire, indeed it was not even a lingua franca. In this respect, too, the Sasanians adhered to the successful Arsacid model. It is not to be ruled outthat in everyday life the Christians also considered themselves as inhabitants of a city or region or even as people of Eranshahr, but in the martyrologies,the world was not divided between ?Romans? and ?Persians?, but between the?people of God? and the ?outsiders? or ?non-believers?.

You can read the entire book here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/46955890/Ancient-Persia

Another great resource is "The Church of the East, a Concise History" (Baum & Winkler): http://www.peshitta.org/pdf/CoEHistory.pdf

Quote:An additional factor contributing to the development of Christianity
in Persia was the expanding movement of refugees. Wartime
deportations are reported up to the sixth century. With the
strengthening of the Persian empire under the Sassanians (224), a
state of perpetual conflict arose between the Persians and the
Roman empire. This situation had consequences for the spread of
the gospel above all during the reign of Shapur I (240?72). Shapur I
and his army advanced far into Roman territory and finally reached
Antioch in 260. Many Christians from Antioch, Cappadocia, Cilicia,
and Syria were deported to Persian provinces and established as
tradesmen and artisans in Babylonia, Persia, Parthia, and Susiana.
Among them was Bishop Demetrius of Antioch, who subsequently
served as the first bishop of Beth Lapat (Gundeshapur). These
deported Christians, to the extent that they belonged to Greek speaking
communities, appear not to have integrated themselves
into the local Christian population before the fifth century, since
separate churches and two hierarchies, with Greek and Syriac-
Aramaic as liturgical languages, are reported.
The inscription of the
Zoroastrian magician Kartir (Kerdir) ? who occupied an important
position under Shapur I, Hormizd I (273), Bahram I (276), and
especially Bahram II (293) ? speaks of ?Nazarenes? (nasraye) and
?Christians? (krestyane). This could be a significant indication of
the double community. Although an exact interpretation of the
inscription of Kartir remains to be determined, it can be assumed
that the first term denotes the local Aramaic Christian congregation
and the second designates those Greek-speaking Christians
deported from Syria under Shapur I.

Quote:In 1289 the Dominican Ricoldo of Montecroce traveled to the
Orient, where he remained for ten years. In his Liber peregrinationis
(before 1291) and the Libellus ad nationes orientales he
described his experiences with the East Syriac church. The king of
Mosul was a ?Nestorian,? for whom ritual played a greater role
than dogma. The liberal marriage rules with the possibility of
divorce and remarriage did not please him. They also occasionally
practiced circumcision ? even of women! ? as he himself had
observed. They accepted the eucharist, which they received under
both kinds, in their hands, and they did not recognize the anointing
of the sick. They practiced abstinence and rejected the consumption
of meat. Catholicos Yahballaha III had renounced their ?heterodoxy?
and in 1290 permitted him to preach in Baghdad. The elite
appeared prepared to accept union with Rome, though mostly for
political reasons. In the Libellus Ricoldo emphasized that the East
Syriac Christians did not want to be called ?Nestorians,? as they
were not such and did not emulate Nestorius. They referred to
themselves as ?Nazantarei? or ?Nazareni.?
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#6
Thankyou Paul, I have begun reading them, and they have opened up other doors for me into Eastern Christianity.

God bless you.

Shalom,
Kefa.
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#7
aspiring2slavery Wrote:Thankyou Paul, I have begun reading them, and they have opened up other doors for me into Eastern Christianity.

God bless you.

Shalom,
Kefa.

Shlama Kefa,

You'll hopefully find a fascinating journey into this little-known part of Church history. If you pull out a map of the world, put your left finger on the island of Cyprus and you right finger on Japan. That's the East-West geographic area where the Church of the East, by the 11th century, was the most prevalent branch of Christianity. And then put your left finger on Siberia and your right on Java. That's how far North-South the ecclesiastic reach of the Church of the East was.
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