The Hebrews – Part Three

Historical Identifications

Mt 2:23 “He [Messiah] shall be called a Nazoraios…”
This is a clear allusion to Samson the Nazarite in Judges 13.
It was confused by the copyist-editor. It should read as,
“He shall be called a Nazirite…
On the other hand, we have the same word in Greek that should have been spelled differently,
Acts 24:5 Paul “…a ringleader of the Sect of the Netsarim…”
The families of John the Baptist and Y’Shúa the Netsar, took a lifetime Nazirite Vow:
GHT 2:6 “And his name on earth shall be called ‘Y’Shúa the Master’ for he shall deliver the people from their sins, whosoever shall repent and obey his Toráh. 7. Therefore ye shall eat no flesh, nor drink strong drink, for the child shall be consecrated to Elohím from its mother’s womb, and neither flesh nor strong drink shall he take, nor shall a razor touch his head.

The 1st Century Jewish Historian, Josephus, identified four main sects within Judaism: Essenes (Assayin), Sadducees (Zadokim), Pharisees (P’rushim), and Zealots. Y’Shúa the Netsar^[1]the shoot from the root of Jesse was an Essene and a Nazirite. Since he was The Netsar to come, predicted in Isaiah 11:1, the Sect he founded was called, The Netsarim, some of whom also took Nazirite Vows for short or long durations. And their practice was distinct from the Nazirites of other groups.

NOTE: Netsarim and Netzarim are simply different spellings
of the same Hebrew word נצרים which is similar
to and often confused with נזרים Nazirim (Numbers 6:1) and confused.

In 375 A.D., Bishop Epiphanius Describes Various Sects, Past & Present

“This Sect of Nazoreans (Netsarim)…also were called Jesseans, I suppose because of Jesse (Isaiah 11:1 – Netsar)
[Y’Shúa was from Nazareth in Galilee and part of the Essenes of Mt Carmel nearby. According to Philo, the Alexandrian Jewish Author, Essenes (Healers, Aram. Assayin, Grk. Therapeut) dwelled throughout and about the Land of Israel.]
… since David was descended from Jesse [of the tribe of Judah]^[2]Y’Shúa was indeed a “firstborn” son. As such, he was claimed by God for special service as part of the priesthood of Levites. To exempt a firstborn from service, the father had to purchase … Continue reading

“And Obed fathered Jesse, and Jesse fathered David.” Ruth 4:22
“There shall come forth a shoot from the stock of Jesse,
and a branch (naytser) from his roots shall bear fruit.” Isaiah 11:1
“The disciples were first called Christianos [by Greek speakers] in Antioch.” Acts 11:26

… these sectarians… did not call themselves [by the Greek word] Christianos – but [by the Hebrew word Nazoraeans [Netsârím/Netzârím/Notzrím]…

For we have found this man [Sha’ul/Paul] to be a public menace and one who
causes riots among all the Jews throughout the Roman Empire and
a ringleader of the sect of the Netsârím… Acts 24:5

“…they are not in accord with Christians [as re-defined under gentile councils] …they are nothing but Jews… 
different from the Jews and different from Christians.

Bishop Epiphanius continues…

• They have the Gospel according to Matthew in its entirety in Hebrew. [Acts 26:14]^[3]Hebrew and Aramaic (a sister language to Hebrew) were the primary languages in Israel. Jerome apparently translated this Hebrew Matthew into Latin, but it subsequently disappeared. Epiphanius and … Continue reading For it is clear that they still preserve this, in the Hebrew alphabet, as it was originally written…^[4]There was an original “Gospel of the Hebrews” aka “Gospel of the Nazirites”, and an original Hebrew-Ebionite Matthew. The Lost Original Hebrew-Aramaic Source(s) and the … Continue reading
• They are still fettered by the Law [Torah] – Circumcision, the Sabbath [Saturday], and the rest…^[5]This seems to be one of Epiphanius’ “rote” statements concerning Jews.
• As to Christos [Messiah; Mashíakh], I cannot say whether…they regard him as a mere man [born of both Joseph and Mary, or, was born only by ‘the ever-virgin’ by the holy spirit]…”^[6]We have the testimony from Justin Martyr in about 160 A.D., and others, who said that they believe Y’Shúa was conceived and born from the normal married union of Joseph and Mary. Obviously, … Continue reading
• They use not only the New Testament but the Old Testament as well, as the Jews do…
• They have no different ideas but confess everything exactly as the Law proclaims it and in the Jewish fashion…
• For they acknowledge both the resurrection of the dead and the divine creation of all things, and declare that God is one, and that his son is Jesus the Christ.
• They are trained to a nicety in Hebrew. For among them the entire Law, the Prophets, and the… Writings… are read in Hebrew, as they surely are by the Jews…”
• “This sect of Nazareans [Netzarim] is to be found in Beroea near Coelesyria, [Lebanon-Syria] in the Decapolis near Pella [Northern Jordan South of the Galilee], and in Bashanitis [west of the Sea of Galilee] at the place called…Khokhabe in Hebrew.” ….

Attested to by Bishop Epiphanius of Salamis (310-403) in Panarion 29 6:1—7:8 (ca. 375 AD); Apologist of Nicene-Constantinople Christianity [Brackets Mine and slightly reorganized] Close in his assessments but not exact!

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The [original] Torah of is perfect, restoring the soul;
The Testimony of is faithful, making wise the simple. Psalm 19:7

The Anointed King-Priest Y’Shúa, Son of Yoseph and Miriam, descendent of King David, the Firstborn Son, whom the God of Israel raised from among the dead into immortality, said to those who would misinterpret him:

GHT 25:8. Do not conclude that I have come to destroy the Toráh [Law] or the Naḅi’im [Prophets]: I did not come to destroy; rather to fulfill. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and the earth passes-away, one letter or one marking will in no way pass from the Toráh or the Prophets until all is fulfilled.
But behold, one greater than Moshéh is here, and he will give you the Higher Law—yes,
the Perfect Law, and this Law shall you obey.
9. Whoever, then, breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches men to do so, will be called ‘least’ in the Malḳút ha’Shamáyim; but whoever does and teaches them, he will be called ‘great’ in the Malḳút ha’Shamáyim.
10. Truly they who believe and obey shall deliver their souls, and they who do not obey shall remain ‘lost’.
For I say to you, that unless your righteousness exceeds the [hypocritical & flawed standards of] righteousness of the Soferím and P’rushím, you will by no means enter into the Malḳút ha’Shamáyim.
Gospel of the Holy Twelve 25:8-10; Matthew 5:17; 18; 19

The Pope meets with the Netzarim

In 312 A.D., the Roman Emperor Constantine, saw a vision of a cross in “the heavens above the sun and bearing the inscription CONQUER BY THIS.” (This was according to him and Bishop Eusebius, his “mythmaker”)^[7]Carroll, James; Constantine’s Sword: The Church and the Jews: A History; Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, New York, 2001, pp 175, 178 From this time he united with “Pope” Silvester I , to make Roman Catholicism the religion of the empire. The first step was to stop the persecution, torture, and murder of Christians, in general. The “Edict of Milan” was issued commanding an official tolerance of Pagans, Christians, and Jews. He ordered a Council at Rome that took place in 314—–“The Council of Arles”.^[8]See: https://www.fourthcentury.com/arles-314-canons/ Accessed 2019 This began to establish the Roman Church as supreme along with its calendar, with Easter Sunday rather than the Jewish Netzarim-Essene and Rabbinic Passover celebration. In 315, he forbade Jewish proselyting of “Christians”, as a step toward isolating the Jewish Netsarim. Then, In 318 A.D., a meeting between Sylvester and Jewish Netsarim leaders took place. Constantine provided for their trip to Rome. The Emperor Constantine later convoked the Council of Nicea in 325 A.D., in which, he presided as absolute and sole Caesar, and no Netzarim were present. The centrality of the Cross, and the Catholic Confessional Creed and the, later, IHS symbol, and their edition of the New Testament Canon of Scripture established there reached its final form in the year 381; And thus, the transformation was completed that he gradually enforced. In 326, Constantine murdered his wife and his firstborn son.

Roman Catholic Jesuit Professor, Malachi Martin admits: “The Jewish Christians [Nazoræans/Netzarim] … occupied the oldest Christian churches in the Middle East and whose leaders were always from the family of Jesus [Y’Shúa] himself…their first Bishop was James [Ya’aqob his brother] … “The issue that arose between Sylvester and the Jewish Christians [the Netsarim] was nothing less than the whole nature of the church. A meeting between [Pope] Silvester [who had recently entered into league with Emperor Constantine] and the Jewish Christian leaders took place in the year 318. The emperor provided sea transport for eight [of them] … Sylvester spoke to them in Greek—he could not understand their Aramaic; they had little or no Latin. The vital interview was not, so far as we know, recorded, but the issues were very well known, and it is probable that Joses [Joseph], the oldest of the Christian Jews [Netzarim], spoke on behalf of the desposyni and the rest.”

“That most hallowed name, desposyni, had been respected by all believers in the first century and a half of Christian history. The word literally meant, in Greek, “belonging to the Lord.” It was reserved uniquely for Jesus’ blood relatives. Every part of the ancient Jewish Christian church had always been governed by a desposynos, and each of them carried one of the names traditional in Jesus’ family—Zachary, Joseph, John, James, Joses, Simeon, Matthias, and so on. But no one was ever called Jesus. Neither Silvester nor any of the thirty-two popes before him, nor those succeeding him, ever emphasized that there were at least three well-known and authentic lines of legitimate blood descendants from Jesus’ own family. One from Joachim and Anna, Jesus’ maternal grandparents. One from Elizabeth, first cousin of Jesus’ mother, Mary, and Elizabeth’s husband, Zachary. And one from Cleophas and his wife, who also was a first cousin of Mary. There were, of course, numerous blood descendants of Joseph, Mary’s husband, but only persons in bloodline with Jesus through his mother qualified as desposyni.^[9]Caution: some of this is Roman Catholic spin-doctoring, in accordance with their “Ever-Virgin” Mary doctrines. All of them had clung to Jesus and to his mother, and when both these had gone, to the first Christian community, in Jerusalem from the beginning and, later, throughout the Middle East. …. “

“Ever since the Emperor Hadrian had conquered Jerusalem in the year 135, all Jews, and that included Jewish Christians [Netzarim], had been forbidden to enter Jerusalem under pain of instant death. That ban had not yet been lifted, at the time of Silvester’s meeting with the Jewish Christians.”

“Sylvester knew their history well. Jewish Christians [Netzarim] had composed the only church ever in Jerusalem until the year 135. They left it only once in 102 years following Jesus’ death, just before the city’s capture by the Emperor Titus. Led by their bishop, Simeon, son of Cleophas, who was Jesus’ uncle by marriage, they had fled to Perea (in modern Jordan). In A.D. 72 they had returned to Jerusalem and had remained there until Hadrian’s ban. After that, Jewish Christian churches were set up all over Palestine, Syria, and Mesopotamia, but they were always hated by the local synagogues as apostates of Judaism, and always in quarrel with Greek Christians who refused to be circumcised and observe the Torah—things [some of] the Jewish Christians insisted on.”
[Recall the description above of these Nazoraeans/Netzarim by Bishop Epiphanius. This was a “rote” vitriolic statement for “the Jews” that he cast upon all of them. But, there were several opinions among Jews and “Netzarim” in particular as to whether there was any continuing validity or need of male circumcision; whether it was a priestly corruption of the Torah texts who copied pagan practices. Even the Pharisee known as Hillel the Great argued against adult circumcision for converts, but, his view was not followed. We will deal with this issue at a later time.]

“They therefore asked Silvester to revoke the confirmation of Greek Christian bishops in Jerusalem, in Antioch, in Ephesus, in Alexandria, and to name instead desposynos bishops.”

“In addition, they asked that the Christian practice of sending cash contributions to the desposynos church in Jerusalem as the mother church of Christianity, which had been suspended since the time of Hadrian, be resumed.”

“Sylvester curtly and decisively dismissed the claims of the Jewish Christians [Netzarim]. He told them the mother church was now in Rome, with the bones of the Apostle Peter, and he insisted that they accept Greek bishops to lead them.”

“It was the last known discussion between the Jewish Christians [Netzarim] of the old mother church and the non-Jewish Christians of the new mother church. By his adaptation, Silvester, backed by Constantine, had decided that the message of Jesus was to be couched in Western terms by Western minds on an imperial model.”

“The Jewish Christians [Netzarim] had no place in such a church structure. They managed to survive until the first decades of the fifth century. Then, one by one, they disappear. A few individuals reconcile themselves with the Roman Church—always as individuals, never communities or whole Jewish Christian churches. Another few pass into the anonymity of the new Eastern rites—Syriac, Assyrian, Greek, Armenian. But most of them die—by the sword (Roman garrisons hunted them as outlaws), by starvation (they were deprived of their small farms and could not or would not adapt themselves to life in the big cities), by the attrition of zero birthrate. By the time that the first biography of Jesus (apart from the Gospels) is published in Chinese and in China at the beginning of the seventh century, there are no more surviving Jewish Christians [Netzarim]. The desposyni have ceased to exist. Everywhere, the Roman pope commands respect and exercises authority.”

Malachi Martin, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Church; G.P. Putnam’s Sons, New York; pp. 41-44. Roman Catholic professor, former Jesuit professor who served in Rome with Cardinal Augustine Beas and Pope John XXIII. [Brackets mine; Underlines mine]

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Remember:

Revelation 16:5 “You are righteous, the one who is and the one who was, the Holy One, because you have judged these things, 6 because they have poured out the blood of the saints and prophets, and you have given them blood to drink; they are deserving!”…24 And in her was found the blood of prophets, and of [Essene-Netsarim] Saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth…18:24 The  blood of the [Essene-Netsarim] Saints and prophets was found in her [Rome-Babylon],  along with the blood of all those who had been killed on the earth.

The Hebrews – Part Four