What Was the Original Faith?
As a child in the Church I was always taught that the words ‘Christian’ and ‘Nazarene’ meant the same thing, as if they were synonyms. It was only years later, after I really began studying the Bible carefully and in detail, that I found out this was not really accurate.
After I began studying the Scriptures in earnest, I read how the Christian Church Father Epiphanius had condemned a group he called the ‘Nazarenes.’ As a Catholic Christian, the reason he called the Nazarenes ‘heretics’ was that they practiced ‘Jewish’ Christianity. He said the reason he condemned them was that they still kept the original ‘Jewish’ rites of circumcision, the Sabbath, and the Laws of Moses.
“The Nazarenes do not differ in any essential thing from them (meaning the Orthodox Jews), since they practice the customs and doctrines prescribed by Jewish Law; except that they believe in Christ. They believe in the resurrection of the dead, and that the universe was created by God. They preach that God is One, and that Jesus Christ is His Son. They are very learned in the Hebrew language. They read the Law (meaning the Law of Moses)…. Therefore they differ…from the true Christians because they fulfill until now [such] Jewish rites as the circumcision, Sabbath and others.” [Epiphanius, “Against Heresies,” Panarion 29, 7, pp 41, 402]
Epiphanius lived and wrote in the early 300’s. Since he complained that the Nazarenes were keeping “until now such Jewish rites as the circumcision, Sabbath, and others”, it meant that a group called the Nazarenes was still doing those things in the fourth century CE. And, since Epiphanius was one of the main players in the formation of the Roman Catholic Church, it meant that the Catholic Christians were not the same group of people as the Nazarenes. Had they been the same, Epiphanius would not have called them ‘heretics.’ So what this said is that at least in the fourth century, the terms Christian and Nazarene were not synonymous: they did not refer to the same thing. We will talk later about why people think of them as being synonymous, but the real questions here are why the founders of the Roman Catholic Church called the Nazarenes ‘heretics’ and what that means for us today.
To answer these questions, let us look at a statement made by Marcel Simon, a Catholic expert on the first century. Even though Marcel Simon was a devout Catholic, he took exception with Epiphanius, saying that Epiphanius well knew the Roman Church did not descend from the apostles. Rather, he said it was the Nazarenes who descended directly from the apostles; and yet, however ironically, Marcel Simon still called the Nazarenes ‘heretics’ because they did not convert to Roman Catholicism. Marcel Simon called the Nazarenes heretics because they continued to keep the faith the Messiah had originally taught the apostles to keep some three hundred years earlier. In other words, Marcel Simon called the Nazarenes heretics because they continued to practice the faith once delivered to the saints, rather than adopt the man-made traditions of the Catholic Church. Let’s read his words carefully.
They (Nazarenes) are characterized essentially by their tenacious attachment to Jewish observances. If they became heretics in the eyes of the Mother Church, it is simply because they remained fixed on outmoded positions. They well represent, (even) though Epiphanius is energetically refusing to admit it, the very direct descendants of that primitive community, of which our author (Epiphanius) knows that it was designated by the Jews, by the same name, of ‘Nazarenes’.”
[First Century expert Marcel Simon, Judéo-christianisme, pp 47-48.]
First Epiphanius, who was the George Washington or Benjamin Franklin of the Catholic Church, told us the Nazarenes were not the same group of people as the Christians. Then we had a world-renowned Catholic expert on the first century apostles admitting that it was the Nazarenes (and not the Catholics) who were the “very direct descendants” of the apostles. So here we have two very devout, knowledgeable Catholics in key positions inside the Church, letting us know that it was not the Christians, but the Nazarenes who descended from James, John, Peter, Paul, Andrew and the rest; yet both of these men called the Nazarenes ‘heretics’ because they continued to keep the same faith the Messiah had first taught them. But doesn’t the Apostle Jude tell us to do that very thing?
Yehudah (Jude) 3
3 Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.
If Epiphanius and Marcel Simon were right, and the Nazarenes really were a different group of people than the Christians, and if it was the Nazarenes (and not the Catholic Christians) who descended directly from the first century apostles, then doesn’t Marcel Simon’s and Epiphanius’ complaint seem to be that the Nazarenes followed Scripture, rather than them? At least from one perspective, isn’t their complaint that the Nazarenes chose to please Elohim (G-d), rather than men?
Galatim (Galatians) 1:10
10 For do I now persuade men, or Elohim (G-d)? Or do I seek to please men? For if I still pleased men, I would not be a bondservant of Messiah.
Scripture tells us that men are evil, and so we should seek not to please men, but Elohim (G-d). So if a world-renowned Catholic apologist such as Marcel Simon claimed the Nazarenes were heretical, even though he admits they descended directly from the apostles, what do we do with that? Where does that leave the Roman Church, and its doctrines? And aren’t Epiphanius and Marcel Simon really just witnessing against the Roman Catholic Church, by confessing that they went so far as to change the worship delivered by the Messiah Himself? And if so, why would anyone want to do anything they said?
Now let us stop for a moment, and realize what all this says. If these statements are true, then Catholic Christianity was never the original faith: and if that is true, then what it means is that the Catholic Church is not keeping the correct faith today, because their worship is not ‘Jewish’ enough; and neither are the Protestant churches, for the exact same reasons.
I did not really understand how Catholicism could be the original faith. The Church was not officially formed until some 300 years after the Messiah’s ministry. That is longer than America has been a nation. Further, Marcel Simon told us that it was the Nazarenes who had descended directly from the apostles, and both he and Epiphanius told us that the Catholic doctrines were different than those of the Nazarenes.
From a certain standpoint, it seemed as if Epiphanius and Marcel Simon were calling the Nazarenes heretics because they did not adopt the man-made traditions of the Church. As I read more, it seemed many in the Roman Catholic Church felt that they somehow had the authority to change what Scripture taught.
"Some theologians have held that God likewise directly determined the Sunday as the day of worship in the New Law, (and) that He Himself has explicitly substituted the Sunday for the Sabbath. But this theory is now entirely abandoned. It is now commonly held that God simply gave His Church the power to set aside whatever day or days she would deem suitable as Holy Days. The Church chose Sunday, the first day of the week, and in the course of time added other days as holy days."
[John Laux, A Course in Religion for Catholic High Schools and Academies (1 936), vol. 1, P. 51.]
What was John Laux saying? Was he saying that the Church had the authority to change the Father’s Word? What sense did that make? It didn’t make any sense; but other Catholics said the same thing.
'But you may read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, and you will not find a single line authorizing the sanctification of Sunday. The Scriptures enforce the religious observance of Saturday, a day which we (the Church) never sanctify."
[James Cardinal Gibbons, The Faith of our Fathers, 88th ed., pp. 89.]
As a child in the Church I had been taught that when the apostles met ‘on the first day of the week’, they met on a Sunday. However, as I read I found quotes from authorities high up in the Catholic Church who admitted that was really only a myth; but that the Catholic Church had changed the days of worship on her own.
"Question: Have you any other way of proving that the Church has power to institute festivals of precept?
"Answer: Had she not such power, she could not have done that in which all modern religionists agree with her-she could not have substituted the observance of Sunday, the first day of the week, for the observance of Saturday, the seventh day, a change for which there is no Scriptural authority."
[Stephen Keenan, A Doctrinal Catechism 3rd ed., p. 174.]
It seemed like Stephan Keenan was basically saying, “Look, we had the power to change the day of worship, because, we did change it! So therefore we must have had the power, right?” But what sense did that make? If you do something that is against Scripture, does that make it right, just because you did it? I thought that’s what we called a sin.
Scripture said not to add or subtract from His Word.
Devarim (Deuteronomy) 12:32
32 "Whatever I command you, be careful to observe it; you shall not add to it nor take away from it.”
The Creator had told Israel to keep the Seventh-day Sabbath (i.e., ‘Saturday’) as His official day of rest, and nowhere was it ever prophesied that would change.
Shemote (Exodus) 20:8
8 "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it set apart (holy).
We will talk later about why it is commonly held that the day of weekly worship was changed from the Sabbath to Sunday. However, if what these men were saying was true, I would have to find some means of figuring out what the original ‘Jewish-Christian’ faith was; and then we would have to rebuild the original faith, so that those who wanted to practice the correct worship could practice it. Yet before we undertook all that, the first thing to do was to verify from Scripture whether what the Catholic Church was saying was accurate.
Did the Scriptures tell us that there really were two separate groups of people in the first century, the Christians and the Nazarenes? And if so, then which one did Scripture say the Apostles belonged to: the ‘Christians’, or the ‘Nazarenes’?