Nazarites

165:0.1On Tues­day, Jan­uary 3, A.D. 30, Ab­ner, the for­mer chief of the twelve apos­tles of John the Bap­tist, a Nazarite and one­time head of the Nazarite school at En­gedi, now chief of the sev­enty mes­sen­gers of the king­dom, called his as­so­ciates to­gether and gave them fi­nal in­struc­tions be­fore send­ing them on a mis­sion to all of the cities and vil­lages of Perea. This Perean mis­sion con­tin­ued for al­most three months and was the last min­istry of the Mas­ter. From these labors Je­sus went di­rectly to Je­ru­sa­lem to pass through his fi­nal ex­pe­ri­ences in the flesh. The sev­enty, sup­ple­mented by the pe­ri­odic labors of Je­sus and the twelve apos­tles, worked in the fol­low­ing cities and towns and some fifty ad­di­tional vil­lages: Za­phon, Gadara, Macad, Ar­bela, Ra­math, Edrei, Bosora, Caspin, Mis­peh, Gerasa, Ragaba, Suc­coth, Am­athus, Adam, Penuel, Capi­to­lias, Dion, Hatita, Gadda, Phil­a­del­phia, Jog­be­hah, Gilead, Beth-Nim­rah, Tyrus, Elealah, Livias, Hes­h­bon, Cal­lir­rhoe, Beth-Peor, Shit­tim, Sibmah, Medeba, Beth-Meon, Are­opo­lis, and Aroer.

142:8.1By the end of April the op­po­si­tion to Je­sus among the Phar­isees and Sad­ducees had be­come so pro­nounced that the Mas­ter and his apos­tles de­cided to leave Je­ru­sa­lem for a while, go­ing south to work in Beth­le­hem and He­bron. The en­tire month of May was spent in do­ing per­sonal work in these cities and among the peo­ple of the sur­round­ing vil­lages. No pub­lic preach­ing was done on this trip, only house-to-house vis­i­ta­tion. A part of this time, while the apos­tles taught the gospel and min­is­tered to the sick, Je­sus and Ab­ner spent at En­gedi, vis­it­ing the Nazarite colony. John the Bap­tist had gone forth from this place, and Ab­ner had been head of this group. Many of the Nazarite broth­er­hood be­came be­liev­ers in Je­sus, but the ma­jor­ity of these as­cetic and ec­cen­tric men re­fused to ac­cept him as a teacher sent from heaven be­cause he did not teach fast­ing and other forms of self-de­nial.

137:7.12All of these par­ties and sects, in­clud­ing the smaller Nazarite broth­er­hood, be­lieved in the some­time com­ing of the Mes­siah. They all looked for a na­tional de­liv­erer. But Je­sus was very pos­i­tive in mak­ing it clear that he and his dis­ci­ples would not be­come al­lied to any of these schools of thought or prac­tice. The Son of Man was to be nei­ther a Nazarite nor an Es­sene.

135:1.1John had no school from which to grad­u­ate at the age of four­teen, but his par­ents had se­lected this as the ap­pro­pri­ate year for him to take the for­mal Nazarite vow. Ac­cord­ingly, Zach­a­rias and Eliz­a­beth took their son to En­gedi, down by the Dead Sea. This was the south­ern head­quar­ters of the Nazarite broth­er­hood, and there the lad was duly and solemnly in­ducted into this or­der for life. Af­ter these cer­e­monies and the mak­ing of the vows to ab­stain from all in­tox­i­cat­ing drinks, to let the hair grow, and to re­frain from touch­ing the dead, the fam­ily pro­ceeded to Je­ru­sa­lem, where, be­fore the tem­ple, John com­pleted the mak­ing of the of­fer­ings which were re­quired of those tak­ing Nazarite vows.

135:1.2John took the same life vows that had been ad­min­is­tered to his il­lus­tri­ous pre­de­ces­sors, Sam­son and the prophet Samuel. A life Nazarite was looked upon as a sanc­ti­fied and holy per­son­al­ity. The Jews re­garded a Nazarite with al­most the re­spect and ven­er­a­tion ac­corded the high priest, and this was not strange since Nazarites of life­long con­se­cra­tion were the only per­sons, ex­cept high priests, who were ever per­mit­ted to en­ter the holy of holies in the tem­ple.

135:1.3John re­turned home from Je­ru­sa­lem to tend his fa­ther’s sheep and grew up to be a strong man with a no­ble char­ac­ter.

135:1.4When six­teen years old, John, as a re­sult of read­ing about Eli­jah, be­came greatly im­pressed with the prophet of Mount Carmel and de­cided to adopt his style of dress. From that day on John al­ways wore a hairy gar­ment with a leather gir­dle. At six­teen he was more than six feet tall and al­most full grown. With his flow­ing hair and pe­cu­liar mode of dress he was in­deed a pic­turesque youth. And his par­ents ex­pected great things of this their only son, a child of prom­ise and a Nazarite for life.

135:2.1Af­ter an ill­ness of sev­eral months Zach­a­rias died in July, A.D. 12, when John was just past eigh­teen years of age. This was a time of great em­bar­rass­ment to John since the Nazarite vow for­bade con­tact with the dead, even in one’s own fam­ily. Al­though John had en­deav­ored to com­ply with the re­stric­tions of his vow re­gard­ing con­tam­i­na­tion by the dead, he doubted that he had been wholly obe­di­ent to the re­quire­ments of the Nazarite or­der; there­fore, af­ter his fa­ther’s burial he went to Je­ru­sa­lem, where, in the Nazarite cor­ner of the women’s court, he of­fered the sac­ri­fices re­quired for his cleans­ing.

169:3.1When the meet­ing be­came too noisy, Si­mon Pe­ter, stand­ing up, took charge, say­ing: “Men and breth­ren, it is not seemly thus to dis­pute among your­selves. The Mas­ter has spo­ken, and you do well to pon­der his words. And this is no new doc­trine which he pro­claimed to you. Have you not also heard the al­le­gory of the Nazarites con­cern­ing the rich man and the beg­gar? Some of us heard John the Bap­tist thun­der this para­ble of warn­ing to those who love riches and covet dis­hon­est wealth. And while this olden para­ble is not ac­cord­ing to the gospel we preach, you would all do well to heed its lessons un­til such a time as you com­pre­hend the new light of the king­dom of heaven. The story as John told it was like this: