SUPPLEMENTARY PAPERS 617 



pointed out the unreality of the reason assigned in the text, and that it was no- 

 where spoken through the prophets that he should be called the Nazorean; but 

 inasmuch as the name was attached to Jesus, the least objectionable way to derive 

 it was from a place of early residence. A city or town called Nazareth, however, 

 saems to have been a geographical imagination, unmentioned in the Old Testa- 

 ment, in the Talmud, in Josephus, in Apocrypha, or anywhere prior to Eusebius. 

 In fact, none of the histories or traditions mention the city or town as based on 

 decisive testimony. 



The epithet "Nazorean," however, occurs repeatedly in the oldest layers of the 

 gospel-story, without any suggestion of tendency, especially in Acts. It is used 

 also in the Talmud and Koran. The name seems to have been highly distinctive 

 and familiar, and it would be passing strange if it were derived from a most obscure 

 village otherwise unknown. It is used most often in denoting the Christians and 

 in nearly all of its etymological relations is connected with the Hebrew Nosrim. 

 This word occurs repeatedly in the Old Testament in the one sense of "guards" 

 or "watchers," and its root.nasar, is one of the best known in the Semitic lan- 

 guages, meaning always to watch, observe, keep guard, defend, and preserve. In 

 the latter sense it occurs repeatedly in the cuneiform inscriptions, with the same 

 meaning. Now since ha-N6srlm was thus the perfectly familiar term for the 

 Guards, the Preservers, it follows that when the term was used, or its Greek equi- 

 valent " ol vafapatoi," the suggestion of the well-known meaning was inevitable. 

 Even if the name had actually been derived from the hamlet of Nazareth, no one 

 would have thought so ; every one would have thought of the household meaning 

 instantly and irresistibly. If a class of persons were called the Preservers, every 

 one would understand it so, as they that preserve ; no one would dream of deriving 

 their name from the unknown village of Preserveth. We insist upon this because 

 it seems decisive. 



It seems reasonably certain that vafapalos had originally nothing to do with 

 the imaginary village Nazareth; that it was a descriptive appellative, like others 

 so commonly appended to Divine names, both classic and Semitic (cf. Zeus 

 Xenios, Hermes Psychopompos, Dionysos Hypokolpios, Apollo Pythios, and the 

 like); that it designated the Deity in the aspect, character, or person of Guardian, 

 Preserver, being nearly identical in meaning with 6 'Irivovs, the Saviour. 



