Biblical Archaeology Review

Epiphanius explains that those Jewish-Christians who fled from Jerusalem became known as the sect of the Nazarenes who “fulfill till now Jewish rites as the circumcision, the Sabbath and others” (Adversus haereses 29, 7, PG 42, 407).

M. Simon, “La migration a Pella. Legend ou realite,” Judeo-Christianisme, ed. Joseph Moingt (Paris: Recherches de science, 1972) 48. The same view is shared by J. Danielou, The Theology of Jewish Christianity (London: Longman and Todd, 1964) 56; cf. Bagatti, The Church from the Circumcision, 31–35.

Eusebius, Historia ecclesiastica 3, 27, 3; cf. 4, 5, 2–11; Epiphanius, Adversus haereses 70, 10, PG 42, 355–356.

For an analysis of the objections to the migration to Pella, see M. Simon, “La migration a Pella. Legende ou realite.” in Judeo-christianisme, ed. Joseph Moingt (Paris: Recherches de science, 1972) 37–54.

This hypothesis is advanced, for instance, by Regan, Dies Dominica, 18.

Christ’s admonition “Pray that your flight may not be in winter or on a Sabbath” (Matthew 24:20), provides, as stated by E. Lohse, another “example of the keeping of the Sabbath by Jewish Christians.” (“Sabbator,” Theological Dictionary of the New Testament [Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdman Publishing Company, 1971] VII, 29).

For a concise survey of those works (such as Hegesippus, The Protoevangelium of James, the Gospel of the Hebrews, the History of Joseph the Carpenter, the Gospel of Thomas, the divers Apocalypses of James and Clementine Recognitions and Homilies) confirming the Jewish imprint of the Jerusalem Church, see B. Bagatti, The Church from the Circumcision (Jerusalem: Imprimerie des P. P. Franciscains, 1971) 70–78.

Danielou, Bible and Liturgy, 243.

The Epistle of Barnabas 15; Justin, I Apology 67.