should have given Him an honourable epithet which they had simply received from the Christians. 2. The result which we have obtained is confirmed by the statements of Christian writers. Even at the time of _Eusebius_ (Hist. Eccles. i. 7), and of _Jerome_, the place was called _Nazara_. The latter says: "_Nazareth_: there exists up to this day in Galilee a village opposite Legio, fifteen miles to the east of it, near Mount Tabor, called _Nazara_" (comp. _Reland_ i. S. 497). In _Epistol._ xvii. ad _Marcellum_ he expressly identifies the name with _Nezer_, by saying: "Let us go to Nazareth, and according to a right interpretation of that name, we shall see there the flower of Galilee." 3. To this may be added, that the _Gentilitia_ formed from Nazareth can be explained only when the ת is not considered as belonging to the original form of the name. For, in that case, it must necessarily be found again in the _Gentilitia_, just as, _e.g._, from ענתת we could not by any means form ענתי, but only ענתתי. In the New Testament the two forms Ναζωραῖος and Ναζαρηνὸς only occur, never the form Ναζαρεταῖος. _Gieseler_ has felt the difficulty which these names present to the common hypothesis, but has endeavoured (l. c. p. 592) to remove them by the conjecture that this form, so very peculiar, had been coined by a consideration of נצר which the first Christians were accustomed to bring into connection with נצרת. But this conjecture would, at most, be admissible, only if, with the Jews too, the form נצרי were not found throughout without a ת, and if the Arabic form also were not entirely analogous.[1] [Pg 109] The question now is:--In what sense was נצר assigned as a _nomen proprium_ to a place in Galilee? Certainly, we must at once reject the supposition of _Jerome_ that Nazareth was thus called, as being "the flower of Galilee," partly because נצר never occurs in this signification; partly because it is not conceivable that the place received a name which is due to it κατʼ ἀντί φρασιν only. It is much more probable that the place received the name on account of its smallness: a weak twig in contrast to a stately tree. In this signification נצר occurs in Is. xi. 1, xiv. 19, and in the Talmudical _usus loquendi_ where נצרים signifies "_virgulta salicum decorticata, vimina ex quibus corbes fiunt._" There was so much the greater reason for giving the place this name that people had the symbol before their eyes in its environs; for the chalk-hills around Nazareth are over-grown with low bushes (comp. Burkhardt II. s. 583). That which these bushes were when compared with the stately trees which adorned other parts of the country, Nazareth was when compared with other cities.