History finds the first Christian sects to have been either Nazarenes like John the Baptist; or Ebionites, among whom were many of the relatives of Jesus; or Essenes (Iessaens) the Therapeutæ, healers, of which the Nazaria were a branch. All these sects, which only in the days of Irenæus began to be considered heretical, were more or less kabalistic. They believed in the expulsion of demons by magical incantations, and practiced this method; Jervis terms the Nabatheans and other such sects “wandering Jewish exorcists,”[186] the Arabic word _Nabæ_, meaning to wander, and the Hebrew נבא naba, to prophesy. The _Talmud_ indiscriminately calls all the Christians _Nozari_.[187] All the Gnostic sects equally believed in magic. Irenæus, in describing the followers of Basilides, says, “They use images, invocations, incantations, and all other things pertaining unto magic.” Dunlap, on the authority of Lightfoot, shows that Jesus was called _Nazaraios_, in reference to his humble and mean external condition; “for Nazaraios means separation, alienation from other men.”[188] The real meaning of the word nazar נזר signifies to vow or consecrate one’s self to the service of God. As a noun it is a _diadem_ or emblem of such consecration, a head so consecrated.[189] Joseph was styled a _nazar_.[190] “The head of Joseph, the vertex of the nazar among his brethren.” Samson and Samuel (שמו־אל שצשון Semes-on and Semva-el) are described alike as _nazars_. Porphyry, treating of Pythagoras, says that he was purified and initiated at Babylon by Zar-adas, the head of the sacred college. May it not be surmised, therefore, that the Zoro-Aster was the _nazar_ of Ishtar, Zar-adas or Na-Zar-Ad,[191] being the same with change of idiom? Ezra, or עזרא, was a priest and scribe, a hierophant; and the first Hebrew colonizer of Judea was זרובבל Zeru-Babel or the Zoro or nazar of Babylon.