This accounts for the hatred of the later Nazarenes for the orthodox Jews--followers of the _exoteric_ Mosaic Law--who are ever taunted by this sect with being the worshippers of Iurbo-Adunai, or Lord Bacchus. Passing under the disguise of _Adoni-Iachoh_ (original text, _Isaiah_ lxi. 1), Iahoh and Lord Sabaoth, the Baal-Adonis, or Bacchus, worshipped in the groves and _public sods_ or Mysteries, under the polishing hand of Ezra becomes finally the later-vowelled Adonai of the Massorah--the One and Supreme God of the Christians! “Thou shalt not worship the Sun who is named Adunai, says the _Codex_ of the Nazarenes; whose name is also _Kadush_[196] and El-El. This Adunai will elect to himself a nation and congregate _in crowds_ (his worship will be exoteric) ... Jerusalem will become the refuge and city of the _Abortive_, who shall perfect themselves (circumcise) with a sword ... and shall adore Adunai.”[197] The oldest Nazarenes, who were the descendants of the Scripture _nazars_, and whose last prominent leader was John the Baptist, although never very orthodox in the sight of the scribes and Pharisees of Jerusalem were, nevertheless, respected and left unmolested. Even Herod “feared the multitude” because they regarded John as a prophet (_Matthew_ xiv. 5). But the followers of Jesus evidently adhered to a sect which became a still more exasperating thorn in their side. It appeared as a heresy _within_ another heresy; for while the nazars of the olden times, the “Sons of the Prophets,” were Chaldean kabalists, the adepts of the new dissenting sect showed themselves reformers and innovators from the first. The great similitude traced by some critics between the rites and observances of the earliest Christians and those of the Essenes may be accounted for without the slightest difficulty. The Essenes, as we remarked just now, were the converts of Buddhist missionaries who had overrun Egypt, Greece, and even Judea at one time, since the reign of Asoka the zealous propagandist; and while it is evidently to the Essenes that belongs the honor of having had the Nazarene reformer, Jesus, as a pupil, still the latter is found disagreeing with his early teachers on several questions of formal observance. He cannot strictly be called an Essene, for reasons which we will indicate further on, neither was he a nazar, or Nazaria of the older sect. What Jesus _was_, may be found in the _Codex Nazaræus_, in the unjust accusations of the Bardesanian Gnostics. “Jesu is _Nebu_, the false Messiah, the destroyer of the old orthodox religion,” says the _Codex_.[198] He is the founder of the sect of the new nazars, and, as the words clearly imply, a follower of the Buddhist doctrine. In Hebrew the word _naba_ נבא means to speak of inspiration; and נבו is _nebo_, a god of wisdom. But Nebo is also _Mercury_, and _Mercury is Buddha_ in the Hindu monogram of planets. Moreover, we find the Talmudists holding that Jesus was inspired by the genius of Mercury.[199]