Jerome Defines the Nazarenes
Jerome's Letter 112 to Augustine (c. 404 AD) is the clearest patristic definition of the Nazarene community as it existed in Jerome's own day. Jerome had spent years in Bethlehem and Palestine, learning Hebrew from Jewish teachers, and was in direct contact with Nazarene communities throughout the region.
"In our own day there exists a sect among the Jews throughout all the synagogues of the East, which is called the sect of the Minei, and is even now condemned by the Pharisees. The adherents to this sect are known commonly as Nazarenes; they believe in Christ the Son of God, born of the Virgin Mary; and they say that He who suffered under Pontius Pilate and rose again, is the same as the one in whom we believe. But while they desire to be both Jews and Christians, they are neither the one nor the other."
Jerome's frustration — 'neither the one nor the other' — is our vindication. He cannot fit the Nazarenes into his binary categories because the Nazarenes refuse the binary. They confess Yeshua as the Messiah, Son of God, virgin-born, crucified, risen. And they observe Torah. These are not two faiths. They are one faith — the original apostolic confession — that the Gentile church had already lost the categories to recognize by the late fourth century.