Jesus Nazaraeus, sive explicatio loci in sancto D.N. Jesu Christi Evangelio secundum Matthaeum cap. 2. v. 23. Nazaraeus vocabitur

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The interpretation of this passage has been held to be very obscure and involved, indeed quite unknown, so much so that pious and very learned interpreters of the past have seemed to themselves to say with good reason that one should not be too curious in inquiring about this matter, or investigate it with persistent study. Certainly, others have since correctly observed that it is a pathetic evasion to claim that most things written about sacred matters before the coming of Christ have not reached our age, since it is certain that there were no more of the books of the Prophets surviving in the Church at the time when the holy Evangelist committed these things to writing than we have ourselves. Not a little thanks is due, however, to the holy man Bucer, that most learned doctor of the Church and most skillful interpreter of the Scriptures, through whose diligence it has come about that we have noticed this passage, which no one had observed before. He therefore correctly refers this to the eulogy of Samson, which is found in the book of Judges, chapter 13, verse 5: "The boy shall be a Nazarite one consecrated or set apart of God from the womb," and then it is repeated more than once in the context of that history. But Bucer's prudent conjecture was much later illustrated by that most faithful pastor of the Church, Calvin, who was always most happily occupied in the exposition of Scripture, and who at the same time also joins the two passages of Moses, by which Joseph, the son of the holy Patriarch Jacob, was also distinguished by the name of Nazarite long before. The first is in Genesis, chapter 49, verse 26: "The blessings of your father," says Jacob, addressing his son Joseph, "shall be upon"