“Our Nazarene sect is known to have existed some 150 years B.C., and to have lived on the banks of the Jordan, and on the eastern shore of the Dead Sea, according to Pliny and Josephus. But in King’s Gnostics, we find quoted another statement by Josephus from verse 13, which says that the Essenes had been established on the shores of the Dead Sea “for thousands of ages” before Pliny’s time.
According to Munk, the term “Galilean” is nearly synonymous with that of “Nazarene”; furthermore, he shows the relations of the former with the Gentiles as very intimate. The populace had probably gradually adopted, in their constant intercourse, certain rites and modes of worship of the Pagans; and the scorn with which the Galileans were regarded by the orthodox Jews is attributed by him to the same cause.
Their friendly relations had certainly led them, at a later period, to adopt the “Adonia”, or the sacred rites over the body of the lamented Adonis, as we find Jerome fairly lamenting this circumstance. “Over Bethlehem”, he says, “the grove of Thammuz, that is of Adonis, was casting its shadow! And in the GROTTO where formerly the infant Jesus cried, the lover of Venus was being mourned.”
It was after the rebellion of Bar Cochba, that the Roman Emperor established the Mysteries of Adonis at the Sacred Cave in Bethlehem; and who knows but this was the petra or rock-temple on which the church was built? The Boar of Adonis was placed above the gate of Jerusalem which looked toward Bethlehem.
Munk says that the “Nazireate was an institution established before the laws of Musah.” This is evident; as we find this sect not only mentioned but minutely described in Numbers, (chapter 6). In the commandment given in this chapter to Moses by the “Lord”, it is easy to recognize the rites and laws of the Priests of Adonis. The abstinence and purity strictly prescribed in both sects are identical. Both allowed their hair to grow long as the Hindu coenobites and fakirs do to this day, while other castes shave their hair and abstain on certain days from wine. The prophet Elijah, a Nazarene, is described in 2 Kings, and by Josephus as “a hairy man girt with a girdle of leather.” And John the Baptist and Jesus are both represented as wearing very long hair. John is “clothed with camel’s hair” and wearing a girdle of hide, and Jesus in a long garment “without any seams”…”and very white, like snow”, says Mark; the very dress worn by the Nazarene Priests and the Pythagorean and Buddhist Essenes, as described by Josephus.”
H. P. Blavatsky
The Mark Of God: Understanding Your "I AM Presence" 