The first rise of this denomination is placed under the reign of Adrian. For when this emperor had at length razed Jerusalem, entirely destroyed its very foundations, and enacted laws of the severest kind against the whole body of the Jewish people, the greatest part of the Christians who lived in Palestine, to prevent their being confounded with the Jews, abandoned entirely the Mosaic rites, and chose a bishop, namely, Mark, a foreigner by nation, and an alien from the commonwealth of Israel. Those who were strongly attached to the Mosaic rites, separated from their brethren, and founded at Pera, a country of Palestine, and in the neighbouring parts, particular assemblies, in which the law of Moses maintained its primitive dignity, authority, and lustre. The body of Judaising Christians, which set Moses and Christ upon an equal footing in point of authority, were afterwards divided into two sects, extremely different both in their rites and opinions, and distinguished by the names of Nazarenes and Ebionites; which see.