For we have found this man a pestilent fellow, and a mover of sedition among all the Jews throughout the world, and a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes:
Ver. 5. A pestilent fellow] Gr. λοιμον, a botch, sicut Scelus pro scelerato: Tubulus quidam, paulo supra Ciceronem, Praetor fuit, homo tam Proiecte improbus, ut eius nomen non hominis sed vitii esse videretur. (Lips., Antiq. Lect.) Now if so precious a man as Paul (than whom, saith Chrysostom, the earth never bare a better since it bore Christ) were counted and called a pest, let not us think much to be so esteemed.
And a mover of sedition] So Elias was held, and called the "troubler of Israel," Luther Tuba rebelllonis, the trumpet of turmoil. So it was said to one Singleton, sometime chaplain to the Lady Ann Boleyn, that he was the murderer of Packington, and afterwards that he was a stirrer up of sedition and commotion, who also suffered as a traitor for the same; where in very deed the true cause was nothing else but for preaching the gospel, saith Master Fox. And he might as safely say as Mr Latimer did in his third sermon before King Edward VI, "As for sedition, for aught that I know, methinks I should not need Christ, if I might so say." (Acts and Mon.)
Of the sect of the Nazarenes] Who stirred up the people to stand up for their liberty against the Romans, saith an interpreter.