I don't know.  Did Jewish people of the time of King Herod wear sidelocks?  And was it a particular sect/brand or generally accepted?  Many think that Yeshua may have been a Nazarene (the corruption turning into "of Nazareth" instead of "the Nazarene") - a peculiar purist cult of about the same time with similar messianic beliefs and baptismal rituals.

Actually, it was the "Roman Catholic Church" only after Emperor Constantine made it the state religion of Rome in 313 C.E. - more of that 'Scientific religion... ;)  Before that, it was a hodge-podge of mixed "Christianic cults" - from the Gnostics to the Messianics to the various mixtures of 'pagan' and Christian ideologies that occurred as it spread into new regions (and then eventually removed under orthodoxy (Council of Nicea et al).  All of the Gnostic and Apocryphal texts (some existent, others only known from attacks and counterattacks in the early consolidation) attest to the variety of Christians running around for quite some time.

Interestingly enough, historical records make no mention of the 'person' of Jesus/Yeshua until about 60 or 70 C.E. (the canonical Gospels, more than 40 years after the supposed crucifixion).  Before that, in the early Roman Christian circles, the symbology was strictly 'the fish' and 'the lamb', only later was the crucifix (a standard and very well-known form of Roman capital punishment) coopted as a Christian symbol.  The dove was introduced even later as a representation of the 'Holy Spirit'.  And many epithets were thrown at the early Christians by Roman writers concerning the 'reality' of the central Christian figure. :P  The image of Christ either alone or on the crucifix does not appear until the Byzantine Empire.

Robert

C makes it easy to shoot yourself in the foot. C++ makes it harder, but when you do, you blow your whole leg off.

 -- Bjarne Stroustrup

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