Nazorite was not an order, but an ascetic “lifestyle” that one swore to for a given length of time- six months, a year, etc. So one didn’t have to be a priest, or an Essene, but could experience the Godliness of the ascetic without making a lifetime commitment. They had certain rules on eating and consumption and ritual, and they had to shave their heads.
James can be looked at as more of a link between the Nazarene sect and the Second Temple High Priesthood. Which would make sense, as James lived in Jerusalem, and most of the Priests were very antithetical to the country “Paul the Apostle” style of an all-enclusive, evangelistic Christian Church.James wore the miter and partook in mainstream Jewish ritual, and managed to survive for more than two decades within the priest-controlled city of Jerusalem.
James might have been tolerated by the more liberal of the High Priesthood, who were aghast at what the hardliners were doing to Jesus’ early followers. As Jesus’ brother, he would be a most useful symbol of peaceful co-existence between the Jews and the early Christians. At that time, the Sanhedrin had been outlawed by the Romans, perhaps in response to the continued activities of the Second Temple Priests against the Christians.
In A.D. 62, when there was a gap between Procurators, the High Priest Ananus, the son of Ananus, took the opportunity to reconvene the Sanhedrin, where he immediately pushed through the execution of James and a few others, probably all Christians. The Jewish people did not like this, and Agrippa II removed Ananus from power in short order, but it was too late for James.
The Jewish East then was only years away from outright revolt.
Source Hagan “Fires of Rome”
