stephan huller

Also while this doesn't push the dating much it is worth noting that Maimonides Yad, Avodah Zarah 9:4, and the old copies of B. Avodah Zarah 6a and 7b, Ta 'anit 27b lack the correction 'yom echad' and retain yom notzri or notzrim. I think this makes it unlikely that notzrim was chosen because it was less offensive or as a substitute for 'min.'

spin

It's where the comment from Epiphanius comes in (& if I could find an exact Jerome reference). Epiphanius ties the curses to a sect he calls "Nazoreans". As I said two posts back, "This particular cursing may have come about to stop conflict in synagogues where these Nazoreans may have tended to enter, thinking themselves acceptable Jews."

I would be interested in finding what Jerome actually said, but I don't have a reference. Earlier you mentioned, "Jerome refers to the ἡ τῶν Ναζωραίων αἵρεσις", strange because Jerome wrote in Latin, but if you know where he talks about the Nazorean sect (beside the brief comment in Vir. Ill. 3) it may be quite useful.

stephan huller

Hi spin

I took a minute or so with my son draped over my shoulder to look at the context of Epiphanius's report in Panarion and am not at all convinced that his information reflects a contemporary sect. Just a brief note while my son scratches my face:

(a) the Nasoraeans appear before the Ebionites in the list of Jewish sects and Epiphanius emphasizes that this name goes back to the beginnings of Christianity. He says specifically that this is the name Christians were called while at Pella, that Paul adopted this name and only now in modern times all believers in Christ are called 'Christians'
(b) the Ebionites follow the report and 'Ebion' is said to have been a member of the Nasoraean church
(c) his information is inexact. He reports that they possess the Gospel of Matthew but isn't sure whether the genealogies have been cut. He is clearly citing some earlier source. Lawlor and others think the source might be related to the Hypomnemata of Hegesippus which would put the information c. 150 CE
(d) in Panarion 29.9.1 it is Epiphanius who says there is no need to refute them because they are Jews not Christians and then introduces the bit about benediction. The imprecise information about the use of the Gospel of Matthew follows immediately afterward.

I wish I could continue writing but my son is making this impossible. The point is that the report on the Nasoraeans is not a reliable bit of information about dating. Epiphanius seems to connect reports here. The Nasoraeans are related to the Cerinthians who are related to the Carpocratians and the Ebionites are connected as a sect of the Nasoraeans - all of whom seemed to use the Gospel According to the Hebrews in some form.

My suggestion is that the report dates from an early period but Epiphanius in his characteristic fashion (see Lawlor on his verbatim citation of the Hypomnemata for the report on the Carpocratians which is actually more accurate in his opinion than what appears in Irenaeus even though they use a common source) makes it seem as if it is still an 'active heresy.'

This habit occurs in some form in all the Church Fathers. See Tertullian's use of Theophilus Against Hermogenes and then acts as if Hermogenes left Antioch and is current 'stalking' Carthage like a boogeyman. So too with Marcion - many of the statements are in the present tense. So too Marcus etc. etc.

I find the idea that there were Jews who believed in Jesus as the messiah who attended synagogues with the Jews using the Mishnah absolutely improbable. Any community using the Mishnah could not be 'Christian' in any sense nor could Christianity be compatible with the halakhah of that text. As such, my assumption is that the term Nasoraeans comes from before Epiphanius's time and like the second century. I would like to hear a reasonable argument for how it is possible that Jews and Nasoraeans co-existed in synagogues c. 300 CE. It is the gospels - themselves written or edited in the second century - which makes frequent reference to Christians being punished in synagogues. By the end of the fourth century Jews were second class citizens in the Empire and by the Theodosian Code (from memory) Christians frequenting synagogues would have been punished by law.

No Robots

[T]he synagogue was a popular institution over which the rabbis had only limited control.—"The Rabbis and the non-existent monolithic synagogue” / Stuart S. Miller. In Jews, Christians, and polytheists in the ancient synagogue: cultural interaction during the Greco-Roman period / Steven Fine, ed., p.50.

hjalti

Does Against Marcion 4.8 really say that the marcionites understood the term in a religious sense?

Here is the relevant passage:
I can't see why we would conclude from this that marcionites used nazorean/nazarene (or something like that) in a religious sense. It could be understood in that way, but can't it also mean that they just rejected the use of nazorean/nazarene?

stephan huller

The text is called Against Marcion. The purpose is so that Tertullian can systematically attack 'Marcionite' doctrine as publicly disseminated in the contemporary world. That Tertullian formulates his statement in a familiar formula:

The Christ of the Creator had to be called a Nazarene according to prophecy; whence the Jews also designate us, on that very account, Nazerenes after Him

cannot be taken on its own but within the scope of the original argument. I could cite twenty or forty instances where the same formula is used and it always means something akin to 'the Marcionites DO NOT apply the Jewish prophesies to Christ.' Clearly then 'Christ' was called 'the Nazarene' or some such variant according to the Marcionites owing to some other reason other than 'it was already prophesied in the Jewish writings.'

Indeed for those who are familiar with the patterns in Against Marcion, Tertullian is actually citing Matthew 2.22 - 23 "Having been warned in a dream, he withdrew to the district of Galilee, and he went and lived in a town called Nazareth. So was fulfilled what was said through the prophets, that he would be called a Nazarene" against the Marcionites. Williams and others have noted the curious pattern of Tertullian citing Matthew against Marcion and then claiming that Marcion excised passages.

Scholars have puzzled over this for centuries. The answer in my mind is that Tertullian is citing a Syrian anti-Marcionite treatise (and thus a Diatessaron vs. gospel of Marcion argument) and loosely adapting it as his own to a Luke vs. gospel of Marcion argument owing to the popular prejudices of the third century. Interestingly if you look Ephrem's Comm on the Diatessaron he says similar things about this passage. There are a number of reasons for concluding this but it is important to note that there is a consistent attempt to introduce the 'Nazareth' interpretation to get away from whatever it was that the Marcionites original understood by that term.

The consistent pattern of misinformation in the gospels has to be a response to something else, and something dangerous in the Marcionite formulation.

stephan huller

FYI the reference in the Arabic Diatessaron occurs a few lines from the beginning of Luke:

But when Herod the king died, the angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, and said unto him, Rise and take the child and his mother, and go into the land of Israel; for they have died who sought the child's life. And Joseph rose and took the child and his mother, and came to the land of lsrael. But when he heard that Archelaus had become king over Judaea instead of Herod his father, he feared to go thither; and he saw in a dream that he should go into the land of Galilee, and that he should abide in a city called Nazareth: that the saying in the prophet might be fulfilled, that he should be called a Nazarene.

And the child grew, and became strong in spirit, becoming filled with wisdom; and the grace of God was upon him. And his kinsfolk used to go every year to Jerusalem at the feast of the pass- over. And when he was twelve years old, they went up according to their custom, to the feast. And when the days were accomplished, they returned; and the child Jesus remained in Jerusalem, and Joseph and his mother knew not: and they supposed that he was with the children of their company. And when they had gone one day's journey, they sought him beside their people and those who knew them, and they found him not; so they returned to Jerusalem and sought him again. And after three days they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teach- ers, hearing them and asking them questions; and all who heard him wondered at his wisdom and his words. And when they saw him they wondered, and his mother said unto him, My son, why hast thou dealt with us thus? behold, I and thy father have been seeking for thee with much anxiety. And he said unto them, Why were ye seeking me? know ye not that I must be in the house of my Father? And they understood not the word which he spake unto them. And he went down with them, and came to Nazareth; and he was obedient to them: and his mother used to keep all these sayings in her heart. And Jesus grew in his stature and wisdom, and in grace with God and men.

And in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, when Pontius Pilate was governor in Judaea, and one of the four rulers, Herod, in Galilee; and Philip his brother, one of the four rulers, in Ituraea and in the district of Trachonitis; and Lysanias, one of the four rulers, in Abilene; in the chief-priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the command of God went forth to John the son of Zacharias in the desert. And he came into all the region which is about Jordan, proclaiming the baptism of repentance unto the forgiveness of sins. And he was preaching in the wilderness of Judaea, and saying, Repent ye; the kingdom of heaven is come near. This is he that was spoken of in Isaiah the prophet, The voice which crieth in the desert, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, And make straight in the plain, paths for our God. [Diat 3.19 - 43]

Clearly the original argument was that Marcion had cut all of what appears before 'and in the fifteenth year ..." because he didn't want the title 'Nazarene' to be derived from Scripture.

The question now is who is the 'prophet' who predicted that Jesus would end up in Nazareth? This is the ultimate question I think. If there is such a scripture it would explain why the rabbis called the Christians 'notsrim' (at least theoretically). Now to look in my concordance ...

stephan huller

And here is the Scripture:

The Christ of the Creator had to be called a Nazarene according to prophecy; whence the Jews also designate us, on that very account, Nazerenes after Him. For we are they of whom it is written, “Her Nazarites were whiter than snow;” Lamentations 4:7 even they who were once defiled with the stains of sin, and darkened with the clouds of ignorance. But to Christ the title Nazarene was destined to become a suitable one, from the hiding-place of His infancy, for which He went down and dwelt at Nazareth, to escape from Archelaus the son of Herod. This fact I have not refrained from mentioning on this account, because it behooved Marcion's Christ to have forborne all connection whatever with the domestic localities of the Creator's Christ, when he had so many towns in Judæa which had not been by the prophets thus assigned to the Creator's Christ. But Christ will be (the Christ) of the prophets, wheresoever He is found in accordance with the prophets. And yet even at Nazareth He is not remarked as having preached anything new, Luke 4:23 while in another verse He is said to have been rejected Luke 4:29 by reason of a simple proverb [AM 4.8]

So we have in order in Against Marcion:

chapter 6 - a discussion of the first line in Luke
chapter 7 - the reference to what Marcion 'cut' (i.e. the equivalent to Matt 2.22 - 23 etc)
chapter 8 - the scriptural passage that is being referred to IN THE DIATESSARON (Matthew has 'prophets' in the plural).

hjalti

Right. But I think it's possible to make an argument against Marcionites even if we assume that they didn't use the title. Something like this:

1. Marcionites reject that Jesus came from Galilee (instead say that he descended)
2. Jesus is called a Nazarene (just like scripture tells us) because he came from Nazareth
-> Jesus came from Galilee. Take that evil Marcionites!

I'm just saying that it's not absolutely clear to me that he's arguing that the Marcionites use the title Nazarene, but don't admit the origin of it.

stephan huller

Here is Lamentations 4:7

זַכּוּ נְזִירֶיהָ מִשֶּׁלֶג, צַחוּ מֵחָלָב; אָדְמוּ עֶצֶם מִפְּנִינִים, סַפִּיר גִּזְרָתָם

So the root here is nazar not the term we are looking for. But perhaps that is the whole point. The Marcionites and the Catholics had two different but related terms, one from scripture the other from something outside of the Jewish writings.