spin

Many people will know that Jesus is called "Yeshu ha-Notzri" in Jewish literature and that among the 18 benedictions is a curse for the notzrim, but when and how did the Jews start using the term notzrim?

Although the 18 benedictions date to the time of Yavneh that halcyonic period when the Jews picked up the pieces after the horror of the Jewish War. However, the tangible indications of this curse is that it was simply aimed at the minim (~heretics) and much later interpolated with an inclusion of notzrim. There are only two copies of the curse against "the notzrim and the minim" from the Cairo Geniza. The rest are simply against the minim. The source I'm cribbing (Marvin R. Wilson, Our father Abraham: Jewish roots of the Christian faith (or via: amazon.co.uk), p.68) points out that the first christians aware of the curse re the notzrim are Epiphanius (c.375) and Jerome (c.400), while Justin (c.150) knows of the curse against christians, but not against notzrim.

Talmudic sources by their nature cannot be easily dated very early at all. So, does anyone have any idea how to date the early Jewish use of "notzrim"?

stephan huller

It is presumably as old as Samuel the Less (or the Small) and thus very early. It is my suggestion to read the term נוצרים as notsarim (root YOD-tsade-resh, nif‘al participle). I believe this deserves serious consideration. Of course there could have been a pair of terms, an exoteric term notsrim from nun-tsade-resh meaning “guardians” and an esoteric term notsarim from yod-tsade-resh meaning “re-formed”.

Just look at the verse in Isaiah that says God will set notsrim on the walls of Jerusalem. Look in BDB under NUN-tsade-resh, qal, participle. I think notsarim is “those with a new yetser”. This is a Marcionite conception and is reflected in anti-heretical treatises (i.e. that Jesus had a different flesh). The Coptic and early Alexandrian understanding (in Clement, Origen and even Athanasius) of a continuing incarnation of Christ through the bodies of believers is clearly related.

What I am suggesting is that Marcionite must have understood God as wanting to come down to earth in the Passion as a means of 'reforming' or 'transforming' humanity from a material being to a spiritual being. Think about what is introduced just before - ritual washing and the consumption of his spiritual flesh and blood.

Anyone who has any familiarity with the attacks against the Marcionites throughout the ages (and not just limited to what appears in Tertullian) is the sect claimed to have attained a bodily form or yetser owing to their initiation into the mysteries of Christ. Maybe now we can begin to see where that concept came from - the transference of the Christ-soul from God on the cross to his beloved disciple 'little Mark/John.'

The reformed would clearly be members of the presbytery. I think I stumbled across references in Clement to this conception somewhere.

spin

Can you point me to a citation?

I'm starting to smell a red herring over this dating issue. Perhaps an alternative trajectory.

The text (Isa 62:6) has שמרים ("shomrim"), a synonym.

stephan huller

OK maybe I was thinking Isa 27:3 God guarding the vineyard. My point is still the same, notzrim probably comes from yetzer. No one has ever explained why the Passion is called the passion. Origen says that it isn't from Passover but doesn't go any further.

stephan huller

I think you can find the reference to Samuel and the Benedictions. Here is another curiosity related to Samuel. In Avot 4:19 the rabbinic sages credit Samuel with a teaching from Scripture:

Samuel HaKatan said: Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, and let not your heart be glad when he stumbles; lest the Lord see it and be displeased, and divert His wrath from him to you (Prov. 24:17, 18).

How can that be? As always, the rabbinic tradition is filled with paradoxes which aren't easy to explain.

stephan huller

Another way to see how 'the Passion' was connected with the 'transformation' (or re-forming) of mankind is to remember the symbolism associated with Passover. It is well known that chametz (leaven) is considered to be a representation of the yetzer hara (man's urge to sin), as is stated in the Talmud (Brachos 17a). The Marcionites and other heretical sects retained this idea in their Apostolikon:

1.1 Corinthians 5:6
Don’t you know that a little yeast adulterates the whole batch of dough?

2.1 Corinthians 5:8
Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old bread leavened with malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

Those morons who think that the Marcionites were 'anti-Jewish' lack a basic understanding of Judaism, Marcionitism and Christianity.

There are a number of studies which draw attention to the existence of Christian communities who celebrated a kind of 'Christian Festival of Unleavened Bread.' I think there is evidence that this celebration was held in late second and early third century Alexandria. Aphrahat references it and it appears in various texts.

It is also worth noting that the host in Church services must be, at present unleavened in the Western Church, but leavened bread in the Eastern Church, except among the Maronites, the Armenians, and in the Churches of Jerusalem and Alexandria, where it is unleavened. In other words, the original Jewish association of chemitz as the embodiment of the yetzer hara was present in the earliest services.

If you look closely at early literature describing the heretical eucharist you can still see the transformational power of the sacrament. http://people.vanderbilt.edu/~james..../euchtabb.html One eats the 'pure' (i.e no yetzer hara) bread in order to become transformed into purity and divinity. The bread is the flesh of Christ because it is meat with no impurity. I think there is a play on words here with 'gospel' (basorah) and 'flesh' too which was developed in Marcionite communities (i.e. the Catholic gospels had the 'leaven' - i.e. the teachings of the Law and the prophets - mixed into them). The Letter to Theodore demonstrates a pattern of interest in 'mixed' (impure) and 'unmixed' (pure) teachings which is present throughout Clement's other writings (see Strom 7.18). This is a central concept in Christianity I think

spin

Isa 27:3 is still clearly preserve/watch/keep/guard. It's strictly related to god.

As to Simon haKatan and the 18 benedictions, I pointed out in the OP that the evidence is against the benedictions having originally mentioned the notzrim, notzrim having been added centuries later. Daniel Boyarin works under the notion that it's a fifth century manifestation in the benedictions!

From the little evidence I've seen it is rather difficult to establish a workable date I can present for the early use of "notzrim".

stephan huller

I never said that I had any examples from the Jewish writings for the esoteric origins of the Passion concept. I just said here is an example of Isaiah using the word. Yes, you are right the evidence isn't great. I see Talmudic sources. But I also see a strange emphasis that he was equal to or connected with very ancient sources.

Samuel was called the Less because he was a bit lower in stature than the prophet Samuel (Yerushalmi Sotah 9:13)

R. Meir rose and wrote her a bill of divorce, and gave it to her. The students then rose and all wrote bills of divorce and gave them to her. [Thus, she indeed received the bill of divorce from the man who had betrothed her, but that man's identity remained protected.] And where did R. Meir learn [that this was appropriate]? From Shmuel haKatan (as above). And where did Shmuel haKatan learn this? From Shechaniah b. Yechiel, as it is written (Ezra 10:2): "And Shecaniah the son of Jehiel, one of the sons of Elam, answered and said unto Ezra: 'We have broken faith with our God, and have married foreign women of the peoples of the land; yet now there is hope for Israel concerning this thing." [Rashi: Shecaniah himself had not intermarried, but confessed in order to avoid embarrassing those who had.] (San 11b)

Another time, they were sitting in the upper storey at Yavneh, and a Bat Kol came from Heaven asking "Is there anyone here who merits that the Shekhinah [Holy Presence] shall rest upon him, except that this generation does not merit this?" The sages looked to Shmuel haKatan. When he died, they said of him "Woe, how pious; Woe how humble. He was a disciple of Hillel." In fact, he said at the time of his death "Shimon and Yishmael will die by the sword, and their comrades will die by other means, and the rest of the nation will be despoiled, and terrible tragedies will befall the world." [Rashi: Shmuel HaKatan's deathbed prophesy showed that the Divine Presence indeed rested on him; he accurately predicted that R. Shimon b. Gamliel {the Patriarch} and R. Yishmael {the High Priest} would die by the sword at the hands of the Romans, and that their comrades {e.g., R. Akiva, R. Hanina b. Teradyon] would be killed by other means. Their deaths are recounted in the "Ten Killed by the Government" section of the Yom Kippur liturgy, although they did were not murdered at the same time.] (ibid)

The oldest evidence for his existence is the Mishnah which is as good as you are going to get with Jewish sources.

spin

I'm sorry, I have no issue with the era of Samuel haKatan. You may ultimately be right about the derivation, but I can't see any tangible resolution to the dating of "notzrim" from it. I'm just trying to track down 'a workable date I can present for the early use of "notzrim"' from Jewish literature.

stephan huller

I can't provide an explanation from the rabbinic literature but that in a way is hardly surprising. They were probably only appropriating something which the Christians themselves used to describe themselves. The place to look I think is in Clement of Alexandria's use of the terminology. While the term 'Passion' is never explained in early Christian writers Clement has a very curious interpretation of the Question of the Rich Youth (Mark 10:17 - 31) which employs the Greek equivalent:

The renunciation, then, and selling (πωλῆσαι) of all possessions (ὐπάρχοντα), is to be understood as expressly spoken of the passions of the soul (τῶν ψυχῶν παθῶν διειρημένον). [Quis Dives Salvetur 14]

and again:

And this is the import of "Sell what thou hast, and give to the poor, and come, follow Me" -- that is, follow what is said by the Lord. Some say that by what "thou hast" He designated the things in the soul, of a nature not akin to it, though how these are bestowed on the poor they are not able to say. For God dispenses to all according to desert, His distribution being righteous. Despising, therefore, the possessions which God apportions to thee in thy magnificence, comply with what is spoken by me; haste to the ascent of the Spirit, being not only justified by abstinence from what is evil, but in addition also perfected, by Christlike beneficence. [Stromata 4.6]

and again:

Much more, then, is the Scripture to be believed which says, "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man " to lead a philosophic life. But, on the other hand, it blesses "the poor;" as Plato understood when he said, "It is not the diminishing of one's resources, but the augmenting of insatiableness, that is to be considered poverty; for it is not slender means that ever constitutes poverty, but insatiableness, from which the good man being free, will also be rich." [Stromata 2.5]

I am just working on figuring this out for myself right now but I think it's placement only a eleven lines from Jesus's announcement of his death (and Passion) in Jerusalem is clearly the context.

It is worth noting that the Gospel of the Hebrews has 'Sell what you have, give to the poor, and pick up your cross, and follow me' in this section.

some following (ἀκολουθοῦντες) the Word speaking (λόγῳ ποιοῦνται), take up for themselves trust (τὰς πίστεις); while others, giving themselves up to pleasures (ἡδοναῖς), wrest, in accordance with their lusts (πρὸς τὰς ἐπιθυμίας), the Scriptures. [Strom 7.16]

Not only is 'following' an important metaphor in Clement but also this juncture where - it would seem - one disciple was originally understood to have made his way to witness the 'Passion' and was 'transformed.' Not surprisingly Irenaeus reports of a certain group which preferred the gospel of Mark that they "separate Jesus from Christ, alleging that Christ remained impassible, but that it was Jesus who suffered, preferring the Gospel by Mark, if they read it with a love of truth, may have their errors rectified." [AH 3.11.7]

While this is not what OR WHERE you were looking for the dating of the terminology I think it demonstrates that it goes back to the beginning of Christianity. This is why I think that the Letter to Theodore is so important. I think it provides for the ritual context of the 'redemption' ritual associated with those of Mark in Irenaeus AH 1.20.1,2 and that it was the beginning of 'the Passion.' Even Ephrem says that Christ 'died' before the crucifixion.

Smith noticed that the placement of the first addition to canonical Mark (LGM 1) within the section of Mark leading up to the passion narrative corresponds to the placement of the raising of Lazarus within the Gospel of John. Smith carried this observation further and noted extensive parallels between the materials within Mark 10:1–34 plus LGM 1 and John 10:40–11:54, indeed, between the whole of Mark 6:32–15:47 and John 6:1–19:42.13. The pervasive differences between the two gospels even where these parallels exist, however, led Smith to conclude that neither John nor longer Mark was directly dependent upon the other as a source but, rather, that both authors had recourse to very different Greek editions of an earlier Aramaic gospel

While this wasn't what you were asking for, I hope it is useful in some small way.