Notzrim

The earliest mention in the Babylonian Talmud is where a student of Rabbi Joshuah ben Perachiah is called Notzri (adjectival of Notzrim).

• Sanhedrin 107b: What of R. Joshua b. Perahjah? — When King Jannai (104-78 B.C.) slew our Rabbis, R. Joshua b. Perahjah (with his student Yeshu) fled to Alexandria of Egypt. On the resumption of peace, Simeon b. Shetach sent to him: 'From me, the holy city, to thee, Alexandria of Egypt (my sister). My husband (the Rabbis) dwelleth within thee and I am desolate.' He arose, went, and found himself in a certain inn, where great honour was shewn him. 'How beautiful is this Acsania!' (can mean inn or female innkeeper) Thereupon (Yeshu) observed, 'Rabbi, her eyes are narrow.' 'Wretch,' he rebuked him, 'dost thou thus engage thyself.' He sounded four hundred trumpets and excommunicated him. He came before him many times pleading, 'Receive me!' But he would pay no heed to him. One day he was reciting the Shema', when Yeshu came before him. He intended to receive him and made a sign to him. He thinking that it was to repel him, went, put up a brick, and worshipped it. 'Repent,' said he to him. He replied, 'I have thus learned from thee: He who sins and causes others to sin is not afforded the means of repentance.' And a Master has said, 'Yeshu the Notzri practised magic and led Israel astray.'

Soter 47a repeats the story without naming Yeshu the Notzri. Notzrim are also mentioned in a few more places.^[8] According to Pritz, the Notzrim (whom he considers to be proto-Catholics) are explicitly mentioned only in Avodah Zarah 6a, Ta'anit 27b, and Gittin 57a.^[9]

• Avodah Zarah 6a: The day of the Notzrim, according to the words of R. Ishmael, is forbidden for ever.^[10]
• Taanit 27b: "Why did they not fast on the day after the Sabbath? Rabbi Johanan said, because of the Notzrim"
• Gittin 57a:

The medieval Jewish folk tale Toledoth Yeshu gathers together in one place most references to the Notzrim from the Talmud. The Toledoth Yeshu identifies a certain Notzri during the reign of Alexander Jannaeus as a rebellious student mentioned in the Baraitas as "Yeshu Ha-Notzri".^{[citation needed]} This is generally seen as a continuation of references to Jesus in the Talmud ^[11] although the identification has been contested, as Yeshu ha-Notzri is depicted as living circa 100 BCE.^[12] According to the Toledot Yeshu the Notzrim flourished during the reign of the Hasmonean queen Alexandra Helene Salome among Hellenized supporters of Rome in Judea.^[13]

Two fragments of the Birkat haMinim "Curse on the heretics" in copies of the Amidah found in the Cairo Geniza include Notzrim in the malediction against Minim.^[14][15][16] (Robert Herford (1903) concluded that Minim in the Talmud and Midrash generally refers to Jewish Christians.^[17])

In Hebrew, the word "Notzrim" (נוצרים) is the standard modern word for Christians, but Meshiykhiyyim (משיחיים) is used by many Christians of themselves, as in the BFBS New Testament of Franz Delitzsch; 1 Peter 4:16 "Yet if anyone suffers as a Meshiykhiyyim (משיחיים), let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name."^[18][19]

Pliny the Elder mentioned a people called the "Nazerini" in his Historia Naturalis (Book V,22).^[20] Bernard Duborg (1987) connects Pliny's Nazerini with early Christians, and Dubourg dates Pliny's source between 30 and 20 BCE and, accounting for the lapse of time required for the installation in Syria of a sect born in Israel/Judea, suggests the presence of a Nasoraean current around 50 BCE.^[21] Pliny the Elder indicates^[22] that the Nazerini lived not far from Apamea, in Syria in a city called Bambyx, Hierapolis or Mabog. However it is generally thought that this people has no connection to either Tertullus' description of Paul, nor to the later 4th Century Nazarenes^[23] Bizarrely,^{[citation needed]} Pritz, following Dussaud, connects Pliny's 1st century BCE Nazerini, to the 9th century CE Nusairis.^{[citation needed]}

Regarding Notzrim, Wilson says "There are no tannaitic references and few from the amoraic period. The one clear reference (b.Ta'an.27b) could refer to Christians in general, but might mean only "Jewish Christians". The fullest discussion is in Kimelman.^[24]

Tertullian, ^[25] Jerome, Origen^{[citation needed]} and Eusebius note that the Jews call Christians either Nazuraioi or Nasaraoio or Nazarenos. However the descriptions given by each author are conflicting. Jerome and Tertullian are in closer agreement, but their description only matches with the description of Nasaraioi in Eusebeus and not with his Nazuraioi.

Tertullian, Against Marcion 4.8)

— 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.^[26]

Tertulian's proposed etymology of Nazarene presumably for the Hebrew word Notzrim is not entirely without problems if indeed this is what he intended.

Epiphanius uses the spelling Νασαραίοι, which he distinguishes from Nazoraios in the New Testament, were a Jewish-Christian sect.^{[clarification needed]} The sect was apparently centered in the areas of Coele-Syria, Galilee and Samaria, essentially corresponding to the long-defunct state of Northern Israel.^[27] According to the testimony of Epiphanius against the 4th century Nazarenes, he reports them as having pre-Christian origins. He writes: "there were Nasaraioi amongst the Jews before the time of Christ."^[28]

They were said to have rejected temple sacrifice and the Torah, but adhered to other Jewish practice. They are described as being vegetarian.^[29] Epiphanius says it was unlawful for them to eat meat or make sacrifices. According to him they were Jews only by nationality who lived in Gilead, Basham, and the Transjordan. They revered Moses but, unlike the pro-Torah Nazoraeans, believed he had received different laws from those accredited to him. Epiphanius testimony was accepted as accurate by many 19th Century scholars, again including Wilhelm Bousset, Richard Reitzenstein and Bultmann. Thus it appears that the Νασαραίοι were originally composed at least partly of Jews (viz., Israelite-Samaritans) beginning long before the Christian Era, whose anti-Torah teachings ^[30] may have had some gnostic leanings.

The Mandaeans of Iraq use the term "Nasorean" in their history, the Haran Gawaitha, to describe their origins in, and migration from Jerusalem: "And sixty thousand Nasoreans abandoned the Sign of the Seven and entered the Median Hills, a place where we were free from domination by all other races."...^[31]

Theories on the origins of the Mandaeans have varied widely. During the 19th Century Wilhelm Bousset, Richard Reitzenstein and Bultmann argued that the Mandaeans were pre-Christian, as a parallel of Bultmann's theory that Gnosticism predated the Gospel of John.^[32] Hans Lietzmann (1930) countered with the argument that all extant texts could be explained by a 7th Century exposure to, and conversion to, an oriental form of Christianity, taking on such Christian rituals as a Sunday Sabbath.

The Mandaeans consider themselves successors of the pre-Christian Notzrim, however no evidence for this is found prior to the second century.^[33] They claim John the Baptist as a member (and onetime leader) of their sect; the River Jordan is a central feature of their doctrine of baptism.^[34] However, in the 1960s the position of scholars of Mandaeism settled on an early Jerusalem, but not pre-Christian, origin.^[35][36]

According to a Mandaean manuscript, the Haran Gawaita, John the Baptist is baptized, initiated, and educated by the patron of the Nasirutha ("secret knowledge") Anuš (אנושׁ) or Anuš-ʼuthra, the hierophant of the sect.^[37] This research was conducted by the Oxford scholar and specialist on the Nasoraeans, Dr. E. S. Drower, who concedes, however, that John’s name may have been inserted at a later date (it appears as Yahia, which is Arabic, not Aramaic).^[38] Drower also asserts that the Church Fathers Hippolytus and Eusebius describe Simon Magus, the Samaritan sorcerer of biblical fame (Acts 8:9ff), as a Nasoraean and a disciple of John the Baptist.^[39] The author of the pseudo-Clementine Homilies (Bk. II, xxiii-xxiv), also describes Simon Magus as a disciple of John the Baptist and a Nasoraean. The Homilies also state that the immediate successor to John was another Samaritan named Dositheus, elected as leader because Simon happened to be in Egypt at the time of the martyrdom of the Baptist. Homily (Bk II, xxiv) recounts that when Simon returned from Egypt, the two quarreled: Simon’s authority was proved by miracles; thus Dositheus ceded his position as head of the sect and became Simon’s pupil.^[40]

As a result of efforts to bring the sect back into the folds of Judaism they also disparaged the Christian books as fiction, regarding Jesus as the literary invention (mšiha kdaba "false prophet") of Paul of Tarsus,^{[citation needed]} but eventually they emerged towards the end of the 1st century as the Mandaeans though others actually managed to shape the anti-Torah development of Pauline Christianities like Marcionism.^[41] E. S. Drower surmises that the Mandaean/Nasoraean "hatred for Jews" originated during a period in which they were in close contact with orthodox Jewry, and when the latter was able to exercise authority over them.^[42]

The term Mandaii itself may be the Aramaic/Mandaean equivalent of the Greek gnosis ("knowledge"). Besides the Mandaeans, they have been frequently been connected with groups known as Naaseni, Naasenians, Naassenes.^{[citation needed]}

According to E. S. Drower, the Mandaeans, called "Nasoreans", were one of the earliest key Gnostic sects. Many of the original Nasoraeans became Christians and, thus, in Modern Israeli Hebrew, the term Notzrim has come to simply mean Christians. Drower surmises that the Nasoraean "hatred for Jews" originated during a period in which they were in close contact with orthodox Jewry, and when the latter was able to exercise authority over them.^[43]

• Ebionites
• Jewish Christians
• Kabbalists
• Ophites

• Drower, E. S., The Secret Adam: A Study of Nasoraean Gnosis, Clarendon Press, Oxford (1960)
• The Ante-Nicene Fathers (1986 American Edition), vol. viii, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publ. Co., Grand Rapids, Michigan.