Continued from last post above ↑
Continuation of excerpts from The Aramaic Period of the Nascent Christian Church (ZNW, 44 [1952/53], 205-23), by Charles C. Torrey:
To be continued...
Continuation of excerpts from The Aramaic Period of the Nascent Christian Church (ZNW, 44 [1952/53], 205-23), by Charles C. Torrey:
Ben Zakkai's successor was Gamaliel II, who received the Presidency in the year 80, at Jamnia. He had been, from the first, a determined enemy of the Nazarenes, and one of the earliest measures that he took, on assuming office, was to insert a curse on the Christians in the daily prayer, Shemone Esre. This was virtually excommunication, and so it was regarded.* Gamaliel had made the daily repetition of the Eighteen Benedictions obligatory on every man. The Nazarene who felt himself to be a loyal Jew was now put in an intolerable position. He could neither lead the prayers in the synagogue nor join in them. He and his party ― the Christians ― were effectually and finally shut out.
There came a time when the leaders of the Nazarenes saw that they must cut loose from the Jews and cast their lot with the Gentiles. There is in Christian sources no record of such a time; and indeed a definite date might not be expected, in as much as the actual separation took place slowly (see below), since ties of race and kinship, and of long-continued custom, are not readily broken. But on the other hand, leaving the Synagogue and "casting lot with the Gentiles" certainly involved adopting Greek as the official language of the Palestinian Church and discontinuing the use of Aramaic. Here was a distinct and permanent mark of separation.
There came a time when the leaders of the Nazarenes saw that they must cut loose from the Jews and cast their lot with the Gentiles. There is in Christian sources no record of such a time; and indeed a definite date might not be expected, in as much as the actual separation took place slowly (see below), since ties of race and kinship, and of long-continued custom, are not readily broken. But on the other hand, leaving the Synagogue and "casting lot with the Gentiles" certainly involved adopting Greek as the official language of the Palestinian Church and discontinuing the use of Aramaic. Here was a distinct and permanent mark of separation.
*Moore, Judaism, I, 292, footnote, gives the earliest Palestinian form of the anathema as follows: "For apostates may there be no hope, and may the Nazarenes and the heretics suddenly perish." In Vol. III (the volume of Notes), p. 97, Moore gives references from Epiphanius and Jerome, and remarks that in the quotations from the curse which they both give the Nazarenes are specifically mentioned.
To be continued...
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