The Trouble with Sundays
One final idea from Avodah Zarah 7. Given an approach that idolatrous Festivals are forbidden, both the day itself, the preceding three days, and according the Rabbi Yishmael, also the following three days, what if there is an idolatrous festival every Sunday?
That is what appears in the Vilna Shas:
where יום א refers to the first day of the week. For some reason this bothers the Masoret Hashas. See the emendation in the margins. There are actually two changes, he emends to יום עבודת כוכבים instead of יום א, and he reorders לדברי רבי ישמעאל’s place in the sentence. I am not sure what this means. Maybe he interpreted יום א as a shorthand for יום אידם?
Regardless, what is the problem with Sunday? Artscroll runs with the Vilna Shas text, and its translation and footnotes explains that there was a Babylonian idolatrous festival every Sunday, from sun worshipers. And, they point us to an earlier footnote where Meiri’s position is discussed at length, how there is a distinction between the idol worshipers of old and the modern Christians. However, Artscroll does not mention the correct girsa in this text.
Meanwhile, here is the text as it appears in the Steinsaltz edition on Sefaria:
גְּמָ׳ אָמַר רַב תַּחְלִיפָא בַּר אַבְדִּימִי אָמַר שְׁמוּאֵל: נוֹצְרִי, לְדִבְרֵי רַבִּי יִשְׁמָעֵאל לְעוֹלָם אָסוּר.
GEMARA: Rav Taḥlifa bar Avdimi says that Shmuel says: With regard to a Christian, according to the statement of Rabbi Yishmael it is always prohibited for a Jew to engage in business with him. Since his festival takes place every Sunday and the three days before and after Sunday constitute the entire week, one cannot engage in business with a Christian on any day of the week.
Instead of יום א, which is admittedly true as the problematic day, the original text is נוצרי, interpreted here as Christian. Since every Sunday is his Sabbath, and apparently by Shmuel’s day, Christians were considered idolators because of their worship of Yeshu haNotzri, that would disqualify every day of the week.
Here is the printing / manuscript breakdown:
Venice and Pesaro printings were entirely censored, and removed the word נוצרי entirely. This made for a confusing statement, since why should Rabbi Yishmael forbid every day. (And maybe that could spark a Masoret Hashas comment.)
Vilna is an improvement, because it endeavors to make the sentence sensible, even as it maintains the Christian censorship.
The three manuscripts, Munich 95, JTS 15, and Paris 1337 all have נוצרי.
As a sample, here is Paris 1337:
This really does seem to indicate that it is referring to Christians. However, here is how Meiri deals with it.
Locally on our sugya (but aligned in Sefaria to a comment beginning in Avoda Zara 6b), here is what Meiri says:
ואע"פ שיש בסוגיא זו דברים נראים כמתנגדים לזו והוא מה שאמרו נצרי לעולם אסור כבר פרשנו דעתנו במשנה וגדולי המחברים כתבו בענינים אלו דרכים אחרים ולא נראו לנו
… and even though there is in this sugya things which seem to contradict this idea, and this is what they said ‘Natzri forbids forever’, we have already explained our position in the Mishnah. And the great authors wrote regarding these matters other approaches, but those approaches don’t seem correct to us.
So, going back to the Mishnah, what does Meiri explain? On Avodah Zarah 2a, he writes:
ומה שאמרו בגמ' נצרי לעולם אסור אני מפרשו מלשון נוצרים באים מארץ מרחק האמור בירמיה שקרא אותם העם נוצרים על שם נבוכד נצר וידוע שצלם השמש היה בבבל ושכל עם נבוכדנצר היו עובדים לו וכבר ידעת שהחמה משמשת ביום ראשון כענין ראשי ימים ומתוך כך היו קורין לאותו יום נצרי על שם שהיה קבוע לנבוכד נצר על צד ממשלת חמה שבו והדברים נראין וברורים:
That is,
And that which they said in the gemara, ‘Natzri forbids forever’, I explain it from the language of נֹצְרִ֥ים בָּאִ֖ים מֵאֶ֣רֶץ הַמֶּרְחָ֑ק, ‘notzrim are coming from a distant land’ which is stated in Yirmeyahu 4:16. That is, he called that nation notzrim based on Nevuchad Netzar. And it is known that the image / idol of the Sun was in Bavel, and that all of Nevuchadnetzar’s nation would worship it. And it is already known that the Sun serves in the first day [of the week] in the maner of the head of the days. And based on this, that called that day Yom Natzri, based on its being fixed for Nevuchad Netzar by aspect of the dominion of the Sun in it. And these words are convincing and clear.
It could be that calling it יום א in Vilna was parallel to the word נצר as יום נצר.
At any rate, I don’t find this so convincing, and a bit of a stretch. In terms of the pasuk in Yirmeyahu, look at the local meforshim. The word notzrim there can be explained as watchers, or besiegers. Radak admittedly does explain it as a play on Netzer of Nevuchadnetzar, and this wordplay can work as they are the troops of the attacking king, so this comes to mind.
But, aside from this wordplay, can we establish that this is a common name for Babylonians? And, that Shmuel would choose to use that term precisely here?
And, at least with a bit of Googling, there are claims that the Babylonians worshiped the Sun at the start of the week, but I am not sure that this is so.
Meanwhile, notzrim as Christians does seem more established, and having a weekly “festival” also makes sense.
We could also consider why specifically Shmuel, a first-generation Amora in Bavel, would address the issue. We could try to connect it to King Shapur I, of the Sassanian dynasty, with whom Shmuel was on friendly terms. Shapur fought the Romans, and deported many Christians among them into Sasanian cities.
Though not a conscious goal, Shāpūr I was responsible for the early spread of Christianity throughout the Sāsānian Empire because of his large-scale deportations of Roman craftspeople, many of whom were Christian.
This influx of Christians into Babylonia could have impelled Shmuel to comment on their halachic significance.
On the other hand, there is a gemara in Pesachim 56a, about reciting Baruch Shem Kevod Malchuto leOlam va’Ed in Shema:
אָמַר רַבִּי אֲבָהוּ: הִתְקִינוּ שֶׁיְּהוּ אוֹמְרִים אוֹתוֹ בְּקוֹל רָם, מִפְּנֵי תַּרְעוֹמֶת הַמִּינִין. וּבִנְהַרְדְּעָא, דְּלֵיכָּא מִינִין, עַד הַשְׁתָּא אָמְרִי לַהּ בַּחֲשַׁאי.
Rabbi Abbahu said: The Sages instituted that the people should recite it aloud due to the grievance of the heretics. It was instituted to prevent the heretics from claiming that the Jews are surreptitiously reciting inappropriate statements. The Gemara adds: In Neharde’a, where there are no heretics, they recite it surreptitiously even now.
This is a mix of Hebrew, on Rabbi Abahu’s part, and Aramaic, regarding the second part. But it does indicate that in Nehardea, which was Shmuel’s domain, there were no minim, which could well refer to Christians.
Back to the first hand, consider that Munich 95 lacks this sentence and only puts it in in the margin. And, records the speaker as Rav-vahu, who might be the extremely late, Ravavhu II, a student of Rav Ashi.
However, see Barak S. Cohen in Studies in Rabbinic Judaism and Early Christianity, in his essay "In Nehardea There Are No Heretics": The Purported Jewish Response To Christianity In Nehardea (A Re-Examination Of The Talmudic Evidence). He cites the aforementioned gemara as well as others. It is not open access, so I will try to obtain a copy to read through. It seems that he does believe there was a reaction to Christians in Nehardea.
Perhaps to be continued…
Fascinating! I’m in the middle of writing a book on the emergence and spread of the seven-day week.
Two notes:
1. Despite what can be found on the internet and indeed repeated by some scholars, the Babylonians had no awareness of the seven-day week. And they certainly didn’t have a special day dedicated to the sun every seven days. Such a day did exist in world history, including the cult of Sol Invictus (which seems to have influenced some Christian associations with Sunday) and Manicheanism, but these emerged centuries after their host societies adopted the seven-day week via direct or indirect contact with (Jewish) sabbath observers.
2. A great irony is that it’s extremely likely that the association of the planets with the days of the week comes from Second temple Jews. Which is why it’s all over Chazal. See especially Solomon Gandz’s classic article, which is still the best treatment: https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/3622199.pdf. In my book, I will (please God) be significantly expanding on this argument. It’s impossible to say definitively that the planetary-astrological scheme was invented by Judeans (seeking to associate the sabbath cycle with high-prestige ideas from Hellenistic Egyptian world of the 2nd century BCE) but its very likely. (Birkat Hachammah is key to this— the only case of the use of planetary names for the week in Halacha). Accordingly, it’s a delicious irony that the Jewish role in the invention of the week itself and of the astrological week in particular are so forgotten by the time of the Meiri (abd then by Art Scroll, which could and should know better) to enable these takes.
OK, can't resist one more comment (did I say this was *fascinating*?):
It turns out that Shmuel's lifetime may have been a particularly important one in the history of the seven-day week, and Sunday in particular, in the Sasanian empire. And given that, it makes sense that there would then be particular concern about commercial dealings between Jews and Christians (and maybe Jews and non-Jews generally) on Sunday. I say this for two reasons:
First, the Sasanian empire (and its Persian predecessors) never adopted the seven-day week. Nonetheless, it clearly developed organically during the first centuries of the commo era under Jewish &/or Christian influence. This is indicated by the fact that the Persian names for the days of the week are clearly based on the Aramaic names (which do not differ between Jewish Aramaic and Syriac). Saturday is "Shamba"; Sunday is "Yek-shamba" (one day after Saturday); Monday is "Du-Shamba" (two days after Saturday) etc. (These also become the names for the days of the week in Turkic languages of central Asia.)
Second, a new religion emerged in this region during the middle-late 3rd century, one that was clearly influenced by Christianity (and thus by Judaism) as well as Zoroastrianism (and so addressing wider Persian society), and it built the planetary week into it, with the Day of the Sun and the Day of the Moon as important (fasting) days. I'm referring to Manichaeanism. (Note also that if Sunday and Monday were fast days [but not rest days], it would have followed that there would have been more commercial traffic on Sundays. Markets and Christian Sunday are also generally compatible at most times in Christian history, which the Gemara seems to know too.
The upshot is that Shmuel may be reacting to the rising secular use of the week, and Sunday in particular, by non-Jews and worried about Jews being pulled into those interactions. This would also align with various statements in chazal that reflect concerns that Jews should not observe the week as non-Jews have begun to do. (My hunch is that this is where לא ישכנו בו ערלים comes from; it reasonably would have taken awhile for us to get comfortable with the idea that non-Jews could observe the week, including religious days on the week-end, without it threatening Shabbat)