The Samson Nazirite Vow in the Sixteenth Century

Abstract

Responsa emanating from the Ottoman lands of the sixteenth century give evidence of the widespread use of an oath which invoked the name of Samson the Nazirite. Someone who undertook a “Samson nazirite vow” generally did so by making it conditional on his performance of or abstention from a certain act, thereby using it as an assurance for his word. Although the Samson nazirite, as a halakhic concept, is discussed in the Talmud, and its laws are codified by Maimonides, the earliest trace of its use as a contitional sanction does not precede the fifteenth century. It appears then in a single genizah document. The language of the vow is Judeo-Spanish, a fact which points to its provenance. It does not appear in the halakhic literature before the sixteenth century, nor does it appear to have been current even then in Christian Europe.