the gemarah seems to follow a theme that each of the prohibitions seem to be more stressful to the idol worshipper , therefore we may come to think that he wont thank his deity under stressful situation , and thats why the mishnah needed to list all of them .
My question is why couldnt the mishnah just list what it thought to be the most stressful situation ( for the idol worshiper to pay a debt ) and we would easily learn that even if we cant do this , then certainly we wouldnt be able to transact with situations that dont give the idol worshipper that level of distress. list the 4th prohibition only and we would know to assume the 3rd, 2nd , ans 1st. ......thank you please let me know if this is a valid question . I have thought of a possible answer but i would like to hear from you.
thank you
ezra antebi, brooklyn , usa
While I did not find this question explicitly asked in the commentaries, I believe that the answer is that the Mishnah is not dealing with situations that are objectively more stressful than the next. Each situation could be interpreted as being more reason to thank his idol or less reason to thank his idol. Since the Mishnah lists these situations in a particular order, the Gemara finds the novelty of each case in what it presumes to be ascending order, as the Mishnah often lists its laws by adding another novel law.
However, one could say that each case has its own unique aspect. For example, one could certainly understand that if the Mishnah merely said "collecting from them," we would not have known that borrowing from them would be forbidden. Perhaps we would have said that the idolater is scared that he will not get his money back, which overrides his thankfulness to his deity. The Gemara knew this, and -- like many other Gemaras -- did not bother to give the novelty of each case in reverse order.
All the best,
Yaakov Montrose