joodschristelijk cabaret: bijna 2000 jaar grapjens

Allemaal
symboliek dus.
Maar niet geheel
zonder enige betekenis, zin,
reden, verstand
or fun!

Nog
even terug
naar onze Ecclesiastical
History {VII:15} met 't boek
& 't zwaard die niet best
samengaan.

When he came outside the court
Theotecnus, the bishop there, approached and drew him aside in conversation,
& taking him by the hand led him forward to the church.
Once inside, he placed hem close to the altar itself, and raising his cloak a little,
pointed to the sword with which he was girded;
at the same time he brought and placed before him the book of the divine Gospels,
and bade him choose which of the two he wished.
Without hesitation he stretched forth his right hand and took the divine book.
"Hold fast then,"
said Theotecnus to him,
"hold fast to G d; and, strengthened by Him, mayest thou obtain that thou hast chosen.
Go in peace."
As he was returning thence immediately a herald cried out aloud,
summoning him before the court of justice.
For the appointed time was now over.
Standing before the judge he displayed still greater zeal for the faith;
and straightaway, even as he was,
was led away to death,
and so was
perfected.

Clearly,
the notion
of incompatibility of
the book and the sword
was common to both Rabbis
and bishops.

All this
provides us with
an example in which the rabbinic text
helps to understand the patristic one more exactly.
You can easily read this passage as meaning that the bishop's is an act of persuasion:
"Choose the Gospels rather than the centurion's vineswitch,"
that is, choose martyrdom
rather than apostasy.

In the light
of the talmudic parallel, however
~ from the same time and place as Eusebius himself ~
I think we can read it rather as an indication on the part of Theotecnus that you can't have both,
the book and the sword, or if you are to be martyred as a Christian, give up first your martial bent.
This provides a stronger reading to the text, for there is, in fact,
no indication whatever that Marinus was wavering
in his commitment.

These stories
have dramatically different endings,
for Rabbi El'azar escapes from being martyred via this proverbial utterance,
while Marunis, of course, is propelled toward nartyrdom via the same topos.
This is not an incidental difference.

The Rabbi's tricksterism is rewarded with miraculous divine interventions,
signaling the text's approval of his tactics. The Romans next ask him:
Why do they call you Rabbi [Master]?
He answered them:
"I am the master of the weavers."
They brought him two spools of thread and asked him:
"Which is the warp and which is the weft?"
A miracle took place for him.
A male bee came and sat on the weft and a female bee came and sat on the warp.
[Weaving as in sexual intercourse: the warp as female and the weft as male!]
"And why did you not come to the House of Avodan [the local temple]?"
[Perhaps the "Odeon," a meeting place where religious controversies were held.
Whether or not "The House of Avidan" can be identified with the Caesarean Odeum in this passage or that passage of the Talmud has virtuaaly nothing to do with what this ~ fictional! ~ text might have understood the term to mean. In the context of this story, it almost certainly must be a place for pagan worship and not a site for the disputations between Jews, Christians, and pagans, for if it were the latter,
how would the Rabbi's attendance or absence been indicative of his religious identity?]!
He said:
"I am old, and I was afraid that you would trample me with you feet."
They said to him;
"Up until now how many old men have been trampled?"
A miracle took place for him, and that very day an old man was trampled.
"Why did you release your slave to freedom?"
[It is at least worth noting that in this Jewish representation,
manumission {to give (slaves) their freedom} was considered a sign of adherence to Torah and disloyalty
to Roman authority. It is not entirely clear to me [in fact, is is quite obscure to me] what the historical background for this judgment could be. However, issuea surrounding Galatians 3:28, 1 Corinthians 7:21,
and Philemon {10 e.v.} seem not out of place in this matter.
ER ZIJN GEEN
Joden of Grieken meer, slaven of vrijen, mannen of vrouwen ~ jullie zijn allen
EEN
in Yesjoea haMasjiach:
en omdat jullie "Christos" toebehoren, zijn jullie nakomelingen van Avraham,
erfgenamen volgens de belofte! Het is voortaan volkomen onbelangrijk of je nu wel of niet besneden bent: belangrijk is alleen dat je de geboden van G d in acht neemt.
Laat ieder dus maar blijven wat hij was toen hij werd geroepen.
Wanneer je als slaaf geroepen bent, dan moet je dat niets kunnen schelen
[hoewel je de kans om vrij te worden zeker moet benutten]!
Want een slaaf die door de Heer geroepen is,
is een vrijgelatene van de Heer, zoals degene die als vrij man geroepen is
een slaaf van Christos is.
Je bent gekocht en betaald: dus wees geen slaven van mensen!
Ik zou u om 'n gunst willen vragen voor Onesimus die tijdens mijn gevangenschap mijn kind is geworden:
hij was u destijds niet van nut; nu kan hij echter niet alleen mij, maar ook u goede diensten bewijzen.
Ik stuur hem naar u terug, hoewel hij me na aan het hart ligt en ik hem graag bij me gehouden had.
Dan had hij namens u voor mij kunnen zorgen nu ik omwille van het evangelie gevangen zit.
Maar ik heb zonder uw medeweten niets willen ondernemen, want u moet mij niet een gunst verlenen omdat ik u onder druk zet, maar omdat u het zelf wilt. Misschien hebt u hen korte tijd moeten missen om
hem voor altijd terug te krijgen, nu voortaan niet meer als een slaaf, maar als veel meer dan dat,
als een geliefde broeder. Voor mij is hij dat al, hoeveel te meer moet hij het dus voor u zijn, zowel in het dagelijks leven als in het geloof in de Heer. Dus, als u met mij verbonden bent, ontvang hem dan zoals u
mij zou ontvangen. En mocht hij u hebben benadeeld of u iets schuldig zijn, breng het mij dan in rekening. Ik, Paulus, schrijf hier eigenhandig neer dat ik u zal betalen.
Ik ga er dan maar aan voorbij dat u mij uw eigen leven schuldig bent.
Kom. broeder, bewijs mij deze dienst omwille van de Heer,
stel mij omwille van Christus gerust!
"It never happened!"
One got up to testify against him [that he had released his slave]!
Elijah came and appeared like one of them!
He [the disguised Elijah] said to him [the potential witness]:
"Since a miracle has happened for him in the other cases, a miracle will happen this time as well,
and something bad will happen to you [lit. 'that man']!"
[In talmudic style, detrimental predicates are nearly always put into third-person sentences in order to avoid predicating them of the speaker or his interlocutors in a situation in which the text was read out loud. So "that man" frequently has to be translated as "I" or as "you."]
That man [who was betraying him] did not pay attention and gor up to tell them.
A letter had been written to the House of Caesar. They sent it with him [the informer].
[Elijah] threw him four hundred parasangs so that he went
and never came back.


This
is obviously
a highly comic,
even grotesque story of resistance,
a trichster tale pas excellence!
Rabbi El'azar the son of Perata repeatedly uses rhetorical methods
involving "double meaning [and] ambiguous intentions," precisely those tactics
that a Roman polemicist of the second Sophistic would deride as Greek, Asiatic, of effeminate,
and the text justifies him
every time!

Kortom:
toenmalige illustraties,
manieren van vertellen,
grappen maken & kleur & geur geven ~
inlegkunde vol opsiersels, herkenbare voorbeelden,
de gelijkenissen, dubbele bodems en komische trucjes!
Dat past helemaal in de lijn van wonderbaarlijke geboortes,
engelen en geesten, stemmen uit de hemel & de vele verzoekingen door Satan ['himself']!
Het is een totaal vastgeklonken wereldbeeld dat loodrecht [als een kruis] wordt verankerd i/d realiteit van die tijd en die omstandigheden, overtuigingen, bijgelovigheden & vernieuwend inzicht & daadkracht.
Een ware revolutie die alle mensen tot gelijken maakt in hun 'masjiach' als kinderen van
EEN Vader, de G d van Genesis, Avraham, Yitschak, Ya'akov/Israel,
Mosjeh & 't zogenaamde 'uitverkoren' volk
& 'alle andere volkeren'
op aarde: man,
vrouw en
kind.