Legendy Židů - svazek 4

Like the Scriptures, the fourth volume of the Legends of the Hebrews abounds with stories, prophecies, resurrection miracles, and theological reflections, many of which have never even been heard of by scribes. For example, that Joshua was devoured by a whale, threatened with an Oedipal fate, and that Moses used magic to strengthen Joshua's intellect; that Israel's spies were priests and that they were like angels to some: visible when they want to be seen, invisible when they don't want to be seen; that the Spirit of God descended on Kenaz so that he had a vision that this world would exist for only seven thousand years, after which the Kingdom of Heaven would come; that the city of Luz remained untouched by Sancherib and Nebuchadnezzar, and that even the angel of death has no power over its inhabitants, so that the people of Luz, unless they are tired of life and leave the city, never die; that all the prophets were born to their mothers in the seventh month of pregnancy; that Abner's mother, the witch of En-dor, saw Samuel but did not hear what he said, and that Saul, on the other hand, heard Samuel's words but did not see him; that when the burly man stood in the eye-socket of Absalom's skull, he sank into it so that only his nose stuck out; that the world was made only for the extremely pious or the very sinful; for the former the world to come, for the latter this world; that when Solomon married Pharaoh's daughter, the archangel Gabriel came down from heaven and planted a reed in the sea, on which more and more sediment was gradually deposited, until a small hut was built on an islet, which became the foundation of the settlement from which Rome arose; that Solomon not only ruled over men, but also over the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, demons, ghosts, and the phantoms of the night, and that he knew their language well, and that all these beings understood him in turn; that after the dedication of the Temple, the torrential rains which, beginning with the month of Marcheshvan, had annually scourged the earth since the Flood itself, did not occur for the first time and were never repeated; that Elijah is a psyker-pompos, whose task is to stand at the crossroads of Paradise and guide the pious to their individual, designated dwellings; that the well-known Arab legend of Al-Khadir (Al-Khidra) has its obvious origin in the Jewish agad of Elijah; that at the end of the Persian period Israel was abandoned by the prophetic spirit, which made it necessary to canonize the sacred texts; that the men of this venerable assembly, through the power of prayer and the laying on of hands upon him who tempts to sin, successfully banished from the world the desire for idolatry, but the desire for lust, the second great enemy, they were unable to expel, and after holding him captive for three days, they were finally forced to set him free, for they found that once sexual desire was gone from the world, not a single egg was laid.

This final, most colourful part of the tetralogy (followed by a very sketchy index) is rounded off with the story recorded in the book of Esther, which represents the last of the writings of Scripture. We know the subsequent history of Israel and all the hardships of her people only from oral tradition. For this reason, the heroine of the last canonical book was named Esther, i.e., Venus, the Morning Star, who gives forth light even when the other stars are extinguished and the sun has not yet risen. The deeds of Queen Esther thus shed rays of light into the darkest period of Israel's history. The Jews in the days of Ahasuerus were like the dove that wants to sit in the nest, though there is a coiled serpent in the nest, but she has no choice, for a falcon is coming down from above and is about to attack her. In Shushan, the Jews were in the clutches of Haman, but in other lands they were at the mercy of the many mortal enemies of their race, ready to obey Haman's summons - to kill and destroy the Jews to the point of annihilation.
Czech edition