Bishop Noh and the sacred tree (1)

Text
Chronicle of Arbela 5:
And he (= the bishop Noh of Arbela) also went in the land of Nineveh and brought the name of Christ to many villages, which had not before heard it. And one of those towns, by the name of Reši, its inhabitants worshiped an oak tree (beṭmē). And they all converted and recognized that Jesus, whom the Jews crucified, is truthfully the son of God. But in the canon of this village, it was that no man may drip blood around that tree. But on one day children were playing in the proximity of that accursed tree. And note: a black snake was crawling on the tree. But the children, incited by the Ghost of God, killed it with stones and dripped there the little blood, that was in it. As it became evening, the inhabitants of the village went to that place to pray. But: Oh great miracle! Look! They saw blood. Immediately they turned out of fear of their god and began to lament. The saint of God, however, was present there and cut into the tree the sign of the venerable cross. And the tree vanished from there. But after many days, they found it planted in the city of Daquq. And they uprooted it, those heathens and wanted to burn the saint and it, although it was living. Then they thought that it is the way of pure evil, from the first to the last.

But in that moment, that they set a fire with wood, the tree arose and planted itself in its place. And they said then, the wicked, one to the other: ‘Truly, our god doesn’t want us to kill this man, because in the hour, in which we want to burn him, this God came and it appeared through this sign that he says to us, that we are not to kill him. We can no longer set ourselves against our God, who shows his will in this emphatic manner. This man compares to a rose, which when much rain falls on it, blooms beautifully; when however the sun comes, it becomes limp, but after when rain falls on it, is it even bigger than before. And this man was also withered. But God wanted to rescue him from our hands. And he cast rain over him. We will let him free and give him freedom, that with it he does not bring us under the foot of God.’ Now the saint of God, when he saw that they were busy with such deliberations, began to show them the truth of the Christian faith, and many of them on the other. And under the count of an election they found a new village leader, whose name was Razmarduk. Now through zeal clothed with God was the thorn bush of the Megušdom weeded out of every village, and the faith in Jesus Christ conquered it and was planted against it.

Source (list of abbreviations) (source links will open in a new browser window)
Chronicle of Arbela 5

Bibliography

Amar Annus

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