Don't forget St. Gregory of Nyssa
The journey of the Epectasy and the start of the original women's revolution began a long time ago for the strangest reason, and has had many hiccups along the way - including the most recent in the Oval office. Which you will not recall from this previous post . . .
The journey starts in 534CE with “My Year With The Gods”
It will rock you
Free now for all on Amazon Kindle Jan 19-23 > https://goo.gl/TQMhBW
Your review is most welcome
A little taste of things to come
Chapter 50 - A Man For All Seasons
There was chaos and hubub in the atrium that night, with women with short hair and stained whites milling excitedly around Ahmed, while Rabbi Ezra and the notaries stood to one side, totally bewildered by the scene.
Talia and Zaida understood immediately the moment they caught a glimpse of him.
He was unrecognizable. His hair had been cut and he wore a blue turban and a spotless white seaman’s outfit from the dhow. With a strand of small sea shells around his neck.
Their thoroughbred was home.
“Mistress Talia,” Rabbi Ezra called, stepping forward as they crossed the room. He was on the wrong side of thirty and enjoyed his wife’s cooking far too much.
“Rabbi Ezra,” Talia said, seizing his hand. “Thank you so much for coming at such short notice.”
“What else can I do, mistress? I ask you. When a madman comes banging on my door, threatening to kill himself right there and then. To disembowel himself on my very doorstep in front of my wife and children, unless I come and perform a marriage service immediately, witnessed by notaries.”
Talia discreetly pressed gold coins into his hand.
“Buy your wife a nice new dress and some jewelry.”
“A dress!” he cried, choking on the words. “Mistress, if I buy her a dress. If I even suggest she buy a dress, she’ll throw me out of the house again, just like she did this morning when I wake up to find the whole town has gone mad. All the women have cut off their hair, and are wearing white seamen’s clothes and going to the palace.”
He leant closer to her. There was garlic on his breath.
“There must be something in the water. When she returned from the palace she looked at me with lust in her eyes like I never saw since the first year we were married.”
Talia laughed and touched his arm conspiratorially.
“She’s experienced the Epectesy of St. Gregory.”
The rabbi stared at her as if Abraham had just walked into the room.
“Then it’s true?” he said. “Aristophanes’ fool spoke to you in Greek?”
“Yes. But we were in the hands of the gods. We were somewhere else. . . And only women and Demetrius understood what he said. . . . And I remember none of it now.”
The rabbi touched her hand.
“It’s better you remember nothing. You’ve been there. You’ve done it. Trust me. It’s better this way,” he said reassuringly, but the pain on his face told of his torment.
“If I warned him once, I warned him fifty times. “Aristophanes, my friend,” I said when we would drink tea together and argue about the Torah. And I’m ashamed to say, Mistress Talia,” he said, breathing in earnestly. “That the old Greek knew more about the Talmud, the Torah and the Holy Scriptures than I ever will. And the idiot boy can recite them all from memory. He could step into my shoes this very minute and I would be out of a job, but still left with a wife and children who expect food on the table.”
“Yes, yes, Rabbi Ezra, I understand all that. But what did you warn your old friend about?”
“I tell the Greek as he’s nearing death’s door, the idiot boy is touched by God, you know this, my friend. But there’s a limit to what even his young genius mind can handle.”
The rabbi looked at her glumly.
“He didn’t listen to me. And here’s the result.”
“What? Short hair and naked breasts.”
“No, mistress. Even the stained whites I can live with,” he said, with dread in his voice. “The idiot boy has revealed the true Epectesy of St. Gregory of Nyssa.”
“Is there a false one?”
“No, my gracious hostess. There’s one anybody can read if they care to look for it. Which even Jewish scholars have studied. And the one only Aristophanes had. The original, full and unabridged version of the epectesy, mistress. The Singleness of Being. Of the soul moving into the oneness of God. As Gregory dictated to his personal scribe all those years ago. A revelation which transcends all faiths. ”
“The key to the eternal cerebral orgasm,” Talia said quietly.
“Correct. But at the time publishing it would be so inflammatory and dangerous to the continued functioning of ‘normal’ society, the scribe persuaded his master to only release a heavily edited version, lest they both be burned alive by the ruler of Cappadocia.”
“They weren’t?”
“No. And as my friend told me with almost his dying breath, the original was hidden away by the scribe, and passed down from father to son, scholars all, until it ended up here with Aristophanes. Who being without issue, could only leave it in the care of an idiot gypsy boy who remembers everything except his own name.”
The rabbi waved at her open shirt.
“The result of that is in my face,” he said. “And the town’s full of women who won’t take ‘No’ for an answer.”
Talia stared agog at him and touched his arm conspiratorially.
“Then as soon as we finish, you must rush back home and show the lady of the house you know what a hot wife wants.”
“A hot wife?” the rabbi said, puzzled.
“Yes,” Talia said pulling up her trouser cuff to show him the shell anklet. “We all have them. This’s where the revolution starts.”
“On your ankle?”
“No. When you’ve pulled her pants down, your wife will explain to you exactly where the revolutions starts.”
Rabbi Ezra nodded thoughtfully.
“What are we waiting for?”
Talia smiled broadly.
“Everybody’s here.”
The rabbi looked puzzled. “I was told there are nine brides. But where are the grooms?”
Talia pointed to Ahmed surrounded by adoring females.
Rabbi Ezra shuddered, stunned. “You mean the madman who came to my door is going to marry nine women? This crazy musician, Ahmed, will look after nine wives? Feed and clothe them?”
Talia gasped. “You know him?”
“Of course. He sings at marriages and bar and bat mitzvahs for me.”
“Is he Jewish?”
“No. It doesn’t matter. He could be Christian, Hindu or Zoroastrian for all I care. There aren’t enough Jewish men who keep the traditions these days and can sing worth a shekel. The faith’s going to hell in a handcart. Ahmed knows the words and has a good voice and sings for anyone who gives him something to eat. Times are hard, mistress, and I give the boy work whenever I can.”
“You’ll be blessed for it,” Talia said.
“That my wife looks at me for the first time in ten years like she wants to tear my clothes off is a good start.”
Talia laughed. And laughed.
The rabbi began laughing. Then the notaries started, for their joy was truly infectious.
Somehow amid all the laughter and crying for joy Ahmed ended up with nine wives, six of whom he’d never laid eyes on before. . .
image - Wikipedia
Don't forget St. Gregory of Nyssa
I've loved him for years! The only Catholic I know of to propose - without being called a heretic! - that humans cannot fry in eternal hellfire and damnation, because our Creator is loving, and could not destroy his own creation. Hell has to mean something else, or humans all get another chance, or hell is only for fallen angels. Now I have to hunt down the original source for that, make sure I paraphrase correctly. #GoGregory!
Been away a long time but so gratified to find your heartlifting reply now
As it happens 'My Year With The Gods' is FREE for all on #Kindle July 16-20 so please do download a copy.
It is a crazy (not-at-all religious) story, and a challenging read. But if (apart from you) only one more person looks a little deeper into the life and teachings of St Gregory and the epectasy it will have succeeded on a far deeper more important level than being just pure escapism!
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01BYI5EX4
Oooh, St. Gregory of Nissa, never deemed a heretic, so I'm thinking he's on the right track with the idea that a God of Love could allow none of his creation to perish in hell; therefore, hell isn't the eternal lake of fire most creeds hold it to be. If I got that wrong, please correct me. Your book sounds cool!
A friend Mimi L Thompson who is a biblical scholar studying original works in Latin Greek & Hebrew sent me this on the subject of St Gregory and the Highway to Hell
"Yep, he absolutely believes in universal salvation (ie the salvation of everyone, including sinners and the devil). Hell does not exist eternally. Main ref is ‘On the Soul and the Resurrection’, in which Gregory holds a death-bed discourse with his sister, Macrina.
’Then a universal feast will be kept around the Deity ... and one and the same banquet will be spread for all, with no differences cutting off any rational creature from an equal participation in it’ (de anima et resurrectione 461).
Similar remarks are made a bit earlier, specifically with reference to those in hell :
‘When evil shall have someday been annihilated, nothing shall be left outside the world of goodness, but even from evil spirits shall rise the confession of Christ’s majesty.’ (de anima 444).
Moreover, SGN’s constant insistence that the pains of hell are purgative and purifying – not punitive – strongly suggest that hell is not eternal but that everyone will, one day, be sufficiently purified to enter heaven. Gregory does not think that all will be saved simultaneously: many will have to endure varying lengths of punishment after death."
You can find her books on Amazon
The concept of Hell has been 'agents' of the Devil's most potent weapon to work their evil ways since the Forbidden Apple was eaten.
Hope you enjoy the book. A challenging read, but it will rock you!
Vaya con Dios