Dear Susan,
Two things come to my mind. One is the tale of the rabbi burned in the wake
of the Bar Kokhba rebellion (Hanina, I think, but you will know anyway), who
was wrapped in dampened Torah scrolls by the Romans to make the death
slower, and when his daughter asked him what he saw, he answered "books
burning, and letters flying upwards". If your source is Jewish, this might
have been in the back of the writer's mind.
If, on the other hand, your source is Christian, there is ample later
literature concerning criminals using incantations written on scrolls (many
of them pseudo-kabalistic stuff), and hiding them on their body, as a
defense against the pain of torture. Tractates on judicial torture warn the
judges to have the "patient" properly searched and stripped, otherwise he or
she will be immune to torture, and won't confess. I'll look up the proper
refs if this is anything of value to you. Let me know.
Cheers,
Esther Cohen
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
|