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咒言についていえば、シメオン・バル・ヨハイのそれが心に響きます。
「何か上なるものが降り、下なるものが昇って来い」
His Miracles.
Tiberias had been built by Herod Antipas on a site where there were many tombs (Josephus, "Ant." xviii. 2, § 3), the exact locations of which had been lost. The town therefore had been regarded as unclean. Resolving to remove the cause of the uncleanness, Simeon planted lupines in all suspected places; wherever they did not take root he knew that a tomb was underneath. The bodies were then exhumed and removed, and the town pronounced clean. To annoy and discredit Simeon, a certain Samaritan secretly replaced one of the bodies. But Simeon learned through the power of the Holy Spirit what the Samaritan had done, and said, "Let what is above go down, and what is below come up." The Samaritan was entombed; and a schoolmaster of Magdala (but comp. Buber, note 180, to Pesiḳ. x. 90a), who mocked Simeon for his declaration, was turned into a heap of bones.
