Jesus in the Talmud

120 Chapter 9whether the Jews stand behind the Zoroastrian critique of the Christians’claim that God was born of a human woman (whose conduct moreoverwas not beyond any doubt), 91 but the possibility can certainly not beruled out.More important, the fate of the many Christian martyrs, beginningwith the long persecution under Shapur II, did not escape the notice ofthe Sasanian Jews; in fact, as we have seen, they may have even played anactive role in nourishing the suspicion of the Sasanian authorities with regardto the political implications connected with the dissident Christiansect. Jes Asmussen has pointed to the fact that the martyrologies preservedin the Acts of the Syrian Martyrs follow the ideal of a “conscious imitatioChristi to make the details of the martyr’s death conform as much as possibleto the Passion of Jesus,” 92 and of the various characteristics that helists, two are particularly illuminating in our context: that Friday is thepreferred day of martyrdom and that the corpse of the dead martyr istaken away in secret. As to the former, the Acts mentions explicitly that Simonand his friends were sentenced and killed on a Friday, between thesixth and the ninth hour, the very time that Jesus carried the cross and wasfinally crucified. 93 Interestingly enough, Guhashtazad, a high Persian officialand Christian, who first denies his Christian faith and only in a secondattempt accepts its consequences, is deemed worthy of being martyredonly on Thursday, the thirteenth of Nisan; 94 and some later—andpresumably less important—martyrs die just on any Friday, not the Fridayof Jesus’ execution. 95With regard to secretly taking away the corpse of the martyr, we are remindedof the New Testament narrative (only in Matthew) that the HighPriests and Pharisees demand of Pilate to guard Jesus’ tomb carefully forthree days lest the Jews secretly steal his corpse and claim that he has risenfrom the dead after three days, as he had promised. 96 In a clear imitation ofJesus’ fate, the Acts frequently mentions that the Christian coreligionists ofthe martyr secretly take away or “steal” the body and bury it. For example,after bishop Shapur was martyred, his Christian brethren came, “stole thebody, and buried it secretly.” 97 In Akebshema’s case the torturers have hisunburied body guarded, but after three days(!) an Armenian (hence Christian)hostage secretly takes it away. 98 Another martyr, by the name ofJoseph, was taken away and, as the text explicitly says, “hidden—whether