Here's a strange story – on the face of it, nothing to do with Christmas, but in a strange way it is.
Manoah's Wife's
Story
I
never heard him come –
in
an instant, he was here
The
Stranger, with his message.
He
declined our food and drink
and
refused to say his name.
I
would not understand
but
knew and bowed my head.
When
I looked up again
to
try to learn some more
he
was no longer there.
I
never heard him go
The
Stranger, with his message.
An unnamed infertile woman is visited by a stranger, also an
unnamed person, who turns out to be one of those strange creatures identified
as angels. A second strange encounter follows, this time including her husband
(who does have a name) ending in the two of them terrified. She becomes
pregnant, and gives birth to the strangest of sons, who can only be called
superhuman.
One of the many interesting ideas this story raises is the
role anonymity plays in creating A Stranger.
Manoah has a name and is no stranger; nor is his wife, whose
name we don't know but being called
Manoah's wife, in that distant patriarchal society, is sort-of named.
The visiting stranger is however anonymous, and insists on remaining so.
There's also the role that offering refreshment, in
welcoming and thereby familiarising the stranger, plays – this visitor firmly
turned it down, thus preserving his strangemess.
Strangers can frighten. The more so, when we don't know who
they are, especially if they refuse to say, and decline our food and drink, even
if – or perhaps especially if – it seems they’ve come a long way, and there’s a
particular reason for their coming to us, like bringing a message.
The story is quite clear in its description of how
frightened the couple were, throwing themselves on the ground. Yet Rembrandt
shows us a composed woman serene in her praying, with her husband equally
unfazed, simply turning away slightly from the heat of the fire.
As for the angel – he looks like an ordinary wingless sort
of fellow, who having made a jump, is more interested in where he's going to
land, than doing angelic things like gazing heaven-wards.
Certainly not someone to make you want to throw your
frightened self on the ground.
So the way Rembrandt decided to represent this episode, so
different from the story, strikes me as strange.
It looks like angels may come in many forms, but perhaps
they're always strange, if not strangers, even if they look a bit familiar.
(I just noticed that angel is almost completely contained
in stranger).
There it is, a strange story indeed, but one that crops up
more than once in these ancient tales, and while it isn’t a Christmas one – another
strange story, however well we know it – it has at least one shared character…
Well, whoever you find yourself visited by this Christmas,
may it be a happy one.
.
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