Hananiah
This old Pharisee scribe, Sanhedrist and friend of Sadoc, conspires Against Jesus at Ishmael Ben Fabi. Like him and like Eleazar, he sees in Jesus a means to conquer the royalty.
He is a Heart closed to whom Jesus poses the question about the Sabbath before healing the Hydropic[1]:"You, old scribe, answer me: is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath? - On the Sabbath no work is lawful."Yet his intransigence will not apply to himself: learning that his greatest finest timber is burning on the slopes of Hermon, he sets off hastily... on the very Sabbath![2] Later Jesus publicly admonishes him for his attitude towards the poor:
"It is said: 'He who sheds blood and he who defrauds a worker of his wages are brothers.' This is said, O GioCana, Ishmael, Chanania, Doras, Jonathas! And remember too that it is said: 'Whoever shuts his ears to the cry of the poor will also cry out but will not be heard.'"[3]
Character and Appearance
Aged, parchment-like, but young in wickedness.[4] He is an old man with a quavering voice. "An old bundle of bones."[5] A skeletal fox and dying.[6]
Apostolic Path
He is part of the group of Sanhedrists who plot Against Jesus, notably through Judas.[7] He is found in the hostile group present at the resurrection of Lazarus.[8]
His Name
Chanania (hah nahn yah) means "compassion of Yah (God)".
Where is he mentioned in the work?
GRM 335 GRM 362 GRM 373 GRM 535 GRM 542 GRM 546 GRM 548 GRM 549 GRM 566 GRM 588
Learn more about this character
Works by the Lemann Brothers
Msgr. Augustin Lemann, 1836-1909, and Msgr. Joseph Lemann, 1836-1915, Jewish converts, in "The Value of the Assembly That Pronounced the Death Sentence Against Jesus Christ" (1877), present "Chanania ben Chiskia": He was a great conciliator amid doctrinal quarrels, frequent at that time. Thus the rival schools of Hillel and Shammai, which had not died out with the death of their founders, often chose him as an arbiter.
The skillful conciliator did not always succeed in calming disputes; for in ancient accounts it is read that more than once, passing from the force of an argument to the argument of force, the disciples of the schools of Shammai and Hillel came to blows, whence the expression "to squabble."
Notes and references
Note: Quotations from the work of Maria Valtorta on this page currently use machine-translated text and will gradually be replaced by the official English translation. Until then, the official translation may be consulted through the reference link provided with each quotation.