Melito of Sardis’ Peri Pascha and the Site of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher

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Ken Olson
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Melito of Sardis’ Peri Pascha and the Site of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher

Post by Ken Olson »

I’ve started a new thread dedicated to the topic of Melito of Sardis and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher because the topic is distinct from discussion of Mark Goodacre’s paper “How Empty was the Tomb?”, where the subject arose.

viewtopic.php?p=124470#p124470

The idea that Melito of Sardis may have visited Jerusalem and learned the location of the tomb from local informants goes back a long time. After reviewing the descriptions of the location of the tomb given in the gospels in his entry on the Holy Sepulcher in the Catholic Encyclopedia (1910), A. McMahon writes:
No further mention of the place of the Holy Sepulchre is found until the beginning of the fourth century. But nearly all scholars maintain that the knowledge of the place was handed down by oral tradition, and that the correctness of this knowledge was proved by the investigations caused to be made in 326 by the Emperor Constantine, who then marked the site for future ages by erecting over the Tomb of Christ a basilica, in the place of which, according to an unbroken written tradition, now stands the church of the Holy Sepulchre.
https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07425a.htm

McMahon acknowledges that there is no further mention of the tomb until the fourth century, but claims that *nearly all* scholars (in 1910) maintain (i.e., hypothesize) that knowledge of the place was handed down by oral tradition. There is, of course, no more mention of such an oral tradition before the beginning of the fourth century than there is mention of the location of the tomb itself (whether there is actually any mention of such an oral tradition *after* that time is another question).

McMahon continues by suggesting that the continuity of Bishops of Jerusalem shows that there was a Christian Church in Jerusalem and presumes they must have known and preserved the location of the tomb and shared it with Christian visitors to the city. These included Melito of Sardis, Alexander of Jerusalem and Origen:
The list of Bishops of Jerusalem given by Eusebius in the fourth century shows that there was a continuity of episcopal succession, and that in 135 a Jewish line was followed by a Gentile. The tradition of the local community was undoubtedly strengthened from the beginning by strangers who, having heard from the Apostles and their followers, or read in the Gospels, the story of Christ's Burial and Resurrection, visited Jerusalem and asked about the Tomb that He had rendered glorious. It is recorded that Melito of Sardis visited the place where "these things [of the Old Testament] were formerly announced and carried out". As he died in 180, his visit was made at a time when he could receive the tradition from the children of those who had returned from Pella. After this it is related that Alexander of Jerusalem (d. 251) went to Jerusalem "for the sake of prayer and the investigation of the places", and that Origen (d. 253) "visited the places for the investigation of the footsteps of Jesus and of His disciples". By the beginning of the fourth century the custom of visiting Jerusalem for the sake of information and devotion had become so frequent that Eusebius wrote, that Christians "flocked together from all parts of the earth".
Note McMahon’s use of the word “undoubtedly.” Despite the fact that we have no second or third century source that says the members of the Jerusalem church knew the location of the tomb, nor that Melito, Alexander, or Origen got it from them or even asked them about it, McMahon thinks that we can presume that this must be the case.

To be clear, I am not claiming that the theory that Melito visited Jerusalem and learned the location is impossible or implausible, only that we have no source that says this and it’s an undemonstrated claim. It’s possible that Melito visited Jerusalem (one might even grant it’s a more likely than not); it’s possible that the Jerusalem church knew the location of the tomb (this is far more speculative and assumes both that the tomb stories in the gospels are not a later development of the Jesus tradition and that the church originally knew where the tomb was and passed the knowledge down), it’s possible Melito asked the members of the Jerusalem church where the tomb was and had it pointed it out to him (maybe, if he asked and if the person knew). This is what is sometimes called ‘creeping certitude’: a number of things which are not necessarily implausible by themselves are asserted to be true. The problem is it’s also not implausible for any of them to be false, and if any of them is false the entire theory is false. (It is, of course, theoretically possible that the theory that Melito had the location of the tomb pointed out to him is false and yet the Church of the Holy Sepulcher really is built on the site of the tomb of Jesus).

In 1966, Anthony Harvey attempted to provide evidentiary support from Melito’s sermon Peri Pascha (“On the Pascha/Passover/Easter”) for the theory that Melito visited Jerusalem and learned the location of the tomb [A. E. Harvey, “Melito and Jerusalem,” The Journal of Theological Studies n.s. 17 (1966) 401-404.]
Harvey on Melito and Jerusalem.png
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Harvey is the originator of the argument that Melito of Sardis’s references to the crucifixion as taking place “in the middle of the city” and “in the middle of Jerusalem” in the Peri Pascha suggest or even require that Melito had had the second century location of place within the walls of Jerusalem pointed out to him. Note his use of the word ‘doubtless’.

viewtopic.php?p=124705#p124705

Harvey’s basic contention has since been picked up and stated as a fact by a number of scholars, notably including Joan Taylor, in Golgotha: A Reconsideration of the Evidence for the Sites of Jesus Crucifixion and Burial (1998):
The foremost evidence we have for the preservation of the memory of the site of Jesus’ crucifixion comes in Melito of Sardis’ Peri Pascha, written in about the middle of the second century (ca.160) (Hall 1979), a few years after Hadrian had built up this area outside the old walls into a forum for his new Roman city Aelia Capitolina, with a Temple of Venus on the northern side. Melito writes poetically of the crucifixion taking place epi meses plateias kai en mesô poleôs (94, 704), “in the middle of a plateia and in the ‘middle of a city.’”10 Elsewhere, he describes the murder of Jesus “in the middle of Jerusalem” (72, 506; 93, 692; 94, 694). What is clear is that a site in the middle of the city of Jerusalem was pointed out to him as the place where Jesus died. This would tally perfectly with the fact that the quarry was outside first century Jerusalem, but inside the city from the middle of the second century onwards.
For Taylor, Harvey’s inference is “the foremost evidence we have” and “what is clear.”

https://biblearchaeology.org/research/n ... and-burial

I’ll quote the relevant passages from Peri Pascha cited by Taylor:
It is he that has been murdered.
And where has he been murdered? In the middle of Jerusalem.
Βy whom? Βy Israel
Why? Because he healed their lame,
and cleansed their lepers
and brought light to their blind,
and raised their dead,
that is why he died. (PP 72)
Bitter therefore for you is the feast of unleavened bread, as it is
written for you:
You shαll eat unleavened bread with bitter flavours [cf. Exodus 12.8, though not an exact quotation]
Bitter for you are the nails you sharpened,
bitter for you the tongue you incited,
bitter for you the false witnesses you instructed,
bitter for you the ropes you got ready,
bitter for you the scourges you plaited,
bitter for you Judas whom you hired,
bitter for you Herod whom you followed,
bitter for you Caiaphas whom you trusted,
bitter for you the gall you prepared,
bitter for you the vinegar you produced,
bitter for you the thorns you culled,
bitter for you the hands you bloodied;
you killed your Lord in the middle of Jerusalem. [PP 93]
Listen, all you families of the nations, and see!
Αn unprecedented murder has occurred in the middle of Jerusalem,
In the city of the law,
In the city of the Hebrews,
In the city of the prophets,
In the city accounted just.
And who has been murdered? Who is the murderer?
Ι am ashamed to say and Ι am obliged to tell.
For if the murder had occurred at night,
Οr if he had been slain in a desert place,
one might haνe had recourse to silence.
But now, in the middle of the street and in the middle of the city,
at the middle of the day, for all to see,
has occurred a just man's unjust murder.
Just so he has been lifted up οn a tall tree,
and a notice has been attached to show who has been murdered.
Who is this? Το say is hard, and not to say is too terrible. (PP 94)
Basic to Harvey’s and Taylor’s claim is the presupposition that the lines about the middle of the street, the middle of the city and the middle of Jerusalem are meant to be taken literally as accurate topographical descriptions of the place of Jesus’ crucifixion.

Urban C. van Wahlde has argued effectively that Melito’s references to the crucifixion occurring in the middle of street, in the middle of the city, and in the middle of Jerusalem are not intended to be literal topographic descriptions of the location of the crucifixion but are rhetorical (i.e., figurative, non-literal) language to highlight the public nature of the murder of Jesus [“The References to the Time and Place of the Crucifixion in the Peri Pascha of Melito of Sardis,” JTS 60.2 (2009) 556-569.]
ABTRACT: After the time of the gospels, Melito of Sardis is the first Christian writer
of whom we have a record to make reference to the place where Jesus
was crucified. His references to the place of crucifixion have been thought
to reflect knowledge of where the site of Golgotha was located within the
plan of second-century Aelia Capitolina. However, a survey of all his references
to the time and place of crucifixion indicates that they are governed
by Melito’s rhetorical purposes and are not historically reliable.
After recapitulating the theory accepted by Harvey, Taylor and others, that Melito must have visited Jerusalem and been shown the site of the crucifixion at the time of his visit in the second century, within the later walls of Jerusalem, and presupposed that location when he wrote Peri Pascha, Von Wahlde contends:
But this cannot be the case. Melito claims to be describing
the historical circumstances of the crucifixion. His point is that
the crucifixion was not done at night or in a desert place; it was
done in public. Yet, historically, we are certain from the gospel
texts (as Melito’s listeners would be) that the crucifixion of Jesus
did not take place in the middle of the city. For Melito to introduce
the second-century location of the crucifixion in this discussion
would make no sense. For his point to be meaningful,
it must be a historical reference. But then why would Melito
make such an egregious mistake? The answer can only be that
his purpose was rhetorical: to show that Jesus was killed where
all could see him, perhaps implying that no one sought to prevent
it but surely showing that it was not a murder committed in
obscurity.
Von Wahlde’s point may be somewhat overstated. I would not say I am historically certain of what is claimed in the gospel texts (though Von Wahlde is probably correct that Melito’s Christian audience believed it to be), and his use of ‘historical circumstances” is potentially confusing, since he is arguing that Melito’s claim was rhetorical. Nevertheless, his basic contention is sound. It makes very little sense to think, as Harvey contends, that when he wrote the Peri Pascha, Melito was describing the topography he had seen in his (hypothesized) visit to Jerusalem and substituted that for the description in the gospels. Harvey’s hypothetical scenario that Melito may have wondered why the site of the crucifixion was not outside the walls and received the answer that one must distinguish between the old walls and the more recent ones is particularly baffling. This would imply that Melito knew that the crucifixion had taken place outside the walls as they stood in Jesus’ time and deliberately chosen to substitute an anachronistic description of the second century topography of Jerusalem for the one given in the gospels in his Peri Pascha, resulting in an internal contradiction. As Von Wahlde argues, Melito’s “in the middle of the city … for all to see” must refer to the circumstances at the time of Jesus’ crucifixion. It cannot plausibly mean “in the middle of the city (in Melito’s time) … for all to see (in Jesus’ time).”

For Harvey’s theory that Melito literally meant Jesus was crucified in the middle of Jerusalem to work, I think we would have to suppose instead that Melito visited Jerusalem, had the site of the crucifixion pointed out to him, not realized that the walls of the city had been extended, decided the evangelists (or at least John and the author of Hebrews) had gotten the location wrong, and substituted the location he knew for what was in the gospels. This does not, however, seem to be a great deal more plausible.

What is a great deal more plausible is Von Wahlde’s contention that Melito did not intend “in the middle of Jerusalem” and “in the middle of the city” to be taken as literal topographic descriptions but instead as rhetorical (i.e., figurative, non-literal) language meant that Jesus was not crucified in obscurity, but openly and publicly.

Von Wahlde gives three supporting points in support of his interpretation. First, the section of the passage immediately preceding the lines with in the middle of the day/street/city in PP 94 is intended to draw attention to the public nature of the crime:
And who has been murdered? Who is the murderer?
Ι am ashamed to say and Ι am obliged to tell.
For if the murder had occurred at night,
Οr if he had been slain in a desert place,
one might haνe had recourse to silence.
Second, the repetitive “in the middle” is poetic parallelism as seen elsewhere in Peri Pascha (note the repetitive “bitter for you” and “the city of” in the quoted texts above.

Third, when the New Testament often uses the word street with the connotation “in public”:
Matt 6.5 “And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others.

Luke 10:10 But whenever you enter a town and they do not welcome you, go out into its streets and say, 11 ‘Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off in protest against you. Yet know this: the kingdom of God has come near.’

Luke 13.26 Then you will begin to say, ‘We ate and drank with you, and you taught in our streets.’ 

Luke 14.21 So the slave returned and reported this to his master. Then the owner of the house became angry and said to his slave, ‘Go out at once into the streets and lanes of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame.’ 
I would add to the Von Wahlde’s arguments that the word city is also frequently used in a figurative sense (though many authorities, including BGAD, consider this a distinct definition of the word city meaning “the people of the city” rather than a figurative sense).
Mark 1.32 That evening, at sunset, they brought to him all who were sick or possessed with demons. 33 And the whole city was gathered around the door. 

Matt 8.33 The swineherds ran off, and on going into the city, they told the whole story about what had happened to the demoniacs. 34 Then the whole city came out to meet Jesus; and when they saw him, they begged him to leave their neighborhood.
While the given examples of Melito’s use of rhetoric or literary devices (i.e., figurative language not meant to be taken in a literal sense) are those most relevant to interpreting ‘in the middle of the city’ and ‘in the middle of Jerusalem’, they are far from the only ones Melito uses in the Peri Pascha. For instance, he uses the literary devices of apostrophe, an address to a person who is not present or to a personified object, and prosopopoeia, in which an imagined or absent person or thing is represented as speaking when he addresses Israel directly and has Israel (i.e., the personification of the Jewish people) answer:
What strange crime, Israel, have you committed? (PP 73)
Ί did', says Israel, 'kill the Lord.
Why? Because he had to die.'
Υou are mistaken, Israel, to use such subtle evasions
about the slaying of the Lord (PP 74)
He also uses prosopopoeia to introduce a speech of the risen Jesus:
The Lord … arose from the dead and uttered this cry:
'Who takes issue with me? Let him stand against me.
I released the condemned;
I brought the dead to life;
I raise up the buried.
Who is there that contradicts me?
I am the one', says the Christ, (PP 100-102).
It is extremely unlikely he expects his audience to take these speeches as literally having been spoken by the Jewish people or the risen Christ. They are rhetorical devices.

Finally, we should note we find a rhetorical device within the canonical gospels themselves that claims Jesus would be killed inside Jerusalem:
Luke 13:  33 Yet today, tomorrow, and the next day I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem.’ 34 Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! 
When we look at the heavy use of rhetorical (figurative) language both in Melito’s Peri Pascha (and in the New Testament), it becomes difficult to sustain the argument that Melito’s references to the crucifixion must be literal descriptions of the location of Jesus’ crucifixion which Melito had had pointed out to him when he visited the city in the second century.

Best,

Ken


There’s an English translation of the Peri Pascha online here:

https://www.kerux.com/doc/0401A1.asp

A PDF of Alistair Sykes-Stewart’s translation seems to be currently available here:
English translation online here:

https://sachurch.org/wp-content/uploads ... Sardis.pdf
Last edited by Ken Olson on Sun Jul 25, 2021 10:44 am, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: Melito of Sardis’ Peri Pascha and the Site of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher

Post by mlinssen »

A fine post, Ken. Unfortunately, Matthew agrees with it:

Matthew 27:52 καὶ (and) τὰ (the) μνημεῖα (tombs) ἀνεῴχθησαν (were opened), καὶ (and) πολλὰ (many) σώματα (bodies) τῶν (of the) κεκοιμημένων (having fallen asleep) ἁγίων (saints) ἠγέρθησαν (arose), 53 καὶ (and) ἐξελθόντες (having gone forth) ἐκ (out of) τῶν (the) μνημείων (tombs) μετὰ (after) τὴν (the) ἔγερσιν (resurrection) αὐτοῦ (of Him), εἰσῆλθον (they entered) εἰς (into) τὴν (the) ἁγίαν (holy) πόλιν (city) καὶ (and) ἐνεφανίσθησαν (appeared) πολλοῖς (to many).

28:11 Πορευομένων (As were going) δὲ (now) αὐτῶν (they), ἰδού (behold), τινες (some) τῆς (of the) κουστωδίας (guard), ἐλθόντες (having gone) εἰς (into) τὴν (the) πόλιν (city), ἀπήγγειλαν (reported) τοῖς (to the) ἀρχιερεῦσιν (chief priests) ἅπαντα (all) τὰ (the things) γενόμενα (having been done).

The crucifixion appears to be outside the city as the dead saints enter it. The guards also enter it, so the tomb must also be outside the city. The question then is how much has extended its walls in the 130 years in between the crucifixion and Melito's visit, but of course a city centre usually stays a city centre

Not to forget that the gospel writers go to great lengths modifying Thomas' parable of the vineyard in order to make sure that the heir gets killed outside of it. Hilariously, they get confused and Matk has him taken, killed and thrown outside.
Matthew has him taken, thrown outside and killed. Luke just has him cast outside and killed

You will go "yes but that's what I'm saying, Melito meant it figuratively!"
Indeed you seem to be doing so, but you can't just take turns and "cherry interpret-pick" whatever suits you when it suits you. If Melito figuratively referred to the tomb being in the middle of Jerusalem, he must also have been figuratively speaking of his visit, the tomb, and perhaps even the whole event of the crucifixion?
When we look at the heavy use of rhetorical (figurative) language both in Melito’s Peri Pascha
Can you give a fat set of examples? It all appears to be meant quite literal
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Re: Melito of Sardis’ Peri Pascha and the Site of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher

Post by neilgodfrey »

Alas, David Hackett Fischer was drawing attention to these sorts of fallacies fifty years ago:

the fallacy of the possible proof

the fallacy of misplaced literalism



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Re: Melito of Sardis’ Peri Pascha and the Site of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher

Post by andrewcriddle »

I agree that the high blown rhetoric in Peri Pascha may make firm conclusions difficult. However
But now, in the middle of the street and in the middle of the city,
at the middle of the day, for all to see,
is pretty clearly giving temporal information about when Jesus died, it seems a little forced to deny that it is also giving spatial information about where Jesus died.

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Re: Melito of Sardis’ Peri Pascha and the Site of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher

Post by StephenGoranson »

Crucifixions, as deterrent, were sometimes placed in plain view.
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Re: Melito of Sardis’ Peri Pascha and the Site of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher

Post by Secret Alias »

The LXX is cited by Melito. πικρίδων. The Hebrew doesn't fit the context.
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Re: Melito of Sardis’ Peri Pascha and the Site of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher

Post by Irish1975 »

Does Melito attribute a role to Pilate, his soldiers, or any Romans? He specifically calls it a murder, and asks after the identity of the murderer.
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Re: Melito of Sardis’ Peri Pascha and the Site of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher

Post by Ken Olson »

Irish1975 wrote: Sun Jul 25, 2021 7:45 am Does Melito attribute a role to Pilate, his soldiers, or any Romans? He specifically calls it a murder, and asks after the identity of the murderer.
I think this is the only explicit mention of Pilate in the Peri Pascha. I haven't read through it carefully to try to figure out if he's referring to Pilate or the Romans figuratively elsewhere in the work (and he also mentions Pilate in some of his other works):

But you cast the opposite vote against your Lord.
For him whom the gentiles worshipped
and uncircumcised men admired
and foreigners glorified,
over whom even Pilate wαshed his hαnds,
you killed him at the great feast. (PP 92)

He seems to be claiming that Pilate was not responsible, the Jews ("you") were.

Best,

Ken
Last edited by Ken Olson on Sun Jul 25, 2021 9:28 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Melito of Sardis’ Peri Pascha and the Site of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher

Post by Ken Olson »

andrewcriddle wrote: Sun Jul 25, 2021 4:21 am I agree that the high blown rhetoric in Peri Pascha may make firm conclusions difficult.
Good.
However
But now, in the middle of the street and in the middle of the city,
at the middle of the day, for all to see,
is pretty clearly giving temporal information about when Jesus died, it seems a little forced to deny that it is also giving spatial information about where Jesus died.
Von Wahlde addresses this point, though I didn't include that in my earlier recap of his paper. He points out that slightly earlier in the text, Melito wrote that Jesus was sacrificed in the evening:

He is the lamb being slain;
he is the lamb that is speechless;
he is the one born from Mary the lovely ewe-lamb;
he is the one taken from the flock;
and dragged to slaughter,
and sacrificed at evening;
and buried at night;
who on the tree was not broken,
in the earth was not dissolved,
arose from the dead,
and raised up man from the grave below.
[PP 71, S.G. Hall trans.]

A number of scholars have pointed out that Melito seems to be following the Johannine rather than the Markan/Synoptic chronology in PP 71. Von Wahlde observes that, be that as it may, Melito seems to have contradicted his claim that Jesus was murdered in the middle of the day. The differences on the exact timing within the Peri Pascha bear out Van Wahle's claim that the details Melito chooses to give depend on his rhetorical purposes. Jesus was murdered in the middle of the day when he wants to show that Jesus was murdered in public ('in broad daylight" in the modern English idiom) and in the evening when he wants to show how Jesus was the Paschal lamb.

Best,

Ken

(It should not be necessary to point out that Melito did not literally mean that Jesus was a lamb, nor Mary a ewe-lamb, nor the cross a tree).
Last edited by Ken Olson on Sun Jul 25, 2021 9:30 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Melito of Sardis’ Peri Pascha and the Site of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher

Post by mlinssen »

Ken Olson wrote: Sun Jul 25, 2021 8:22 am
He is the lamb being slain;
he is the lamb that is speechless;
he is the one born from Mary the lovely ewe-lamb;
he is the one taken from the flock;
and dragged to slaughter,
and sacrificed at evening;
and buried at night;
who on the tree was not broken,
in the earth was not dissolved,
arose from the dead,
and raised up man from the grave below.
[PP 71, S.G. Hall trans.]

A number of scholars have pointed out that Melito seems to be following the Johannine rather than the Markan/Synoptic chronology in PP 71. Von Wahlde observes that, be that as it may, Melito seems to have contradicted his claim that Jesus was murdered in the middle of the day. The differences on the exact timing within the Peri Pascha bear out Van Wahle's claim that the details Melito chooses to give depend on his rhetorical purposes. Jesus was murdered in the middle of the day when he wants to show that Jesus was murdered was in public ('in broad daylight" in the modern English idiom) and in the evening when he wants to show how Jesus was the Paschal lamb.

Best,

Ken

(It should not be necessary to point out that Melito did not literally mean that Jesus was a lamb, nor Mary a ewe-lamb, nor the cross a tree).
That kind of was my stealth point Ken, that everything can be taken figuratively here - there is awfully little to be taken literally.
He wasn't really speechless, nor was he from the flock nor taken, nor was he dragged, nor slaughtered, nor sacrificed, nor in the earth.
It is all so very stretchy like a bungee cord really. What is murder, the execution or the actual death? Or the time of verdict? None of them were in the evening

All this was meant to be rhetoric and not to be dissected, but I'll happily leave you to it
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