Then he bade his family that they should burn his body after he was dead, and collect the ashes, and send out seven ships to scatter the ashes upon the waves of the Seven Seas, lest the God of Israel should resurrect his body at the Day of Judgment.
[But it is written in Midrash Kohelet, of the holy Midrashim, that Hadrian—may his name be blotted out!—once asked Rabbi Joshua ben Chanania, "From what shall the body be reconstructed at the Last Day?" And the Rabbi answered, "From Luz in the backbone." When Hadrian demanded proof, the Rabbi took Luz, the little bone of the spine, and immersed it in water, and it was not softened. He put it into the fire, and it was not consumed. He put it into a mill, and it could not be ground. He hammered it upon an anvil; but the hammer was broken, and the anvil split asunder.
Therefore the desire of Titus shall not prevail; and the Lord will surely reconstruct his body for punishment out of Luz in the backbone!]
But before they burned the corpse of Titus they opened his skull and looked into his brain, that they might find the gnat.
Now the gnat was as big as a swallow, and weighed two selas, as weight is reckoned in Israel. And they found that its claws were of brass, and the jaws of its mouth were of iron!
[BIBLIOGRAPHY]
(There are very fine English translations of the works marked with an asterisk.)
ALLEGORIES, RÉCITS, CONTES, etc, traduits de l'Arabe, du Persan, de l'Hindustani, et du Turc. Par M. Garcin de Tassy. Paris, 1876. (Includes "Bakawali.")