Rangit stopped performing his magical ritual walk on the stage, looked at the invited experts and nervously, as it might seem, rubbed his beard with the fingers of his left hand. Suddenly he stopped, looked back at Rutra, went back on his trajectory, and continued his narration:
– As I have already said, the rapidity of Jesus' death surprised many people and, consequently, aroused suspicion, including the guards. For this reason, one of the Roman soldiers, wanting to be sure of the reality of Christ's death, pierced his body with a spear. Although, maybe not for this reason: they pierced the executed after they were declared dead, often, or rather, it was even in the rules. In this case, the suspicion that led to the desire to verify Jesus' death was weighty. The Gospel describes it this way, "But one of the soldiers pierced His ribs with a spear, and immediately blood and water flowed out…" (John 19:34-35) Here again I must remind you of the different translations and rewritings of the Bible. In particular, the Gospels. Even now the scriptures themselves differ according to denominational interpretation, albeit only slightly to the average person. I'm talking about the water. Many people here begin to interpret differently, almost to conduct forensic examinations, and I think here, as in many places, misinterpretation or translation. Let me give you an example. Perhaps it was not necessary to voice it now, as it is very shocking. I hope it doesn't detract from the topic. My point is this. Everyone… let's say, a lot of people are wondering what the numbers 666 mean, that is the number of the devil. Well, you'd be surprised…
Rangit cut his speech short.
– No, first I'll make an introduction. Let us think of a fearsome tyrant. Though he may be a benefactor to some. It's not like we live under the threat of his wrath. Okay, I'm talking about Stalin. Let me remind you, under him, you could go to hard labor just because you were needed there. And you were lucky if you weren't a laborer. Yes, yes. Guilt could be invented. For example, the reason of exile of the chief cognac master of "Ararat" factory was the need of a similar maestro somewhere else: where it was necessary to organize cognac production. A curious case is connected with this. Stalin sent Churchill, a lover of Armenian cognacs, a good drink. The latter was quite a great connoisseur in this part, preferred them. Once the British Prime Minister wrote to Stalin about the deterioration of the quality of cognac, and asked whether the master had not changed. Stalin checked the situation and ordered to return the master to his native enterprise. There are less romantic examples. I promise I won't rant for long. I will say this, you could get into disgrace, even if you smoked cigarettes with a filter (it was almost a luxury back then); did not have time to fix the tractor before the sowing season; three neighbors confirmed your idle lifestyle, so to speak, beyond your means, as it might seem; were more than 20 minutes late for work; did not hand over all the available grain after the harvest, even if the family is dying of hunger. By the way, you could have been shot for that. Though for any other reason you could have been fitted for a firing squad if you had to, and for many other similar things that now seem like idiotic reasons. If someone thought what this is about, I'll add: for such a thing you could get, not counting the shooting, of course, 10 years without the right to correspondence. Bourgeois ways and suspicion of a lifestyle beyond one's means were valued at that much. But there was a law, according to which you were shot, not in exile, not in prison, but shot for three spikelets. If you were found picking grain in the field, even after the harvest, you were guaranteed prison. And if you were caught with three spikelets plucked before the harvest – you were shot, and even from the age of twelve. Hard to believe, isn't it? You know why I'm digressing, don't you? I'll tell you why. Imagine those times, those mores. The Roman emperor had to be recognized as God's vicar on earth, a saint. Do you understand, whence the definition of the title of the Pope, and all other megalomaniacs, including the cult of personality of Stalin? Although the cult of Lenin was the leaven of his cult, and this baton goes all the way back to the Stone Age. Alas, such is the nature of man. So, naturally, the Jews had no love for the invaders, much less Christians for Nero. Let me explain. First, the method of writing. I will say this, all these punctuation marks, rules of writing, you understand, once appeared; many signs, for example, from mathematics at Archimedes did not exist. Not only that, but they were written in the same way – in a merged form and without capital letters. And there were also letters with numbers and numbers with letters. Remember the Roman letters. I will not delay with the solution of the rebus, I reveal the cards: in the Roman mathematical alphabet… that is, in the Roman mathematical alphabet 666 is arranged into letters in the same way as the word, or rather, the name is arranged… – the voice suddenly stopped. – I decided to leave the intrigue to the last moment," Rangit said playfully after a pause. – To explain: the Jews could not write about him openly and, observing conspiracy, encrypted the messages by a method of unsophisticated, but known only to a narrow circle of the initiated cryptography.
Rangit approached the edge of the pulpit, raised the index finger of his left hand, shook it a little and said:
– Yes, with all your unconditional awareness… I will take into account this awareness in different categories and directions of sciences. I will make the necessary clarification, without guessing whether you know or not: the ability to write professionally, namely texts (and not slang "wall language", often vulgar), was a privilege of the elite, as difficult as the specialization of IT-engineers nowadays. So, they wanted to encrypt his name, so as not to fall into disgrace, that is, to the same cross or something even more terrible… He used much more sophisticated in terms of torture and abuse methods of execution. But not about that now. Initially, they wanted to hide their definition of the emperor as an enemy of the Jews and Christians in particular… although Orthodox Jews and Jewish-Christians sometimes did not get along well… to designate him as a very bad man, a tyrant, a devil, Satan, and then his name became a kind of metaphor, while keeping the deciphering secret. Exactly in secrecy – otherwise His name would have been turned into a funny errative, the emotional deterrence would have been lost. It is so simple, it turns out, though not easy, because I did not reveal His name.
The holographic image of a Semitic or Arab man on the stage, dressed in the garb of the beginning of the era, laughed, revealing the yellowness of his grin. In the audience, his laughter and facial expressions evoked apprehension and dislike rather than emotional support. Those gathered pondered who he was, and thought about solving the mystery of the millennia. The hall was suspiciously silent, and tension was in the air.
– I promise you will learn this secret during the mission," Rangit hastened to defuse the situation with the same broad smile.
This time she elicited a response, after a couple seconds and a few sighs the hall began to whisper.
– Now let's go back. Let's go back to blood and water, or rather, water. And let's not forget the time of the writing of the Gospels. That is, with the passage of time, the story has been overgrown with inaccuracies and additions, misinterpretation, incorrect explanation. What to speak of editing, much less the extant version. Although the mention of water is not of great importance to us, I have focused on