ИСТИНА

It has been previously suggested that R. Me’ir, of aggadic stories, is a character of a picaresque novel. That image of him would fit the context of the early rabbinic literature, understood as Jewish seriocomical (spoudogeloion) literature of Late Antiquity (A. Kovelman, Between Alexandria and Jerusalem (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2005); D. Boyarin, Socrates and Fat Rabbis (Chicago, 2009). In this paper, I will argue that R. Me’ir’s picaroon representation is a flip side of his messianic icon. There is no contradiction between the two images of R. Me’ir: that of a messiah and of a rogue. Moreover, in my mind, the picaresque representation of R. Me’ir has nothing to do with the self-criticism of the sages (as Daniel Boyarin has suggested). Not only Socrates of Plato and R. Me’ir of the Talmud, but Jesus and Paul of the New Testament as well, have picaroon features. It is not Talmudic elenchus of R. Me’ir that brought him into a picaresque novel. Rather, it is the very character of a picaresque novel that made this novel similar to a gospel. As for the image of a suffering savior as a picaroon, it still needs deep research. The irony of spoudogeloion has a lot to do with messianism.