Tuesday, March 19, AD 2024 6:30am

Trust in God and Keep Your Hand Grenades Primed

Then did he raise on high the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch, saying, “Bless this, O Lord, that with it thou mayst blow thine enemies to tiny bits, in thy mercy.” And the people did rejoice and did feast upon the lambs and toads and tree-sloths and fruit-bats and orangutans and breakfast cereals … Now did the Lord say, “First thou pullest the Holy Pin. Then thou must count to three. Three shall be the number of the counting and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither shalt thou count two, excepting that thou then proceedeth to three. Five is right out. Once the number three, being the number of the counting, be reached, then lobbest thou the Holy Hand Grenade in the direction of thine foe, who, being naughty in my sight, shall snuff it.”

A Reading from the Book of Armaments, Chapter 4, Verses 16 to 20

Ah, history is ever so much stranger than fiction:

A centuries-old hand grenade that may date back to the time of the crusaders is among a host of treasures retrieved from the sea in Israel.

The metal artifacts, some of which are more than 3,500 years old, were found over a period of years by the late Marcel Mazliah, a worker at the Hadera power plant in northern Israel.

Mazliah’s family recently presented the treasures to the Israel Antiquities Authority. Experts, who were surprised by the haul, think that the objects probably fell overboard from a medieval metal merchant’s ship.

The hand grenade was a common weapon in Israel during the Crusader era, which began in the 11th century and lasted until the 13th century, according to the Israel Antiquities Authority. Grenades were also used 12th and 13th century Ayyubid period and the Mamluk era, which ran from the 13th to the 16th century, experts say.

Haaretz reports that early grenades were often used to disperse burning flammable liquid. However, some experts believe that so-called ancient grenades were actually used to contain perfume.

 

Go here to read the rest.  Hand grenades were used during the Crusades, often by Muslims.  The grenades usually contained either Greek fire or gunpowder.  Gunpowder was invented in China in the ninth century, and spread slowly to the Middle East.  Franciscan Friar Roger Bacon “rediscovered” gunpowder in the thirteenth century, being the first European to write about the production of gunpowder.

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Texas
Texas
Friday, August 26, AD 2016 5:55am

My mother taught first grade for almost thirty years in small town Texas. One time she had a student bring a hand grenade to class. Luckily it was a dud. From his dad’s “collection,” I assume some sort of weapons collection.

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Friday, August 26, AD 2016 9:35am

St Albertus Magnus (1206-1280), the teacher of St Thomas Aquinas produced a formula for gunpowder.
The black powder previously used had contained equal parts of charcoal, saltpetre (Potassium Nitrate) and charcoal; St Albert’s, designed for greater projectile force, contained 66% saltpetre and 17% each of the other two ingredients.

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Sunday, August 28, AD 2016 11:02pm

[…] Ph.D. A Pure Distillation of 1970s Catholicism – Fr. Robert P. Imbelli, The Catholic Thing Trust in God and Keep Your Hand Grenades Primed – Donald R. McClarey J.D., TACatholic The Strange Case of the Pilgrimage Site in a […]

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