\documentstyle[titlepage,11pt]{paper}
\title{A Change of Heart}
\author{Don Hosek}

\newcommand{\ltoc}{{\em The Last Temptation of Christ\/}}

\begin{document}
\maketitle
In {\em The Last Temptation of Christ,\/} Nikos Kazantzakis
presents a model of Jesus which includes a rather dramatic change
in his character during the time he spends in the desert: before
that time, he preaches love, but afterwards, he also preached
change on earth. This conflict over Jesus' r\^ole on earth is
demonstrated well in his conversation with John the Baptist:
\begin{quotation}
``Isn't love enough'' [Jesus] asked.

``No,'' answered the Baptist angrily. ``The tree is rotten. God
called to me and gave me the ax, which I then placed at the roots
of the tree. I did my duty. Now do yours: take the ax and
strike!''

``If I were fire, I would burn; if I were a woodcutter, I would
strike. But I am a heart, and I love.''

``I am a heart also, that's why I cannot endure injustice,
shamelessness or infamy. How can you love the unjust, the
infamous and the shameless? Strike! One of man's greatest
obligations is anger.''

``Anger?'' said Jesus, his heart objecting. ``Aren't we all
brothers?''

``Brothers?'' the Baptist replied sarcastically. `` Do you think
love is the way of God---love? Look here---'' He stretched forth
his bony, hairy hand and pointed to the Dead Sea, which stank
like a rotting carcass. ``Have you ever bent over to see the two
whores, Sodom and Gomorrah, at her bottom? God became angry,
hurled fire, stamped the earth: dry land turned to sea and
swallowed up Sodom and Gomorrah. That's God's way---follow it.
What to the prophecies say? `On the day of the Lord blood will
flow from wood, the stones of the houses will come to life, will
rise up and kill the house owners!' The day of the Lord has set
out and is coming. I was the first to discern it. I uttered a
cry, took God's ax, placed it at the root of the world. I called,
called, called for you to come. You came, and now I shall
depart.''~\cite[pp.~241--2]{ltoc}
\end{quotation}

Is this conflict of values accurate? Or is it simply part of
Kazantzakis' interpretation of the Jesus story?\footnote{It may
be worthwhile to summarize the intellectual history of
Kazantzakis as presented in the ``Note on the Author'' in the
Simon \& Schuster edition of {\em The Last Temptation of
Christ\/}: he spent his childhood in Crete where ``he first
experienced revolutionary ardor.'' Then, during a time in a
school run by Franciscan monks, he was introduced to Western
thought, contemplation, and the virtue of Christ. After a time in
an all-male monastery (to the point of excluding hens and cows),
he then turned to Nietzsche. ``He was thereafter to renounce
Nietzsche for Buddha, then Buddha for Lenin, then Lenin for
Odysseus. When he returned to Christ, as he did, it was to a
Christ enriched by everything that had come
between.''~\cite[pp.~497--8]{ltoc}} Too a certain extent, the
answer to {\em both\/} questions is ``yes.'' Certainly, the
extent to which the conflict between the two approaches to Jesus'
mission exists is primarily part of Kazantzakis' interpretation
of the story, but that the conflict existed would be difficult to
deny; Bertrand Russell, in {\em A History of Western
Philosophy\/} notes:
\begin{quotation}
The Jews believed that the Messiah would bring them temporal
prosperity, and victory over their enemies here on
earth.~\cite[p.~309]{russell}
\end{quotation}
And the New Jerusalem Bible, in a footnote comments:
\begin{quotation}
The Gospel shows Jesus at this critical moment abandoning his
policy of the messianic secret \ldots\ and unequivocally
accepting the title of Messiah, although making clear that he is
Messiah not in the traditional sense of a political liberator,
but in the sense of the glorious personage whom Daniel has seen
in vision.\cite[p.~1655]{new-j}
\end{quotation}

This Jewish perception of what the Messiah was certainly makes
the conflict in Kazantzakis' work somewhat more clear; by acting
as a social liberator, Jesus was, in effect, reacting to certain
market pressures. That is, to obtain the following of certain
supporters of the zealots, he needed to adopt some of their
policies.

The next question we should ask, then, is can we find any
supporting text of the Jewish messianic personality of Jesus in
the scriptures? We can infer from how Christianity developed in
the years after Jesus' death that the
Messiah-as-liberator-of-souls view of Christ was the one that
shaped how Christian beliefs, and from reading the four canonical
Gospels, we see that for the most part, the teachings of Christ
appear in that light. However, in Matthew, we can read:
\begin{quotation}
``Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth; it
is not peace I have come to bring, but a sword. For I have come
to set son against {\em father, daughter against mother,
daughter-in-law against mother-in-law; a person's enemies will be
the enemies of his own household.\/}''~\mbox{[Mt~10:34--6]}
\end{quotation}
Luke contains a prophecy from Simeon saying
\begin{quotation}
Look, he is destined for the fall and for the rise of many in
Israel, destined to be a sign that is opposed.~\mbox{[Lk~2:34]}
\end{quotation}
Luke also has John the Baptist declare
\begin{quotation}
``I baptise you with water, but someone is coming, who is more
powerful than me, and I am not fit to undo the strap of his
sandals; he will baptise you with the Holy Spirit and
fire.~\mbox{[Lk~3:16]}
\end{quotation}
And later, Jesus says,
\begin{quote}
``I have come to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were
blazing already.''~\mbox{[Lk~12:49]}
\end{quote}
The ``cleansing of the temple'' which takes place in all four
gospels is yet another example of a possible social mission of
Jesus. John describes it thus:
\begin{quotation}
When the time of the Jewish Passover was near Jesus went up to
Jerusalem, and in the temple he fond people selling cattle and
sheep and doves, and the money changers sitting there. Making a
whip out of cord, he drove them all out of the Temple, sheep and
cattle as well, scattered the money changers' coins, knocked
their tables over and said to the dove sellers, ``Take all this
out of here and stop using my Father's house as a
market.''~\mbox{[Jn~2:14--6]}
\end{quotation}
There are alternate interpretations of the quotes given above;
they do not {\em necessarily\/} support the
Jesus-as-revolutionary theory, but they also do not necessarily
contradict it either.

That there is little indication of Jesus as revolutionary in the
Gospel according to Mark is not as remarkable as it might seem;
it is generally agreed that Mark is a later gospel than Matthew
and John.\footnote{However, there are still many sources which
will claim that Matthew and Luke were based on Mark. This is true
to a certain extent, according to the editors of {\em The New
Jerusalem Bible\/} who postulate a proto-Mark which served as a
source for all three extant synoptic gospels. ``The last revision
of Mark must have been made after [Matthew and Luke] had already
made use of [the previous version]. This would account for the
features which appear late and the cases where Matthew and Luke
agree against Mark; they would both reflect an earlier version of
his text.''~\cite[p.~1601]{new-j}}
 Rather than giving an image of Jesus as a liberating  
Messiah, ``the real point of its message is the {\em
manifestation of the crucified
Messiah.\/}''~\cite[p.~1605]{new-j} The commentator of {\em The
New Jerusalem Bible\/} comments on the conflict between the
expected and actual r\^oles of Jesus:
\begin{quotation}
Jesus laid down a way of humility and submission; but the Jews, 
expecting a victorious warrior-Messiah, were ill-prepared for
this answer to their hope; the reason why the Jesus wanted
silence about his miracles (5:43) and his identity (7:24;~9:30)
was to avoid an enthusiasm which would have been as ill-advised
as it would have been mistaken.~\cite[p.~1605]{new-j} 
\end{quotation}
                          
The gospels, if they do not present Jesus as a social agitator,
do indicate that the conservative Jews did view him that way.
Luke has Pilate say of Jesus:
\begin{quotation}
``You have brought this man before me as a popular agitator. Now
I have gone into the matter myself in your presence and found no
grounds in the man for any of the charges you bring against
him.''~\mbox{[Lk~23:14]}
\end{quotation}
and in John, we find:
\begin{quotation}
Meanwhile a large number of Jews heard that he was there and came
not only on account of Jesus but also to see Lazarus whom he had
raised from the dead. Then the chief priests decided to kill
Lazarus as well, since it was on his account that many of the
Jews were leaving them and believing in
Jesus.~\mbox{[Jn~12:9--11]}
\end{quotation}
Also, we should not ignore the Revelation to John, which
incontrovertibly shows Jesus (as the lamb) acting violently
against the unholy people of the ancient world.

We can find some external evidence that lends some credence to
this theory; for example, Shirley Jackson Case writes:
\begin{quotation}
Even the meager formalities of John's movement seemed soon to
have proved unsatisfactory to Jesus. Apparently he heartily
espoused John's cause, so far as it represented a new attitude of
consecration and a renewal of confidence in God's readiness to
deliver his people\ldots [Unlike John the Baptist, Jesus] took
his stand in the midst of society where he might conduct an
aggressive propaganda on behalf of his new interests.

This aggressive policy of Jesus had its advantageous as well as
its disastrous possibilities. It gave him a much wider range of
social contacts than would have been available had he followed
the plan of John. But at the same time it greatly augmented the
possibilities of opposition\ldots

The impression made be Jesus upon his contemporaries was so
unusually forceful that it aroused a public opposition which
presently cut short his public career\ldots it was the
unconventional methods by which Jesus sought to bring these
results to pass that constituted the real basis of opposition
between him and his contemporaries. The problem at issue was not
so much the question of what end was to be sought, as of the safe
path to be pursued in order to arrive at the desired goal. It was
on this emblem of safe procedure that Jesus and his enemies came
to deadly grips.~\cite[pp.~52--4]{case}
\end{quotation}

Richard Cassidy is one writer who reads a revolutionary Jesus out
of the gospel of Luke. He writes of the temple
disturbance~(Lk~20):
\begin{quotation}
Luke shows Jesus acting against ``those who sold'' and accusing
the traffickers of having made the temple a ``den of robbers.''
The chief priests exercised tight control over all temple
activities and very likely derived a portion of their personal
incomes from the buying and selling that took place within temple
precincts. In the passage above, Luke does not explicitly state
that Jesus' actions actually placed him in conflict with the
chief priests; but it does clearly portray Jesus as acting
against the prevailing economic practices.~\cite[p.~35]{cass}
\end{quotation}

Case expresses the view that Jesus was not sympathetic to the
position of the revolutionists:
\begin{quotation}
In all probability Jesus' earlier popularity had been partially
due to the presence of such hopes among the common people of
Galilee. On the other hand, it is apparent that Jesus himself
never seconded these ambitions, and on occasion very definitely
expressed himself as out of harmony with the revolutionists. When
this fact became known among his sympathizers many turned away
from him and thus reduced the strength of his popular
following.~\cite[p.~58]{case}
\end{quotation}
However, this reading simply means that Jesus did not wholly
agree with the {\em zealots.\/} His position clearly is opposed
to that of the temple priests, as exhibited by his continual
conflicts with the scribes and pharisees as well as the
disruption of the temple; that he did not openly and violently
oppose {\em Rome\/} as he did the Jews of the temple lead to the
conflict with the zealots and the loss of supporters that Case
noticed.

We set out to see if we could justify Kazantzakis'
characterization of Jesus in \ltoc; to see whether there is any
justification for Kazantzakis writing of John the Baptist passing
the axe on to Jesus. Cassidy would think that perhaps this is
justified. The attacks against the temple and Jewish
establishment are certainly quite clear, but did he also rise up
against Rome? Cassidy says,
\begin{quotation}
Although Jesus did not constitute the same type of threat that to
Roman rule as the Zealots and the Parthians, the threat that he
posed was, ultimately, not less dangerous. Unlike the Zealots,
the Jesus of Luke's gospel does not make the overthrow of Roman
rule the central focus of his activity, nor does he support any
of the other forms of government (including that probably
advocated by the Zealots) that might have been considered as
replacements for Roman rule. Nevertheless, by espousing radically
new social patterns and by refusing to defer to the existing
political authorities, Jesus pointed the way to a social order in
which neither the Romans nor any other oppressing group would be
able to hold sway.~\cite[p.~79]{cass}
\end{quotation}
Cassidy recognizes the fact that the view of Luke is possibly
distorted, but claims that this is unlikely:
\begin{quotation}
Certainly in the years between Jesus' death and the time of
Luke's writing, there were ample opportunities for errors to be
made and for those who handed on the traditions about Jesus
(including Luke himself) to alter them in such a way that Luke's
final account could contain as much distortion as accuracy. On
the other hand, we know that Luke wanted to write ``an orderly
account,'' and we also know that Luke's descriptions relative to
empire history are, in fact, amazingly accurate.

We find these latter two considerations persuasive and are thus
inclined to hold that the stance Luke attributes to Jesus
corresponds to the stance that Jesus actually had. It can be
argued, however, that such a position is as much a matter of
perspective as it is of reasoned analyses and judgment, and this
we are willing to admit. {\em Do Luke's descriptions give an
accurate portrayal of Jesus' stance?\/} In the end, given the
lack of conclusive evidence, it is likely that any reply will
hinge on one's personal perspective.~\cite[pp.~85--6]{cass}
\end{quotation}
It is still difficult to say whether Kazantzakis' portrayal of
the internal conflict of Jesus over the nature of his mission is
justificable.

However, in examining the teachings of the founding fathers of
the Church, we find that the preachings tend more towards the
morals of individuals than towards the movement for social
justice that Cassidy finds in Luke and Kazantzakis' John the
Baptist calls for from Jesus. In the apocryphal Acts of Paul,
Paul is credited with preaching the following aphorisms in the
house of Onesiphorus:
\begin{quotation}
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

Blessed are they that keep the flesh chaste, for they shall
become the temple of God.

Blessed are they that abstain ({\em or\/} the continent) for unto
them shall God speak.

Blessed are they that have renounced this world, for they shall
be well-pleasing unto God. 

Blessed are they that posses their wives as though they had them
not, for they shall inherit God.

Blessed are they that have the fear of God, for they shall become
angels of God.

Blessed are they that tremble at the oracles of God, for they
shall be comforted.

Blessed are they that receive {\em the\/} wisdom of Jesus Christ,
for they shall be called sons of the Most High.

Blessed are they that have kept their baptism {\em pure,\/} for
they shall rest with the Father and the Son.

Blessed are they that have compassed the understanding of Jesus
Christ, for they shall be in light.

Blessed are they that for love of God have departed from the
fashion of this world, for they shall judge angels, and shall be
blessed at the right hand of the Father.

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy and shall
not see the bitter day of judgement.

Blessed are the bodies of virgins, for they shall be
well-pleasing unto God and shall not lose the reward of their
continence (chastity), for the word of the Father shall be unto
them a work of salvation in the say of his Son, and they shall
have rest world without
end.~\mbox{[ActsPl~2:5--6]}\footnote{Quoted from \cite{nta}.}
\end{quotation}
These do not sound like the teachings of a Jesus who ``knocked
tables over'' in the Temple of Jerusalem.\footnote{And while the
presentation in Revelation might be taken this way, it is also
worth noting that this book of the Bible nearly did not become
canonical.~\cite[pp.~2027--8]{new-j}} Is it possible that the
fathers of the church had ``toned down'' the revolutionary nature
of Jesus' acts? A sentiment expressed in Romans is not atypical:
\begin{quotation}
Let love be without any pretence. Avoid what is evil; stick to
what is good. In brotherly love let your feelings of deep
affection for one another come to expression and regard others as
more important than yourself.~\mbox{[Rm~12:9--10]}
\end{quotation}
Or in Corinthians when the following is expressed:
\begin{quotation}
Keep away from sexual immorality. All other sins that someone may
commit are done outside the body; but the sexually immoral person
sins against his own body. Do you not realize your body is the
temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you and whom you have
received from God? You are not your own property, then; you have
been bought at a price. So use your body for the glory of
God.~\mbox{[1~Co~6:18--20]}
\end{quotation}

Let us examine the question of why the founding fathers of the
Church might have abandoned the social revolution portion of
Jesus' teachings to the degree that they did (many of the quotes
from the New Testament cited above have non-social-reform
interpretations generally ascribed to them).

Perhaps the main reason for the abandonment of Jesus as the
warrior-Messiah in the teachings of the Christian church is that
\begin{quotation}
Not only was the social environment of the Christian movement
largely gentile well before the end of the first century, but it
had severed almost completely and earlier bonds of social contact
with the Jewish Christians of Palestine. During the first
generation, in the time of Peter, Paul, and Barnabas, the
Christians of Jerusalem were treated by their gentile brethren at
least as peers, if not as superiors. But after the year 70, when
the Jewish war against Rome resulted in the destruction of the
Temple and inspired a new disdain on the part of the Gentiles for
all things Jewish, Palestinian Christianity rapidly lost
prestige. It made few if any gains in membership, while the
gentile communities constantly increased. By the year 100
Christianity is mainly a gentile religious
movement.~\cite[pp.~27--8]{case}
\end{quotation}
The expectation that the Messiah would be a force that {\em
actively\/} liberates the Jews from Rome was, as the quote from
Russell above indicated, primarily a Jewish belief. As the
Christian cult became increasingly gentile, the necessary r\^ole
of the fledgling Christianity's Jesus had to play changed as
well. Paul, in Galatians said, with respect to the Jewish
traditions:
\begin{quotation}
I, Paul, give you my word that if you accept circumcision,
Christ will be of no benefit to you at all. I give my assurance
once again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is under
obligation to keep the whole Law; once you seek to be reckoned as
upright through the Law, then you have separated yourself from
Christ, you have fallen away from grace.~\mbox{[Ga~5:2--4]}
\end{quotation}

Case believes that 
\begin{quotation}
Henceforth the gentile field offered Christians their only hope
of success. Their efforts to win Jewish adherents proved
increasingly futile \ldots\ its prospects of further success now
lay exclusively in its power to perpetuate itself through appeal
to the non-Jewish population of the Roman Empire. Unless it had
been able to integrate itself successfully as a movement in
gentile society, its hope of survival would have been in
vain.~\cite[pp.~67--8]{case}
\end{quotation}
Christianity faced a tough field of competition for followers in
the Roman empire.
\begin{quotation}
All about them was a veritable welter of religious cults offering
to their devotees a wide variety of satisfactions and presenting
a great many different forms of appeal. There was hardly a single
area of interest that had not been already cultivated by some
older cult.~\cite[p.~69]{case}
\end{quotation}

In addition to the desire to exclude unfavorable beliefs from
Christianity to aid in evangelizing the gentiles of the Roman
empire, there was desire inside the Christian movement to gain
the support of the empire itself:
\begin{quotation}
On more than one occasion Christians had sought to bring their
cause into favor by calling the attention of the authorities to
the fact that the Empire's beginnings, and its continued glory,
had been conincident with the rise and growth of the Christian
movement. One was to infer that the prayers of the Christians and
their presence in society were genuine elements of safety which
should be nourished if future prosperity were to be
assured.~\cite[p.~209]{case}
\end{quotation}

Why should whether this interpretation is valid matter to us at
all? Biblical hermeneutics has been a central feature of Western
theology for quite some time.\footnote{To explain hermeneutics in
brief: one begins by attempting to determine the intent of the
author in interpretting the text; this interpretation is then
used in the light of understanding current happenings, then with
that illumination on the text, the reader returns to the text and
re-interprets it. This process can be continued as much as
necessary. Berryman~\cite{berryman} contains the following
example which is illuminating:
\begin{quotation}\footnotesize
[Latin Americans] understand the Bible in terms of their
experience and reinterpret that experience in terms of biblical
symbols. In theological jargon this is called the ``hermeneutical
circle''---interpretation moves from experience to text to
experience. As an example, consider the saying of Jesus, ``Unless
the grain of wheat falls to the earth and dies, it remains just a
grain of wheat. But if it dies, it produces much fruit''
(John~12:24). The original text certainly applies to Jesus' own
death. Suppose, however, a community leader is murdered, and
after initial fear and intimidation, people resolve to continue
their struggle, inspired by the leader's example. When that same
text comes up, it is seen as referring to their martyred leader,
whose life is showing fruit. Hence their is an ongoing
interaction between life experience and its interpretation in the
light of Scripture.
\end{quotation}
Berryman de-emphasizes the r\^ole of authorial intent, but as
will be noted, it is essential to proper hermeneutical
interpretation.}
The earliest attempts to understand the Bible grew out of the
Reformation:
\begin{quotation}
Since Protestant theologians believed, not only that Scripture
was infallible, but that it had been written with specific
reference to the needs of all subsequent time, they thought it
both profitable and necessary to derive therefrom a body of
normative teaching specifically applicable to their own
problems.  No primary importance was attached to the particular
circumstances under which a scriptural document had been
composed, nor were any questions asked regarding the special
interests that might have been dominant when the original author
and his first readers lived. Without hesitation, it was
unconsciously assumed that the biblical writer had centered
attention upon the particular issues with which the reformers
themselves were so vitally concerned.~\cite[p.~5]{case}
\end{quotation}
However, if the historical background of the passage being
interpretted is ignored, then the validity of the interpretation
can be easily called into question.\footnote{I am reminded of a
preacher I heard on the radio once who took the phrase ``to the
victor belongs the spoils'' to refer to ``oil'' despite the fact
that he was reading a translation and the spoil/oil pairing would
not have been present in the original text.} If Jesus' mission
did not contain in it some attempts at changing social conditions
as well as spiritual conditions, then many schools of theology
(liberation theology, in particular) would no longer be valid.
With this in mind, attempting to understand the full background
behind a text like Luke, is essential not only to Biblical
scholarship, but to contemporary social movements as well.

More specifically, the hermeneutic circle is especially important
in understanding Kazantzakis' novel, which can be taken to be
more-or-less as an interpretation of the New Testament. As was
noted above, Kazantzakis' spiritual growth went began with
``revolutionary ardor'' followed by an ascetic Christianity then
through Nietzsche, Buddha, Lenin, Odysseus, and back to Christ.
In effect, \ltoc\ is Kazantzakis' own liberation theology. His
Jesus' change of heart mirrors very much Kazantzakis' own pattern
of intellectual growth. While Jesus, for a time, adopts a
``revolutionary ardor'' of his own, he after a time returns to
the way of love, in a manner similar to that of Kazantzakis.
\ltoc\ represents not only Kazantzakis' interpretation of the New
Testament, it represents his interpretation in the light of his
own experiences.

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