Nikos Kazantzakis: The Last Temptation of Christ

The head ram of this flock was Simeon the old rabbi of Nazareth -shrunken, bent over with the years, warped and contorted by the evil disease, tuberculosis: a scaffolding of dry bones which his indestructible soul held together and kept from collapsing. The two skeleton hands with their monstrous, birdlike talons squeezed the sacerdotal crosier with the pair of entwined snakes at its top and banged it down on the stones. This living corpse smelled like a burning city. Seeing the flames within his eyes, you felt that flesh, bones and hair-the whole ramshackle body-were afire; and when he opened his mouth and shouted, God of Israel! smoke rose from the top of his head. Behind him filed the stooping, large-boned elders with their staffs, bushy eyebrows and forked beards; behind them the able-bodied men, then the women. Bringing up the rear were the children, each with a stone in hand, and some with slings over their shoulders. They all advanced together, rumbling softly, mutely, like the sea.

As Judas leaned against the doorpost and watched the men and women, his heart swelled. They are the ones, he reflected, the blood rushing to his head, they are the ones who together with God will perform the miracle. Today! Not tomorrow, today!

An immense, high-rumped manlike woman broke away from the crowd. She was fierce and maniacal, and the clothes were falling off her shoulders. Bending down, she grabbed a stone and slung it forcefully at the carpenter’s door.

“Damn you to hell, cross-maker!” she cried.

All at once shouts and curses rang out from one end of the street to the other and the children took the slings from their shoulders. The redbeard shut the door with a bang.

“Cross-maker! Cross-maker!” was hooted on all sides, and the door rumbled under a barrage of stones.

The young man, kneeling before the cross, swung the hammer up and down and nailed, banging hard, as though he wished to drown out the hoots and curses of the street. His breast was boiling; sparks jumped across the bridge of his nose. He banged frantically, and the sweat ran down his forehead.

The redbeard knelt, seized his arm and snatched the hammer violently out of his grasp. He gave the cross a blow which knocked it to the floor.

“Are you going to bring it?”

“Yes.”

“You’re not ashamed?”

“No.”

“I won’t let you. I’ll smash it to smithereens.”

He looked around and put out his arm to find an adze.

“Judas, Judas, my brother,” said the young man slowly, beseechingly, “do not step in my way.” His voice had suddenly deepened; it was dark, unrecognizable. The redbeard was troubled.

“What way?” he asked quietly. He waited, gazing anxiously at the young man. The light now fell directly on the carpenter’s face and on his bare, small-boned torso. His lips were twisted, clenched tight as though struggling to restrain a great cry. The redbeard saw how emaciated he was, how pale, and his misanthropic heart felt pity for him. He was melting away; each day his cheeks sank more. How long was it since he had last seen him? Only a few days. He had left to make his rounds of the villages near Gennesaret. A blacksmith, he beat and fashioned the iron, shod horses, made pickaxes, ploughshares and sickles, but then hurried back to Nazareth because he had received a message that the Zealot was to be crucified. He recalled how he had left his old friend, and now, look how he had found him! How swollen the eyes had become, how sunken the temples! And what was that bitterness all around his mouth?

“What happened to you?” he asked. “Why have you melted away? Who is tormenting you?”

The young man laughed feebly. He was about to reply that it was God, but he restrained himself. This was the great cry within him, and he did not want to let it escape his lips.

“I am wrestling,” he answered.

“With whom?”

“‘I don’t know. I’m wrestling.”

The redbeard plunged his eyes into those of the youth. He questioned them, implored them, threatened, but the pitch-black inconsolable eyes, full of fear, did not answer.

Suddenly Judas’s mind reeled. As he bent over the dark, unspeaking eyes it seemed to him that he saw trees in bloom, blue water, crowds of men; and inside, deep down in the gleaming pupil, behind the flowering trees and the water and the men, and occupying the entire iris, a large black cross.

He jumped erect, his eyes popping out of his head. He wanted to speak, to ask, Can you be… You? But his lips had frozen. He wanted to clasp the young man to his breast to kiss him, but his arms, stretched in the air, had suddenly stiffened, like wood.

And then, as the youth saw him with his arms spread wide, his eyes protruding, his hair standing on end, he uttered a cry. The terrifying nightmare bounded out of the trapdoor of his mind-the entire rout of dwarfs with their implements of crucifixion and the cries: After him, lads! And now too he recognized their captain the redbeard: it was Judas, Judas the blacksmith, who had rushed in the lead, laughing wildly.

The redbeard’s lips moved. “Can you be… you…?” he stammered.

“I? Who?”

The other did not answer. Chewing his mustache, he looked at him, half of his face again brilliantly illuminated, the other half plunged in darkness. Jostling in his mind were the signs and prodigies which had surrounded this youth from his birth, and even before: how, when the marriage candidates were assembled, the staff of Joseph-among so many others-was the only one to blossom. Because of this the rabbi awarded him Mary, exquisite Mary, who was consecrated to God. And then how a thunderbolt struck and paralyzed the bridegroom on his marriage day, before he could touch his bride. And how later, it was said, the bride smelled a white lily and conceived a son in her womb. And how the night before his birth she dreamed that the heavens opened, angels descended, lined up like birds on the humble roof of her house, built nests and began to sing; and some guarded her threshold, some entered her room, lighted a fire and heated water to bathe the expected infant, and some boiled broth for the confined woman to drink…

The redbeard approached slowly, hesitantly, and bent over the young man. His voice was now full of longing, entreaty, and fear. “Can you be… you…?” he asked once more, but again he dared not complete the question.

The youth quivered with fright. “Me?” he said, sniggering sarcastically. “But don’t you see me? I’m not capable of speaking. I haven’t the courage to go to the synagogue. As soon as I see men I run away. I shamelessly disobey God’s commandments. I work on the Sabbath…”

He picked up the cross, stood it straight again and seized his hammer.

“And now, look! I make crosses and crucify!” Once more he struggled to laugh.

The redbeard was vexed and did not speak. He opened the door. A new swarm of tumultuous villagers appeared at the end of the street-old ladies with disheveled hair, sickly old men; the lame, the blind, the leprous-all the dregs of Nazareth. They too were mounting, short of breath; they too were crawling toward the hill of crucifixion… The appointed hour drew near. It’s time for me to leave and join the people, the redbeard reflected, time for us to rush forward all together and snatch away the Zealot. Then it will become clear whether or not he is the Saviour… But he hesitated. Suddenly a cool breeze passed over him. No, he thought, this man who is to be crucified today will not be the One the Hebrew race has awaited for so many centuries. Tomorrow! Tomorrow! Tomorrow! How many years, God of Abraham, have you kept pounding us with this tomorrow! tomorrow! tomorrow! All right-when? We’re human; we’ve stood enough!

He had become ferocious. Throwing a wrathful glance at the young man who lay prone on the cross, nailing, he asked himself with a shudder, Can he be the One, can he be the One-the cross-maker? God’s ways are obscure and indirect… Can he be the One?