Kazantzakis' Philosophical and Theological Thought (PDFDrive)

Reach What You Cannot
JERRY H. GILL
Kazantzakis’ Philosophical and Theological
Thought
Jerry H. Gill
Kazantzakis’
Philosophical
and Theological
Thought
Reach What You Cannot
Jerry H. Gill
College of Saint Rose
Albany, NY, USA
ISBN 978-3-319-93832-5 ISBN 978-3-319-93833-2 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-93833-2
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For
Timothy Doherty
My Long-Time Friend and Colleague
Preface
I initially encountered the thought of Nikos Kazantzakis in the early

1960s when reading Zorba the Greek. A few years later, I was able to visit
his gravesite, on a fortress wall in the city of Heraklion, near the Minoan
ruins on the island of Crete. Slowly over a number of years, I worked
my way through all of his books and actually had the privilege of visiting
with his widow Eleni in Geneva. Then, in the summer of 1972, I went
to Crete to write a book about Nikos and his philosophical thought.
Somewhere along the way, I lost track of that effort.
Actually, I was sidetracked by good fortune, for when driving along
the Cretan coast looking for a good place in which to write about
Crete’s most famous writer. I followed a small sign to a tiny fishing vil-
lage, called “Mochlos,” perched on the edge of the Mediterranean Sea.
The village had about 40 people, only one of whom spoke English. I
stayed there for the entire summer and made many lasting friendships. In
fact, over the ensuing years, I returned to Mochlos, and its nearby town
of Sitia, at least a dozen times, always accompanied by a small crowd of
students and my wife Mari. I even learned a little of the wonderful Greek
language.
So now, over 40 years of college teaching and a good number of
books on other philosophical thinkers, I am actually sitting down to
write a book on the thought of Nikos Kazantzakis. I will trace three
main themes of his thought, namely Nature, Humanity, and God,
through his major novels, as well as his unofficial autobiography Report
vii
viii Preface
to Greco and his “spiritual exercises” Saviors of God. These are the
volumes I used when teaching occasional seminars on Kazantzakis’s

thought over the years.
For the subtitle, I have chosen the particular phrase, Reach What You
Cannot, from among Kazantzakis’s many different “mottos,” because I
think it best captures his overall vision. In addition to having learned a
good many things about Nikos’s life and character from his widow Eleni.
I am also indebted to Kimon Friar, one of his major translators who so
graciously granted me a whole day at his home on the island of Aegina.
In addition, I am also very grateful for my readers’ insightful and
textual suggestions regarding the initial manuscript. Their thorough
knowledge of Kazantzakis’s life as well as of his writings saved me from a
number of mistakes.
Now a brief word about the proposed format. I’m going to treat the
various major volumes under main headings, or Parts, according to how
they seem to fit within each of these broader categories. Naturally, there
will be considerable overlap, but this will allow for some organizational
structure while avoiding jumping back and forth between volumes as I
go. This would seem to be the least confusing way to treat Kazantzakis’s
wide range of topics and characters, while at the same time minimizing
the readers’ confusion.
My aim is to track each of the main themes through the respective
works. Unavoidably, this will necessitate a certain degree of repeating
of the storyline from chapter to chapter, but in each case, the focus will
be on the three overarching themes of each Part. In other words, the
emphasis will be on how these three themes present themselves in each
of Kazantzakis’s different works. Because of its biographical nature,
I have chosen to treat Report to Greco all along the way within each
chapter.
A final disclaimer. I have chosen not to include any detailed analysis
of Kazantzakis’s great, and huge, The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel, both
because of its size (over 5000 lines of iambic pentameter) and because
of its poetic format. It simply includes so many themes, events, and
images as to defy analysis in a volume such as this. Fortunately, many, if
not most, of the themes and images contained in this great work of art
shall be encountered in our exploration of Kazantzakis’s major novels.
We shall more than have our hands full with these. Kazantzakis provides
a summary interpretation of this major work near the end of Report to
Greco, which I shall take up at that juncture.
Preface ix
At the beginning of his Prologue to Report to Greco Kazantzakis

writes: “I collect my tools: sight, smell, touch, taste, hearing, intellect.”
So I, too, now gather my tools, as it were, to begin the long-delayed but
joyous task of seeking to present something close to an engaging account
of the thought of a truly deep and craft-full writer. Wish me luck!
Albany, USA Jerry H. Gill

Acknowledgements
I wish to express my deep gratitude for my wife Mari Sorri for her
participation in this project. Not only did she spend many hours in pains
taking page editing but she often provided very helpful insights into
the content of the text itself. In many ways, this book has had a dual
authorship.
xi
Contents
1 A Biographical Sketch 1
Part I The Patterns of Nature
2 Zorba the Greek 7
3 The Greek Passion 15
4 The Fratricides 21
5 Saviors of God 27
Part II Human Dynamics
6 Freedom or Death 35
7 The Fratricides 47
9 Zorba the Greek 73
xiii
xiv Contents
Part III The Shape of Divinity
10 Saint Francis 93
12 The Last Temptation of Christ 119
13 Saviors of God 131
14 Conclusion: The Cretan Glance 143
Bibliography 147
Index 149
CHAPTER 1
A Biographical Sketch
Nikos Kazantzakis was born in Iraklion, the modern Capital city of Crete,
in 1883. His youth was dominated by his father, an extremely taciturn
and tightly wound patriarch whose life was formed by the unceasing and
cruel occupation of Crete by the Ottoman Turkish Empire. Nonetheless,
Nikos felt that his childhood life was “magical.” His earliest memories
included the beauty of the garden in the family courtyard, where his
mother and the neighborhood women held daily conversations as they
went about their household tasks.
Nikos’s schoolmasters were stern, even mean at times, but he very
much enjoyed his school studies, especially those involving Sacred
History and the Lives of the Saints. When it came time for his middle
school education, his father delivered him to the Priests of a Roman
Catholic school on the island of Naxos in order to avoid the revolution-
ary conflict on Crete at the time. There he shined as a student of crea-
tive writing. When Crete was finally delivered from the 400-year Turkish
occupation in 1898, Nikos returned to Crete for his high school. During
the following years, he experienced the usual turmoil of a young adoles-
cent. Nearly all we know of his youth comes from his creative, but some-
what fictionalized “autobiography” Report to Greco.
After having distinguished himself as a student with great prom-
ise in high school, Nikos went off to the University of Athens to study
law. Having come from the remote island of Crete, he was rather over-
whelmed by the splendors of the City of Athens. He did spend a good
many hours wandering through the Greek countryside and made several
© The Author(s) 2018 1

J. H. Gill, Kazantzakis’ Philosophical and Theological Thought,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-93833-2_1
2 J. H. GILL
lifelong friends. Eventually, he decided against a law career, opting

instead to study literature. He actually won an important prize for one
of the plays he wrote. After a brief return to his home on Crete, he fell
in love with the famous palaces of the Minoan civilization and met and
married his first wife Galatea.
At this point, Kazantzakis’s life took a radical turn, leading him
to study for a doctorate degree at the University of Paris. There he
encountered the spirit of Frederick Nietzsche and the teaching of
Henri Bergson. Both of these philosophers became primary figures in
Kazantzakis’s own philosophical worldview. We shall consider both of
these thinkers in some detail as we consider how they factor into the vari-
ous novels within which Kazantzakis expressed his understanding of real-
ity and human life. While he was inspired and soothed by the beauty and
insights of Bergson’s lectures, Kazantzakis was challenged, even terrified,
by the power of Nietzsche’s writings, eventually writing his doctoral
dissertation on them.
Subsequently, Nikos embarked on a three-month tour of his Greek
homeland. Along the way, he had several conversations with some tradi-
tional, and some not so traditional, monks, especially during his visit to
Mount Athos. There he came face to face with the dualism between the
life of the spirit and that of the flesh. This was a dualism with which he
continued to struggle, both in all of his novels as well in his personal life.
He also visited various “Holy Places,” such as the home of Saint Francis
of Assisi and the Monastery of St. Catherine on Mount Sinai. Later on,
Kazantzakis traveled to Vienna where he immersed himself in the teach-
ings of Buddhism. While there he struggled with a rare skin disease,
often called the “Saint’s disease” because it attacked people who were
suffering under the pressure of great sexual guilt. Next, he spent several
months in Berlin, where he had a serious affair with a Russian woman
named Itka who introduced him to the ideas of Lenin. He temporar-
ily embraced Communism because of its desire to erase human suffering
and political oppression, and later the two traveled together to Moscow.
In Moscow Kazantzakis became disenchanted with the grandiose
claims of Communism, and especially the practices of Communism
under the rule of Stalin. He and Itka argued over these issues and even-
tually, Kazantzakis returned to Crete, and with his second wife, Eleni,
moved to the island of Aegina near Athens where they weathered World
War Two. During the Nazi occupation of Greece Kazantzakis wrote his
novel Zorba the Greek. In my all-too-brief visit with Eleni, she shared
1 A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 3
many of his stories concocted to alleviate their impoverished life at that

time. She also shared many of his stories and feelings about his great
friend Zorba.
One day, while the inspiration for his great work, The Odyssey: A
Modern Sequel, was forming within him, Kazantzakis came upon a tiny
chrysalis beginning to open up. Impatient to witness the emergence of
the butterfly, he began to blow on the cocoon in order to hurry its birth
along. When the butterfly finally came forth it was underdeveloped and
deformed because he had hurried its birthing process. He was stricken
with guilt, and proclaimed “To this day I carry the responsibility for that
deformation in my heart.” He lamented his impetuosity that taught him
the value of waiting for nature’s processes to follow their natural course.
Finally, in 1957, while stopping in Japan on a trip to China, Kazantzakis
received a vaccination which soon became infected and brought him
to death’s door. Eleni flew him to Freiburg, Germany for medical treat-
ment, but it was too late. Eleni told me that Aristotle Onassis offered
to fly Nikos back to Greece, but she decided rather to have a driver take
them to Athens. Regrettably, the Bishop of Athens, who had long detested
Kazantzakis’s writings, would not allow him to lie in state in his Province.
Eleni appealed to the Bishop of Crete, who was pleased to have the great
writer buried on the ruins of the Venetian wall surrounding Iraklion, what
Kazantzakis, in his novels, called “Megalo Kastro.”
On his gravestone is the inscription, which he himself chose, “I hope
for nothing. I fear nothing. I am free.” Although he had always admired
“men of action,” he had eventually resigned himself to merely being
“a weak-bottomed pen-pusher.” In the end, he was castigated by both
the religious leadership of his own church and the Greek leaders of the
Communist movement, for being on the one hand too liberal, and on
the other hand too idealistic. Among his fellow Cretans, however, he will
always be a national hero, a national treasure.
By virtue of his many writings, as well as the two popular American
films, “Zorba the Greek” and “The Last Temptation of Christ,”
Kazantzakis has, as well, become a worldwide symbol of freedom, cour-
age, and artistry. In the pages that follow I shall trace the diverse themes
his writings embraced under the headings of “Nature,” “Humanity,”
and “Divinity.” As we shall see, he sought to devise a philosophy that
incorporated the teachings of Christ, Buddha, Bergson, Nietzsche,
Marx, and most of all Zorba. Through it all, he struggled to “Reach
what he could not.”
4 J. H. GILL
At the outset, I should mention that I shall be using Peter Bien’s

more recent and reliable translation of Zorba the Greek as the text for my
analysis of this well-known novel. Professor Bien is universally regarded
as the “Dean” of Kazantzakis translation and interpretation. His own
book Kazantzakis: Politics of the Spirit is more than worth a careful
reading.
PART I
The Patterns of Nature
It should be said at the outset of this unit that for Kazantzakis the nat-
ural world is alive with spirituality. That is to say, he clearly regarded the
patterns of nature as mediating the richer, more comprehensive dimen-
sions of reality. It is almost tempting to say that he was an animist.
However, for Kazantzakis, the forces and qualities of the natural world
are not so much a result of their own reality, but rather of how they
mediate a yet higher dimension. In this unit, we shall explore these par-
ticular forces and qualities with an eye to discerning those realities that
they mediate or convey to the people in his novels and to us the readers.
Although the following examination of this theme does not include the
novel Freedom or Death, Morton Levitt uses this work to set the tone for
our explorations in his insightful essay “The Cretan Glance: The World
and Art of Nikos Kazantzakis” (Journal of Modern Literature, Vol. 2, # 2).
The framework of the novel is entirely naturalistic: animal imagery is

applied to all the characters, and especially to Mihalis, the protagonist,
who is described variously as a wild boar, a dragon, a lion, a bull and a
minotaur.” … “All of nature is, in fact, anthropomorphic: the first spring
air came to Crete at night, ‘leaped over the fortress walls and through the
chinks of doors and windows’…Man, too, is a force of nature—Mihalis
‘like an earthquake,’ ‘a hard knotty bough on a tree,’ and old Sifakas, his
father, ‘like a great oak tree’ which has ‘breathed storms, suffered, tri-
umphed’. (p. 180)
6 PART I: THE PATTERNS OF NATURE
Further on Levitt says that in Freedom or Death “The relationship

between Crete, man, and God - a God of nature - is similarly anthropo-
morphic, suggesting the dealings between the Children of Israel and the
God of the Torah. The nature and animal images are thus more than just
naturalistic description, more than a means of characterizing the harsh-
ness of Cretan life; they become a part of the religious symbolism of the
novel, offering a view not of man degraded by his naturalistic surround-
ings, but of man rising above them, ascending perhaps because of them,
because there is no hope in the natural scheme of things” (p. 181).
CHAPTER 2
Zorba the Greek
“It was almost daybreak – rain, strong southeast wind, sea spray reaching
the small café, its glass doors shut, the air inside smelling of sage and
human sweat” (Zorba, p. 9). With these words Kazantzakis begins
the story of his eventful and deep relationship with Alexis Zorba.
Throughout his novels, Kazantzakis makes use of the natural elements
when creating his vision of the world and human life. Water, in the form
of rain and sea, frequently finds its way into his descriptions of the sur-
rounding scene. In many ways water, especially rain, actually functions as
an additional character in the development of his stories.
Later on, in the book, we find this passage, again referencing the rain:
The rain continued. Mountaintops were covered over. No wind. Stones

shiny. The low lignite mountain was smothered in fog. One could say
that the hill’s female face had lost consciousness beneath the rain and
was wrapped in human sorrow. ‘Rainfall affects the human heart’ Zorba
declared. ‘Don’t fuss with it in bad weather.’ (p. 112)
This mention of the lignite hill brings another natural “character” into
his vision of the world. The Boss had come to Crete to reopen a lignite
mine that he had recently inherited. Much of the dynamic of his relation-
ship to Zorba centers on their efforts to bring this project to fruition.
Zorba and the crew had burrowed their way into the mountainside and
had shored up the shaft with timber.

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-93833-2_2
8 J. H. GILL
But “The logs were not thick enough. With that faultless instinct of
his that made him experience the entire underground labyrinth with such
immediacy, he felt that the props were not secure. He heard – still too
faintly to be noticed by the others – the ceiling’s rigging creak as though
it were sighing on account of the weight above” (p. 128).
A bit later on Kazantzakis writes: “I watched Zorba at work. With
nothing else in mind he devoted one hundred percent of himself to his
job, becoming one with the earth, the pickax, the coal. The hammer and
nails seemed to have metamorphosed into his body fighting with the
wood and with gallery’s bulging ceiling” (p. 130). This struggle, then,
with the mine provides the backdrop for the entire story and the mine
actually has become one of the main characters at the conclusion of the
adventure.
This leads us to yet another aspect of nature that plays a part in the
drama that shapes this story, namely the island of Crete itself. In Greek,
the island is called Kriti and it is often addressed and spoken of by native
Cretans as if it were an actual person. Crete was, we should remember,
Kazantzakis’s homeland and he repeatedly returned to it with affection.
Indeed, his remains are buried there. We shall return to this piece of
information later on when we treat Kazantzakis’s vision of human life.
Here is how he describes the island of his birth:
I felt that this Cretan scene resembled good prose: well-worked, reticent, lib-
erated from superfluous wealth, strong, restrained, formulating the essence by
the simplest of means, refusing to play games, not deigning to employ tricks
or grandiloquence, but saying what it means with virile simplicity. Between
this Cretan scene’s severe lines, however, one could distinguish unexpected
sensitivity and tenderness. Lemon trees and orange trees exuded their sweet
savor in wind-protected hollows. Unquenchable poetry gushed from the
boundless sea. ‘Crete, Crete,’ I murmured with fluttering heart. (p. 41)
In Kazantzakis’s eyes the person of Zorba encapsulated and projected

the entire natural universe. He saw in him the focal point of all of real-
ity. More specifically, he saw all of this incarnated in Zorba’s embodied
activity. “Time had acquired a new taste in Zorba’s presence. It was no
longer a mathematical succession of events; nor was it an unsolved prob-
lem inside me. It was warm, finely sifted sand that I felt passing tenderly
through my fingers, tickling them. ‘God bless Zorba,’ I murmured. He
has given a warm beloved body to the abstract concerns shivering inside
of me. When he is absent I begin to feel cold again” (p. 179).
2 ZORBA THE GREEK 9
In addition, more than once Kazantzakis images the natural elements

of the earth and sky as actual personas in the ongoing drama of the phys-
ical world. “Listening to Zorba, I sensed the world’s virginity being
renewed. Everyday things that had lost their luster regained the bright-
ness they had possessed the moment they emerged from God’s hands.
Water, women, stars, and bread returned to their primordial, mysterious
source; the divine wheel retained its rotational momentum in the sky”
(pp. 64–65).
Perhaps, the most poignant passage in this book with respect to the
rhythms of nature is that found near the end of Chapter 10. Kazantzakis
describes finding a cocoon from which a butterfly was struggling to
emerge. He blew on it in order to speed up the miracle of its birth, but
when it emerged he was horrified to see that his efforts to speed up the
butterfly’s birth. He describes his horror in the following way:
My breath had forced the butterfly to emerge ahead of time, crumpled and
premature. It came out undeveloped, shook desperately, and soon died in
my palm. This butterfly’s fluffy corpse is, I believe, the greatest weight I
carry on my conscience. What I understood on that day was this: to hasten
eternal rules is a mortal sin. One’s duty is confidently to follow nature’s
everlasting rhythm. (p. 142)
It is possible that we have here an important lesson for our own times
when we are increasingly aware of our responsibilities toward the natu-
ral world around us as we continue to pollute and rape the earth and its
atmosphere at an astonishing rate. We have failed to pay attention to the
patterns and rhythms of the natural world because we have been impa-
tient with it, forcing it to fit into our patterns and to provide us with
all of the things we think we need to make our lives comfortable. It is
interesting to note that Zorba’s project, near the end of the book, to
bring huge logs down from the mountainside using his very best tech-
nology, collapsed entirely. And then he and the “Boss” danced their way
to acceptance of the catastrophe.
The Boss, ostensibly Kazantzakis himself, finally turned to Zorba and
cried “Teach me to dance.” Zorba was delighted and threw himself into
teaching the Boss to dance. They were both able to accept the disaster
and thereby to transcend it. Both abstract rationality and technological
calculating went by the boards. Zorba blustered: “To hell with paper
and inkpots Eh, my boy! Now that Your Highness dances – learns my
10 J. H. GILL
language – we’ve got so very much to tell each other” (p. 321). In the
end, however, although it may be that Zorba has won the Boss over,
because he ended up writing this book, it may be that Kazantzakis him-
self had the last word.
Yet, another aspect of this theme needs to be addressed before mov-
ing on. In a number of places in Zorba, the Greek Kazantzakis has some
rather questionable things to say about the role and nature of what Zorba
calls “the female of the species.” Not only are Madame Hortense and the
widow pretty much portrayed as secondary to the whims and desires of
men, but the world of nature is several times depicted as having a female
character, one that corresponds to the physical and sensuous dimension
of reality. In short, females are seemingly depicted as being primarily
physical in nature, without lives and brains of their own. Even the Boss’s
romance with the widow clearly implies that she is there for his taking.
Moving on it is easy for me to identify with Kazantzakis in his descrip-
tions of and feelings for Crete. I have had the privilege of visiting this
majestic island many times, and my wife Mari and I actually spent three
years living there while we administered a semester abroad program for
the college where we taught in Albany, New York. During these years I
came to know and love the island of Kriti very deeply. It stands all by itself
about 150 miles from both mainland Greece to the north and the North
African coast to the south. Its mountains reach over 7000 feet above the
sea and its coastline is dotted with numerous inlets and beautiful beaches.
In a way, even politically, Crete functions as a nation unto itself.
We were situated near the far eastern end of Crete, but were able to
visit nearly every part of the island during our time there. We swam at
a number of its beaches, hiked through the famous and deep Samaria
Gorge several times, and climbed to the top of Mt. Ida, or Psiloritis
as the locals call it. As you immerse yourself in this island, it comes to
indwell you so that you tend to feel as though you belong to it. Its rug-
gedness is easily offset by its immense beauty. Moreover, its people are
extremely friendly and hospitable. In contrast to the common malady
known as xenophobia, one could easily characterize Cretan people as
having xenophilia. They genuinely embrace strangers as guests, which
is what the Greek word xenos actually means: happily sharing their food
and homes with open arms.
It is clear that Kazantzakis comes close to announcing a pantheis-
tic view of nature, one in which God and the natural world are under-
stood as one and the same reality. We shall return to this question in
2 ZORBA THE GREEK 11
greater detail in Part Three when we consider the “shape of Divinity” in

Kazantzakis’s thought. Suffice it to say at this juncture that he was obvi-
ously supremely aware of, and in awe of, the great mystery and power
of the processes and patterns of the natural world. This is an interest-
ing observation in light of the fact that he frequently describes himself as
a mere “pen-pusher” and effete intellectual, as one who never was able
to unite his ideas with his actions. This is a dichotomy in Kazantzakis’s
character that has always struck me as intriguing.
All the way through Zorba the Greek, the Boss belittles and derides
himself for not being like Zorba, a man of action rather than one who is
constantly struggling with abstract ideas. Indeed, the Boss’s original pro-
ject in coming to Crete had been an opportunity to finish his book man-
uscript on the thought of Buddha. The coal mining project was more or
less an excuse to get away from the distractions of the everyday world
so as to be able to come to grips with the eternal truths of Buddhist
philosophy. Fortunately, in Kazantzakis’s view, this original plan was
demolished by his encounter with Zorba.
Frequently in his disguised autobiography Report to Greco Kazantzakis
bemoans the fact that he, unlike Zorba, could never integrate his men-
tal activity and his desire to actually accomplish something in the real
world of events. This in spite of the fact that on two separate occasions
he did actually serve as a foreign diplomat for his native Greece, one of
which involved rescuing several thousand Greek refugees in the Caucasus
mountains. Nonetheless, from the list of his many books and interna-
tional acclaim as a writer, it is clear that Kazantzakis was not a “man of
action,” but was, rather, primarily a creative literary artist.
In his chapter on Zorba in Report to Greco he writes that after he had
received a telegram from Zorba many years later that simply said: “Found
beautiful green stone. Come immediately. Zorba,” he was unable to tear
himself away from his writing project. “I had harnessed myself again to
paper and ink. I had come to know Zorba too late. At this point there
was no further salvation for me. I had degenerated into an incurable
pen-pusher” (Greco, p. 448).
Zorba brought out everything in Kazantzakis that he wanted to be
but felt he could not actually be. Near the end of Zorba the Greek Zorba
says to the Boss: “No, you are not free.” … “The string to which you are
tied is a little longer than other people’s string, that’s all. Your Highness
has a long cord, you come and go, think that you are free, but you do
not cut the cord, and if you do not cut it—”(p. 331). Although Zorba’s
12 J. H. GILL
perspective is in a sense correct, in my own view the sort of writing

Kazantzakis did was in its own way a kind of action. Thousands, if not
millions of lives have been touched for the better because of his writings,
especially because of Zorba the Greek. It is true that we “intellectuals”
need to balance our lives with a good portion of Zorba’s “folly,” but it is
possible as well to point out that the line between folly and irresponsibil-
ity is a difficult but necessary one to discern. A fully integrated way of life
would seem to be the best yet tricky balance to achieve.
I began this particular discussion because Zorba’s character seemed to
Kazantzakis to embody a harmony of the powers and enhancements of a
naturalist appreciation of and approach to understanding life. Kazantzakis
saw all of these virtues focused on Zorba’s embodiment, in the way he
simply lived naturally. It should not be overlooked that in his dealings
with the Boss Zorba more than once acted irresponsibly. He wasted
a great deal of the Boss’s money when he was sent to buy supplies for
the mine, and he failed to pay attention to the realistic possibilities when
attempting to protect the widow from those who would kill her.
This leads us back to the issue of Kazantzakis’s portrayal of females in
his novels. It can be said that they are almost always presented as weak,
or at least as incidental to the main plot. Madame Hortense is essentially
a secondary factor in relation to Zorba’s own needs. And, the widow is
mostly a mysterious person inserted in the story to help the Boss over-
come his own inadequacies. Neither of these women emerges as an
important character and person in her own right.
At the same time, it must be said that nearly all of the male charac-
ters in Kazantzakis’s other novels always show respect for and positive
feelings toward the women characters with whom they interact. And yet,
when it comes right down to it, the women who do play a major role in
these novels almost always end up taking an oppositional and negative
role in relation to the main male characters. The major exception to this
pattern is, of course, Clara in the St. Francis story. Throughout his qua-
si-autobiography Report to Greco, it becomes clear that Kazantzakis had
many relationships with women who can be said to have held their own.
To return to the issue of Kazantzakis’s problem with being a pen-
pusher, in my view Kazantzakis was unduly hard on himself when com-
paring his life to that of Zorba’s. Nevertheless, in the sense that Zorba
pointed the way toward a heartfelt appreciation for the patterns and
rhythms of the natural world and sought to live in accord with them I
must applaud him mightily. To appreciate and seek to be in harmony
with the wondrous powers and gifts of nature lying all around us is an
important task and opportunity. Perhaps, the best clue we have to how
to find our way into this appreciation and harmony is found in the music
of Zorba’s santuri, his guitar-like instrument. For, music, too, is a maker
of patterns within nature.
Actually, a great many admirers of Zorba only know him through the
movie Zorba which came out in 1964 and starred Anthony Quinn and
Alan Bates. The movie ends with Zorba teaching Boss how to dance on
the beach. It is a marvelous scene indeed, and perfectly focuses their rela-
tionship and the prospect of a fuller life for both of these two antithetical
yet mutually harmonizing individuals. It is fitting that in the film they are
dancing on a beach, surrounded by the beautiful sea, mountains, and sky
that render Crete what it was and is. Years later, after receiving a letter
from Zorba’s widow announcing his death, Kazantzakis found himself
freed to write his novel about his great friend.
These are some of the natural elements that comprise the context of
this wonderful novel. Let me conclude by noting Kazantzakis’s treat-
ment of eating as a spiritual though naturalistic act. Shortly after settling
in on the Cretan coastline the Boss reflects on the spiritual aspects of the
natural act of eating:
One evening when they had started eating, Zorba raised a penetrating
question: “Tell me what you do with the meal you eat…and I’ll tell you
who you are. Some convert it into lard and dung, some into work and
good spirits, some apparently, so I’ve heard, into God. So, people are of
three types. I am neither one of the worst nor one of the best. I stand in
the middle, Boss. The meals I eat turn into work and good spirits. Not
bad, eh!” (p. 82)
CHAPTER 3
The Greek Passion
In England, this novel is titled Christ Recrucified. In addition, a film was

made of it which in French is titled “Celui qui doit mourir” (“He Who
Must Die”). These different titles often confuse people but hopefully, we
are now clear about the book we are going to discuss. In broad strokes,
the story is about a Greek village that every year reenacts the Passion of
Christ, much as they have done for many years at the famous town in
Bavaria, Germany named Oberammergau. Different villagers are assigned
the respective roles in the familiar Gospel drama and the last days of
Christ’s life are reenacted.
As the natural landscape played an important role in Zorba the Greek,
so it does as well in The Greek Passion. It will be recalled that Zorba
began in a violent rain storm. Here again the rain factors into the tell-
ing of the story of these peasant folks seeking to be true to the Gospel
narrative. More than a few times the action is set in the middle of a rain
storm. For example, at a crucial stage of their struggle to follow God’s
way two of the main characters, Michelis and Manolios, decide to wait
for further guidance through the night during a strong rain storm. Here
is how their waiting went:
The rain redoubled, violently, joyfully; the dry grasses of the mountain
were refreshed and balmy, the wind brought in soft gusts, from a long way
away, the resinous smell of pines; the earth exhaled its fragrance. Manolios’
brain, like a clod of earth, welcomed the rain and drew from it refresh-
ment. Was that God’s answer? Was he coming down this evening in the

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16 J. H. GILL
form of a beneficent rain? Manolios welcomed God and felt happy from
head to foot. The night birds, also, as they huddled in the rocks and in
the hollows of the trees, felt God descending upon their soaked wings.
(p. 282)
The plot of this novel revolves around the conflict between two groups
of people. The one, the villagers of Lycovrissi who are afraid of the
strange refugees who have come asking them for help, and the other,
the band of wanderers who have come asking the villagers for help. Each
group is led by a priest, although they stand in stark contrast to each
other. Grigoris desires to protect his flock against these invaders, while
Fotis hopes the villagers will give his wandering flock some much-needed
land. “‘We have no other hope, no other consolation than this,’ he said,
brandishing high his heavy Gospel” (p. 39).
Many people were weeping when these two groups confronted one
another “Only the two priests were not weeping, the one because he
had lived all these misfortunes and was past tears, the other because he
did not cease to ruminate anxiously what way he could find to get rid of
this famished band and of its fierce guide who upset men’s souls” (p.39).
The latter was asked what he expected from the villagers, “‘Land,’
replied priest Fotis; ‘land in which to put forth roots. We have heard that
you have waste land, for which you have no use: give it to us, we will
share it out, we will sow it, we will harvest it, we will make bread for all
these starving people to eat’” (p. 39).
When the priest and his flock refuse to give the pilgrims any land
and send them away emptyhanded, Manolios, who had been given the
role of Jesus in the village’s Passion play, together with his “disciples,”
suggests to priest Fotis that his people endeavor to set up life and live-
lihood in some unused caves in the nearby mountainside. Priest Fotis
joyfully accepts their suggestion as the voice of God, and after blessing
the rocky mountain as the “Daughter of the Almighty” leads his people
to that mountain and its nearby plain, which they name the “Sarakina.”
Henceforth, the plot revolves around these two groups of people and
their different needs and values.
Here, once again, one can clearly see the crucial role played by the
natural environment in Kazantzakis’s novels. These caves in the moun-
tain become a kind of holy shrine, both for those who carve out a living
in the land around them and for “Jesus” and his “disciples” as well. After
they arrive at the foot of the cavernous mountain priest Fotis announces
3 THE GREEK PASSION 17
to his people that “It is here, on this sheer mountain, that with God’s aid
we shall take root” (p. 81). Then he embraces the mountain with a hier-
atic gesture and proceeds to “baptize” the mountain with what he calls
“holy water” from a gourd he himself had fashioned. “Follow me, all of
you my children; I’m going to mark out the boundaries of the village!”
cried the priest, plunging his sprinkler into the water he had blessed. “In
the name of Christ! In the name of Greece!” (p. 82).
It is clear that Kazantzakis is seeing the natural elements of land and
water as central to the story he is laying out here. These elements actu-
ally serve a spiritual purpose in this socioreligious drama set in the moun-
tainous region of the Greek countryside. It is no accident that the village
leaders eventually call priest Fotis and his flock “Bolsheviks,” for they
seek to share everything with each other, “From each according to his
ability and to each according to his need.” The material world is seen by
them, and by Kazantzakis, as a manifestation of the spiritual world, and is
thus “holy ground.”
Eventually, there is a great fire that virtually destroys the village of
Lycovrissi as well as that of the refugees who had worked so diligently to
develop it. Manolios, the Christ figure in the town’s passion play, actu-
ally takes the blame for this destruction and is murdered by one of priest
Grigoris’s henchmen. His motive in claiming to be guilty was to save
the refugee people from the wrath of priest Grigoris and his followers.
Priest Fotis laments that Manolios had died in vain because his death did
not bring about peace and harmony. His death was, then, in the eyes of
priest Fotis, a vain sacrifice. “In vain, Manolios, in vain will you have sac-
rificed yourself ” (p. 429).
Priest Fotis’s vision had been focused for him in a dream he had about
pursuing a tiny yellow bird, a canary. “Defying capture, the little canary
flitted from branch to branch, from flower to flower and sang as if pos-
sessed” (p. 429). Because, this little bird refused to be captured, priest
Fotis concludes that his quest, as well as that of his people, must still
continue on to yet another place where they might take root. In another
context he describes his people’s situation as similar to that of the famous
flower known as “the Marvel of Peru,” which remains shut all day in the
sunshine, opening up only at night time. “So this evening, more guess-
ing than seeing you there in the darkness, I can feel my soul unfolding”
(p. 265).
Kazantzakis extends his inclusion of the natural world as a mediator of
the spiritual reality to include animals, as well. In the midst of one of the
18 J. H. GILL
gatherings of Manolios and his brethren they heard the song of a distant
flute and then they received an unexpected visitor, a butterfly. “A white
orange spotted butterfly fluttered for an instant above the five heads and
went to settle on priest Fotis’s hair. It beat is wings and plunged its snout
into the grey hair, taking it for brambles in blossom. Then it flew off,
climbed very high and was lost in the sun” (p. 169).
One of Manolios’s “disciples,” Yannakos, has a donkey for his best
friend. His donkey’s name is Youssoufaki. As the current Easter Season
slides by they are all in anticipation of the following Easter yet to come
when Manolios will fulfill the role of the Christ in his passion. Yannakos
goes to the stable to tell his donkey all about the anticipations. After
a bit he reveals a secret to his donkey friend. “Next Easter the Passion
of Christ will be acted in our village; you must have heard talk of it.
They need a donkey. Well, I asked the notables, as a favor, that you,
Youssoufaki, should be that donkey of the Holy Passion. It’s on your
back that Christ will enter Jerusalem” (p. 50).
A bit later on Yannakos reveals to his donkey friend that when he gets
to the pearly gates he will not go into Heaven unless his donkey can go
with him. He is sure that his request will be honored because “God loves
asses.” Kazantzakis also makes frequent use of the sunlight as one of his
major characters in several of his works. There is one place in this book
where he describes the fading sunlight as bearing the people’s struggles.
“The sun had set; the stars were not out yet, the light was still strug-
gling desperately. She had taken the path up to the heights, but the
night was still climbing up from the earth and pursuing her from stone
to stone, right to her last entrenchment, the little white church of the
prophet Elijah, at the very top of the mountain. At length, unable to
resist anymore, she leaped skyward and disappeared” (p. 251). This scene
of the vanishing sunlight stands as a symbol of the coming downfall of
the refugees at the hands of the villagers led by priest Grigoris.
Thus, we see that for Kazantzakis the natural world is not only a
vibrant context within which the actions of people play themselves
out, but it is as well a living participant in these actions. The earth, the
stones, the sunlight, the nightfall all interact with the human characters
throughout the development of the story. It is this sense of naturalism
that constitutes one of Kazantzakis’s most dominant artistic qualities.
Even though he often castigated himself for being an intellectual “pen-
pusher,” he clearly lived and wrote within the context of a vibrant natural
world.
Thanasis Maskaleris, formerly Professor of Comparative Literature at

San Francisco State University, focuses this aspect of Kazantzakis’s phi-
losophy in the following passage from his The Terrestrial Gospel of Nikos
Kazantzakis : “For Kazantzakis, the central drama in Nature – seeding,
growth, fruition – is the supreme model for human development; and
the agrarian life, because of its closeness to the earth, is the best teacher
for humans and their communities; cultivation of the soil – cultura in
Latin – is the most authentic culture” (p. 19).
CHAPTER 4
The Fratricides
Unsurprisingly, Kazantzakis begins yet another story with a descrip-

tion of the rising sun, followed by a corresponding description of a vil-
lage and its people as stones, destitute of its warmth. “The sun rose in
Castello. It had flooded the rooftops and now overflowed, spilling onto
the dripping, narrow backstreets, pitilessly uncovering the harsh ugliness
of the village…everywhere, only stone upon stone….Mountains, houses,
people – they were all granite” (p. 7). The people of the village were pre-
paring to leave their beloved village, in search of a new home, because of
the civil war currently raging around them.
As the people of Castello gathered themselves and their meager
belongings “It was thundering and a light rain began to fall.” After their
final visit to their centuries old cemetery, “The rain fell in torrents now,
making both mud and people one” (p. 16). After walking for weeks the
village of people finally settled on a small village, recently vacated by
their traditional rival Turks. The village was too small for two priests, so
Father Yanaros continued to wander until he stumbled his way onto the
famous Holy Mountain of Athos.
After living a number of years in a monastery on the Holy Mountain,
Father Yanaros left out of disgust for its other-worldliness. He came to
feel that Christ was a person of action, in and among the people, striving
for justice. He soon found himself in the middle of a civil war among his
own Greek people, fighting brother against brother as “fratricides.” The
novel The Fratricides is the story of this civil war in which brother was
pitted against brother to the death. One group was on the side of the

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22 J. H. GILL
traditional Greek society, the Christian’s, while the other was on the side
of the new ideas proffered by the Communists.
The vast majority of the story revolves around this conflict in which
brother is pitted against brother after the conclusion of World War Two.
Its storyline is dominated by the human battle between these two ide-
ologies; thus the emphasis is far more on the human struggle, and even
the question of the significance of God, than it is with the role of nature.
Nevertheless, since it is nearly impossible for Kazantzakis to tell a story
without frequent allusions to the ubiquitous role played by the natural
world, we can centerpiece some of his naturalistic images. One of these
images is, unsurprisingly, that of the butterfly.
At that moment, a butterfly appeared. In the sunlight; it swept earthward

and settled upon the camomile branch; it, too, sniffed the remains of the
dead; then it fluttered around Father Yanaros’s beard. He held his breath
for fear of frightening it away; he watched it. A sweet emotion suddenly
lifted the weight from Father Yanaros’s chest. Of all the birds and beasts,
this fearless firewalker loved butterflies the best – in them he placed his
faith. It was only when he was once asked that he discovered why. ‘Because
the butterfly was once a worm,’ he replied, ‘a worm that crawled into
the earth and emerged a butterfly when spring came. What spring? The
Second Coming!’ (p. 74)
A parallel, yet alternative image is introduced by Kazantzakis when a

bishop passes through Father Yanaros’s village and asks about the little
creature being held by Christ in a painting on the ceiling of his church
done by Father Yanaros himself.
‘Look closely, Your Eminence,’… ‘can’t you see that it has wings?’ ‘And
what of it? What does it represent?’ ‘The mouse that ate of the body
of Christ from the Holy Alter and sprouted wings – a bat!’ ‘A bat!’ the
Bishop shouted, ‘Lord have mercy on us; and what does that mean? Aren’t
you ashamed, Father Yanaros?’ Anger filled the priest. ‘The Pancreator
holds the soul of man in His hand! The mouse is the soul which ate of the
body of Christ and sprouted wings.’ (pp. 141–142)
Yet, another bird image is introduced by Kazantzakis as Father Yanaros

reflected upon the futile character of a collection of monks gathered for
worship in the monastery hall. “A swallow entered from the open win-
dow and fluttered over the bowed heads of the monks. It recognized
4 THE FRATRICIDES 23
each of them… The bird was pleased, and it fluttered gaily, tweeting over
the head of the abbot, longing to pluck out a hair of his white beard to
strengthen his nest, but as it opened its beak, fear overcame it; it rushed
for the open window, toward the light, and disappeared” (p. 157).
Father Yanaros took this flight of the swallow as a sign of Christ’s escape
from the spiritual deadness of the monks everywhere.
With a far more violent image, Kazantzakis describes a villager com-
paring Father Yanaros to a half-breed wolf bitch that his father beat
and chased away from his farm. The bitch howled every night, perched
between the wolves and the sheep, without a home. “‘That bitch,’ the
teacher said bitterly ‘that bitch, comrades, is the soul of Father Yanaros.
He howls in the same manner, between the reds and the blacks, and he’s
going to die; pity on his soul.’ Father Yanaros did not say a word, but a
knife had slashed his heart; for a moment he was terrified” (p. 182).
The priest is prepared to die for his cause, that of standing between
the fratricides, the Communist “reds” and the Christian “blacks” in this
Albanian war, both groups his Greek brothers. This is the main story-line
of the novel, this conflict that led to the killing of one’s own broth-
ers over a difference in ideologies. Father Yanaros’s own son, Captain
Drakos, becomes embroiled in this war, and at one point, while hiding
out in the mountains, he likens himself to a centaur whose lower half is,
indeed, the mountain on which he took refuges during the war.
He felt that he was a centaur – that from the waist down he was this
mountain; he had taken of its wildness and its hardness, and the mountain
seemed to have taken on the soul of man. Indeed it had, for as it stretched
up to the sky and looked at the valley, it seemed to be calling to the black-
hoods below. It felt that it was no longer a hill like other hills, but a shield
of freedom. (p. 193)
The Greek Civil War took place in three separate phases between 1943
and 1949. It was a conflict over ideologies: the Western democratic
way of life and that of the newly arrived theory of Karl Marx, by way of
Vladimir Lenin’s revolution in Russia. The former were backed by the
Western powers, while the latter were backed by the Communist Party
International. The Greek Church stood in between these two points
of view. Obviously, Father Yanaros is trying to steer a middle course
between these two forces, but against unlikely odds. Eventually the
Western way prevailed, but a strong Communist Party was formed in
Greece, and continues still today.
24 J. H. GILL
Kazantzakis’s use of the term “Pancreator” when referring to God

in a passage quoted earlier warrants a brief explanation. There has been
a good deal of debate about whether Kazantzakis was a pantheist. The
point is that in his view God is both an active agent and the context
within which human activity transpires. This is a very complex topic in
Kazantzakis’s system of thought, but let me broach the subject briefly
here. Traditional Christian theism views God as the sole creator of reality,
ex nihilo, out of nothing. As such God stands over against reality, essen-
tially independent of it. Pantheism, on the other hand, claims that God
and reality are one and the same. Thus, God and all that exists in reality
are always in complete harmony.
The term “Pancreator” suggests the possibility that Kazantzakis was
a pantheist, even though it literally means “the Creator of everything.”
However, as Professor Dombrowski makes amply clear in his fine book
Kazantzakis and God, Kazantzakis’s view of God more closely aligns
with the thought of “Process” philosophers such as Alfred North
Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne. The latter introduced the term
“panentheism” in order to suggest that while all of reality is “in” God,
God and reality are not one and the same.
The key idea here is that of God as “di-polar,” having two comple-
mentary natures, a primordial nature and a consequential nature. Thus,
God can be seen as involved in guiding the world toward its full achieve-
ment, while at the same time honoring human freewill. More about this
when we take up Saviors of God in the next and subsequent sections.
At the conclusion of The Fratricides Captain Drakos stands up against
the hardline members of his communist group by complaining that the
ends must never justify the means in their struggle. In his speech he lik-
ens their cause to ripening fruit. As he puts it: “Because the cause is not
a piece of fruit that hangs ripe and ready at the end of the road for us to
pick; no, no, never! The cause is a fruit that ripens with each deed that
takes the dignity or the vulgarity of our deeds. The path we take will give
the shape and flavor and taste to the fruit, and fill it with either honey or
poison” (p. 236).
Once again it can easily be seen that Kazantzakis’s vision of reality was
replete with images from the natural world. In spite of the fact that he
was a life-long “pen pusher,” as he called himself, he was alive to the
textures and rhythms of the natural world around him. Plants, animals,
landscapes, sexual functions, and the starry heavens all factor into his vast
and rich understanding of reality. This sensitivity will be heightened in

the next volume for our consideration, namely Saviors of God.
However, before moving ahead I would like to take a few pages to
consider some of Kazantzakis’s passages on the natural world in his
Report to Greco. Surprisingly, there are few such passages in his some-
what disguised autobiography. He mostly describes his encounters with
people, travels around the world, and his own psychological/spiritual
development. The description of his return to his homeland of Crete is
devoted almost entirely to his encounter with the ruins of the famous
Minoan palace at Knossos. There are, nonetheless three passages that
bear directly on our subject.
First, there is his remembrance of his childhood:
My earliest memory of my life is this: still unable to stand, I crept on all

fours to the threshold, and fearfully, longingly extended my tender head
into the open air of the courtyard. Until then, I had looked through the
windowpane but had seen nothing. Now I not only looked but actually
saw the world for the very first time. And what an astonishing sight that
was. Our little courtyard seemed without limits. There was buzzing from
thousands of invisible bees, an intoxicating aroma, a warm sun as thick
as honey. The air flashed as though armed with swords, and between the
swords, erect angel-like insects with colorful, motionless wings advanced
straight for me. I screamed from fright, my eyes filled with tears, and the
world vanished…Such were my first contacts with earth, sea, woman, and
the star- filled sky. Even now, in the most profound moments of my life, I
experience these four terrifying elements with exactly the same ardor as in
my infancy. (Report to Greco, pp. 42–43)
Second, there is the account of his pilgrimage through Greece. He

remarks about the dualism exuding from every region of his homeland,
namely the contrast between harshness and tenderness, first as seen in
the countryside surrounding Sparta, the original home of Helen of Troy,
and later in that of the plain of Mistra. Here is how he put it:
Various regions in Greece are dual in nature, and the emotion which
springs from them is also dual in nature. Harshness and tenderness stand
side by side, complementing each other and coupling like a man and a
woman. Sparta is one such source of tenderness and harshness…Just as
you begin to grow savage and to disdain the earth’s sweetness, suddenly
26 J. H. GILL
Helen’s breath, like a flowering lemon tree, makes your mind reel… Is the
fragrance of its oleanders really so intoxicating – or does all this fascination
perhaps spring from Helen’s oft-kissed, far-roving body? (p. 158)
Third, there is his description of the landscape on his journey to Mount

Sinai to visit the Monastery of St. Catherine. He gives this brief reflec-
tion on crossing the desert:
How can anyone have a true sense of the Hebrew race without crossing
this terrifying desert, without experiencing it? For three interminable days
we crossed it on our camels. Your throat sizzles from thirst, your head
reels, your mind spins about as serpent-like you follow the sleek tortuous
ravine. When a race is forged for two score years in this kiln, how can such
a race die? I rejoiced at seeing the terrible stones where the Hebrews’ vir-
tues were born; their perseverance, will power, obstinacy, endurance, and
above all, a God, flesh of their flesh, flame of their flame…To this desert
the Jews owe their continued survival and the fact that by means of their
virtues and vices they dominate the world. (pp. 264–265)
As rare as such naturalistic passages are in this important volume, they

take us directly to the heart of Kazantzakis’s own emotional life. Many
of the descriptions in his various novels of the wonders and powers of
the natural world stem from raw feelings such as those spoken of in these
passages. Although he continuously lamented the fact that he was not a
man of action, but rather a weak pen-pusher, Kazantzakis seems to have
been driven primarily by the strength of his emotions. Moreover, these
emotions, as we have seen in the above passages, were directly tied to a
deep sensitivity to the natural world around him.
CHAPTER 5
Saviors of God
Although the main theme of this small but powerful book has to do with
the nature of God and humankind’s relationship with Divinity, it too is
chock full of references to and images of the natural world. This volume
contains the closest thing to a summary of Kazantzakis’s world view. We
shall deal with the implications of its title when we get to the final part of
our explorations. Sufficient for now is an examination of what he has to
say here about the nature and place of the natural world in what Kimon
Friar believed was Kazantzakis’s final “Credo.”
Below is the passage that Friar, one of Kazantzakis’s closest collab-
orators, quotes from one of Kazantzakis’s letters to his wife Eleni in
1923. The original title in the Greek version of the book was Askitiki,
or “Spiritual Exercises,” with the subtitle “Saviors of God.” I think this
title actually follows the traditional way of entitling such books, as with
those of Ignatius of Loyola and Thomas à Kempis. The emphasis is on
the challenge to the reader to chart a course toward spirituality and the
divine, rather than on a way to theorize about God.
My dear… yesterday I finished the Spiritual Exercises. Is it good? I don’t

know. I tried in simple words, as in confession, to trace the spiritual strug-
gles of my life, from where I set out, how I passed over obstacles, how the
struggle of God began, how I found the central meaning which regulates
at last my thoughts, my speech, my actions. (Saviors of God, p. 19)

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The “Fourth Step” in Kazantzakis’s call for us to march forward

within and toward the final cosmic destination of life, namely a merg-
ing with and leap beyond the entire cosmic, evolutionary process itself, is
entitled “The Earth.” As we struggle to follow “the Cry” of God which
eternally beckons us forward, we must never forget the role played by
the earth, the natural world, in our quest. Here he says: “It is not you
who call. It is not your voice calling from within your ephemeral breast.
It is not only the white, yellow, and black generations of man calling in
your heart. The entire earth, with her trees and her waters, with her ani-
mals, with her men and her gods, calls from within your breast” (p. 81).
Kazantzakis goes on to speak of the earth in very evolutionary terms.
Indeed, the unspoken image here is much like that of the children’s toy,
the “slinky.” He says the earth turns back on itself to acknowledge the
“Cry” calling it forward. “I passed beyond the thick-leafed plants, I
passed beyond the fishes, the birds, the beasts, the apes. I created man. I
created man and now I struggle to be rid of him…During those fearful
moments when the Cry passes through our bodies, we feel a prehuman
power driving us ruthlessly” (p. 83). The evolutionary drive comes to us
from nature, and passes through us toward the future.
One recognizes the influence of both Henri Bergson, whose Parisian
lectures Kazantzakis actually attended, and Frederick Nietzsche, whose
works he devoured. These two highly influential and post-Darwinian
thinkers both spoke of the drive of nature, of the evolutionary process, as
a super cosmic force that drives humankind and all of the natural world
forward beyond itself. Bergson employed the concept of the élan vital, a
supernatural dynamic that continues to recycle every aspect of existence,
pushing them ever forward beyond themselves and each other. Nietzsche
spoke of humankind as the final “prehuman” species that will yet in the
future surpass itself and produce the “overman” or Ubermensch.
It is worth bearing in mind that Kazantzakis, along with the likes of
Bergson and Nietzsche, lived at the turn of the twentieth century when
Charles Darwin’s works and ideas were not only extant, but strongly
enticing and dominant. It is clear that a good part of Kazantzakis’s vision
was driven by this revolutionary idea of every aspect of the natural world
evolving through stage after stage. Kazantzakis often personifies this pro-
cess in his writings, and nowhere else is this as obvious as in Saviors of
God. The “Cry” struggles to overcome itself in and through the entire
cosmos. Thus, the natural world serves as the stage or canvass upon
which this dynamic plays itself out.
5 SAVIORS OF GOD 29
In addition, as is well known, Kazantzakis went through a period when

he was greatly enamored of communism in Russia. He went there several
times after the revolution, and his first wife, Galatia, became devoted to
the Party. Eventually Kazantzakis parted ways with communism, but his
thought is everywhere imbued with the spirit of Marxism. There is a clear
dialectical theme in his writings, and nowhere is this clearer than here in
Saviors of God. Every stage of the “March” to give continual rebirth to
the Cry is marked with by the birth pangs of a revolutionary struggle.
This dialectical dynamic is well focused in the final section before “The
Silence,” entitled “The Relationship Between Man and Nature.”
On the first page of this section, Kazantzakis speaks of “two enor-
mous powers of the Universe permeated with all of God. One power
descends and wants to scatter, to come to a standstill, to die. The other
power ascends and strives for freedom, for immortality. These two, the
dark and the light, the armies of life and death, collide eternally. The
visible signs of this collision are, for us, plants, animals, men….The
antithetical powers collide eternally; they meet, fight, conquer and are
conquered, become reconciled for a brief moment, and then begin to
battle again throughout the Universe” (pp. 119–120).
Kazantzakis seems to see a spiritual evolution emerging within the mate-
rial processes of the natural world. It expresses itself at each stage of the
evolutionary cycle. It is God’s Cry to humankind to struggle to extricate
divinity from its encasement within matter. On the one hand, at each fresh
stage, spiritual, divine reality asserts itself and rises above those processes,
powers, and especially those human categories that encase it. On the other
hand, no sooner has it accomplished this than it itself gives rise to a whole
new set of processes, powers, and categories which threaten to hold it back.
As we see at the conclusion of Kazantzakis’s huge poem, The Odyssey: A
Modern Sequel, there is no end to this dialectic. The process is its own end.
Once again the issue of pantheism versus traditional theism arises.
We shall deal with this issue more thoroughly in the final part of the
book, but it deserves another brief hearing here before we move on to
Part Two. As was mentioned early on, Kazantzakis’s thought had tran-
scended the traditional theism of his youth long before he wrote Saviors
of God. He had been introduced, if not indoctrinated by, this form of the
Christian religion as a boy through his Church in Iraklion, Crete. More
specifically, it will be recalled that he spent his middle school years in a
Catholic preparatory school on the island of Naxos. He spent his high
school years in Iraklion.
30 J. H. GILL
The above passages make it clear that Kazantzakis had left this way
of thinking about God behind. For him God was no longer viewed as
the one-time creator of the cosmos, nor as its sole sustainer and control-
ler. There are in these passages some hint of a pantheistic view of God,
wherein the divine and the cosmos are essentially identical. This was the
view made popular by the ancient Stoic thinkers, such as Zeno, and by
the modern philosopher Spinoza. However, if one reads these passages
carefully, it becomes clear that Kazantzakis’s view is much more complex
than this. There is a clear sense in which God dances, if you will, with the
cosmos and is thus not identifiable with it. At the same time, however,
there is also some indication that for Kazantzakis divinity arises out of
the material universe.
We shall return to this seeming confusion in Kazantzakis’s thought
later on. Suffice it to repeat at this juncture that the Process Philosophy
of Whitehead and Hartshorne, with its notions of a di-polar divinity
and “panentheism,” that is, God within the world rather than above
it or equated with it, in my view go a long way toward delineating
Kazantzakis’s understanding of divinity’s relation to the natural world.
The “en” in the term “panentheism” represents the Greek preposition
“in,” so as to say that God is “in the world” as well as in some sense
“beyond” it. This issue will arise, if only tangentially, numerous times in
the pages that follow. One might even propose that it is the central issue
around which Kazantzakis’s thought revolves.
By way of conclusion in regard to this overall theme of Kazantzakis’s
perspective on the significance of the natural world I should like once
again to share some of the thoughts of Professor Thanasis Maskaleris
found in his fascinating book The Terrestrial Gospel of Nikos Kazantzakis.
The book offers helpful contributions about Kazantzakis’s insights into
the role played by the natural order in human existence by a number of
thinkers as well as translations of a number of key passages from some of
Kazantzakis’s own novels.
All of Kazantzakis’s works contain a plethora of passages about rocks, soil,

seeds, rain, rainbows, the sea, flowers, and flowering. Few other mod-
ern writers have written so extensively about the cosmogonic energies of
Nature, with as much poetic brilliance. And what is more, Kazantzakis
constantly integrates the terrestrial, the material womb of life, with human
life in all its manifestations – and this with insights and a dynamism that
only mythology can surpass. Human life, he passionately declares, is rooted
in the soil and its growth parallels the essential life of Nature. (p. 19)
5 SAVIORS OF GOD 31
Maskaleris’s analysis of Kazantzakis’s works reveals a dimension of the

Cretan’s authorship that has largely gone unnoticed amongst his many
followers and admirers. Generally their focus has been on the existen-
tial and cosmic aspects of his worldview, without noticing that these
are systematically couched in the natural and environmental realities.
Kazantzakis was a child of the earth as much as he was a child of philoso-
phy and literature.
The gifts of the earth, as Kazantzakis depicts them, are boundless: there
is the great joys of the senses, the heart and the soul, as they take in her
beauty; then there is her gift of nurturing all living things and sustaining
all growth. But Kazantzakis does not stop there; he derives from nature,
and especially from those who work the soil, essential lessons that can
become foundations in building individual character and communal life.
Together with the fruits of the earth come the earth-hewn wisdom of the
farmers, shepherds, artisans, and all those who work the earth’s infinite
matter. (p. 20)
Maskaleris, together with those who have helped him put this volume
together, has sought to place Kazantzakis and his creative talent within
the framework of our contemporary ethical and environmental concerns
over the future of our planet. This book contains essays and reflections
by such well-known activists as Bill McKibben, Jane Goodall, Carl Sagan,
John Muir, Loren Eiseley, and Jean-Michel Cousteau, Michael Pastore,
as well as brief quotations from such well-known thinkers as Thoreau,
Emerson, and St. Francis of Assisi.
The book also includes a very thought-provoking essay by a Dr. Michael
Charles Tobias entitled “Kazantzakis, Crete, and Biodiversity.” This essay
provides the reader with a plethora of information about the flora and
fauna of the island of Crete, as well as about its animal diversity and his-
tory, from the Minoans right up to the present. Tobias concludes:
Kazantzakis got it right, in one masterpiece after another, and all those on
Crete, across Greece, and throughout the world, can look to this aston-
ishing artist and see in his visionary environmentalism a message more
vital, more relevant, more crucial today than ever before. He saw what
was coming. He told it from the perspective of a flying fish that transcends
its world; from the vantage of an eagle who looks down at the world…
with perspectives spanning all horizons. But as one who also inhabits those
horizons. (p. 81)
PART II
Human Dynamics
Although the three themes of Kazantzakis’s philosophy around which I

have chosen to structure this exploration are in many ways inextricably
interrelated, it does make some sense to consider them independently,
if only to demonstrate how Report to Greco itself came to be structured
around these three themes. The focus of this Part will be on the charac-
ter of, and the interrelations among, various individuals, and groups of
people involved in his stories. Unlike the previous examinations, these
will be centered on the inter-dynamics of these individual characters and
groups of people with an eye to discerning their particular motivations
and decisions.
CHAPTER 6
Freedom or Death
This novel takes place on Crete during its people’s struggle to extricate
themselves from the 400-year domination and oppression of the Turkish
Ottoman Empire. The title of this book varies from publisher to pub-
lisher, with the British publisher preferring Freedom and Death and the
American publisher that of Freedom or Death. I have decided that both
versions make sense in relation to its theme and in regard to the final
scene of the story, although the text of that scene in both publications
does, in fact, say “Freedom or Death.” In any case, we shall be exploring
the various people and places that comprise this story, both with an eye
to tracing the dynamics of the individual characters and in an endeavor
to discern Kazantzakis’s overall view of humankind.
The Isle of Crete has known a great many wars. Its history goes back
to the mysterious Minoans, who were conquered by the Mycenaeans,
who in turn gave way to the Greek civilization. Then, all through the
wars between Persia, Alexander the Great, the Venetians, and finally the
dominance of the Islamic Ottoman Empire, Crete stood as the 50 yard
line between all these warring factions. It was even dominated for a time
by the various powers of North Africa and thus acquired a strong Arabic
influence and flavor. So, in a very real sense, Crete has never been free
until very recent times.
Although a part of Greece itself was liberated from Turkish rule by the
European powers in the late 1800s, Crete remained under Turkish dom-
inance until early in the nineteenth century. The novel Freedom and/or
Death takes place during one of the conflicts in the late 1800s between

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-93833-2_6
36 J. H. GILL
the dominant Turkish rulers and the passionately patriotic Cretans.

Nearly every decade had seen such a revolt on the part of the Cretan
people, and this, too, will meet the same fate as the previous efforts.
The story is laid out as a personal conflict between the powerful Turkish
warrior Nuri Bey and Captain Michales, an unofficial yet acknowledged
leader of the people of Iraklion, Crete’s capital city.
Before going ahead with our examination of the role of humanity in
Kazantzakis’s worldview, we might take a minute to note a couple of ref-
erences to the importance of the natural world in this novel. Nuri Bey
has a powerful and lovely horse, which signifies his connection to the
animal dimension of reality. Kazantzakis, in fact, connects the beauty
of this horse with that of Nuri Bey’s wife, or “hanum” (pp. 12–16).
The identification between and conflict over the horse and the woman
focuses one of the main themes of the novel. Captain Michales both
admires Nuri Bey’s horse and woman, while also envying and resenting
him for having them.
There are also numerous references to landscapes, sunsets and rises,
rain, as well as to the diverse foods comprising the Cretan cuisine in this
fast-moving story. Kazantzakis always has an eye for the natural world,
but only as a backdrop for his characters and their activities. Crete
has regularly been plagued by forceful earthquakes, and one makes its
appearance on pages 105ff. People on Crete have historically attributed
these calamities to God, and this story is no exception. Captain Michales
simply attributes the earthquake to the fact that Crete is a living, moving
reality that has a will of its own.
There is one prominent example of this thematic pattern concerning
the natural world in Freedom or Death. This pertains to the way Crete
itself is personified as a living being. In one place, when Captain Michales
is reflecting on his love for Crete, he says: “He loved Crete like a living
warm creature with a speaking mouth and weeping eyes; a Crete that
consisted not of rocks and clods and roots, but of thousands of forefa-
thers and foremothers, who never died and who gathered every Sunday
in the churches” (p. 244).
Or again, when Kosmas, one of Captain Michales’s nephews, was
returning to Crete by ship: “Kosmas could now clearly distinguish,
behind Megalo Kastro [the common name for Iraklion], the celebrated
mountain Iuchtas, with its human shape; a gigantic head lying on the
ground among olives and vineyards, with a high, bold forehead, a bony
nose, a wide mouth, and a beard of bluffs and boulders. It lay there, a
6 FREEDOM OR DEATH 37
dead, pale-moon, marble god” (p. 384). I cannot resist noting how I
myself, on my returning visits to Crete, stood on the deck of the ship
and watched with joy this silhouette appear on the horizon.
Finally: “The face of Crete is stern and weathered. Truly, Crete has
about her something primeval and holy, bitter and proud, to have given
birth to all those mothers, so often stricken by Charos, and all those
palikaris [mountain warriors]” (p. 56). It is difficult, if not impossible, to
walk the roads and hike the mountains of Crete without feeling something
of its chaotic and tragic history, and of its vast suffering. In many ways, it is
like a world of its own, full of magic, wonder, blood, and pain. Even more
so, when one talks with the people of Crete, as I have been privileged to
do, one cannot help but see both their suffering and deep zest for life.
Now, to move along. A convenient matrix for tracking the various
dimensions of the human reality in this, or perhaps any, novel includes
such relationships as: (1) individuals in one-to-one interaction (often
gender-related), (2) families and tribal groups, (often in conflict), and
(3) national and international interactions (often involving warfare).
Applying this matrix in Freedom and/or Death we find several cru-
cial individual relationships forming the dynamic that is this story. The
main individual one would clearly seem to be that between Captain
Michales and Nuri Bey. Another is that between Nuri Bey and his wife
or “hanum.” At the end of the story, Captain Michales also turns out to
have to deal with a gender situation as well.
In addition, there are several such relationships between and among
various friends and family members on both the Muslim and Christian
sides. Also, the overall drama of the story is the socio-political conflict
between the Turkish occupying forces and the Cretan inhabitants of the
island. This has been a very long-term situation, with many struggles,
revolts, and concessions having been endured. At the center of these
dynamics has stood the religious differences between the occupying
forces and the Cretan citizenry. Freedom is dreamt of by the latter for
literally centuries.
So, with this background in place, we can embark on our exploration
of Kazantzakis’s overall portrayal of humanity and human relations. The
story starts right out with a conflict between Captain Michales and his
nephew, who will not be able to return to Crete as soon as was expected
because he is “studying.” “He’s studying, he says …What the devil is
he studying? He’ll come back like his uncle Tityros the school master!
A seedy creature with a hollow rump” (p. 9).
38 J. H. GILL
It is not hard to see the origin of this literary relationship between

Captain Michales and his studious nephew in Kazantzakis’s relation-
ship with his own father, after whom the character Captain Michales is
patterned. His own father never really respected young Nikos’s deci-
sion to continue his studies by going abroad, first to France and then to
Germany. Moreover, Kazantzakis’s descriptions of his father in Report to
Greco strongly parallel those of Captain Michales in the present book.
This may be the main reason Kazantzakis always lived with a complex
over having ended up as a “pen-pusher” rather than as a man of action.
To return to the juxtaposition of Captain Michales and Nuri Bey, as
the main axis of the first half of the story, we see that they were born in
the same village and played together throughout their childhood, even
though one was a Christian and the other a Muslim. Indeed, as youths
they bonded themselves together as “blood brothers” in their teen-
age years. This involved drinking each other’s blood and swearing never
to harm the other. Although the city of Megalo Kastro was divided into
regions separating the Cretan Christians from the largely Turkish Muslims,
in the villages the two faiths, as well as the races, were intermixed.
The first encounter that we see between these two arresting characters
takes place on page 22 when Nuri Bey demands that Captain Michales
order his brother Manusakas, to stop taunting the Muslims in his village.
“‘Your brother Manusakas,’ he said, ‘scoffs at Turkey. The day before
yesterday, March 25, he was drunk again, hoisted an ass on to his back
and took it into the Mosque to pray. I came in from the village and
found all my people beside themselves. Your people were armed, there
was serious trouble brewing. I’m telling you this, Captain Michales, so
that you will not make a fuss later. It was my duty to tell you, and yours
to listen. Do as God directs you’” (p. 22).
Before Captain Michales left Nuri Bey’s home the latter invited his new
wife, Emine, to dance and sing for them. She was a beautiful yet mysteri-
ous woman from Circassia, on the coast of the Black Sea. Captain Michales
was deeply moved by this woman, and later she becomes the center of a
deep struggle within his heart. He is so overcome by her presence that
he places two fingers in his wine glass, spreads them with all his might,
breaking the glass to pieces. Emine immediately challenges her husband
“Can you do that?” she yells at Nuri Bey. After having yet another drink
together, Captain Michales promises to do what Nuri Bey asked and leaves.
Later on Nuri Bey confronts Manusakas, Captain Michales’s disrup-

tive brother himself, and they fight with knives. Nuri Bey manages to kill
Manusakas, but he himself is badly wounded in the groin, destroying his
testicles. Captain Michales laments the fact that he cannot do battle with
him while he is injured. Later on, Nuri Bey, out of remorse and self-pity,
commits suicide, taking his beloved horse with him (p. 249). Thus, half-
way through the novel this main conflict between two forceful personali-
ties comes to an end.
Yet another key juxtaposing of main characters arises when Captain
Michales decides, once again, to ride his horse into the Turkish coffee
house. He did such things whenever he went into a frustrated drunken
rage over the conflict between his people and the Turks. However, he is
interrupted by Captain Polyxigis, who could easily see what he was up
to. He very much did not want Captain Michales to light the tinder that
would set the whole city aflame with a holy war between Christians and
Muslims. Captain Michales, for his part, had little respect for the likes
of captain Polyxigis, whom he thought to be honorable in battle but
“flakey” in lifestyle (pp. 135ff).
Captain Polyxigis stood in front of Captain Michales’s horse and said:

“‘Captain Michales,’… ‘as true as you are baptized Christian, speak out:
what have you got against me? I don’t like that look of yours today, it
bores through me as though I were a Turk’” (p. 137). Captain Michales
three times yells for him to get out of the way, and then rides on. Captain
Polyxigis mutters to himself: “‘What can I do against him? After all, He’s
a Christian and a Palikare’…He spat three times, as if to get rid of the evil
meeting, and pushed on to the house of his niece.” (p. 137)
As the battle between Christians and Turkish Muslims broke out in full
force, many of the former went into the hills, especially to the Plain of
Lasithi, a lush flat plain nestled between several mountain tops, high
above the coastline. I have overlooked that long fertile coastline numer-
ous times over the years, and wondered what life would be like high
above the coastal villages. From there one can easily see Dia, the tiny
island sitting in the midst of the large bay facing Iraklion, and mentioned
frequently in the novel. One can understand why the Christians might
have felt safe from the mayhem below.
40 J. H. GILL
As it turns out, Polyxigis couples up with Nuri Bey’s widow Emine,

who now desires to become a Christian and marry him. Later on, in the
final stages of the battle, Captain Michales finds himself in great torment
over Emine, whom he has longed for ever since that first day when they
met in Nuri Bey’s home. Finally, finding that he no longer can restrain
himself, and learning that Emine has been taken captive by the Turks, he
leaves his post on the mountainside by a monastery and goes to rescue
her. When he returns he finds the monastery he was guarding burning to
the ground and his warriors scattered.
“Captain Michales tugged at his beard and stared. He could not
turn his eyes away from the devouring flames. ‘How could I go away?
How could I go away’ he groaned, and tore out hairs from his beard”
(p. 333). He rescues Emine and sends her to his Aunt’s house in a safe
village. “‘Shouldn’t I take her back to Kasteli?’ asked Vendusos, with a
crafty wink.’Poor Captain Polyxigis will kill himself.’ ‘Let him kill him-
self.’ Captain Michales replied” (p. 333).
When questioned by his colleagues as to why he had left his post,
Captain Michales denies being the one to blame. Then he, inexplica-
bly, concludes that Emine was to blame for luring him away from his
post with her powerful and mysterious beauty. So, he rides to the village
where his aunt lived, sneaks into the guest bedroom, and stabs Emine
to death. “She opened her eyes and they were able to recognize Captain
Michales. Surprise, joy, pain, accusation – all were whirled together in
that last look ‘Oh,’ groaned the man. His body was shaken with pain.
He wrenched the dagger out to avert death. But it was too late. Emine’s
eyes were already glazed” (p. 340).
Unsurprisingly, this turn of event brought the juxtaposed relation-
ship between the two captains to a head. Later on in the battle, Captain
Polyxigis shows up, and mustering all his emotional strength Captain
Michales reveals to him that it was he who had killed Emine. He explains
it this way: “‘I had to kill her or you. I thought of Crete. You are a good
fighter. Crete needs you. So I killed her. It lightened my heart. Yours too
will grow light again. Don’t fumble for your knife. If you like, we can
bar the door, put out the lamp, and fight it out here and kill each other.
But think of the women and children in the cave. Their lives depend on
us. Think of our forefathers. Think of Crete. Then decide’” (p. 375).
Captain Polyxigis has no direct reply. Finally he stops sobbing and
says: “‘I cannot sleep in the same house with you, Captain Michales…
Nor do I want us to kill each other as long as country is at war, nor will
I desert you in danger. But we two will have our reckoning as soon as
Crete is at peace again. For you have turned my heart to ashes, Captain
Michales.’ So saying, without a glance at the murderer, he went to the
door and out” (p. 376). Because of Captain Michales’s violent death
shortly thereafter, the two never meet again.
One final key individual relationship remains to be examined, namely
that between Captain Michales and his nephew, Kosmas, who had been
away a very long time studying in Athens. It was his letter that Captain
Michales crumpled up in disgust on the opening page of the novel.
Kosmas had returned and brought his new pregnant wife, a Jewess who
had converted to Christianity when she married Kosmas. When Kosmas
learned that his uncle was high up in the mountains fighting the Turks
he left his wife with his mother Maria and climbed into the mountains to
help his uncle save Cree from the Turks.
When Kosmas arrives at the outpost, Captain Michales is doubtful of
his motives. “Who sent you?” he asks. ‘Crete,’ replies Kosmas. In anger
Captain Michales says: ‘None of your big words, schoolmaster! Talk like
a man. And don’t tell me Crete sends you. Do you hear? I am Crete!’”
(p. 468). After some further conversation in which Captain Michales
belittles Kosmas even more, the battle goes on and the few remaining
Cretans have died. Captain Michales tells Kosmas to run away, that this is
no place for a schoolmaster.
But Kosmas did not rise. Smeared with powder and blood, he was listening
now to his heart, which had gone wild. In his breast, his father, the terrible
leader in battle, had awakened, and his grandfather, and Crete. This was not
his first battle. For a thousand years already he had been fighting, a thou-
sand times he had been killed and risen again. His blood stormed. (p. 469)
At that moment Kosmas’s father Vendusos, from whom Captain

Michales had been estranged, arrives and pledges his allegiance to the
cause. The two are reunited, and Vendusos charges some Turks who
had just come up over the ridge behind which they were hiding. He is
promptly killed. Captain Michales rejoices that his nephew is fighting
by his side. Their final words are: “‘Don’t flinch nephew, there’s no
hope. Long live Crete!’ ‘You’re right. There’s no hope, uncle. Long live
Crete!’” (p. 472). Captain Michales cries to his nephew that he is com-
ing to help him, but a Turk replies by throwing Kosmas’s head to him.
“He’s coming himself” (p. 472).
42 J. H. GILL
“Captain Michales stretched out his hand and raised the severed head
like a banner. A wild light haloed his face, which was filled with an inhu-
man joy. Was it pride, god-like defiance, or contempt of death? Or limit-
less love for Crete? Captain Michales roared ‘Freedom or’…and did not
finish. A bullet went through his mouth. Another pierced his temples.
His brains splattered the stones” (p. 472). And so, here the battle and
the story come to an end.
This symbiotic relationship between Captain Michales and his nephew
Kosmas, which was introduced on the first page of the novel and ended
on its final page, was in some ways different from the other two. For they
both ended without any real resolution. As tragic as this final scene was,
it provided a point of merger between Captain Michales and his nephew
and their total, if tragic, commitment to their homeland.
A final note regarding this tragic ending of the novel, as well as of
that of Crete’s abortive efforts to free itself from the Turkish oppression.
Kosmas’s wife’s miscarriage is described in cryptic fashion. After sev-
eral days of torment and foreboding, Noemi goes to the village church,
seemingly haunted by a fear of some personage, perhaps a man, who
would come and do her and her child-to-be harm. A seemingly unrecog-
nizable person slips into her room and “Between the two bedposts there
became a visible man.” In spite of Noemi’s cry for help to the Virgin
Mary, “He at once raised his hand, seized the coverlet and wrenched it
aside. He then struck at Noemi’s body with his fist” (p. 458).
Somehow this inexplicably strange event, perhaps a dream, although
as yet unknown to him, brought an end to Kosmas’s dream of a new life
with Noemi. Kazantzakis offers no explanation whatsoever of this bizarre
catastrophe. My own best interpretation of it would be to see it as a fore-
shadowing metaphor for the Cretans’ abortive effort to give birth to
their freedom from the Turkish rule. As we see at the conclusion of the
novel, this attempt once again ends in failure, in a miscarriage of justice,
symbolized here in the tragedy of Noemi’s loss of her child.
Another set of relationships that reveals Kazantzakis’s understanding
of humanity is that between such things as race, religion, and govern-
mental bodies. Throughout his novels, Kazantzakis struggles with the
conflicts that arise between Greeks and other Greeks, between Greeks
and Turks, and occasionally between Greeks and Jews. It will prove
profitable to explore these social dynamics as they arise in Freedom or
Death, for these conflicts provide the vibrant backdrop against which
the foregoing individual relationships are played out.
The struggle of Greeks with other Greeks will, of course, play the cen-
tral role in The Fratricides. We shall take a closer look at this dynamic in
the next chapter. There, are, to be sure, some Greek Cretans who have
fully surrendered to the Turkish occupation and try to live with it. This
story, however, is about those, not an insignificant number, who periodi-
cally rise up to struggle for their freedom. These, as seen paradigmatically
in Captain Michales and his followers, will never fully submit to foreign
rule. Every generation gives rise to yet another revolt. These, especially
Capitan Michales, hold their submissive fellows in contempt.
The main drama of this novel is, of course, the struggle of Cretan
Greeks against their Turkish oppressors. Back in the Middle Ages the
Ottoman Empire, centered in Constantinople, engulfed the entire
Middle East, including Greece and much of North Africa. Finally, in
1854, the Greeks rose up and sought to overthrow their oppressors.
This resulted in yet further oppression. Again in 1866, the people of
Crete sought to win their freedom, but once again their Turkish oppres-
sors crushed their efforts. In this story in Freedom or Death we find yet
another uprising, in 1878, which also fails to accomplish its goal.
This centuries-long oppressive occupation was finally overcome in
1898 when Prince George of England came to liberate Crete. Years
before the European Allied Forces had liberated a part of mainland
Greece, but they overlooked Crete. It took several more revolts before
they finally accomplished this long-waited and much overdue task. It is
difficult to overestimate the hate and rancor that existed between the
Turks and the Cretans during those final years. We see it all laid out here
in this novel.
During one such uprising, the Turks closed the city gates and pro-
ceeded to massacre hundreds of Cretans in the streets. Kazantzakis’s father
made him kiss the feet of three Cretan men who had been hung up on
a tree to die. He was only seven years old. His father made him promise
never to forget the price of the struggle for freedom. “For those who lived
as children in Crete in that era, there are several words which drip copi-
ously with blood and tears, words upon which an entire people was cru-
cified: freedom, Saint Minas, Christ, revolution” (Report to Greco, p. 88).
Obviously, the war between the Turks and the Greeks was painfully real.
The pivot around which this hostility revolves is, of course, the rela-
tionship between Captain Michales and Nuri Bey. Indeed it is forcefully
personified in their strange combination of respect and hate for each
other. After all, they are literally “blood brothers” and mutually admire
44 J. H. GILL
and respect the leadership each has among his own people. Other char-
acters in the novel are not always so consistent, wavering from time to
time about their friendships and practices. This is especially true when it
comes to what Zorba calls “the female of the species.” Indeed, some of
the families seem to have mixed blood, but remain silent about it.
There are in this story two exceptions to this conflict between
the Greek Cretans and the Turkish occupants on Crete. One is the
Metropolitan, the erstwhile mayor of the city of Iraklion. Although
he seems to be a Turk, he has been given the assignment of governing
Crete. He seems to genuinely want to maintain the peace on the island,
but defers to the Turkish people whenever there is a conflict. He is gen-
uinely disturbed by these conflicts but is unable to do much about them.
Another exception to the general pattern is Efendina, a devout
Muslim on all the days prescribed by his Islamic faith except for when
Captain Michales calls a special meeting at which to seek guidance on
current events. He is something of a “comic-relief” character in the
story, as one can easily discern from his prayer on being about to enter
one of Captain Michales’s “cellar meetings during the holy month of
Ramadan.” Here is his prayer:
‘It’s God’s will,’ muttered Efendina, ‘God has sent me Mrs. Katerina. I
mustn’t resist; that would be a great sin. Am I to contend with God? Allah,
Allah, I beseech Thee for one grace: let me commit all sins, let me too –
poor me – let me enjoy this world above, and then, half an hour before
my death, give me time for repentance! Is half an hour not enough? It is
enough, I beseech Thee!’ (p. 103)
The final somewhat crucial character in this long story is the Pacha, the
religious head of Islam on Crete. He, too, is past his time and a bit of
a comic player. He complains because he is old, and his only pastime
seems to be at least considering to have tryst with one of the disrespect-
ful young women who make themselves available. When the struggle
between Greeks and Turks heats up, and involves direct conflict, the
Pacha seems to disappear from view.
The reference in the quotation previous to the most recent one, to
Saint Minas introduces yet another dimension of the conflict on Crete
between the Muslim Turks and Christian Greeks, namely that over reli-
gious beliefs and practices. The island of Crete had been Christian reach-
ing way back to when Paul sent his disciple Titus there around 65 ce.
However, far prior to that period, back around 1000 bce the Minoan civ-
ilization had prospered for a thousand years on the island of Crete. The
patron Saint deriving from this civilization or perhaps from Egypt, was
Saint Minas, not one in the Catholic hierarchy, but one to whom mod-
ern Cretans still turn in times of trouble. The main church in the town
square is named after him.
There really is no reference to varying doctrines in this on-going
squabble between the Greek Christians and the Turkish Muslims. The
whole struggle between them revolves around simple socio-political
practices, such as who can live where, who can even visit where, and
the restrictions imposed on Christians by the occupation forces of the
Ottoman Empire. The whole thing is not totally a religious squabble,
but perhaps a racial one. Each side calls the other by derogatory nick
names and makes condescending jokes about the other.
The only other religious references are those to members of the
Jewish faith, and this focuses on Kosmas’s Jewish wife Noemi. Even
though she has converted to Christianity, she is still a suspect in the
Greek community. Moreover, there seems, at least in her mind, to be
some sort of curse or demon stalking her, even trying to kill her fetus.
This may be mostly, if not wholly, in her own mind, but nevertheless it
poses the two faiths in opposition to each other. It may be the case that
the Greek Christians had a taboo against half-breed children being born
into their community. In any case, Noemi’s would-be child results in a
miscarriage, and it goes unmentioned.
This mention of Noemi’s unfortunate experience brings up a whole
different and equally important topic running throughout the story. It
pertains to the obvious male bias against women in both the Greek and
Turkish communicates. Aside from an occasional brief reference to wives
and mothers, who stay almost exclusively in the background, there are
only three real female characters in this novel. One is Noemi, a quiet
and dutiful wife to Kosmas, another is Emine, who plays the role of the
femme fatale, tantalizing all the men in Iraklion with her beauty and
mysterious origin. Here we have the two classic portrayals of woman-
hood, the subservient wife and the mysterious, whoring “outsider” who
is sacrificed for Captain Michales’s honor.
The third real woman in the story is Tityros’s wife Vangelio, forced into
a marriage of her uncle’s choosing. She plays a frustrated and rebellious
woman who fights against being forced to marry Tityros. Kazantzakis
describes her as seated at her loom, musing about her coming marriage.
46 J. H. GILL
“She was in a hurry, for the wedding was getting near. It stood over
her like a great dark animal. And Vangelio herself was crouching like
an animal, like a bristling boar, to defend herself against it, against that
repulsive animal – for so this marriage seemed to her to be, with this
half-helping of a bridegroom, with his glasses, his soft priest’s voice, and
his disgusting sheep-like gentleness. Was it for this bit of a man that she
had been born?” (p. 137). All three of these women meet a tragic end.
Noemi is stuck here in this village and family because both her child
and husband are killed, Vangelio ends up committing suicide over her
hopeless situation, and Emine is murdered by Capitan Michales in order,
inexplicably, to save the honor of Crete.
In this novel, Kazantzakis reflects the typical male and cultural stere-
otypes of women in that time and place. All three of these female char-
acters, in addition to the whole female population of both Turkey and
Greece saw women as objects to be tucked away, offered off, or sacrificed
for their male counterparts’ honor, or that of their country. In all his
novels this hierarchy prevails, except for Saint Francis where Clara comes
to play a central role in the life and work of Francis. By and large, even
for Kazantzakis and many others, women are not to be taken completely
serious.
Fortunately his second wife and confidant, Eleni, informed me dur-
ing the long day I spent with her in Geneva in the summer of 1972 that
Kazantzakis came to hold, and live, a different, more respectful and
equal-minded view. That he lived this out in their relationship is evident
in Eleni’s wonderful biography of Nikos. His novels were, after all, set in
a different, more traditional time and culture, and needed to reflect the
views and practices thereof.
One last dimension of this novel needs to be mentioned in order to
complete the matrix patterns that we laid out at the outset of this explo-
ration. This would be the role played by governmental and international
entities in all of the warfare and bloodshed that these times produced for
the people of Crete. The Greek government had completely capitulated
to the Turkish Ottoman forces and thus was of no help to the Cretans.
England and Spain had participated in their overthrow just before the
beginning of the twentieth century, but for some reason, their liberation
did not include Crete. Several times in this novel someone refers to the
fact that these nations are “useless.” Eventually, and fortunately, freedom
did come to the people of Crete in 1898.
CHAPTER 7
The Fratricides
The setting of this novel is in the hills of northern Greece, where the
weather and the hardships of everyday life have been wearing the people
down from decade to decade. “Their bodies and souls were the color
and the hardness of stone; they had become one with it, soaked by rain,
tanned by the sun, covered by snow; altogether, as though they were all
people; as though they were all stones. And when a man and a woman
left their lonely existence, and the priest came to marry them they did
not have a single word to say….their life is unceasing battle with God,
with the wind, the snow, with death” (p. 8).
The men began to battle with each other, “brother against brother…
the primeval passion to kill poured from within them. Each had a neigh-
bor, or friend, or a brother, whom he had hated for years, without reason,
often without realizing it. The hatred simmered there, unable to find an
outlet. And now suddenly they were given rifles and hand grenades; noble
flags waved above their heads. The clergy, the army, the press, urged them
on – to kill their neighbor, their friend, their brother. …Murder, that
most ancient need of man, took on a high, mystic meaning” (p. 8).
This is the context into which came in the decades after World War
Two the Communist revolution of both Russia and China. Many of the
male citizens had heard the call of freedom as announced by Vladimir
Lenin in Russia, as well as the promise of a whole new way of life that
would lead the peasant class out of its poverty and misery. Thus the civil
war had begun between those who joined with this revolution and those
who sought to remain true to their traditional Greek Christian Orthodox

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-93833-2_7
48 J. H. GILL
faith. Kazantzakis weaves a tale of bloodshed in this context, with only

the priest, Father Yanaros standing in the middle, struggling to find a
way to bring about peace between the two factions.
Kazantzakis actually begins his tale with a flashback dealing with
Father Yanaros’s early years as a pastor and monk. Initially, as a young
man, he was part of a happy and prosperous community that for some
unstated reason was commanded to leave their location and seek
another. The people loved their village and had to take several days to say
“Goodbye” to the earth, mountains, and loved ones. When they finally
did forsake their village, they wandered for many months before they
found a small, deserted village and settled there. Since the village was
small, Father Yanaros let the other priest following with the people make
his home and ministry there while he walked on.
After a great deal of wandering, Father Yanaros found himself on the
Holy Mountain of Mt. Athos where there had been many monasteries
for a thousand years. He settled into the monastic life for some time,
but after a while he found himself being stifled. “Life in this monastery
appeared just too accommodating to Father Yanaros; this was no holy
mountain. He suddenly realized that happiness was a trap of Satan. He
was frightened. He yearned to suffer, to hunger, to take the upward
road, to crawl on his knees over the stones to find God- this should be
the meaning of the Holy Mountain” (p. 20).
This might be a good time for me to share my own limited experi-
ence on Mount Athos. Back in 1981, I made something of a pilgrimage
through Greece on my own and for the first time visited the north-
ern region of Macedonia. There I was able to see the newly installed
museum dedicated to Philip of Macedonia, father of Alexander the
Great, as well as to climb to the top of Mount Olympus. In addition,
I was privileged to spend four days and nights on Mount Athos. Having
read, both in Kazantzakis’s writings and elsewhere, about this extremely
special place I was excited to actually go there.
Mount Athos is really a large peninsula, on the northeast coast of
Greece, on which there have been some 50 Greek Orthodox monasteries
for many centuries. Only monks are allowed to live there and, no female
of any kind is allowed there. Rumor has it that over the years a number
of female journalists have sneaked in disguised as men. In addition, there
are no cars of any kind. The Orthodox Church allows male visitors to
make four-day pilgrimages, most of whom trek from one monastery to
the next as a kind of religious activity. During the middle of the last cen-
tury the number of monks who have joined these monasteries dropped
off dramatically, but in recent years the number is on the rise.
I chose to spend my days at one monastery because I felt I could get
a better feel for the monastic life this way. I chose Philotheou, “Friend
of God,” which took about five hours to climb up to. I was greeted by
a host Monk, shown to my simple room, and told that supper would
be in half an hour. There were about 50 monks there, and we ate
every meal in absolute silence except for the noon meal at which time
one of the monks would read a portion of one of the Gospels. Lucky
for me I knew enough Greek to follow instructions and make simple
conversation.
I informed the one monk who spoke English that I wanted to work
while there, rather than simply contemplate. He said it would be fine if
I started the next day helping him make soap. We did so for two days,
mixing vegetable fat (they eat no meat) with water and some chemi-
cals. We poured a vat of this into ready-made flat crates with dividers by
which the solution was spread evenly into soap bars. We made hundreds
of these bars and impressed the mark of the monastery on each. I kept
my gift bar for years before it finally sort of melted away.
While we worked I bombarded my guest with questions about life
in this monastery. I asked, for instance, if the young monks studied any
theology. My guide said emphatically “No, the only theology anyone
needs comes from work and prayer.” I saw no books anywhere during
my stay. The next day my new friend asked me to water the orchard
with a large hose immersed in a nearby stream. The fourth day I washed
dishes all day with the youngest of the new monks. They were about
18 years of age and knew no English. It was enjoyable working with
these enthusiastic young men.
At night we were awakened at 1 a.m. for prayers. We walked by lan-
tern light (there is no electricity on Mount Athos either) to the chapel
and set about to sing our prayers. I could not understand much of what
was said, but it was very sobering and inspiring to participate in these
services. The morning I left my working partner gave me one of his hats,
like a small stovepipe with no rim around the outside edge. The rim is
reserved for the priests. Over the years I have worn my hat in every con-
vocation and commencement service at the colleges where I taught. All
in all, this was a very inspiring and educational experience.
50 J. H. GILL
At the same time, however, it is easy to see why Kazantzakis had his
Father Yanaros leave Mount Athos in disgust because of its arid spirituality
and formality. The monk’s life is self-sustaining agriculture and formally
prescribed prayers. There is no intellectual challenge and growth, and
there is no interaction with the outside world. They feel that their prayers
affect the interactions of the world, and so there is no need to get involved
with them. Kazantzakis himself spent a goodly time on Mount Athos and
he came to the conclusion that its life is at best vapid and at worst diaboli-
cal, as his account of monastic life in Zorba the Greek clearly testifies.
In Report to Greco, where Kazantzakis recounts his 40 day venture on
Mount Athos, he tells of a monk who, after having spent the night with
the woman while living in a different, non-Mt Athos monastery who
brought food to his cell, makes a startling confession, one, that clearly
expresses Kazantzakis’s own feelings.
For the very first time I felt God come near to me, come near with open
arms. What gratitude I felt; what prayers I offered up the whole of that
night, right up until daybreak; how completely my heart opened and let
God enter. For the first time in my life – oh I had read it in scriptures
before, but those were just words – for the first time in my inhuman,
cheerless life I understood to what degree God is all-good, to what degree
He loves man and how very much He must have pitied him in order to
have created woman and to have favored her with such grace that she leads
us to paradise along the surest and shortest roads. Woman is more power-
ful than prayer, fasting, and forgive me Lord- even than virtue. (p. 231)
So, once more on the road, having left the monastic life behind him,
Father Yanaros moves on, free of the stultifying, hypocritical atmosphere
of the monastic life. Finally, after much continued traveling, he stumbles
upon the little village of Castello. He decides to set down his roots there.
Although life in Castello is hard, he dedicates himself and his ministry to
struggling with his village companions just to keep from starving. That’s
when he receives his life’s calling.
Until God emptied the seven cups of His wrath over Greece and the frat-
ricides began. The brother-killing broke out and Father Yanaros stood in
the middle – with whom to side? They were all his children, all his broth-
ers, on all their faces he saw God’s fingerprints. He shouted ‘Love, love,
Brotherhood!’ but his words rolled into an abyss, and from the abyss
rose – to the left and to the right – curses and insults: ‘Bulgar, traitor,
Bolshevik! Imposter, fascist, scoundrel!’ (pp. 23–24)
Caught in the middle of an ideological civil war, Father Yanaros strug-

gles to maintain a balance between the needs of his people and the
demands of the Christian Gospel. The story of this novel is similar to
that of Freedom or Death in that both revolve around a war between
two groups of people. The difference here, of course, is that whereas
in Freedom or Death the battle was between Christian Greeks and
Muslim Turks, here the battle is an internal one between two basic
ways of thinking about what people ought to strive for in their life
together.
In 1917 Vladimir Lenin took control of the government of Russia,
run at that time by the Kerensky functionaries, and initiated the first
phase of the Communist Revolution. By 1940 and the outbreak of
a two-fronted world war between the Nazi regime in Germany and
the Japanese efforts to conquer the far east, on the one side, and the
Western European powers, aided by the United States, on the other side,
the Chinese forces fought alongside of the United States in its efforts to
defeat Japan. They themselves were comprised of two different factions,
the Nationalist forces led by Chiang Kai-shek and the newly formed
Communist forces led by Mao Zedong.
After the Japanese were defeated, the Communists turned on the
Nationalists and drove them off the mainland onto the island then called
Formosa and today called Taiwan. In this way, in 1949, Mao Zedong
conquered the nation of China for communism. It was this ideology
that captured the favor of a good many Greeks, as well as some oth-
ers, because it promised to do away with the dominance of the rich and
powerful in the name of the workers and peasants. Some of the Greek
people, especially those living in northern rural areas, who had been left
bankrupt by the Nazi invasion of their country in the 1940s, were capti-
vated by this ideology and triggered a massive civil war in which brothers
killed brothers.
One of the difficulties with the effort to transplant communism to
Greek soil was the simple fact that whereas the Communist Manifesto
aimed its revolution at “the workers of the world,” Greece, like many
other countries that flirted with communism, was still an agricul-
tural country with almost no real industry and corresponding work-
ers. Indeed, this analysis applies to every country that has undergone a
so-called “Communist revolution.” In fact, Karl Marx himself said that
the revolution would most likely take place in America, England, or
Germany, since these countries alone possessed the necessary industrial
economy.
52 J. H. GILL
All of this is background to what was going on in Father Yanaros’s

world. His villagers had caught the fever of a brighter, more prosperous
life in the future and he was caught in the middle between those on the
right, who were backed by the Western powers, and those on the left
backed by different communist nations, such as China. He sees himself,
as a Christian priest, required to offer the Gospel of love and peace to
both sides, neither of which want to hear it. As we go forward we shall
trace the push-and-pull dynamic of this conflict and see how he turns out.
It should be noted along the way that this theme of struggling with
conflict is perhaps the most dominant throughout Kazantzakis’s writ-
ings. We saw it in spades in Freedom or Death and will see it again here
at the center of this drama in The Fratricides. In addition, both The Greek
Passion and The Last Temptation of Christ revolve around this theme.
Moreover, it is easy to say that the primary concern of Saviors of God is to
show how struggle with conflict lies at the center of Kazantzakis’s under-
standing of both the cosmos and the Divine. Finally, it is this theme that
dominates his own account of his personal life in Report to Greco.
Permit me one more general observation, this pertaining to the topic
of the second part of my overall explorations, namely Kazantzakis’s
understanding of the nature of humanity. Perhaps because of the polit-
ical turmoil that surrounded his own childhood on Crete, together with
the international upheaval of the World Wars, Kazantzakis did not seem
to have an overly optimistic view of human nature. In his own world-
view he tried to construct a synthesis of the conflicting factions of the
chaos around him, but in his own lifetime this ideal remained just that,
an ideal. Humankind, in his view, whether following the lead of Bergson
or Nietzsche, has yet to realize its true potential.
Now, finally, to return to Father Yanaros’s situation. In all thorough-
ness, I should call attention to the opening paragraph of Chapter 2,
which contains a lovely and insightful account of the naturalistic set-
ting surrounding landscape at the beginning of spring in Castello. This
should be added to our inventory of Kazantzakis’s understanding and
use of the natural world. I shall quote it in full because of its intrinsic
beauty and relevance to his overall worldview.
The snow on the hilltop had begun to melt, the sun became stronger, the
frozen earth began to thaw. The first green blades of grass fearfully pierced
the earth. A few humble wildflowers peeped from beneath the stones, anx-
ious to see the sun. Great silent powers were at work beneath the earth.
Winter’s tombstone lifted – it was the resurrection of Nature. A mild

breeze blew, bringing at times the scent of wildflowers from the moss-
covered rocks, at times the stench of decaying bodies. (p. 25)
In Chapter 2, Father Yanaros is confronted with two very different chal-

lenges. The first, coming from a traveling priest who is selling touches of
the Holy Virgin’s sash, and the second challenge comes from a wounded
soldier named Leonides. He dispatches the first by directly challenging
his “credentials” and sending him on his way. The second seemed to
embody a foreboding warning concerning the future of the village. That
night, after mass, he bids his parishioners to stop supporting the rebels
and follow the way of peace. They yell back at him that he should tell his
message to his own son, who is one of the leaders of the rebels.
This is followed in Chapter 3 by a conversation between a Christian
soldier and his captive guerilla soldier. After they exchange a series of vit-
riolic epitaphs, they get down to real dialogue, getting to know each other
as persons rather than enemies. Finally the partisan soldier lets his pris-
oner free. Father Yanaros continues to meet grieving parents and starving
children wherever he goes in his village. Returning to his tiny room next
to the church he has a dream of Christ on the cross and his mother reas-
suring the people gathered around that her son would not turn anyone
away from Paradise. “Christ smiled. ‘My children,’ He said, ‘I only meant
to frighten you; come, God’s heart is great; it holds both the just and the
sinners as well – enter, all of you, enter Paradise!’” (p. 53).
At the beginning of Chapter 4, we get a preview of the motto that
Kazantzakis had written on his gravestone: “I hope for nothing, I fear
nothing. I am free!” Father Yanaros comes to the realization that he does
not fear his own death, and that thereby he is liberated from it. “He who
does not fear death is free” (p. 55). Shortly thereafter he meets a sick
monk who insists that he has a secret to share with Father Yanaros. A
mutual friend, one Father Arsenios, has sent him to tell this secret to
Father Yanaros. He is adamant about sharing his secret because he has
recently hit for the hills and joined the communist rebels.
The monk, whose name is Nicodemus, reminds Yanaros about Christ’s
promise to send his believers a “Comforter,” the Holy Spirit to help them
find the truth. His great truth is that the Comforter has come, and he
is Lenin. Needless to say, Father Yanaros is both stunned and repelled
by this revelation. The monk goes on to say that he found this truth liv-
ing among the guerillas. Not only that, but Christ will return to lead the
54 J. H. GILL
guerillas against injustice and finally bring peace. “That’s why I’ve come,
Father, to show you the way. Forgive me – one so young – trying to guide
you; but it is not I who is leading you, it’s youth; youth has entered your
cell tonight and it beckons you, it cries out, ‘Come with us!’” (p. 67).
One is put in mind at this point of Kazantzakis’s own encounter with
the Marxist cause and of his subsequent visits to Russia. His Russian
guide Itka explained the power of Lenin’s name for the people of the rev-
olution. “Lenin is the light, Trotsky the flame, but Stalin is the soil, the
heavy Russian soil. Lenin has become a slogan for all of us, educated and
uneducated alike. For us the great man does not hang suspended above
the masses that engendered him; he issues from the people’s bowels, with
the sole difference that what the masses shout inarticulately he formu-
lates into an integrated message. The moment this message has been for-
mulated there is no longer any possibility for it to scatter and perish. It
becomes a slogan. And a slogan means action.” Report to Greco (p. 400).
Father Yanaros is both flabbergasted and incensed by Nicodemus’s
claims. They continue to converse, and finally they come to an impasse.
Yanaros asks the monk if he believes kindness to be the greatest virtue.
Nicodemus replies that it is. But Yanaros argues that it is freedom. “Love is
the beginning; it is not the end. I cry ‘Love’ because man must begin with
that; but when I speak with myself or with God, I do not say ‘Love!’ but the
struggle for freedom.” …“Freedom has no purpose. And it is not found on
earth. All we can find here is the struggle for freedom. We struggle to obtain
the unobtainable – and that is what separates man from beasts” (p. 69).
After this conversation Father Yanaros returns to his cell in great
anguish. He simply cannot make heads or tails of this argument. He is
tempted to set the whole struggle issue aside and rest in God’s silence
and sweetness. But he rises up in his mind, realizing that struggling is at
the heart of God’s business in the world. “My post is here in Castello,
and this is where I will fight, a man among men.”… “God is a fighter,
and so is man; then fight beside Him!” (p. 72).
Here, once again, we encounter the heartbeat of Kazantzakis’s world-
view, namely struggle. Humans must engage in continuous, unending
struggle for that which can never be attained. Struggling for growth is
an end in itself. Father Yanaros concludes that both sides in this “frat-
ricident” warfare are wrong. Both seek to get beyond struggle to some
more comfortable end point. Both offer a final conclusion, either here
on earth or as “pie in the sky bye and bye.” Both Father Yanaros and
Kazantzakis reject both of these solutions.
For several more chapters, Father Yanaros struggles with what phi-
losophers and theologians call the problem of evil. The key question
is: Why do innocent children suffer and die? He continues to wander
around in the village and to the prisoners of war prisons. Everywhere
there is misery and pain. He does not understand why, and how God
can stand by without intervening. Most intensely paradoxical is this busi-
ness of fratricide. Why do brothers kill brothers over a matter of politics?
Father Yanaros’s heart is broken.
This paradox continues when he meets two brothers, the one a fisher-
man and the other a potter. Each shares his views about how Jesus and
God deal with the world and their disciples. Also, the guerillas in the sur-
rounding hills threaten to annihilate the village if they do not surrender.
On the other hand, Yanaros met a strong faithful Jew named Yehounda,
one who was dedicated to reviving and preserving his sacred language,
Hebrew. People ridiculed him. When he and his wife had a new baby
boy, he was born dumb. People said this was God’s punishment for the
man’s sins. However, Yehounda prayed for his son and when he was five
years old he was miraculously cured.
Chapter 7 takes the form of a nationalist soldier’s diary or series of
letters to his beloved. He is named Leonidas. Over and over again he
recounts the atrocities he witnesses around him. Slowly he begins to
lose his commitment to defending the villages. He enters into despair
over the entire situation. One of his comrades reads a letter from a
former soldier who has defected to the other side, the side of the
rebels. He mocks those who continue to fight for the traditional way.
He even brags that he and his comrades regularly enjoy all the sup-
plies that the Americans send in support of the government soldiers—
they steal them all! “It’s the firing squad for every rebel that falls into
our hands. The end justifies the means, and our end is the salvation of
Greece!” (p. 115).
Around the first of April they are told that the war had ended, that
the two sides “shook hands, they signed the treaty; everything began
and ended this night. They reconciled” (p. 117). Everyone rejoiced
over the news, only to be told the next day that the whole thing was
nothing but a cruel April Fool’s joke! Leonidas falls into despair over
this event. Soon he gets a letter from his uncle Velissarios, a retired pro-
fessor. He says he has long since given up on the whole idea of fixing
the world:
56 J. H. GILL
When I hear a priest preaching love and goodness, I want to vomit; when I
hear a politician speak of country, honor, and justice, I want to vomit; they
have cheapened everything and everyone knows it – those who speak and
those who listen; and yet no one dares to rise and spit on them. (p. 126)
Here, abruptly, Leonidas diary stops. He is killed on Holy Tuesday.

Near the conclusion of Chapter 8, Father Yanaros confronts a rebel
Captain on horseback, and in their conversation he keeps calling him
“son”—and one wonders if Yanaros is thinking of his very own son,
an opposition Captain. The rider says: “‘You’ve begun your exorcisms
again, you sacrilegious fool! Lay your cards on the table; you want me
to surrender the village to the rebels, eh? Is that what you want? Is that
what you want, traitor?’ …‘My child,’ the priest cried and his eyes filled
with tears, ‘my child there’s still time to save yourself; there’s an abyss
before you – wait! Be careful or you will fall into it.’ ‘Then let me fall,’
the captain growled, and turned his horse toward the barracks. ‘All right,
I’ve made up my mind too…God will choose!’” (p. 140).
In the very brief Chapter 10, Father Yanaros finally realizes that God
is not all powerful, but needs the cooperation of humankind. He tells
his parishioners that God will not bail them out of the terrible situation
they are in, they must do it themselves. Thus, in Kazantzakis’s view of
humanity, we are responsible for ourselves. We may expect God’s help
along the way, but basically it is our own choice. “He does not interfere
in our business; He gave us a brain, He gave us freedom, He washed his
hands of us!” (p. 153). Basing his decision on this truth, Father Yanaros
decides to climb into the hills where the rebels are—and talk to them.
His power of free choice frightens him, but he begins to climb the hill.
On his arrival in the rebel camp, Father Yanaros is greeted warmly and
brought into the dance that is encircling the bonfire. He is told that the
Chinese had essentially now conquered the mainland. Father Yanaros
feels out of place. “This was a different world, without respect, without
God, full of youth, heroism, and blasphemy. They laugh at the mention
of Christ here, and they are prepared to die for justice and freedom. Can
these rebels who rise against injustice, can they be – God forgive me –
the new Christians and not know it?” (p. 186).
At last, in Chapter 14 Father Yanaros gets to meet with his own son,
Captain Drakos, the leader of the rebels. Kazantzakis gives a lengthy
account of the priest’s son’s early life as a sailor, soldier, and general
vagabond. Finally, he has come home to Greece to help rid it of the

fascist conquerors. After that, he is introduced to communism and he
begins to fight for Greece’s freedom from the dominant Western powers.
Even though he feels confident that his new cause would soon triumph,
he now finds himself restless and confused in his own mind.
A small but insistent voice deep in his heart keeps asking: “Change
the world, you say? Bring freedom and justice, you say? But how can you
change the world when you cannot change man? The heart of man? Have
we changed, we the new people? Did we become better men? The hell
we did! The small, humble people, yes, but the leaders, God damn them!
…The fish begins to stink from the head, as the saying goes” (p. 199).
Here we hear Kazantzakis’s own voice calling us to a deeper understand-
ing of human nature, a more heroic, satisfying one beyond ideology.
Suddenly Captain Drakos is interrupted by a woman, his own woman
who had shifted alliances to the younger rebel Loukas. She tells him that
Loukas is now chosen to be the new leader. They fight, make violent
love, and fight some more. They part, screaming epitaphs at each other.
Just then a young fighter comes to announce that Drakos’s father is wait-
ing to see him. When he returns to the camp he finds his father, Father
Yanaros waiting by the campfire. They greet each other curtly, and then
Father Yanaros tells his son that he has something important to say to
him, something from God.
When his son asks him why he has come, he replies that he has come
to surrender his village—Castello—to him. “‘Don’t laugh,’ the old man
replied angrily. ‘It’s not easy to surrender the village, but it’s not easy
for you to capture it. Castello is neither in my hands nor yours. It’s in
the hands of God and it deserves respect’” (p. 204). After some further
reflective exchanges, Father Yanaros goes on: “I bow and plead with you
now. Listen to me, my son, come down to the village tomorrow night;
it’s Holy Saturday, we will turn over the keys to you, we will celebrate
the Resurrection together, we will exchange the kiss of love. But do not
kill anyone! Do you hear? Do not kill anyone!” (p. 205).
Surprisingly, after some blustering hesitation, Drakos agrees to the
deal. Yanaros further explains that he has sent messages to all the neigh-
boring villages and they will take over the soldiers’ barracks, tie up
the Captain, and turn the village over to the rebels. After a long pause
Drakos replies: “All right, I won’t harm anyone. I’ll swear to that.”
58 J. H. GILL
Father Yanaros asks what Drakos could swear to, since he does not
believe in God. Drakos replies that “Ideas don’t exist, only people who
believe in them; for ideas take the form and the body of the men who
nurture in them. My body is large, go on your way, what’s been dis-
cussed here will be respected” (pp. 206–207).
In this exchange we see Kazantzakis’s commitment to nonviolence,
even though he realizes that in the rough and tumble of this chaotic
world the best that may be hoped for is some form of compromise. And
even that may cause a good deal of bloodshed. He himself was familiar
with, and party to, several international events in the name of compro-
mise involving the exchange of Greek refugees during the negotiations
of World War Two, although he never had to engage in any form of vio-
lence. Here we see his struggle with the forces of violence on the one
side and compromise on the other. They are part and parcel of humani-
ty’s struggle to bring the ideal into reality.
The next morning Father Yanaros gathers the people in the church
and tries to explain to them the agreement he had made with the rebels.
They could have the village as long as they would not kill anyone. But
before he can finish people begin to shout that the Virgin statue is weep-
ing real tears. “It’s a miracle” (p. 223), someone shouts and all the peo-
ple begin to crowd toward the statue to see the tears. Father Yanaros also
crowds at the statue of the Virgin, pushing his beard against her face to
feel the tears. At first his lips remain dry, but a bit later, as he leads the
crowd out of the church, his face and beard become wet! (p. 226).
The priest is confused as to whether this is a genuine miracle, but he
leads the way out into the yard. He leads the crowd toward the barracks
of the resistance soldiers, pleading with them to capture the soldiers in
peace, waiting for the rebels to come out of the hills and take over the
village. They are met by the captain of the soldiers, who refuse to go
along with Yanaros’s plan. In spite of Father Yanaros’s pleading, and
after a good deal of argument, the soldiers fire into the crowd, killing
several people. All the while Father Yanaros is calling out “Love. Love.
Harmony, understanding, Peace!” (p. 230).
The Captain is severely wounded in the melee and Father Yanaros
shields him from further harm. Then the villagers gather the soldiers and
tie them up with ropes, waiting for the arrival of the rebels from the hill-
side. In this way, Father Yanaros hopes that he could negotiate a peaceful
ending to the war, both at Castello and all the surrounding villages. The
man who tied the soldiers up says to them, ironically: “Since you refuse
to be set free peacefully, we’ll set you free by force” (p. 232).
As they make their way down to the village, Drakos continues his ongo-
ing argument with his right-hand man, Loukas, about the morality of the
revolutionary process. He says: “So the end justifies the means, does it? We
should go ahead with injustice to reach justice, eh? We should go on with
slavery to reach freedom? I hate to say this, but that attitude is going to
destroy the cause.” …“Because the cause is not a piece of fruit that hangs
ripe and ready at the end of the road for us to pick; no, no, never! The
cause is a fruit that ripens with each deed that takes the dignity or the vul-
garity of each of our deeds. The path we take will give the shape and flavor
and taste of the fruit and fill it with either honey or poison” (pp. 235–236).
After Father Yanaros tries, without much luck, to conduct the
Resurrection Mass, the two parties of soldiers engage in a stand-off out
in the village square. Finally, Captain Drakos lines the 12 villagers who
refused to join him up against the wall and announces that those who
choose to join the rebels may do so. The others will be shot. Father
Yanaros takes his place at the wall beside his villagers and their captain.
“‘Kill me,’ he said, ‘but you’ll never kill freedom!’” (p. 249).
Drakos suddenly has a change of heart and grants freedom to the con-
demned men. Yet, after a scowling look from Loukas, “A demon leaped
within him, it was dark, hairy, and covered with blood. Drakos raised his
hand. ‘Fire!’ he growled in a voice that was not his own.” Father Yanaros
let out a cry and went to the corpses, saying “‘Your blood my children is
on my hands; I killed you!’” Later he vows: “‘I will do as I said, I will go
from village to village and I will shout: Brothers, do not believe the reds,
do not believe the blacks. Unite in brotherhood!’”…“I will become a vil-
lage idiot, the lunatic of Greece, and I will go about shouting” (p. 251).
As Father Yanaros walks away from the village square toward the gate,
Loukas and Drakos exchange looks. Drakos is strangely proud of his
father. Nevertheless, he calls out, in a choked voice: “Shoot him!” As
Father Yanaros turns to say farewell to his son, Loukas shoots him in the
forehead. “The old man opened his arms, and without uttering a sound,
fell, face down on the stones” (p. 254).
One of the assignments I sometimes give to my students after we
have read and discussed a deep, moving story, is to write the next par-
agraph or chapter for the story. Here it is difficult to guess what will
become of the Castello villagers, Captains Loukas and Drakos, and the
other soldiers. What did happen to Greece was that it eventually smoth-
ered the communist rebel cause as a military threat to Greece. Although
it remains a free nation, there also remains an active, though small
Communist Party within its political reality.
60 J. H. GILL
How does one assess what Kazantzakis has said in this story? In
terms of his approach to the question of the nature of humanity and
the human cause, our thematic focus, he paints a realistic picture
of the struggles people go through in trying to find their place in the
world. Indeed, it is safe to say that “struggle” is one of Kazantzakis’s
main themes throughout his writings. It lies at the very heart of human
life and even at the heart of Kazantzakis’s own life as he so poignantly
describes in Report to Greco. As we shall see in the Part III of this explo-
ration, in Kazantzakis’s view, struggle and process lie even at the very
heart of Divinity itself.
Often the results of every struggle may work for the good of human-
kind, and sometimes they do not. Nevertheless, in Kazantzakis’s view,
over the long run, they do form a part of the never-ending upward
struggle toward all things good, peaceful, and strong. But Kazantzakis
wants to make sure that we understand that there is no shortcut to
the goal, whether it be communism, capitalism, or fascism. Nor in our
personal lives is there any easy path to fulfillment and freedom. If we
respond to adversity with strength, hope, and love our lives will become
ever richer. If however, we respond out of fear and selfishness, we shall
become cowards and a negative force in the world.
The mention of freedom in the above paragraph brings us to what
may perhaps be the dominant theme of this novel. Over and over again
throughout the episodes comprising this story we see Father Yanaros
calling out for, stretching out for, freedom. The opportunity to make
choices, indeed, the necessity of making choices, is the primary focus
nearly every step of the way. From the simple choices of which path to
take, which village to stop at, and whose advice to follow, to the crucial
choices of how to best deal with his dilemma over the two ideologies
that lie before him, freedom is always at the forefront, both politically
and theologically.
We saw this theme play itself out in Freedom or Death and we shall
encounter it yet again in the books that follow. It is no wonder that
Kazantzakis chose the following motto to be placed on his gravestone:
“I hope for nothing. I fear nothing. I am free.” And as we noted earlier,
this is, in fact pretty much the form of life that Father Yanaros followed
throughout The Fratricides. He faced both life and death in the same
way. In spite of his many struggles, in the end, he said: “I am not afraid
to die.”
Throughout this novel, as well as throughout many others written by

Kazantzakis, there is an overarching and recurring theme, namely that
of a cosmic dualism built into the very fabric of reality at every level. In
the opening lines of The Last Temptation of Christ he proclaims: “The
dual substance of Christ, the human urge to unite with God and become
superhuman has always been a deep, inscrutable mystery to me. My prin-
cipal anguish and the source of all my joys and sorrows from my youth
onward has been the incessant, merciless battle between the spirit and
the flesh” (The Last Temptation of Christ, p. 1).
This cosmic dualism between the reality of the fleshly world and the
spiritual world saddles Kazantzakis with all the philosophical and theo-
logical dilemmas that have plagued Western thought ever since Plato. In
more than one place he focuses his goal as that of the “transubstantiation
of flesh into spirit.” This struggle obviously lies at the very heart of his
story of Christ’s life and especially in his last temptation. In Kazantzakis’s
view, these two central and very powerful aspects of human existence and
the cosmos at large are essentially opposed and mutually exclusive.
In the year-long process of growing into his theatrical role in The
Greek Passion, Manolios gradually renounces every aspect of normal
human existence and in the end, dies giving his life for others. In him,
we encounter Kazantzakis’s fundamental dualism between flesh and
spirit, soul and body, even as we do in The Last Temptation. In like man-
ner, in his novel about Saint Francis, Kazantzakis has Francis discern
God’s will for him by choosing to hug and kiss a leper because that is
the very opposite of what he naturally would do and therefore must be
God’s will for him.
As we have already discussed, this essential dualism between the life
of the mind and spirit, on the one hand, and that of the body and feel-
ings, on the other, dominates the novel Zorba the Greek. The intellectual
ins and outs of Buddhist teachings studied by Boss are directly opposed
to the insights and actions of Zorba. They are focused in the contrast
between the Boss’s books and manuscript and what he calls “Zorbas’s
School.” It also is what drives the two men’s differing approaches to
what Zorba calls “the female of the species,” namely Madame Hortense
and the widow, as well as the contrast between talking and dancing.
This theme of cosmic dualism plays a crucial part in Kazantzakis’s
approach to political reality as well. Along the way toward his own
maturity, Kazantzakis also struggled to place his attraction to political
62 J. H. GILL
activity, especially in relation to communism, within his overall calling as

a writer. Although he was initially enamored of the Russian Revolution,
his visit to Russia helped him see that utopian dreams are not easily
transferred into socio-political reality. He did, however, spend several
years endeavoring to educate and motivate his fellow Greek countrymen
while serving as a governmental Minister Without Portfolio and helping
to relocate thousands of refugees who were returning to Greece from
abroad after World War Two.
This ongoing conflict between the various aspects and concerns within
Kazantzakis’s life and thought clearly reflects this theme of Cosmic
Dualism about which we have been discussing. It is safe to say that he
never really resolved these tensions, and perhaps this was indeed in some
ways the very driving force behind his creativity. According to some the-
ories, the fulcrum of the all-powerful drama lies in the reality of tension
between and among the characters and forces at work therein. Surely
both Kazantzakis’s life and literary achievements bear this theory out.
In his helpful and challenging book, God’s Struggler Darren
Middleton presents us with a full collection of essays by extremely
thoughtful writers on this overall theme of “struggle” in Kazantzakis’s
writings:
Kazantzakis’s ‘men’ mirror the vision and spiritual vitality of their cre-
ator. They are frontiersmen valiantly peering over the edge of an abyss,
heroes at war with themselves or those around them, reformers preoccu-
pied with the liminal nature of existence. In The Last Temptation of Christ,
Jesus grapples with his spiritual formation, blending belief and unbelief
into a unity, in order to emerge as Savior. In Christ Recrucified, Papa-Fotis
experiences a crisis of confidence in his calling. In Zorba the Greek, inner
conflict between activity and detachment unsettles the Boss. These pro-
tagonists and others demonstrate Kazantzakis’s skill in dramatizing critical
aspects of our struggle to find meaning. (p. 2)
Every dynamic in the novels discussed above exemplifies these themes

of the relationships between and among different persons, genders, reli-
gions, and races. Struggle was indeed the mainspring of Kazantzakis’s
quest.
CHAPTER 8
The Greek Passion
As we saw in Chapter 2, this novel largely revolves around the struggle

between two groups of people, the local villagers and the wandering
group of refugees. It also involves the fate of young Manolios, who has
been selected to play Jesus in his village’s scheduled drama of the Passion
Play. He sides with the refugees and gets into serious trouble with his
own villagers because of it. In Chapter 2, we traced the degree to which
Kazantzakis draws upon the various aspects of the natural world in the
telling of this story.
In this chapter, our focus will be on the dramatic struggle between
the two groups of people vying for the meager resources available to
them in the area surrounding the village. In addition, there are several
personal struggles between various individuals within the two larger
groups, the villagers and the refugees. It is interesting that many of the
key issues that come up in this struggle resemble those that our world
is facing today with the unprecedented migration of refugees across the
world. Perhaps the struggles taking place in this novel may cast light on
our own.
The refugees have had to flee their village of Saint George because the
Turks have burned it. They come to the village of Lycovrissi looking for
help. Their priest, priest Fotis, explains their situation to the leaders of
Lycovrissi and asks for them to help his people. Priest Grigoris speaks on
behalf of his village by intoning the traditional theological line that what

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-93833-2_8
64 J. H. GILL
happens to people is always God’s will. All the while, the Turkish Agha,
who has oversight of the Greek people for the Turkish Ottoman Empire,
sleepily looks on. Everyone who hears priest Fotis’s account of what had
happened to the refugees is in tears.
Priest Grigoris still tries to figure a way out of this humanitarian
dilemma. Manolios, the designated Jesus for the Passion Play, steps for-
ward and begs the priest to heed the refugees’ cry. He is the servant
of Michelis, whose father is the Mayor of Lycovrissi. Manolios pleads
with him to go get his father so he can give some help to these poor
refugees. Michelis is not happy with having his servant speak to him in
this way, giving orders to his master. Right at the outset, then, we see
a human struggle begin at the individual level as well as at the socio-
political level.
While priest Grigoris is praying for a miracle to extricate him from this
bind, a young woman, Despino, cries out loudly and falls down dead.
“‘Cholera,’ cried the priest. ‘These strangers are bringing the appalling
scourge into our village: we are lost! Harden your hearts, think of your
children, of your wives, of the village. It is not I who am taking the deci-
sion, it is God’” (p. 41). Priest Fotis strenuously insists that this claim is
not true, but to no avail. The people of Lycovrissi become very fright-
ened and demand the refugees to leave.
Before leaving, however, they manage to scavenge several blankets full
of food and other items from sympathetic villagers. In addition, priest
Fotis announces a curse on the village leaders for turning away those in
dire need. “To our next meeting, priest Grigoris! To our next meeting
on the Day of Judgment. We shall appear before God, both of us, and it
is he who will pronounce the sentence” (p. 44). Manolios’s three friends,
who are each playing a crucial part in the Passion Play, Kostandis,
Michelis, and Yannakos, assist Manolios in helping the refugees.
The refugees are encouraged by these four friends to go to the moun-
tain where they find caves for shelter and water for their thirst. So, off
they go to the nearby mountain, momentarily disappearing from view,
but definitely not out of the picture. Through their actions and words,
the four friends, led by Manolios, embody the Gospel of Jesus, the
Gospel of love to these needy strangers. This behavior will soon become
the pivot point of the struggle between the two groups, as well as in
Manolios’s own life.
Manolios has been betrothed to his master’s daughter, and all of the
master’s family, especially Lenio the bride to be, are looking forward to
the wedding. However, Manolios, who is supposed to play the part of
Jesus for the whole year prior to the next Easter, starts to have second
thoughts about his future. At present he is preoccupied with helping the
refugees living at the nearby mountain. In addition, the village widow,
Katerina, has her eye on him. This struggle he has with his true call-
ing in life, discipleship or marriage, becomes an important theme in the
novel.
On his way to the mountain he meets Katerina, who has been
assigned the role of Mary Magdalene. She pressures him to marry her.
Manolios gets very stirred up in his heart under all these pressures, and
finally blurts out to Katerina, “‘I’m not going to marry’…‘I’m never
going to marry. I want to die!’” (p. 78). This outburst reminds one of
the title given to the American film made of this story, He Who Must Die.
The assignment of being chosen to play Jesus for a whole year, before he
dies on the cross, has made its mark on Manolios. Throughout the novel
he struggles with what this assignment means. Faithfulness to God or to
his own life, that is his dilemma.
We shall return to this religious theme in Part III. For now, it is suf-
ficient to note the contrast that Kazantzakis draws between the human
will and desires, on the one hand, and the Divine will on the other.
Many people in his novels have a tendency to over-draw this distinc-
tion, thereby placing themselves as necessarily against God’s will. One is
reminded of Saint Francis’s method for determining God’s will for him-
self by focusing on whatever it is that he would dislike the most. This
must be, he concluded, God’s will. Manolios here in this story seems
pretty much to follow the same pattern of mind.
Meanwhile, priest Fotis calls the refugees together on the side of the
mountain, a place that had been named “Sarakina,” and declares that
here is where they would build their new village home. He marks out
and names the gates of the four main directions and tells his people to
start digging. When Yannakos comes and confesses to priest Fotis that he
had been persuaded to swindle the refugees out of their supposed hid-
den jewels, the priest forgives him. Yannakos then meets Katerina on the
trail and she informs him that she is on her way to give her ewe to the
refugees.
66 J. H. GILL
One morning Manolios wakes up with a terrible skin condition on his

face. It is all puffed up, swollen, and puss is oozing from the soars that
cover the face. He is horrified and confused. He thinks perhaps some
demon has indwelt him. His servant boy Nikolio is terrified when he sees
Manolios. As a diversion from his horror, Manolios picks up a piece of
wood and begins to carve the mask that he would wear during the final
Passion Week of his ordeal. He thinks the mask would also cover his hid-
eous face. Then he has another idea and sends Nikolio down to the vil-
lage to get Lenio to come to see him. This finalizes his decision not to
marry her—or anyone.
When Lenio comes up the mountain and sees him, she is disgusted.
And as Manolios tells her his condition is leprosy, she runs away from
him. His announcement makes it clear that they could never marry. Later
Lenio hears Nikolio playing his flute and she follows the sound. They are
watching a ram and a ewe having intercourse. Suddenly Nikolio throws
Lenio to the ground and mounts her, thus putting a final ending to her
matrimonial future. Manolios, too, is now free of his obligation. His face
had set him free.
In Report to Greco Kazantzakis recounts how he himself was once
struck by the same illness that struck Manolios in our story. While liv-
ing in Vienna, deep in Buddhist thought and meditation, he had, almost
flippantly, asked a beautiful woman to sleep with him. She said she would
the next night. On the next morning, Kazantzakis awoke with his face
covered with oozing soars. A psychiatrist told him he had what was pop-
ularly called “the ascetic’s disease,” a malady resulting from his going
against his own spiritual desires. He went on to say that the disease
would not leave him until he left Vienna. He left and it did. His account
can be found on pages 353–357 in Report to Greco.
In his concern to follow his role as Jesus Christ, and to free himself
from this plague on his face, Manolios visits the widow Katerina, the sur-
rogate for Mary Magdalene in the Passion Play. He shows his hideous
face in order to be rid of her forever. She is disgusted, but remains in
love with him. He feels this acceptance has set him free from his torment
over his sexuality. “I’m going. You have said the word which has set me
free.” “You, too, Manolios. You have said the word that has delivered
me. You called me ‘sister’” (p. 150).
In this story, as in many others of his, Kazantzakis sets one group of
people against another. Usually the one is comprised of the tradition-
ally orthodox, represented by various religious officials, both Greek and
Turkish. The other group is generally some outcasts who stand in need
of God’s grace and the first group’s charity. This contrast is set up a bit
differently in The Fratricides as we have seen, but in one way or another
Kazantzakis sees the relationships between various groups of people as
one of struggle and conflict. This is clearly the case here in this novel, as
well as in Freedom or Death.
Here in The Greek Passion, the major plot is set between good guys
and bad guys, and it is almost not possible to favor the one over the
other. This drama is paralleled by that of Manolios’s struggle with the
implications of his role as Jesus in the Passion Play. I suspect that much
of the energy for seeing the world this way comes from Kazantzakis’s
childhood. Both as a Cretan Christian dominated by the Turkish occu-
pation, and as a child dominated by his overbearing, rigid father, he
found himself always in the midst of a chaotic struggle with the forces
that drove him. These aspects of his childhood are recounted in Report
to Greco, pp. 31–33 and 67–71.
Father Fotis continues to challenge his flock of refugees in the direc-
tion of socialism. Here is how he puts it: “Here we shall all work and
we shall all eat. Each one will do the work he can do, as much as he
can. One will go fishing on the Voidamatta, another hunting, another
will work the land, another will take out to pasture the animals God will
send. We’re brothers, are we not? We’re a single family, with one father,
God” (p. 156). He goes on to remind his flock that it says in the Bible
that the first Christians shared everything in common. They all pledged
their spirits to work for each other in this way.
Priest Fotis goes to Manolios and his three “disciples” to explain
why Manolios has this hideous face. After he reminds them that God’s
ways are often beyond our human understanding, Manolios raises his
head and says: “The four of us are bound together this year inseparably.
I think then it’s only right for me to confess in front of all so that we
may try all together to find out why God is punishing me and how to
cure it. I myself think that as long as I’ve got this demon on my face it’ll
mean that I haven’t repented and that God won’t accept me” (p. 163).
His friends agree that this contrite attitude on Manolios’s part means
that he is a saint.
All three of his friends, plus priest Fotis, proceed to confess how great
a sinner each of them is. Manolios comes to realize that his sickness is
really his cross, and that, like Christ, he must bear it through the rest of
the year to finish his role in the Passion Play. It will be taken from him at
68 J. H. GILL
the Resurrection. This thought boosts Manolios’s spirit and he goes back
to his mountain cabin. There he spends his time rehearsing the various
stories of Jesus’s ministry among the poor and lame. He is at peace with
his calling.
Then, suddenly the Agha’s servant is murdered and the whole vil-
lage goes crazy. Everyone accuses everyone else and no one can prove
anything about anyone. Manolios comes down to the village and calms
his friends by saying he knows who did the killing. Although everyone
pesters him for the answer of who he thinks did the murder, Manolios
remains mysteriously silent. During this time, he is seriously involved in
his responsibility of being the Christ for the play. We shall suspend our
following this dimension of the novel at this point because the remainder
pertains more directly to the theme of Part III.
As part of his new life in following Jesus, Manolios directs attention
back to the refugees at Sarakina. This is the major thread of the novel,
the relationship between those who have and those who have not. When
it comes to the issue of humanity’s relation to Humanity, Kazantzakis
clearly sides with the latter, as Manolios’s “sermon” to his own village
makes clear. He introduces the notion of tithing. “Every proprietor,
after each harvest, should take the tenth part of it and lend it to God, as
Christ commands. Let us aid our brothers on the Sarakina for one year,
two years, until they are set up again” (p. 258).
Indeed, Manolios goes even further—the second mile—by suggesting
that they should give their fields lying fallow to the refugees for tilling
and then share the harvest together. “Let’s give these to them to sow,
plow, and go halves; it will mean more wealth for the village and those
who are hungry will have food. Woe to the Lycovrissi who eats his fill
without thinking of the children at Sarakina” (p. 259). Surprisingly, one
by one his villagers raise their hands and come forward to sign the pledge
to share their wealth with the refugees.
Actually, the whole scene reminds one of the revival meetings in the
Great Awakening of the 1800s in America. Here individual after indi-
vidual comes forward, weeping streams of tears, and offering to share
their crops, belongings, and talents to the refugees at Sarakina. The bar-
ber will shave them free on Sunday evenings, the schoolmaster will share
his school supplies with the children, and the butcher promised to share
his fatted calf. Priest Fotis expresses his deepest gratitude to Manolios,
and then says: “‘Today is a great day. The heart of Man has trembled.’…
‘Health to you, Lycovrissi! Your blessing, priest Grigoris!’” (p. 262).
Priest Grigoris, for his part, replies “My curses, rebels! Cursed be
all who follow you, you criminal!” Priest Fotis has the last word: “May
God who separates the sheep from the goats be judge. It is in Him
that we put our trust” (p. 262). All of this clearly resembles the sorts
of exchanges Jesus had with the religious leaders of his day as described
in the Gospels. In the dynamic of human relationships, in Kazantzakis
mind, the balance between the haves and the have-nots must always be
kept even. In all his works he expresses suspicion and disdain toward
those who are greedy and proud.
This whole issue of how to treat refugees has come to the front here
in our own time and lives. In a way, Jesus regarded everyone as a refu-
gee, deserving of kindness and aid from “Good Samaritans”. Today our
world is shrinking rapidly, both in terms of communication and migra-
tion, and we are hard-pressed to know how to deal with the fallout of
such changes. Jesus’s message and life showed the way toward the solu-
tion to these problems. “Love your neighbor as yourself.” There have
been several recent movements I am aware of in the United States that
have sought to put these principles into practice with respect to the US/
Mexico border. Unfortunately, in my own view, such efforts are far too
few and far between.
More to the point, perhaps, in the context of The Greek Passion, we
have all been witnesses in recent months to the way the nation and peo-
ple of Greece have responded to the current flood of migrant refugees
into Europe. Unlike several of the major countries in Northern Europe,
Greek people, especially those on the island of Lesbos, have opened their
arms in an effort to absorb these people. Greece has a long tradition of
taking care of strangers, reflected in the dual meanings embodied in the
word xenos, namely “stranger” or “guest/friend”.
In my wife’s and my years of traveling and living in Greece, I can
easily attest to the veracity of this general characteristic of Greek peo-
ple. Time and time again we encountered situations in which we were
greeted like old friends by complete strangers. In Report to Greco
Kazantzakis tells of meeting an old woman on a rural path. She offered
him a fig. He asked her why she would be so kind to him, a stranger, and
she replied: “You’re a human being, aren’t you?”
Now, back to the story of the two villages and Manolios’s struggle
with his characters, both religious and nonreligious, that form the back-
drop for these struggles; too many to name and follow. Suffice it to say
that Manolios’s friend, and colleague as a disciple in the religious drama,
70 J. H. GILL
Michelis, is disinherited by his father for his involvement with the refu-
gees of Sarakina, but not before he inherits a large portion of his family’s
land and crops. He donates these to the refugees, to further anger his
father.
Priest Fotis and his fellow leaders of the refugees decide that they will
come to Lacovrissi and take charge of this land and its fruit that Michelis
has given to them. This, of course, sets up a standoff and eventually a
battle between the two factions. Priest Fotis addresses his followers thus:
“My children, this day will decide our fate. We have been patient as long
as we could. We have reached the edge of the abyss. If we had waited a
little longer, we should have fallen in. The children first, then the men
and women. We had to choose between dying or fighting for life. We
have chosen the fight” (p. 392).
So the two groups of people face off each other in the road. Very
dramatically, as a sort of “High Noon” faceoff, priest Fotis suggests
that rather than have all the people slaughter one another, he and Priest
Grigoris should do battle on their behalf. Priest Grigoris accepts the
challenge and the two have at it. Priest Fotis gets the better of priest
Grigoris, but at that point the latter’s supporters jump into the fray and
pandemonium breaks out. One of Grigoris’s disciples, Loukas, pours oil
on some buildings and flames destroy much of the village of Lycovrissi.
Even though he has been wounded, priest Fotis claims that he and his
flock of refugees have won.
However, priest Grigoris has other plans. He threatens to invite the
Turkish army to quell this “foreign” uprising with guns and power.
The refugees are holding the main building in Lycovrissi. Michelis and
Manolios divide their people into three groups, each with a specific
responsibility to defend different fields and crops. Yet, priest Fotis has
decided on a different plan. After Manolios has been killed as a martyr,
an event which we shall discuss in Part III, Fotis gathers his flock and
announces that it is time to once again move on. “We are no longer any-
thing but a handful of Greeks on the earth; let us grit our teeth and go
forward” (p. 430).
On their way out of the area, they stop by Sarakina to bury Manolios.
Michelis announces that he will stay here in the Sarakina near Manolios’s
grave. Finally, priest Fotis raises his hand and gives the signal for depar-
ture. “‘In the name of Christ’…‘the march begins again; courage, my
children!’ And again they resumed their interminable march toward the
east” (p. 432). I am unsure of the significance of the final phrase “toward
the east”. I am at a loss to come up with any meaningful interpretation
other than the possibility that it refers to Jerusalem.
In this Part II, we have been tracing Kazantzakis’s understand-
ing of human nature and relationships. Obviously, the main drama in
this respect is that of the conflict between the two groups of Greeks.
In essence, they represent the “Haves” and the “Have nots”. We have
already seen how this drama is applicable to the current world situation,
vis-à-vis the tremendous migration of refugees into Europe from the
Mideast. Kazantzakis’s sympathies lie, to be sure, with the “Have nots,”
as his tracking of the dynamic between the two groups of villagers shows.
He is primarily on the side of the underdog because basically, over time,
they have received the short end of the stick.
Kazantzakis seems to believe that the imbalances between the upper
and lower strata of society need to be corrected, but offers no easy alter-
native for how to accomplish this. In this story, we have both battle
and self-sacrifice as possible solutions. In the end, Kazantzakis seems to
honor both of these approaches, as the cosmos continues to roll toward
what must be its end. He clearly believes in the power of progress but, at
the same time, he extols the eternal struggle to advance as somehow an
end in itself. “The journey is the goal”.
Also in this story, we have marriage and family interactions, mostly
between husbands and wives, on the one hand, and between fathers and
sons, on the other. As is the case in his other novels, here the women
are presented more or less as male property. The men live their lives and
the women either fade into the background, or they occasionally choose
to rebel, and usually receive beatings and/or death as their reward.
Although these novels are generally set in a different time and cultural
context, they still tend to rankle our modern egalitarian sensitivities. It
is unclear, and unfair, for us to speculate as to Kazantzakis’s own views
about such things.
Rather regularly Kazantzakis has sons rebel against and leave their
fathers. Here again, we are confronted with a classic dynamic that goes
all the way back to the original Greeks—and probably beyond. In this
novel, it is the son Michales who stands up to his father’s “classism”
against the refugees of Sarakina. His father is portrayed as stubborn and
72 J. H. GILL
bigoted in relation to the refugees. Michales rebels out of concern for

the refugees and is both disinherited and excommunicated for it. It is left
an open question as to what he will do after the refugees march off with-
out him.
Daughters tend to follow a different pattern in Kazantzakis’s nov-
els. Those that actually play a significant part in the dramas are usually
frustrated, distraught, and suicidal, especially because of their father’s
neglect. In nearly every story, there is one woman who throws herself
at a lover and is rejected. Usually, as in this story, here is a widow who
is attracted to one of the main characters, but who is rejected by him.
Katarina takes on the role of Mary Magdalene, but ends up tragically
dead, and another woman plays the role of Martha, but she plays a very
minor part. Once again it must be said that as strong and sympathetically
as these women are presented, they generally play the tragic role.
In short, there are very few, if any, wholesome family relation-
ships in Kazantzakis’s novels, including this one. Harmony of any kind
seems to be outside of his purview. Struggle is the name of the game
in Kazantzakis’s understanding of human existence, whether with respect
to the human situation or, as we shall see in Part III, even in the life
of the cosmos. At the same time, every novel contains the notion that
the struggles of life can make us stronger and better over the long run,
whether as individuals or as the human race.
CHAPTER 9
Zorba the Greek
In all of the novels so far discussed we have dealt with large groups of
people who are essentially opposed to one another. Thus what we see of
human nature and its destiny is played out on a large stage, with myri-
ads of characters and mass events. In Freedom or Death it’s the Christian
Greeks versus the Muslim Turks, in The Fratricides it’s Communist
Greeks versus the traditional Christian Greeks, and in The Greek Passion
it’s a group of established Greek villagers versus Greek refugees. Within
this context, there is a wide variety of subplots and characters, each living
out their various roles revolving around the main plot.
Now, when we come to Zorba the Greek the dramatic dynamic changes
rather drastically. Here we have essentially only two characters around
whom almost all the action and interplay revolve. Thus, we get quite a
different perspective on the issues involved in human nature and behav-
ior. Although each of the two main characters, Zorba and the Boss, are
almost always at the center of the action, they each have a relationship
with a strong woman who is involved in the life of the village that pro-
vides the setting for the story. Thus we get to see life and its various vac-
illations “up close and personal” in the small, rural fishing village.
We are introduced to the man whom Zorba will designate as the
“Boss” on the opening page of the novel. He is sitting in a dockside café
waiting for the rain to stop so his ship to Crete can depart. Although
nothing is ever said to this effect, the Boss bears a very close resemblance
to Kazantzakis himself, both in the progressive steps of the story and in
his personal life and character. Indeed, in Report to Greco Kazantzakis

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-93833-2_9
74 J. H. GILL
devotes an entire chapter to his life with Zorba, whom he claims had a
stronger effect on his own life than any other person.
As it turns out, the Boss is going to Crete to open up a closed lignite
mine left to him by his father, even though he has little enthusiasm for
doing so. He is in a somber mood, having just recently parted from his
very best friend. Into this mood comes Zorba, straight up to him, asking
him to take him along, wherever he is going. After he offers his brief
resume, which includes a very wide variety of troublesome things about
himself, as well as about his love for his musical instrument, the santuri,
the two men strike a bargain. Zorba comes with him and serves as the
foreman of the mining project.
They are an unlikely couple; the one an obvious intellectual who is
working on a manuscript about Buddha and knows nothing about any
kind of physical work, let alone about mining; the other a jack-of-all-
trades, man of action who seems to simply follow the winds of his own
freedom. “‘Let’s go,’ I said. ‘In God’s name!’ ‘And the Devil’s, too,’
added Zorba placidly” (Zorba, p. 22). And off they go to board the ship
to Crete, pledging to one another for far more than to realizing.
This Zorba was precisely the person I had been seeking for such a long
time, and not finding: a vivacious heart, a warm voice, a great unrefined,
unsophisticated soul with its umbilical cord not yet severed from mother
earth. Using the simplest human speech, this workman made clear for me
the meaning of love, art, beauty, purity, passion. (p. 20)
On the way to Crete the Boss overhears Zorba say, about the polit-
ical conversation of some nearby passengers: “‘Outmoded regimes’ he
murmured with disdain, shaking his head and spitting” (p. 24). A bit
later they spy two dolphins off the side of the ship: “Dolphins! Zorba
exclaimed joyously” (p. 25). Still later, when asked how he had lost half
of his index finger, Zorba replies that he had cut it off when he was a
potter because it kept getting in the way. Then and there the Boss knows
that he is doing business with a very unique person.
Before their initial ship ride is finished the Boss knows, too, that
Zorba is more than a simpleton. He admits that he had fought for Crete
on the side of the rebels before it was liberated from the Turks, as we saw
in Freedom or Death, but now was mystified about what all that strug-
gle, killing, and yearning for freedom amounted to. “Look here. What
I am telling you is that this world is a great mystery and every human
being is a great brute – a great brute and a great god” (p. 32). The Boss
goes up on the deck to ponder the issues of freedom and guilt further.
“‘That’s what freedom means,’ I was thinking. ‘To have a passion, to
amass golden pounds, and suddenly conquer your passion and throw
away everything you possess into the air’” (p. 32).
The two men, diametrically different from each other, have set out
on an adventure that will change them both forever. They land on Crete
and find their way into the village. After a few rounds of drinks in “The
Modesty Café” with some of the locals, they are directed to the hotel
run by one Madame Hortense. Zorba is delighted by the thought of
a widow and he is not disappointed. “A stumpy, paunchy little woman
with dyed flaxen-blond hair, now fading, and a beauty spot with bris-
tles on her chin. She wore a red velvet ribbon around her neck and had
thickly ladled mauve powder on her shriveled cheeks. A playful wisp of
hair hovered over her forehead” (p. 38).
So here we have two men, each at the extreme end of a continuum
between intellectuality and a life of action. The Boss is clearly something
of a scholar, especially a student of Buddhism, on which he is writing
a manuscript. In fact, he has brought it with him. It is clear to see that
in very many ways he is Kazantzakis himself. A bookworm, if you will.
He seems not to have ever done anything with his hands and to know
absolutely nothing about mining. Someone something like this charac-
ter actually shows up in several other of Kazantzakis’s novels, as we have
seen.
To verify this characterization of Kazantzakis himself all one has to do
is read the chapter on his father in Report to Greco where he describes
himself as a failure in the eyes of his father. He saw himself as a “lean
bottomed pen-pusher” like Tityros and Kosmas in Freedom or Death.
The extent of his self-deprecation can be seen in his chapter on Zorba in
Report to Greco, where he says: “I have been ashamed many times in my
life, because I caught my soul not daring to do what supreme folly – the
essence of life – called me to do. But I never felt so ashamed of my soul
as I did in front of Zorba” (Report to Greco, p. 446).
We see this side of the Boss frequently in this novel. He repeatedly
shows his shame in front of Zorba when it comes to hard work and “cut-
ting the string” to gain freedom. He seems unable to let go of his purely
intellectual life and has an emotional inability to address and engage the
beautiful village widow. He simply freezes up when confronted with her,
even though it is clear that he wants and needs her. He trusts Zorba to
76 J. H. GILL
do everything that pertains to the work of the mine while musing in

their cabin about who he is, and about what he should be and do.
At the other end of this continuum stands Zorba, seemingly, and only
seemingly, as it turns out, oblivious to all things pertaining to the life of
the mind. He frequently ridicules the Boss for always having his nose in
a book. He is more or less a vagabond journeyman who drifts from place
to place, from job to job, loving as many women and as much food as
possible. And yet, at the same time, Zorba is a lover of music, especially
that of his beloved santouri, a stringed instrument somewhat similar to a
zither. Zorba is clearly a more diverse and complex man than he at first
leads one to believe.
Early on the Boss says: “I gazed at his hands – deformed, jittery, filled
with calluses and cracks – hands expert at working both pickaxe and san-
touri. They opened the bundle carefully, tenderly as though undressing
a woman, and brought out an old, glossy santouri with an abundance of
strings, bronze and ivory ornaments and a red silk tassel at the edge. The
hefty fingers caressed it all over, slowly, fervently, as though caressing a
woman” (pp. 20–21).
In spite of these marked differences, these two men have now
engaged each other in a dance through which they will both struggle,
suffer, and grow far more than they bargained for at the outset. This
dance is the dynamic drama of the novel and will finally end in the devel-
opment of a deep friendship which beyond words, can be embraced and
expressed only in dance. Perhaps this is why Zorba says to the Boss, in
the midst of their dancing together: “I’ve never loved anyone as much as
I love you, Boss.”
At the start of their stay on Crete the two seem to go their separate
ways, the Boss wandering around and enjoying the Cretan landscape,
including the sea, Zorba pursuing the female possibilities, zeroing in on
Madame Hortense. The Boss is haunted by inner demons which fill him
with fear, and so when they come he withdraws, relying on the writings
of Dante to soothe his soul. He proceeds to make calculations about the
mining. Zorba follows his happy-go-lucky way and teases Boss about
being too serious.
Zorba tells of an old man he met who was planting an almond tree
and said to him: “‘My boy I act as though I am never going to die.’ I
answered him in my turn ‘I act as though I am going to die at any
moment’” (p. 44). Later on, Zorba asks the Boss which of them was right
and waited for an answer. “I said nothing. These two paths are equally
uplifting and rugged; both can lead to the summit. To act as though
death does not exist and to act with death in mind every moment –
perhaps both paths are the same. That however was something I did not
know when Zorba questioned me” (p. 45). Zorba was pleased that his
question had stumped the Boss.
Dame Hortense invites them to dinner and afterwards she and Zorba
retire to her bedroom. The next day Zorba expounds his theory of the
female mystique. He claims that women have only romance and sex
on their minds. “She has only one thing in mind, Boss. Listen to me.
I’ve seen a lot, suffered a lot, and done a lot, so I’ve learned a thing or
two, one might say. A woman has only one thing in mind; she’s a sickly
creature I tell you, a complainer. If you don’t tell her you love her and
desire her, the tears flow…She always wants everyone who sees her to
desire her. That’s what the poor thing wants, so you should indulge her”
(p. 58).
Soon Zorba starts to work with the mine, including choosing and
supervising the men workers and the Boss works on his Buddha man-
uscript. In the evening the Boss begs Zorba to tell his many stories of
adventure, war, and women. One night Zorba cries: “‘Listen Boss, I
implore you,’ he shouted. ‘Stop meddling. I build and you tear down.
What was all that malarkey you were telling them today? What are you,
after all? A preacher or a capitalist? You’ve got to choose.’ But how could
I choose? I was plagued by the naive yearning to combine both, to dis-
cover a symbiosis that would enable these deadly opposites to become
brothers and therefore to allow me to profit from both this earthly life
and the kingdom of heaven” (p. 66). Once again these two characters
collide.
As the days go by they meet and converse with some of the local peo-
ple, especially a few that wield the power in the village. The Boss con-
tinues to marvel at Zorba’s innate intelligence. “I thought to myself this
man did not go to school, yet his mind is not impaired. He has seen,
done, and suffered much; his intellect has been opened and his heart
enlarged without losing its primordial stoutheartedness. All the prob-
lems that are so complicated and unsolvable for us: he solves them with a
single sword-stroke, as did his compatriot Alexander the Great with the
Gordian knot” (p. 77).
Zorba devises a plan to expedite getting the coal out of the mine
by constructing a giant cable system by which to bring more timber
down from the nearby mountain, but he lacks confidence in his own
78 J. H. GILL
plan. When the Boss states that he has implicit trust in Zorba, he is
very pleased and rises to the occasion. There are two problems with his
scheme. One, the logs they want are on the property of the monastery
on top of the mountain, and two, Zorba must go to a nearby town to
buy the cables, ropes, etc. necessary to build his contraption.
The Boss continues to be fascinated and humbled by Zorba’s innate
intelligence. He stands convicted by Zorba’s élan vital compared to his
own intellectual approach to life. “‘My life has gone to waste,’ I kept
thinking. ‘If only I could grasp a sponge and wipe out everything I have
read, seen, and heard in order to go to Zorba’s school and begin to learn
the great, true alphabet! What an entirely different path I would be tak-
ing! At last I would be exercising my five senses- my skin in its entirety-
to be able to enjoy and to understand.’… ‘I would fill my soul with flesh
and my flesh with soul, finally reconciling within me those two primor-
dial enemies’” (p. 90).
Days pass, Zorba is absorbed with his intricate plans for building the
huge cable system to bring trees down from the mountaintop, and Boss
continues to work his own mine, the Buddha manuscript. In between,
they carry on their philosophical conversations about life and its mean-
ing. The beautiful widow, Sourmelina, after whom every man in the
village lusted, lost her ewe and this set Zorba and the Boss, along with
many other men, into action, looking for it. The Boss knows she is very
attractive and strong. Zorba chastises him for not approaching her, as he
himself had once been chastised: “My boy, if a woman calls you to her
bed and you do not go, your soul is destroyed” (p. 122).
As the reader can tell, the other Kazantzakis’s novels are primarily
comprised of events, with various theories and reflections sprinkled in
between. Zorba the Greek, on the other hand, is composed primarily of
philosophical dialogues between Zorba and the Boss about theology, life,
death, romance, and sexuality. The Boss is the student and Zorba the
teacher, although at times these roles get reversed, but not often. Zorba,
in both life and speech, represents the exact opposite point of view from
that of the Boss, and the latter blames himself for being such an intro-
verted intellectual.
Kazantzakis often berated himself, especially after meeting Zorba, for
only theorizing about life rather than living it. To his credit, however, it
should be remembered that it was he, not Zorba, who wrote this book
about Zorba, along with many other books that have been acclaimed
as inspirational and thought-provoking. Nonetheless, when all is said
and done, Kazantzakis names Zorba as the person who had the deepest
and most powerful effect on him. “This dancer and warrior, the broad-
est soul, surest body, freest cry I ever knew in my life” (Report to Greco,
p. 459).
At the beginning of this chapter, Zorba asks the question of the Boss:
“Is there a God –yes or no?” Boss shrugs his shoulders, but Zorba goes
on to paint his picture of God. His totally anthropomorphic vision is
quite traditional, with lots of colorful embellishment. However, in the
end, what strikes Zorba as absolutely crucial is God’s forgiving power.
With a wipe of his sponge, God washes away all sin. “Because God is a
great nobleman. That’s what nobility means: to forgive” (p. 126). So,
Zorba’s view of God is the “cosmic forgiver,” who opens the doors of
heaven to all who admit their frailty. The Boss admits to himself that
Zorba’s ideas seem to make a great deal of sense.
Zorba becomes essentially one with the mine. He is able to read its
structure and moods instinctively. At one point he senses that the props
inside the tunnel are not safe. Before long there is a terrible crash in the
tunnel, and the men only escape because of Zorba’s warning cry.
Before they realize it, it is Christmas Eve. The two friends celebrate
in the church with the villagers, and everyone exchanges the traditional
Greeting “Christ is born.” This leads to a brief discussion about the
idea of the Incarnation, God becoming flesh. Neither of them can say
whether they believe it or not.
This is a good place to address one of Kazantzakis’s favorite themes,
that of the importance of the effort to “turn flesh into spirit.” He often
speaks of this as one of the ways to understand religious faith. In several
places, he says that our goal is to “transubstantiate flesh into spirit.” This
language comes from the traditional way of speaking about what hap-
pens at communion. The classical doctrine is that the bread and wine
actually become Christ’s body and blood. The more moderate and mod-
ern interpretation is that these elements are merely symbolic of Christ’s
body and blood. In any case, Kazantzakis uses this idea in his favorite
theme regarding the goal of the spiritual life.
I would like to comment that his way of putting the goal of the
spiritual life seems to me to be backwards. To speak of transforming our
flesh into spirit strikes me as rather escapist. The whole point of Christ’s
incarnation is to render spirit into flesh: “The Word became flesh and
dwelt among us…and we beheld his glory…full of grace and truth.” It
seems to me that the goal of the Christian life, then, should be to follow
80 J. H. GILL
Christ’s example and imbue the earthly life with heavenly spirit, not
the other way around. Please excuse this personal excursus on flesh and
spirit.
Along the way in their story, Zorba pursues Dame Hortense, whom
he took to calling Bouboulina, while the Boss continues to waver on the
fence with regard to how to, or whether to, approach the widow. Zorba
and the Boss spent New Year’s Day with Bouboulina. Later on, while
out walking, the Boss sees the widow Sourmelina. They pass each other
on the path, she seemed to be flirting lightly with him and disappeared
behind the bushes of her house. Boss was set on fire with desire for her,
but was unable to free himself to approach her. He berates himself for his
cowardice, but does nothing.
One day, in the midst of his mental and emotional struggles, the Boss,
here reenacting Kazantzakis’ own experience, sits down on a rock and
spies a cocoon in the bark of a tree, struggling to emerge. He takes it in
his hands and blows gently on it to help it along to become a butterfly,
but in the end, it is born prematurely and deformed. “This butterfly’s
fluffy corpse is, I believe, the greatest weight I carry on my conscience.
What I understood deeply on that day was this: to hasten eternal rules
is a mortal sin. One’s duty is confidently to follow nature’s everlasting
rhythm” (p. 142).
It should be mentioned in this context that Pavli, the son of one of
the leading male citizens, Mavrandonis, is infatuated with the widow,
but his father stands between them. Although all the men of the village
hunger after the widow, none of them dare to approach her. She is too
mysterious and even seems to somehow be evil. Nonetheless, the Boss,
powerfully drawn to her, is held back by his fear of making a mistake.
Zorba has little patience with this attitude and repeatedly tells him so,
even as he continues to build his little model of the cable rigging that
would bring logs down from the mountain for shoring up the crumbling
mine shafts.
Once he has the right angle in mind, Zorba sets off for the nearby
city to purchase the necessary gear. Bouboulina is very sad at his leav-
ing and worries that he would find another lover. The Boss is worried
that he would take too long and squander his limited funds. As it turns
out, Zorba does exactly what they worried he would do. He found a
woman, Lola, with whom he stayed a number of days and nights, and he
spent much more money than he initially had said he would. He wrote
a humorous letter telling all about it, and the Boss finds it impossible to
remain angry.
However, Dame Hortense shows up asking if there has been a letter
from Zorba for her. The Boss tries to humor her by pretending that his
letter had included some greetings to her. As he reads along, he keeps
embellishing the letter so as to say more and more about her. Finally,
he fabricates a wedding proposal from Zorba to Bouboulina. She is
delighted and asks the Boss if he would be their witness. He agrees and
what Zorba once called “the great catastrophe,” namely marriage, is set
in motion. Needless to say, Zorba was very surprised later to learn of his
fate.
This “idyllic” scene is interrupted by the discovery of the drown-
ing suicide of young Pavli because of his hopeless situation vis-à-vis the
widow. The villagers cry out for vengeance on the widow, but the Boss
speaks of being rational and not blaming the widow for what poor Pavli
had done which calms them down, but, as we shall see, only temporarily.
It becomes time to visit the monastery on top of the mountain in
order to negotiate a deal for its lumber. There they discovered all man-
ner of idiocy and hypocrisy, as well as a good bargain for the trees in
its forest. They also flush out a couple of monks sexually involved in
the bushes. All in all, it is a prosperous and entertaining journey. Upon
their return, the arrangements are made for Zorba’s engagement to
Bouboulina, while Boss continues to try to divest himself of the plague
of the mysteries of Buddhism.
One day Boss asks Zorba if he has ever fought for his country. When
he dismisses the question out of hand, the Boss criticizes him for not tak-
ing his own country seriously. Zorba explodes. “He gazed at me harshly
for a long time. Then, clutching his moustache he finally declared:
‘That’s raw, uncooked stuff: meat fit for a schoolmaster, a mind fit for
the same. Pardon me, Boss, but no matter what I say to you it goes
to waste.’…‘Yes, you do understand - with your mind. You say: true/
false, this way/that way, right/wrong.’… ‘I watch your arms, feet, chest
while you talk, and they all remain silent, say nothing, as though they’re
bloodless. So, you do understand, but with what? The head? Phooey!’”
(p. 250).
Things progress with each of the friends struggling with his own
“demons,” Zorba with the mine and Bouboulina, the Boss with his
entanglement with Buddhism and Sourmelina the widow. Soon it
is spring and Easter. Each look to the Resurrection in his own way, as
82 J. H. GILL
they celebrate it with the villagers at church. “Christ is reborn” is heard

repeatedly on the road. Eventually, and inevitably the Boss’s body leads
him to the widow’s home. He knocks at the door and she lets him in.
The next morning as he lay in his own bed he muses: “Last night I had
confirmed so palpably for the very first time that soul, too, is flesh, per-
haps more fast-moving, more transparent, more free, but flesh nonethe-
less” (p. 266).
After this things begin to heat up. Hortense becomes ill and Zorba
works hard to heal and encourage her. The Boss continues to find his
bliss in a fresh self-understanding of the relationship between mind and
matter. Because of this, he is able to finish his manuscript on Buddhism,
finally setting both it and the Buddha aside. He summons the doctor
for Hortense, but her high fever gets progressively worse. Zorba him-
self becomes ill as well. Things are beginning to fall apart in the village.
Some of the men gather and begin to dance what is supposed to be a
resurrection dance.
Suddenly they spot the widow coming out of the church. The local
constable sees her and cries: “Come on! At her!” And the men crowd in
around her, forming a circle. Manolakas pulls out his knife, but is inter-
rupted by Mavrandonis, who exclaims: “Stop! She’s mine!” With his
knife in view, Mavrandonis yells: “I call on God’s justice” (p. 274). But
at that moment Zorba cries out “‘Down with your knife, murderer!’…
‘Bah aren’t you all ashamed? What kind of heroes are you? A whole vil-
lage killing a woman! Good God, you’ll humiliate Crete!’” (p. 274).
But while his back is turned Mavrandonis leaps on her, and with a sin-
gle blow of his knife he cuts off the widow’s head. A bit later Zorba cries
out: “I’m telling you Boss, all the things that happen here in this world
are unjust, unjust, unjust! I don’t sign my approval” (p. 276).
Later still, the Boss brokers an amicable, yet flat, reunion between
Manolakas and Zorba. But abruptly the two friends are called to
Hortense’s bedside, She is clearly dying and in great pain, both physically
and mentally. “‘I don’t want to die! I don’t want to’ …” (p. 291) she
whispers to Zorba who holds her closely. The keeners, who come both
to wail and to gather up the dying person’s belongings amongst them-
selves, are getting impatient for her to die. Zorba tries to chase them
away, but they keep coming back. When she finally dies, Zorba has this
to say: “A bit of earth…a bit of earth that hungered, laughed, embraced.
A lump of mud that wept. And now? Who the devil brings us into this
world and who the devil removes us?” (p. 294).
A few days later, Zorba, still brooding about the question of death,
asks the Boss “Why do people die?” And the Boss replies that he does
not know. Then Zorba bursts out: “What then are those goddamned
papers you read? Why do you read them? If they don’t tell you that,
what do they tell you? Well, all those damned books you read – what
good are they? Why do you read them? If they don’t tell you that, what
do they tell you?” (p. 299).
The Boss then launches into a lengthy monologue about people being
little grubs on a leaf. Some of us crawl our way to the edge of the leaf,
gazing at the chaotic abyss below. All are afraid. Some strengthen their
hearts by calling out “God.” Others simply say “I like it!” Zorba, after
a contemplating pause, responds: “No, I do not like it. Not at all! I am
free, am I not? I don’t sign!” (p. 300).
That evening the Boss, sitting by the seashore, has another one of
his epiphany experiences wherein he feels himself reaching a new level
of self-understanding. The next day the monk Zacharias comes running
down to their house full of excitement and fear. He had lit a fire at the
monastery and apparently burned it to the ground. Zorba congratulates
him for getting rid of the spiritual filth and hypocrisy represented by the
monastery. The next day they find Brother Zacharias lying dead on the
beach, presumably of natural causes. At that point, the Boss launches
into another of his insightful answers to Zorba’s incessant questioning
about the meaning of life and death.
I believe, Zorba, but I can be wrong, that human beings are of three
kinds: those whose purpose, as they say, to live their own lives – eat drink,
kiss, grow rich, become famous; next are those whose purpose is to live
not their own lives but the life of humanity as a whole, since they believe
that all human beings are one in their struggle to enlighten, to love, to
benefit others; finally, there are those whose purpose is to live the life of
the entire universe, since all people, animals, vegetables, and stars are one
and the same, one essence engaged in the same struggle – namely to tran-
substantiate matter into spirit. (pp. 307–308)
Zorba admits that he isn’t sure about all the things the Boss has been
saying. “I’m thick-headed, boss, I don’t find the meaning very eas-
ily. Hey, Boss, how about dancing everything so I can understand it?”
(p. 308). The Boss could only lament that he was not at all able to dance
the things he had said.
84 J. H. GILL
Meanwhile, the work in the mine progresses, and finally, the set up for
the cable system is in place and the first of May has been chosen for its
christening. The Monks had heard about the big event and came down
the beach holding a statue of the Virgin Mary. They are extolling a two-
sided miracle: They had managed to save the monastery from destruc-
tion and had discerned that Brother Zacharias was the Judas who had lit
the fire. They then, having found Zacharias’s body, held it up for all to
see. “We found him fully shaven, all the hair from his body was gone, so
now he looks like a Catholic Priest” (p. 314).
As the festivities begin, more and more people, especially village dig-
nitaries, start to arrive. No one has any idea what will happen when the
very first log comes down the cable from the mountain. The Abbot from
the monastery is prepared to bless the enterprise. Just as he intoned “In
the name of the Father,” the first log comes flying down the contraption,
being shredded as it goes along by the cable mechanism. Zorba yells,
encouragingly: “It’s nothing. It’s always the same with the first trunk!”
(p. 316) as if he had ever seen this done before.
It is the same result with the second trunk. As the Abbot yells: “And
the Son!” the second log comes hurtling down the cable toward the
crowd, which is now speedily dispersing itself in all directions. With
full confidence, Zorba gives the signal for the third log to come down
the cable. “And the Holy Ghost” calls the Abbott in trepidation. The
result is the same, smashing the log and some of the pylons holding the
cable up. Finally, with the Abbot’s blessing: “And the Holy Virgin of
revenge,” Zorba calls for the fourth log to be sent, and it never makes
it to the bottom, because as it comes down it makes the pylons sway and
finally collapses the whole system like a deck of cards.
Everyone runs away as far and fast as they can. As the chaos begins
to subside, Zorba smells meat burning and runs to the spit to rescue
the roasting lamb. They sit alone beside each other on the beach, enjoy-
ing the lamb and some bread and wine. The Boss feels as though he is
one with the universe. They converse quietly there by the fire, drinking
wine and finishing off the lamb. Suddenly the Boss stands up and says:
“‘Zorba, come, teach me to dance!’ ‘Dance, boss? Dance? Fine! Come!’
‘Let’s go Zorba. My life has changed. Shake a leg!’” (p. 320).
Zorba takes off his shoes and shirt and taking the Boss by the shoul-
der, and after a short demonstration says: “‘Come my brave lad, now the
two of us.’… We threw ourselves into the dance. ‘Hooray! What a whiz
you are!’ shouted Zorba, as he clapped his hands to maintain the rhythm
for me…. ‘To hell with papers and inkpots! To hell with goods and prof-
its. Eh my boy, now that Your Highness dances – learns my language
– we’ve got so very much to tell each other!’ … ‘Boss,’… ‘I’ve so many
things to tell. I never loved anyone as much as you!’” (pp. 320–321).
This, surely, is the natural climax to the story. After the exhausting
dance session, they fell to the ground and fell asleep in each other’s arms.
The Boss had lost everything: his money and the entire project, but he
felt a great sense of deliverance. Boss said that he now felt free. “No, you
are not free,” says Zorba. “‘The string to which you are tied is a little
longer than other people’s string. That’s all. Your Highness has a long
cord. You come and go, think that you are free but you do not cut the
cord, and if you do not cut it –’…‘What’s needed in this instance is folly.
Do you hear? Folly! You need to go the whole hog’” (p. 331).
They parted and never saw each other again. In his mind, the Boss
had always strongly associated Zorba with his old friend Stavridaki,
whom he had not seen in many years, but with whom he had brought
thousands of Greek people safely back to Greece from the Caucasus
Mountains during World War One. He now received a telegram saying
simply: “Stavridaki has died.” Somehow in his mind, this death symbol-
ized and foreshadowed the death of his relationship with Zorba.
Over the years, he did receive an occasional letter from Zorba, one
saying so characteristically: “Found a wonderful green stone. Come
immediately.” Boss, Kazantzakis, decided not to go and wrote Zorba of
his decision. He received this reply: “You’re a pen pusher, Boss. You had
a chance to see a beautiful green stone once in your life, but you didn’t
take it…There surely must be a hell for a few pen-pushers like the Boss”
(Zorba, p. 5).
Years later the Boss received a letter from the schoolmaster in a tiny
Serbian village informing him of Zorba’s death. He relayed Zorba’s wid-
ow’s kind words, along with instructions for him to come to visit and
take Zorba’s santuri with him. I feel constrained to insert at this point
that when I visited with Eleni Kazantzakis, she made a point of describ-
ing the deep relationship Kazantzakis had with Zorba. She reinforced the
lessons that Zorba had pressed upon her husband about life, death, and
their deep friendship. She expressed regret that she had never met him.
With respect to our overriding theme in this Part Two concerning
Kazantzakis’s thinking about human nature and the human situation,
what needs to be said? In this book, in contrast to the previous three
novels in which we were exposed to a myriad of characters and issues,
86 J. H. GILL
here we have an “up close and personal” look at two distinct but pow-
erful postures toward human life. The strong focus is on Zorba and the
Boss as individuals with distinctively different postures toward life. Thus,
what we take away from this story pertains more directly to us as per-
sons, rather than as members of a specific group of people.
What, then, are we to make of these two characters, these two ways
of life? The one, Zorba, seems to dismiss rational, intellectual thought in
favor of feelings and action. The other, the Boss, is bound to approach-
ing the big questions of life with his intellect and reasoning powers.
Although the Boss honors and seeks to emulate Zorba’s way, he seems
unable to free himself from thinking about the big questions in terms
of Buddhist and Christian categories. Repeatedly in the book, the Boss
has epiphanies that allow him to temporarily rise above his addiction to
thinking in these rationalistic terms, but he invariably returns to seeing
life in terms of them. Zorba, for his part, never seems to waver from his
more down to earth way of being.
Both men have serious postures towards females. Zorba pursues them,
and throughout the novel his relationship with Hortense reveals this. He
sees sexuality as a crucial aspect of human life, especially his own. The
Boss, on the other hand, seems to avoid females and sexuality as seriously
as he can. Somehow that dimension of human experience is some sort of
stumbling block, a negative fixation. To some degree he overcame this
taboo when he finally spent the night with the widow, but this encounter
later on still left him confused. He even absorbed her death into some
sort of Buddhist fatalism. This contrast over sexuality between Zorba and
the Boss is, perhaps, the most marked difference between them. It carries
with it a dualistic understanding of human reality.
Finally, even though these two women, Hortense and Sourmelina,
play strong supporting roles in relation to the two men, it remains true
that here, as in Kazantzakis’s other novels, neither of them is allowed to
step up and play a strong part in the development of the story in this
novel. They remain, at best, active “accessories” to the main drama,
that between Zorba and the Boss. They are never really partners in the
events that happen. This again, in my view, represents a shortcoming
on Kazantzakis’s view of human life. For him, humanity centers in and
around men, their doings and thinkings, and women are definitely simply
extras. In his life things may have been different, but in his novels they
are not.
Perhaps we can shed some light on this issue by returning to the

phrase that the Boss, speaking for Kazantzakis himself, employed a cou-
ple of times, namely that of struggling to “transubstantiate flesh into
spirit.” As I mentioned previously, it seems to me that he sees this strug-
gle backwards. The goal, it seems to me, should be to transubstantiate
spirit into flesh, as Zorba seems, to a large extent, to have done. The
striving for a higher dimension of life, rather than embracing this one,
seems to be where the trouble begins. His would clearly seem to be the
point of the whole notion of incarnation as it emerges in Christian the-
ology: “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us…full of grace and
truth” (John 1:14).
Kazantzakis wrote about his friendship with Zorba near the end of his
Report to Greco. He included Zorba among those who had the greatest
influence on him including Homer, Buddha, Nietzsche, and Bergson.
“Zorba taught me to love life and have no fear of death” (Greco, p. 445).
“I have been ashamed many times in my life because I caught my soul
not daring to do what supreme folly – the essence of life – called me to
do. But I never felt so ashamed of my soul as I did in front of Zorba”
(p.446). “I had harnessed myself again to paper and ink. I had come to
know Zorba too late” (p. 448).
As I said earlier on, it is ironic that although he condemned himself
for not being truly free as Zorba was and had admonished him to be,
Kazantzakis did in fact, as a pen-pusher, use paper and ink to immor-
talize Zorba, something Zorba himself could not have done. And we
have been made the richer because he did so. Somehow it seems that
both approaches are necessary, and that it is impossible, except incre-
mentally, to combine them. It is a struggle, the struggle that Kazantzakis
himself wrestled with throughout his life and writings. It is this struggle
that forms the pivot point of his approach to the Divine, which we shall
explore in the next several chapters.
To put this point slightly differently, because of his encounter with
Zorba, the Boss seeks to integrate the conflicting life-styles by struggling
to interweave the positive forces of each. It is precisely by virtue of his
contemplative abilities that he is able to formulate an eclectic worldview.
However, in a very real sense, Zorba is not free to do likewise, he is not
free to change. Thus he consistently embraces only one point of view in
relation to each of the dualisms we have been considering.
Toward the close of the novel the Boss seems to have found a way
to reconcile the forces which for him had always been at odds with one
88 J. H. GILL
another. However, the final pages of the novel, which span the years
after the two had separated up until Zorba’s death, show that the Boss’s
battle had not yet been won. He had not become the harmonious per-
sonification of all that he had admired and sought to emulate in Zorba.
Nevertheless, his lament over this fact may itself be seen as an embodi-
ment of Kazantzakis’s life motto: “Reach what you cannot.”
By way of concluding this Part Two on Kazantzakis’s understand-
ing of the nature and contours of human existence, I would like now
to share the perspective on these issues offered by Professor Peter Bien,
perhaps the foremost English language interpreter of Kazantzakis’s
worldview. His views are thoroughly and clearly set forth in his book
Kazantzakis: Politics of the Spirit. In this book, an authentic tour de force
Bien, presents a full-orbed interpretation of Kazantzakis’s life in and
through his writings.
My only disappointment with Bien’s book pertains to his rather
strained and somewhat surprising use of Søren Kierkegaard’s three exis-
tential categories of the aesthetic, the ethical, and the religious modes of
existence as the framework for his interpretation of Kazantzakis’s Odyssey.
On pages 203–204 he quite suddenly introduces Kierkegaard’s insights
without any real explanation except for two footnotes (14 and 15) where
he explains: “Unfortunately we have no direct evidence that Kazantzakis
knew Kierkegaard’s work while he was composing the Odyssey. A fair
conjecture, however, is that he had encountered Kierkegaard’s theories at
least indirectly during his sojourn in Berlin” (p. 280).
In using the subtitle Politics of the Spirit Bien has sought to focus
the fact that Kazantzakis’s approach to both his life and his writing was
aimed at achieving his own personal “salvation” in and through his polit-
ical activity, including his creative endeavors. Right at the outset of his
interpretive efforts Bien claims that Kazantzakis was “metapolitical” in
the sense that he sought to achieve the former, though redefined, by
means of the latter. Bien’s use of the term ‘metapolitical’ is doubly signif-
icant. The term meta in Greek can mean either “after” or “beyond” and
Kazantzakis’s position with regard to the political dimension of human
life involved both senses of the term.
The reality yet to come will take us “beyond” this era and level of
life, and as well will not arrive until “after” the present age. In the same
manner, Bien characterizes Kazantzakis’s relation to communism as
“metacommunism,” since he sought both to go “beyond” communism
only “after” having engaged it himself. Going yet further, Bien says: “I
characterize his final stance as ‘eschatological politics’ a term that should

help us realize that politics, for Kazantzakis, was subsumed beneath a
religious vision” (p. 20). The term ‘eschatological’ refers to a culmina-
tion of history when ultimate reality is revealed, after this present age.
This “postponement” will be part of the Bergsonian dialectical
advancement of the vital force, the élan vital, eternally driving reality
forward toward ultimate self-fulfillment. Kazantzakis was as well heav-
ily influenced by Oswald Spengler’s idea of the Decline of the West, in
which Spengler described the birth and necessary death of all organisms,
including of course civilizations. (pp. 63–64 of Bien’s book). In chapters
five and six Bien makes it clear that in spite of his occasional efforts to act
politically, Kazantzakis was never really a communist, primarily because
he could never separate politics from his own personal struggles which
always took primacy.
Here is how Bien sums it up: “Kazantzakis’s system, although idealist
and subjective in appearance, is not meant to lead us away from care for
his world to some other world (there is none) but rather to show us a
meaning of being that provides for periodic renewal through repeated
participation in material struggle and development.”… “[T]he Odyssey
employs politics in order to reach a point at which political activity is
abandoned only to be resumed in some indefinable future on a higher
level of universal evolution. The time for resumption cannot be specified.
It may never come at all. Yet we must continue to act as if its coming
were certain” (p. 234).
This, then, is the message of Kazantzakis’s great work The Odyssey: A
Modern Sequel. Odysseus and Kazantzakis “arrive” at their goal only to
have it revealed that there is no such thing as “arrival”, only continual
embarking. Odysseus says: “We are freed even from freedom itself.” As
Kazantzakis’s gravestone puts it: “I hope for nothing. I fear nothing.
I am free.” The ultimate step is, of course, to move beyond even free-
dom. As Bien puts it: “Revolutionary activity, simply because it upsets
the inertia of the status quo, hastens universal progress toward the spir-
it.”…“The future will be worked out in ways that the present generation
cannot even begin to imagine” (p. 237).
With respect to Kazantzakis’s own, personal Odyssey, Bien says his
role “was more as a manipulator of words than of people, but that in
order to fashion a refined logos out of raw kravyi (Cry) he needed to
begin each time – and fail each time – as a manipulator of people, involv-
ing himself in materiality as a prerequisite for heightened spirituality.
90 J. H. GILL
This is reflected in the epic in so far as Odysseus, too, starts as a manip-

ulator of people and ends as a manipulator of words, thoughts, and
images” (p. 238).
It would be more than simply instructive to sift back through
Kazantzakis’s works as we have examined them in order to see how these
broader themes are handled, for we would in fact encounter them at
every turn. His vision for both the present and the future of humanity is
made vividly concrete in the various adventures of his characters. While it
is “writ small” in the individual events and personages in the novels, this
vision is “writ large,” as Bien puts it, in his magnum opus, the Odyssey.
“Reach what you cannot” because in so doing you transcend yourself.
I should perhaps apologize at this point for stating at the outset that
I would not be examining Kazantzakis’s Odyssey, since on these last few
pages I have, following Bien’s lead, done exactly that. Actually, in the
past few pages I have only taken up the climax of this great work because
it bears directly on our efforts to understand Kazantzakis’s inner moti-
vations as a writer. To be ever reaching beyond oneself toward continual
growth most clearly focuses Kazantzakis’s driving force.
PART III
The Shape of Divinity
Finally, after sorting out Kazantzakis’s understanding of both nature and

humanity, we arrive at a consideration of his approach to the question
of the nature of God. While not unrelated to these former two themes,
his approach to the question of the “Shape of Divinity” is far more com-
plex and far reaching than either of them. Here again we shall encounter
the notion of “panenteism” as distinguished from both “pantheism” and
“theism.”
CHAPTER 10
Saint Francis
In his “Prologue” to this novel, Kazantzakis offers the following

disclaimer: “If I have omitted many of Francis’s sayings and deeds and if
I have altered others and added still others which did not take place but
might have taken place, I have done so not out of ignorance, or impu-
dence or irreverence, but from a need to match the Saint’s life with his
myth, bring that life as fully into accord with its essence as possible.”
This is the only one of his novels, other than The Last Temptation of
Christ, that takes its base from a real historical person.
What we are left to do, then, is to take what Kazantzakis has to say
about St. Francis as a literary undertaking rather than as anything like a
biography. Thus what I shall do is treat this novel in line with his other
works, namely moving in and out with his characters and events, and
spending no time trying to match them up with historical persons and
events. Also, since the whole book purports to be written by his com-
panion and “biographer,” Brother Leo, we must grant him such literary
license, as well, as he walks us through the amazing life and thought of
this most famous Saint.
If we had considered this novel in depth along with the others in Part
I, dealing with Kazantzakis’s understanding of nature, we would have
taken up Francis’s strong affinity for the various aspects of the natural
world, such as plants, animals (including birds), as well as the sun and

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-93833-2_10
94 J. H. GILL
moon. Indeed, when Francis finally discerns the nature of the new Order
he felt called to found, it was an almond tree covered over with blossoms
that revealed it to him. “Sweet sister almond tree, our sweet little sister,
you dressed yourself, donned your finery. Now we have come. How nice
to see you!” (p. 120). As we have seen, Kazantzakis had a special pen-
chant for almond trees.
Another quite delightful as well as insightful reference to an aspect
of the natural world as a mediator of the Divine is found on page 289
where Francis speaks of the human body as the “donkey” used by the
soul to get through this worldly life. He says: “‘We mustn’t allow our
donkeys to do as they please, Brother Leo. If I had listened to mine I
would still be living in Sior Bernardone’s house.’…‘Come, help me.
Let’s make the beast get up’” (p. 289). In yet another place, Francis sets
out to “preach salvation to rocks, wild flowers, and mountain thyme”…
“When the Day of Judgment arrives it must find all men, animals, birds,
plants, and stones prepared” (p. 271).
As is well known, Francis commonly preached to “Sister Birds.”
After he had preached to the sparrows and doves, “Swallows arrived
now and perched in rows on the hedge opposite us and also along the
edge of the church roof. Folding their wings they stretched their heads
forward and listened intently” (p. 191). In the midst of his audience
with the Pope, Francis spoke of an almond tree that had blossomed in
the heart of winter, causing the pope to explode: “‘Enough!’ he cried,
jumping to his feet. ‘Your arrogance knows no bounds’” (p. 177). And
again, when watching a falling star: “Did you see that, Brother Leo?’
…‘a tear just rolled down God’s cheek. Is man then not the only one
who weeps? Dost Thou weep also, Lord? Dost Thou suffer Father, just
as I do?’” (p. 162). One could continue with this litany of Kazantzakis’s
efforts to display Francis’s blending of God’s nature with that of differ-
ent aspects of the natural world. As we saw in Part I, this way of speak-
ing about God and the natural order tends to raise the possibility that
Kazantzakis, if not also Francis, leans toward a pantheistic understand-
ing of the relationship between the two. That is, God and the natu-
ral world, indeed the entire cosmos, are one and the same reality. We
shall indeed have to address this question later on in this Part III. For
now, it is sufficient to note this possibility amidst the myriad of Francis’s
references to the natural world.
10 SAINT FRANCIS 95
Here, then, we shall try to limit our scope to how he approached and
thought of the Divine. We can, and should, begin with the conversation
Francis had with his own “Sancho Panza,” Brother Leo. When contem-
plating the stars in the shade of the forest at night, Francis asked: “‘Who
created such beauty – what then must He be? What can we call him?’
‘God, Brother Francis,’ I answered. ‘No, not God, not God,’ he cried.
‘That name is heavy, it crushed bones….Not God – Father!’” (p. 28).
It clearly seems that Francis was, on the one hand, loath to equate
God with nature, but at the same time, on the other hand, it is clear
from the above passage that he also refused to magnify the Divine too
far above humankind and the world lest the gap between the Divine
and the world, especially humankind, be seen as making it inaccessible.
Here again is the dilemma that has haunted religious thought and life,
especially within Christianity, for many centuries. Francis seems to begin
from a different premise, namely that the Divine is as close to us as a
father. This, after all, was the core of Jesus’s teachings, “Abba Father”.
This emphasis on the closeness of God to humanity is repeated
throughout the story. In fact, his approach to Divinity seems to come
amazingly close to some form of pantheism. Here is how he puts it a bit
later on: “Then I saw him for the first time, then I realized that man’s
soul is omnipotent, that God, God in His entirety, sits inside man, and
that it is unnecessary for us to run to the ends of the earth in His pur-
suit. All we have to do is gaze into our own hearts” (p. 102). Thus, the
Divine is everywhere, within each of us and within nature.
Perhaps the most graphic description of Francis’s belief that the natu-
ral world participates in the nature of God is found in this passage: “The
sun had come out, the rain had stopped. Trees and stones were laughing,
the world glistening, newly washed. Two blackbirds in front of us shook
their drenched wings, looked at us, and whistled, as though taunting us.
Yes, that’s what they are doing; taunting us. But Francis waved his hand
and greeted them. ‘These are the monks of the bird kingdom,’ he said.
‘Look how they are dressed!’” (p. 111).
Later Francis sighed: “Oh, if only someone could teach the birds, and
oxen, dogs, wolves, and wild boars, to say just these two words: ‘Kyrie
eleison’. If only the whole creation could awake in this way each morn-
ing, so that from the depths of the forest, from every tree, every stable,
every courtyard you would hear all the animals glorifying God, crying
96 J. H. GILL
‘Kyrie eleison!’” (p. 111). It should be perfectly clear that Francis, and
perhaps Kazantzakis as well, felt that somehow the natural world and
God are intimately interwoven.
Taking quite a different tack, at another time when discussing God’s
nature with Brother Leo, Francis wondered: “Who knows, perhaps God is
simply the search for God” (p. 37). This notion that God is the search for
God itself resonates with things that Kazantzakis affirms in other places as
well, both in Saviors of God, at which we shall look at the end of this Part
III, and in his monolithic poem, The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel. Struggle
and search may well be the most important theme in all of Kazantzakis’s
works. Here, he is actually suggesting that Divinity itself consists of the
overall cosmic process of growth toward complete fulfillment.
In another place, Kazantzakis has Brother Leo recount the descrip-
tions of God offered by various pilgrims who were searching for Him.
Perhaps the most startling is that of: “A woman who lived as a hermit in
the forest and ran stark naked under the pine trees striking her breasts
and shouting ‘Love! Love! Love!’ That was the only answer she was able
to give” (p. 35). In a different context, when Francis was engaged in
one of his sermons in the Town Square, after urging everyone to seek
peace with God, he affirmed: “There was but one way; by loving. ‘Love!
Love!’ He shouted, and then began to weep once again” (p. 123).
One might be able to discern something of the nature of Divinity by
reflecting on how, according to Francis, one can best worship and obey
it. Undoubtedly the most powerful, and well-known, focus for this in
Saint Francis is the scene where he divests himself of his father’s clothes
and wealth. Here, too, his father officially disowns him. Francis feels that
the only way for him to properly follow God is to take a vow of poverty
(p. 83). Twice Francis calls his fresh approach to serving God “the new
madness” (pp. 79, 84). The Bishop, who was also standing in the square
at that time, warns Francis that his behavior is overdoing it, and Francis
replies: “That’s how one finds God, Bishop” (p. 84).
Yet there is an additional angle on discerning God’s nature by means
of how it is that we are to follow the Divine way. The most dramatic
thing that Francis said and did in that regard was to throw himself into
embracing the outcast lepers he found around him. He reasons back-
wards from what he himself hates to do the most to what God’s nature
must be. “‘Lepers – that’s what I hate. I can’t bear the sight of them….
God, forgive me, but there is nothing in the whole world that disgusts
me more than lepers’” (p. 91).
10 SAINT FRANCIS 97
And, as he is confronted by a leper he runs straight to him.

“Throwing himself upon the leper, Francis embraced him, then lowered
his head and kissed him on the lips. ‘God asks us what we don’t want
and then says: That’s what I want’. He asks us what we hate and then
says: ‘That’s what I love’” (p. 95).
This way of determining God’s nature by contrasting His will to our
own seems to be at the heart of Kazantzakis’s understanding of Saint
Francis. As Francis says to Brother Leo, “When two roads lie before
you and you want to choose, do you know which is the best, which is
the one that leads to God?…The most difficult, the steepest” (p. 211).
Whether Kazantzakis has any documentable reason for thinking that this,
in fact, was something of the way Francis actually thought and behaved,
we have no way of knowing. It is perhaps more Kazantzakis speaking
than Francis. All that matters for our purposes is that this is the way
Kazantzakis portrays him in this novel. And it is important to bear in
mind that this is a novel, not a biography.
It is interesting to speculate a bit on this “backward” way of deter-
mining God’s will. In some ways, it seems right in line with the well-
known medieval theological technique for being able to speak and think
about God’s mysterious nature. It was called the Via Negativa because
since it was assumed that humans could not grasp God’s infinite nature
by virtue of being finite, the only way to go about this task was to limit
one’s self to saying what God is not rather than what God is. In like man-
ner, Francis advocated finding God’s will “backwardly” by doing the
opposite of what you yourself would want to do.
In my own mind, this technique seems unduly negative, even danger-
ous. This technique would seem to be problematic in application since
what one does not want to do may well vary from day to day and even
minute to minute. In addition, it would seem to be far too pessimistic with
respect to the human spirit’s ability to approach the Divine. In fact, it may
have been such problematics that gave rise to Thomas Aquinas’s notion
of the “analogy of proportionality” when speaking of God. Through this
method one can speak and think of the Divine as being similar to human-
ity in some respects, but only proportionally in some other respects.
When Francis, much as did Jesus, sent his disciples out into the world
to preach their new understanding of the Gospel he admonishes them:
“Preach using words if you are able. But above all preach with your lives
and deeds. What is it that stands higher than words? Action. What is it
than stands higher than action? Silence. My brothers, mount the entire
98 J. H. GILL
ladder that leads to God. Preach with words, preach with action, and
afterwards when you are alone, enter the holy silence which encompasses
the Lord” (p. 271). This may have been the most powerful statement of
Francis’s new, though not really new, gospel.
Like many disciples and religious leaders having a mystical tendency,
Francis made the traditional distinction between matters of the mind and
those of the spirit. Not long after he and his followers had established
themselves in the old and half-demolished Portiuncula church, they were
visited by a traveling scholar, one Sior Pietro. He told the following story
about one of his students, Guido, who had shown him the true way.
“He was dressed in a strange kind of robe. No, it wasn’t a robe, it
was hundreds of strips of paper sewn around his body – all the manu-
scripts he had written during the course of his studies, and on them were
all the problems, questions, the philosophical and legal perplexities, the
theological concerns.” … “‘Guido, my child,’ I shouted at him: ‘What
are these papers around you, these scrapes that are preventing you from
walking?’” (p. 127). Guido replied that they were what was preventing
him from making progress toward the Heavenly realm.
“Sior Pietro got up. ‘Everything is finished now.’… ‘Before coming
here I threw all my manuscripts into the fire and burned them – all my
manuscripts, all my books, I am saved! Blessings upon my beloved stu-
dent who brought me the message from the world below. A new life is
beginning for me, glory be to God!’” (p. 127). Then Francis read them
the verses from the Gospel where Jesus had said: “If you would be per-
fect, go sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have
treasure in heaven” (p. 128).
The application seemed obvious: Pietro had already divested himself
of his worldly possessions, his manuscripts, and books, so he was now on
his way to salvation. The clear implication of this story is that the way to
find and know God is not through rational thought and intellectual wis-
dom, but is, rather, through following the life of the spirit. Indeed, one
must, in fact, set aside all such intellectual endeavors in order to be able
to follow and find God. This absolute contrast between the life of the
mind and that of the spirit lies at the heart of Kazantzakis’s understand-
ing of Saint Francis, as perhaps of his own.
For what it is worth, I myself must raise an objection to such an absolut-
ist dichotomy between the life of the mind and that of the spirit. This is the
same dualism that we encountered in our consideration of Zorba the Greek.
It is simply too simplistic to divide human nature and experience neatly
10 SAINT FRANCIS 99
into two different, even opposed, dimensions. Clearly, a full humanity

requires both mind and spirit, both feelings and ideas in order to fulfill our
God-given capacities. To paraphrase Immanuel Kant: Ideas without feel-
ings are empty, feelings without ideas are formless. Surely these two highly
important aspects of our existence are both essential.
As time went by there appeared before Francis a young woman named
Clara who beseeched him to take her into his monastic order. At first,
he was aghast at such an idea, largely because he had always thought of
women as largely a temptation of the devil and only partly a necessary
evil for the production of babies. However, after much discussion, Francis
came to the conclusion that it would be a good idea to form a parallel
order to his own for women. The woman’s order was named after “Sister
Clara,” and it proved to be of great help to Francis in his ministry.
The gist of the discussion between Francis and Clara centered on
whether or not she, and women in general, were tough enough to
endure the difficulties of monastic life. He argued that women were
wicked, she replied that not all are. He argued that women are for child-
bearing. She countered that that is not all they can do, and that not all
need to do so. Francis struggled against the strength of this woman’s
arguments, but in the end, he acquiesced and announced her as “Sister
Clara”… “Welcome to our order” (p. 229).
This struggle between male and female relevance, let alone domi-
nance, in Kazantzakis’s account of Saint Francis, is parallel to the same
sort of dynamics we have encountered in his other novels. Once again it
is important, first off, to remind ourselves that this too is a novel, not a
biography. Nonetheless, there is concrete historical evidence to support
Francis’s establishing a partner order to his own with Sister Clara at its
helm. Indeed, over the years thereafter they worked in consort together
to accomplish a great deal in the religious life of Italy.
Another organizational crisis arose when Francis came to conclude
that his order had got somehow out of step with the changing times.
While he was visiting Egypt, a new light had been introduced to the
order at the Portiuncula, one Father Elias, a very learned but overly
self-confident scholar. One day Francis sought to reprimand Elias: “‘It’s
time you learned, Brother Elias, that man’s goal is God and that the only
way we can reach this summit is by dying’. ‘Excuse me,’ objected Elias,
‘but I’m of the opinion that the only way we can reach our goal is by
living’” (p. 230). Francis spent several days pondering this stand-off and
asking his Brothers what they thought.
100 J. H. GILL
This exchange puts me in mind of the last line of what is purported

to be a prayer of Saint Francis, “Lord, Make me An Instrument of Thy
Peace”. The last line says: “It is in dying that we are born to eternal life”.
I have heard many a discussion among believers as to whether this line
should say “In dying,” or “In living we are born to eternal life”. The
same issue arises with respect to the final line of The Battle Hymn of the
Republic. Should it read “Let us die to make men free” or “Let us live
to make men free”? This is the issue facing Francis in his standoff with
Brother Elias.
Francis found that during his absence a shift had occurred in the
Italian monastic life while he had been gone. The shift was toward
deeper theological and biblical scholarship and away from traditional pie-
tism. One day Francis saw a young novice reading a book. He tore it
from his hands and threw it in the fire. He then expostulated about how
too much thinking about, say, the resurrection simply served to obscure
its reality. The young novice replied: “‘I, on the other hand, Brother
Francis, never see the resurrection unless I am entirely clear in my mind
how and why Christ rose from the dead. I place my faith in nothing but
man’s mind’. Francis began to foam at the mouth… ‘What impudence!
The mind of man is accursed!’” (p. 231).
After a trip to Bologna to see what the newest learned theologians
were teaching, Francis and Leo returned to the Portiuncula quite dis-
mayed and discouraged by the new emphasis on theological study of the
teachings of the Church that they had witnessed in Bologna. As they
approached the meeting place they overheard Brother Elias preaching.
“‘Our order is no longer a baby. It has grown up.’… ‘Absolute
Poverty was fine when two or three brothers set out and opened the way
for us.’… ‘But now, praise the Lord, we have become an army and abso-
lute poverty stands as an obstacle in our way: we do not want it. We
have to build churches and monasteries to the ends of the earth to feed,
clothe and shelter thousands of brothers. How can we do all that with
absolute Poverty?’…‘And perfect love is an obstacle as well.’… ‘We live
among wolves, and therefore we must become lions, not lambs. Christ
himself was a lion.’…‘Perfect Simplicity no longer suits us either. The
mind is God’s greatest gift to mankind’” (pp. 234–235).
After a great deal of soul-searching and sorrow, Francis finally came
to the point of resignation. He made a speech agreeing that he and his
order as he had initially established it had outlived his time. “I believe
Brother Elias is correct. Yes, I have done my duty. It was to sow, and I
10 SAINT FRANCIS 101
have sown. Now let others come to water, mow, and harvest the crop. I
was not born to reap, to enjoy the profits, but to plow the soil, sow, and
then depart” (p. 237). Later on, Francis relinquished his order to the
leadership of Brother Elias and returned to the Portiuncula with Brother
Leo, no longer the leader of the Order of Saint Francis.
A while later on, Francis, who was increasingly infirm and half blind,
and Leo visited Sister Clara’s Convent. He was greatly honored by the
Sisters there. Still later, when his health was fading faster, Brother Elias
was constrained to come to him and tear up the Charter of his New
Order so as to relieve his pain. This seemed to help Francis regain some-
thing of his health. Kazantzakis does not make it clear whether Elias was
doing this simply to placate the old man or because he really did mean
to change his New Order. Still later on, however, Brother Elias reappears
and is just as hostile and reformist as before.
This whole drama about the rules and regulations may seem a long
way from our discussion of Kazantzakis’s understanding of the Shape of
Divinity but, as a matter of fact, both in Francis’s and our own times this
drama lies right at the heart of how one is to think about God. Along
with the questions about the role of the mind in relation to the spirit,
there is the issue of how human social and religious life should be organ-
ized so as to reflect the nature of Spiritual reality. Francis in his own way
was trying to set up the standard dualism between this world and a world
above us. Elias for his part saw the necessity of overcoming this dualism
in order to make spirituality relevant to human life.
Kazantzakis is clearly on record as having wrestled with precisely this
issue in his other writings as well. Humans devise ways of thinking and
speaking about God, as well as ways of organizing themselves to reflect
what they believe about spiritual reality. This, of course, also includes the
way in which women are to be understood to relate to these questions.
Historically speaking, it surely is to Francis’s credit that he opened his
order to female participants way back in that time. Indeed, it surely is
possible that Kazantzakis himself actually profited from Francis’s example
in this regard. The spiritual is more earthly and the earthly more spiritual
than we often think.
Near the end of his life Francis actually became famous as an official
Saint. He and Leo were given an estate called Mount Alvernia. However,
while there Francis’s health began to get much worse, and he chose to
try to go back to the Portiunola so he could die there. The people of
Alvernia did not want to give up “their Saint” and tried to keep him
102 J. H. GILL
from leaving. Eventually, he did return and much to his surprise and
joy his mother Pica came to visit him. She begged to be allowed to join
Sister Clara’s Order and after quizzing her as to her commitment, he
allowed her to join.
Even Brother Elias visited him to inform him of the progress of the
Order. In this visit, Elias reveals, by implication, that he never really did
burn up his “New Charter,” but only placated Francis in his sickness.
Elias proclaimed: “‘The times have changed,’…‘I am guiding the order
toward the spiritual domination of the world. Trust in me. The blood of
our brothers has already begun to be spilled; it is watering the seed we
have been sowing’” (p. 331). Francis expressed his dislike for this vision,
and affirmed his belief that God would not allow Elias’s dream, which
sounded very much like the Roman Catholic Church’s efforts to control
the Western world, Crusades and all, to come true.
Here again, we are faced with the issue of the purpose and extent
of ecclesiastical authority and power. Both Francis and Kazantzakis
were surrounded by power in the world as an expression of Spirituality.
Kazantzakis, and perhaps Francis as well, harbored an inherent distrust
of organized religion, largely because of their respective upbringings
in the Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholic Church. Kazantzakis had
been threatened with excommunication because of his radical writings
and communist leanings. In his mind, the shape of Divinity was not in
any way reflected in hierarchical organizations. As near as one can tell,
Francis himself, having sought to carve his own way, felt the same way.
They both would be pleased with the stance of Dostoyevsky in the Grand
Inquisitor, where formal religion is denigrated.
In the end, Francis retreated to Sister Clara’s convent in San
Damiano. As he slowly gave up his spirit in this life, he sought more and
more to transform it into one for the next life. He was surrounded by
sparrows in his last days, and as Brother Leo writes: “At the exact sacred
instant that I inscribed these final words, huddled over in my own cell
and overcome with tears at the memory of my beloved father, a tiny
sparrow came to the window and began to tap on the pane. Its wings
were drenched; it was cold. I got up to let it in. And it was you, Father
Francis; it was you, dressed as a tiny sparrow” (p. 379).
Here again, at the conclusion of our examination of Kazantzakis’s
spirituality in his novel Saint Francis, we encounter a metaphor of his
whole approach to spirituality. I don’t think he was trying to be cute or
pantheistic in using this little sparrow as an incarnation of Saint Francis.
10 SAINT FRANCIS 103
The sparrow seems to me to be both an indication of the idea that life

goes on after death, and that the spiritual is always, in some way or
another, concretely in the here and now. This also may be an instance of
both Saint Francis’s and Kazantzakis’s nod to some aspects of pantheism.
For myself, I prefer to think that spirituality must, and can only, be incar-
nated in the flesh without being equated with it. The one is mediated in
and through the other.
With respect to our overarching theme in this Part III of our explora-
tions, namely “The Shape of the Divine,” this concern is often expressed
in terms of the distinction between God’s immanence and God’s tran-
scendence. The former focuses on the presence and activity of the Divine
in this world, in this life. The latter stresses the uniqueness and otherness
of God, in the sense of being essentially different from the world. Most
orthodoxies would prefer to maintain that God is both immanent and
transcendent, but working out the details of just how this would resolve
the obvious difficulties of such a dualism has always been the theological
challenge facing nearly all faith systems.
Let us consider Francis with regard to this question. On the one
hand, Francis is portrayed as emphasizing the nearness of God in every
aspect of the world, especially those pertaining to the natural world. As
we have seen, he was fond of birds, deer, wolves, and other denizens
of the forest. Indeed, he actually preached to some of these creatures
and expressed such oneness with them that would suggest a pantheistic
worldview. Here the human and the Divine realities would be thought of
as merged.
On the other hand, Francis faces struggles and controversies that
clearly imply that the Divine is hardly a part of everything. One thinks
especially of his ongoing controversy with Brother Elias, as well as his
different confrontation with the Pope, and conversations with Clara
regarding what a Spiritual Order actually stands for. These controversies
were amicably resolved, but in each case, the individuals involved played
concretely different roles and were not in harmony with each other or
the cosmos. They were distinct moral agents in their own right, as was
Francis in all his dealings with them.
Throughout this novel, and again it is important to bear in mind that
it is a novel, Francis seeks to be at one with the Divine will, but whether
this makes God closer or more distant is not clear. I think we must credit
Kazantzakis with the portrayal of Francis according to his own point of
view. It would seem that for him, God is, in the vocabulary of Charles
104 J. H. GILL
Hartshorne’s process theology, dipolar. That is to say, the Divine has two
distinct modes of being in relation to the cosmos. One aspect seeks to
guide it through its ups and downs, responding to these responsibly with
the aim to maximize goodness and harmony therein. This might be con-
strued as God’s immanent or consequential dimension. The other aspect
remains true to its unyielding moral values, to its highest character inde-
pendent of its involvement with the world. This aspect of God’s nature
could be seen as the transcendent, primordial dimension.
The fact remains that in spite of all his many failures, Saint Francis
remained true to his vision of God as both transcendent and immanent.
Kazantzakis seems to have captured this seemingly puzzling yet consist-
ent posture.
CHAPTER 11
The Greek Passion
In Part II, we traced the diverse patterns of human behavior and thought
through this novel, The Greek Passion by focusing on the interac-
tive dynamic between the two major groups of people, the citizens of
Lycovrissi, on the one hand, and the refugees who have been burned
out of their village by the Turks. This drama goes back and forth, with
the refugees taking up residence on a nearby mountain and continuing
to struggle with the established hierarchy of the village. In each case,
socio-political as well as psychological interactions are portrayed and
acted out, and we got to see what Kazantzakis himself thought about the
issues involved.
In this chapter, we shall trace the spiritual dynamics of the main char-
acters in the novel with respect to the view of Divinity that emerges. In
short, we shall see how Kazantzakis views what is traditionally called “the
nature of God”. As we saw in our review of the novel Saint Francis, this
task is far from an easy one. The place to begin is with the opening chap-
ter, in which the scene is set for the reenactment of Christ’s final week of
life, often called “The Passion” of Christ. The British title of this book’s
translation is Christ Recrucified, and the film that was made of it some
fifty years ago was called Celui qui doit mourir (“He Who Must Die”).
The phenomenon of performing a Passion Play on a regular basis is
a well-known one, with the most famous production being performed
every year in the Bavarian village of Oberammergau. Our village of
Lycovrissi has been performing its version every seven years for a long
time. Unlike many, if not most, versions, this version lasts for a full year.

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-93833-2_11
106 J. H. GILL
Thus, the characters, chosen from the villagers, must play their parts
throughout the year as they go about their business. This feature is what
renders this novel truly interesting. Thus when the day arrives to decide
which villagers will play the major roles in the Play, Priest Grigoris calls
his people together and announces the plan: “It is an old custom, trans-
mitted from father to son in our village, to name every seven years five
or six of our fellow citizens to revive in their persons, when Holy Week
comes around, the Passion of Christ. Six years have passed; we are enter-
ing the seventh. We must today – we, the heads of the village – choose
those who are worthiest to incarnate the three great Apostles, James,
John, and Judas Iscariot, and Mary Magdalene the prostitute. And above
all, Lord forgive me, the man who by keeping his heart pure throughout
the year, may represent Christ Crucified” (p. 10).
This latter qualification for the person who plays Christ becomes quite
crucial in the story. The implication is that this person will indeed trans-
form himself into the Christ person as he lives out the church year. The
notion of incarnation plays a crucial role in the questions concerning
the shape of Divinity. It clearly entails the notion of the spiritual infus-
ing a human person with its own characteristic. So, right from the start
Kazantzakis is using the traditional notion of incarnation to raise the
question of just what the relation between the Divine and the human can
be. In the notion of incarnation, the one is in the other.
The village leaders right off choose, in his absence, one Panayotaros,
the “plaster eater,” to play Judas. His rugged physical stature and bad
temper make him perfect for the part. He is called “plaster eater” because
more than once he literally devoured a plaster statue, perhaps thinking it
was cake. The Archon, a village elder, asks for his son to play Jesus, but
his idea is rejected because his son is a weakling and lacks a sense of disci-
pline. They all agree that Mary Magdalene should be played by the widow
Katerina. “The bitch has everything required: she’s a fine whore with
golden hair.”…“the devil take her, she’d damn an archbishop” (p. 11).
After a good deal of haggling, young Manolios the shepherd is nom-
inated by the priest to play Jesus. “He’s mild as a lamb, he can read, has
been in a monastery, too; he has blue eyes, a beard as yellow as honey, a
real Christ like icon. And pious into the bargain. He comes down from
the mountain every Sunday to hear Mass, and every time I’ve confessed
him and given him Communion I’ve found not the least peccadillo to
reproach him for’. ‘He’s a wee bit crazy,’ squeaked old Ladas…‘No harm
in that,’ the priest replied, ‘it’s enough that the soul is pure’” (p. 12).
And so the key character is set, even though he has not yet been asked.
The other main players get placed rather rapidly: The Archon’s son
gets assigned to be the Apostle John. Kostandis, who keeps the café, is
chosen for James, the brother of Jesus. Yannakos the mailman is chosen
for Peter. “He loses his temper and calms down, flairs up and goes out
as easily as a tinder” (p. 13). Then, the focus shifts to casting Pilate and
Caiaphas, the chief prosecutors of Jesus in the trial. The Archon is but-
tered up to be Pilate and old father Ladas will make a great Caiaphas, it
is agreed. He himself does not agree, but is outvoted.
Young Michelis is asked to play John, Jesus’s favorite disciple, and he
welcomes the assignment. When Panayotaros is told he is to play Judas,
he loudly objects. “‘I respect the Council of the Elders,’ Panayotaros
retorted, ‘but don’t ask me to betray Christ. I’ll never do it’” (p. 17).
At this point, an impasse is reached, and the Elders simply move on,
leaving Panayotaros implicitly stuck, against his will, with the role of
Judas. When Manolios is approached about playing Jesus, he too balks,
because he is engaged to be married. It is the Greek custom for couples
to sleep together after they become engaged, so Manolios pleads that he
is unworthy and unable to fulfill this role.
“Manolios was silent, but his heart beat to bursting with joy and
terror. He looked out the window; the plain in the distance was
green again, wet serene; the drizzle had ceased. As he raised his eyes,
Manolios suddenly trembled. An immense rainbow, all emerald, ruby
and gold, was binding heaven and earth together. ‘His will be done,’ said
Manolios, laying his hand wide open upon his chest” (p. 19). And so,
the role of Christ is filled. The play is about to swing into motion. “Oh,
I say, I forgot to choose the Magdalen!” called the priest. “Don’t worry,
captain,” said the old archon. “I’ll have her come up to me and I’ll talk
to her… I feel sure I’ll succeed, he added, smiling” (p. 20).
All of this casting procedure sets the stage for the central drama of the
story, namely the incarnation of the spirit of the Divine into the life of
Manolios. The doctrine of the incarnation is not a matter of a spiritual
being floating down to earth in order to pretend to dwell with humans
for a while, and then to fly back up to heaven untouched by human life
and “sin”. In the Christian faith, the divinity actually set its special pow-
ers and qualities aside in order to become one with humanity, even unto
death. Now Manolios is being asked to reverse this process, if you will,
and come to be indwelt by the Divine spirit.
A number of years ago David Bowie starred in a film called The Man
Who Fell to Earth. He came from a distant scorched planet to build a
rocket ship with which to bring water back to his home planet. In the
108 J. H. GILL
opening scenes Bowie, who has learned English from the airwaves, walks
amongst earthlings as a person from a different dimension. He man-
ages to sell several amazing inventions for the money to build his return
rocket ship. I remember being spellbound by Bowie’s silent performance
during the first ten minutes or so of the film. He was truly “a stranger in
a strange land”. This gave me a small idea of what an incarnation might
be like. Something of this strangeness might well have filled Manolios’s
imagination.
As they walked on the road past their local lake, Voidomata, the long-
time friends discussed what all this will mean for their everyday lives now,
and for their destinies in the future. The big issue was whether or not
they were worthy of these assignments. How will being a “special person”
affect their everyday lives? Will they have to be perfect from now on? What
if they falter and sin? These are precisely the questions that all people of
faith wrestle with because they seek to take the challenge seriously.
Those of us in the West often have difficulty understanding and
appreciating the Eastern Orthodox way of approaching the sacraments in
general and the sacraments of the Incarnation and Communion in par-
ticular. For us, these are usually thought of as simply symbolic remind-
ers of the events of Jesus’s life and death. In the East, however, these
Sacraments are thought of as actually being reenactments of these events,
as direct reflections of spirituality on earth. Thus, Kazantzakis often
speaks of transubstantiating flesh into spirit.
This technical term is used by theologians to distinguish the Eastern
view of the Sacrament of Communion from that of Western Christianity.
In the Eastern Church the elements of bread and wine are thought to
actually become the body and blood of Jesus when ingested, while in the
West they are thought to symbolically represent his body and blood. The
term ‘transubstantiation’ indicates this transformation. Thus, Manolios
and his “disciples” are thinking of themselves as actually reenacting the
very life and death of their Savior.
In this way, Kazantzakis is projecting the shape of the natural world
as being a reflection of Divine reality. But for him, it is only a reflec-
tion until we can actually transform our lives and our world into Divine
reality. We shall return to these issues in the final section of this third
part of our explorations when we consider his book Saviors of God. I have
already registered my own objection to this way of thinking. It would
seem to me that our goal might better be the effort to transubstantiate
spirit into flesh.
It is these concerns that preoccupy our young men as they contem-

plate the meaning of their newly given roles for the coming year. Will
they be able to be faithful to their roles and to their leader Manolios as
he grows into the person of Christ? For them, it is not merely a play
for the villagers’ entertainment, but rather the reenactment of Jesus’s life
and death as a way of reuniting the lives of the whole village, includ-
ing themselves, with the Christian beliefs concerning Spiritual Reality. An
important pilgrimage, indeed!
These contemplations and discussions are interrupted by the appear-
ance of the refugees from a village burned out by the Turks. It should
be noted that this novel, like many of Kazantzakis’s works, takes place
in the midst of the Ottoman Empire’s 400-year harsh occupation
of Greece. Thus, in the background of all that takes place stands the
Turkish domination of the Greek people. We traced the drama of the
conflict between the local villagers and the newcomers in the previous
Part II dealing with the patterns of humanity. This drama will neces-
sarily become intertwined with that of the villagers pursuing their own
Passion Play.
It is not long before Manolios confronts his first challenge in his role
as Jesus. He has already been betrothed to Lenio, but now everything
seems up for reevaluation. He is confused about his responsibilities to his
master, to his fiancée, and to his disciples. Thus, when he meets Lenio,
who is the daughter of his boss, he back-pedals and refuses to speak
about their coming marriage. When confronted by his master, the father
of his close friend Michelis, who asks about the wedding, Manolios says:
“Give me a little more time master”…“I’m not ready yet master.”…“I
don’t know myself.”…“There’s a voice inside me” (p. 74).
Earlier on, when confronted by the same questions from Lenio,
Manolios begs off in much the same way. He is confused by what this
new assignment will mean for him and others. As if that were not suf-
ficient distraction, he is also confronted by Katerina, the local widow,
who has for some time had a desire to lie with Manolios. She was
assigned the role of Mary Magdalene in the play. She tells Manolios that
she has been dreaming about him and assumes that he, too, has been
dreaming of her. He admits this, but confesses “I’m sorry for you, as if
you were my sister” (p. 77).
When we consider Kazantzakis’s novel The Last Temptation of Christ
in the next section of this present Part III, we shall see that he places
Jesus in much the same dilemma in relation to Mary Magdalene as he
110 J. H. GILL
has Manolios in this novel. Suddenly, Manolios’s whole world has turned
upside down because he has taken his role in the Passion Play very seri-
ously. He seeks to return to the mountain where he serves as a shepherd,
away from all these temptations of the natural world.
Along the way, Manolios and his disciples meet the refugees and
direct them to the nearby mountain where they can recoup and plan
for their future. They accept this plan and begin to build a new ref-
uge among the caves on the hillside. For the time being the war
between the two groups of people lies quiet. Meanwhile, Manolios’s
struggle intensifies. He feels constrained to go see the widow Katerina
out of deep concern for her. She, to be sure, has other ideas. But
on his way to see her, Manolios undergoes a powerful and strange
transformation.
As he approaches the widow’s bed in the dark, his face begins to swell
up and ooze. Kazantzakis describes it this way: “What is the matter with
me? Why am I swollen? he asked himself, desperately feeling his face all
over, down to the neck.”…“In the dancing glow he caught sight of his
face, and gave a cry; it was all bloated, his eyes were no more than two
tiny balls, his nose was lost between his ballooning cheeks, his mouth
was a mere hole” (pp. 105–106). Manolios runs outside and up the path
to the mountain.
There is a good deal that needs to be said about this pivotal event.
With respect to the storyline of Jesus’s life, since it comes very near the
outset of Manolios’s career as the one who is symbolizing Christ, it par-
allels the latter’s time of temptation in the wilderness when the Devil
tempted him to drop his faith in God and his plan for his life. This
strange visitation on Manolios’s face could represent his temptation to
cancel his participation in the Passion Play.
It also needs to be recalled that Katerina has been given the role of
Mary Magdalene in the play, and there have always been those who have
wondered if Jesus did not have a “special,” even sexual, relationship
with this Mary. Indeed, as we shall see later on, in The Last Temptation
of Christ Kazantzakis implies that such a relationship had existed when
they were younger. So here Manolios is, standing with ambivalent
feelings toward the widow Katerina, unsure if he should speak to her
yet one more time, and his face breaks out with a terrible, sickening
“mask”. He carves a wooden mask with which to cover his face in the
Passion Play.
As I mentioned earlier on, Kazantzakis himself tells of his face hav-

ing broken out in this same fashion when he was tempted to go to bed
with a young woman while living in Vienna. A psychiatrist told him that
this was an instance of what is called “the saint’s disease,” a phenomenon
that arises when a spiritual person is tempted to commit a sin. As soon
as Kazantzakis left Vienna, his awful condition disappeared. It would
seem clear that he is drawing on his own experience in having Manolios
infected with this condition. Manolios says: “My misfortune must have a
hidden meaning. I will be patient until He lays His hand upon my face”
(p. 18).
Manolios presents himself to Lenio and explains that he thinks he
has leprosy and goes away. She is overcome. Later on in his pilgrimage,
Manolios and his friends gather on the side of hill and he reads aloud
from the Bible, offering a sort of sermon of his own as he reads Jesus’s
Sermon on the Mount. “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the
kingdom of Heaven” (p. 158). After a brief discussion about the mean-
ing of “poor in spirit,” Manolios continues: “Blessed are the meek for
they shall inherit the earth” (p. 159). The disciples all agree that this
means down with war, even with the Turks.
They finish the Bible lesson just when priest Fotis of the refugees
appears to hear Manolios’s confession. After a great deal of internal
struggle, Manolios is able to confess that he thinks this affliction on his
face is due to his sin of pride over having been chosen to play the role of
Jesus—also because he has been tempted to withdraw from the role. But
now he sees his responsibility clearly, and recommits himself to the task,
both in the Play and in his life. Actually, Manolios gets more specific as
well about the fact that it was his desire to sleep with the widow that led
to his illness.
“Father, brothers, forgive me and may God forgive you! I feel
relieved, as though a great weight had come away from my heart. I
see, thanks to you, Father, I understand, I accept. Now my affliction
seems to me like a cross; I carry it, I feel I am going up. Above the
Crucifixion, I know there is a Resurrection. I shall gather my strength
together to bear my cross. Help me, comrades that I may not fall”
(pp. 169–170). So, now the comrades, Manolios and his disciples, are
united in their effort to continue following Jesus on his way to the
cross.
112 J. H. GILL
The rite of confession is something that only Catholics in the Western

tradition know very much about. By and large, Protestants long ago
let this rite pass from view. The Eastern Orthodox Church continues
to make use of it, and it is invoked here in the story in order to help
Manolios with his affliction and calling. Here again there often seems to
be a disjuncture between how the natural and Spiritual realms function.
In Kazantzakis’s mind, at least in the minds of his characters, the shape
of Divinity can and should be reflected in the natural realm as well, but
usually in a broken fashion.
This pattern is addressed by priest Fotis when he is asked why God
should even bother working with humans since they always seem to
get things wrong. Priest Fotis says, simply: “Because God is a potter;
he works in mud” (p. 168). This way of thinking actually seems to lie
behind a great deal of what happens in this story. The two communities
are far from perfect, and Manolios and his followers seem to be off the
mark much of the time. Clearly, Divinity does not strictly control what
goes on down here on earth.
Process thinkers like Alfred North Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne
would say that this illustrates perfectly the difference between God’s pri-
mordial and consequential natures. A potter must work with the clay, not
on the clay. Any potter will tell you that mud has a will and some ideas
of its own. Any artist must work with his or her medium, in a kind of
dance; the medium often talks back. So priest Fotis’s remark was right on
the mark. This world does not directly represent the Divine nature and
character. Yet, ever so slowly and providentially things get done. We’ll
have to see how Manolios and his “boys” work things out.
At this time the “play thing,” a young boyfriend of the Agha, the
Turkish head of the village, is found murdered. The village is in an
uproar, trying to find out who did the murder. At first they conclude
that the guilty one is Panayotaros, the plaster eater and the one who has
been assigned to play Judas in the play.
The Agha rounds up a number of people and threatens to kill them
if the murderer is not found soon. He grabs Panayotaros and yells at
his guard Hussein to hang him. At this point, Manolios steps forward
and claims that it was he who killed the boy. Then begins a period of
chaos, reminiscent unsurprisingly of the one that arose when Jesus was
taken captive. The crowd is behind the Agha as he has Manolios taken
prisoner. The villagers are overjoyed that they will not suffer now that
Manolios has been arrested, including those who have been briefly
imprisoned. They are elated that Manolios has taken their place.
While his disciples try to argue him out of sacrificing himself for the
good of the village, Manolios remains insistent that he is the guilty one.
He says nothing on his own behalf when the Agha and others question
him. Only the widow comes to defend Manolios before the Agha. She,
too, announces that she is the guilty one. She begs the Agha to kill her
instead of Manolios. The Agha is out of his mind with pain and anger.
Finally, he takes the knife that the widow had brought to him and thrusts
it into her breast. She is dead, now the payment has been paid, and
Manolios goes free.
However, the Agha’s revenge is not yet complete. He has his guard
grab Manolios and tells him to hang him. Everyone screams that
Manolios is innocent. Right at the last minute the Agha’s maidservant
comes running up with the guard’s bloodstained clothes explaining that
she found them under the young boy’s bed. The Agha goes berserk and
kills his guard right before the eyes of everyone. Silence and darkness fall
upon the village. Everyone goes home, pondering all that has happened.
Now Manolios and his disciples gather to discuss what they are
going to do. Manolios announces his resolution to follow Christ wher-
ever He leads. Each of his three disciples say that they, too, are ready
to leave the past, their families, and belongings, behind. They are wor-
ried that Manolios might leave them. He replies, very much as Christ
had intoned before he rose to Heaven: “‘I shall be with you always,
here in Lycovrissi. This is where God in His mercy has placed me, this
is where He has ordered me to fight’”…. “Alone, with swift, light steps
as though once more the wings of an angel bore him, Manolios took
the rising path steps” (p. 33). This is his Resurrection and his Pentecost,
rolled into one.
So now Manolios has both left his followers and is still present with
them, even as Jesus left his followers and remained with them in the
form of the Holy Spirit. This entire drama of Manolios offering himself
up to save the villagers, and then being “resurrected” to go on living
with or within them, is obviously an attempt to be a mirror image of
the story of Jesus’s death and resurrection, followed by the coming of
the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Clearly, Kazantzakis designed this story, and
especially this series of events, to be a dramatization of the Orthodox
theological account of the Divine, celestial drama.
The Orthodox view, along with much of that of the rest of
Christendom, takes these events in Jesus’s life as objectively true. That is,
these things happened to Jesus in order to fulfill the Divine plan for the
salvation of humankind. They were enacted here on earth in order for
114 J. H. GILL
both God’s justice and forgiveness to be displayed for all to see. I doubt
that Kazantzakis subscribed to any of this, but it was necessary to the
drama of his story to play it out in the life of Manolios. He had to alter
the story a bit to keep Manolios active in his village’s adventure. But
Manolios does symbolically act out the main aspects of the Resurrection
and Pentecost.
After retreating briefly to his mountaintop, Manolios gathers his fol-
lowers and leads them into the village. He confronts the whole village,
but especially the leaders, and pleads for them to take pity on the poor
refugees who are near starvation. He claims that Christ has appeared to
him and has instructed him to approach the villagers. Unsurprisingly the
leaders of the village scoff at Manolios, but slowly different individuals
acknowledge that they could, indeed, afford to share their wealth with
the outcasts.
In the meantime, Michelis, one of Manolios’s disciples, has been
disowned by his father for associating with Manolios. Later, the reader
will recall, he led the whole company of refugees into his garden, which
had been willed to him by his father, to feast. In addition, Manolios was
called the Antichrist by priest Grigoris, and a Bolshevik by the town lead-
ers. Finally, Michelis’s father dies and priest Grigoris blames the son for
his death. He replies: “Two roads lie open before me; the one along
which my father was drawing me, and the other much more difficult
one, along which Christ draws me” (p. 308).
This statement is reminiscent of the motto Manolios has adopted:
“Follow the upward path.” Manolios rebuked the village leaders, espe-
cially priest Grigoris with these words: “Our Christ is poor, persecuted;
He knocks at doors and no one opens to Him. Your Christ is rich, nota-
bles who hobnob with the Agha. He barricades his door that he may eat
and not give anyone a crumb” (p. 317). A bit later he announced to his
disciples: “God will judge.’…’Come, don’t look back!” (p. 317).
As the reader will recall from our last chapter where we explored this
novel from a humanity angle, the refugees finally descend upon the rich
gardens and storehouses of the villagers in the name of Christ’s com-
mand to feed the poor. It should be remembered that after the arrival
of the Holy Spirit in Chapter 2 of the Book of the Acts of the Apostles,
all of the disciples entered into a communal pact to share everything
together so that no one went hungry or unclothed. This is exactly what
Manolios’s disciples said they were doing when they brought the refu-
gees to the village to partake of their bounty.
Clearly, Kazantzakis sees this revolt to be expressing the will of the

Divine. This is, in his view, the shape of Divinity. Indeed, later on in
the story, those who come on behalf of the refugees say they are ask-
ing for justice. This, too, is part of Kazantzakis’s vision of the Divine.
Charity is not enough without justice. The whole drama in this novel is
framed around this issue of the “Haves” versus the “Have nots”, and it
is focused on Manolios, the “Christ for a year,” for the Greek Passion.
Priest Fotis sees the conflict between rich and poor as a “Holy War.”
The four “soldiers of God” finally creep into the village and literally
steal a great deal of goods, which they promptly distribute among the ref-
ugees. Manolios had earlier carved a wooden mask with which to cover his
swollen face. Now he carves another wooden face, one of a savage who
is out to get his due. The refugees gather their courage, arm themselves
with sticks and stones, and march into the village to claim what they say is
rightfully theirs. This raises the timeless issue of the possible justification of
war. One must ask: How does a Holy War fit within the shape of Divinity?
There is, of course, a long history connected to this idea. Augustine’s
approach is most likely the best known. He offered a list of twelve
points that must be considered before anyone can justify going to war.
Unfortunately, the crusaders of the Middle Ages seem to have paid little,
if any, attention to Augustine’s list. In general, his list comes down to
the question of whether or not war is the last course of action possible.
Apparently, priest Fotis concluded that his people had no other choice
given the extremity of their situation. They were, in fact, at the point of
starvation.
The situation was clouded by the fact that Michelis, who had inherited
all of the garden and crops from his father, had now been disinherited. So
it was not clear whether or not he had the authority to allow the refugees
to take over the food resources of the village. Priest Fotis read the situa-
tion as best he could, and decided that a war with the villagers in order
to take over their food sources was justified. Apparently, Michelis and
Manolios both agreed with his decision, so they entered into the looting.
The timid schoolmaster steps up, discouraging the warfare option,
and offers to go talk with the village leaders. “Don’t arm, brothers,” he
begs. “‘I’ll go and parley with them. I’ll get them by persuasion! We’re
brothers, don’t plunge the village into bloodshed’” (p. 396). He, of

course, is brushed aside by the village priest Grigoras. “No compromise
now! The hour has come to wipe them out! At them, lads! Arm, brothers!
Death to the lice-carriers” (p. 396).
116 J. H. GILL
But the schoolmaster does not give up. “The alarmed voice of the
school master again made itself heard, ‘Stop, brothers, don‘t kill each
other, we shall reach a compromise, trust me; we are all Hellenes,
Christians, brothers!’” (p. 400). He is promptly thrown to the ground
and trampled, thrown into ditch and left unconscious. So the two priests
fight it out, but to no avail, and the situation collapses into chaos and
mayhem. A bit later the schoolmaster is found dead in the ditch. “‘He
wanted to reconcile us and we have killed him,’ says Manolios, wiping
away his tears” (p. 402).
Here, then, was a third option, that of compromise, but it was com-
pletely ignored. Perhaps it had been presented too late in the contro-
versy. In any case, many people on both sides died. The priest Grigoras
petitioned the Agha to call in Turkish troops from nearby Smyrna to
crush what he claimed was a Bolshevik uprising. Meanwhile, Manolios
organized the refugees into three groups for the better taking of the
crops. Obviously they had concluded that these now belonged to them.
Priest Fotis also entered into the dividing up process.
Just when priest Grigoras’s hate is at its highest, Panayotaros, Judas in
the play, announces that he had seen Manolios kill the schoolmaster with
a large rock. So now Manolios is a criminal and deserves to die. And, in
following the script of the play, Manolios offers himself up to the priest
Grigoras and takes all the blame for everything that had transpired. The
crowd of villagers urge the priest on, and he eventually kills Manolios in
cold blood.
“‘If Bolshevik means what I have in my spirit, yes, I am a Bolshevik,
Father, Christ and I are Bolsheviks.’ …. With arms wide open, defense-
less and unresisting; ‘Kill me,’” he insisted. The crowd roared over and
over again “Kill him, kill him” (p. 426). Clearly, Kazantzakis has drawn a
vivid and obvious picture of Manolios as a Christ figure. He died for the
sins of both the refugees and the villagers.
Ironically, at his grave site, priest Fotis offers the following eulogy:
“‘Dear Manolios, you’ll have given your life in vain,’ he murmured;
‘they’ve killed you for taking our sins upon you; you cried: ‘It was I who
robbed, it was I who killed and set things on fire, I, nobody else!’ So that
they might let the rest of us take root in these lands.…In vain Manolios,
in vain will you have sacrificed yourself’” (p. 429). A while later Fotis
speaks in the same vein to Christ: “‘In vain, my Christ,’ he muttered;
‘two thousand years have gone by and men crucify You still. When will
You be born, my Christ, and not be crucified anymore, but live among
us for eternity’” (p. 429). At the end of the novel, priest Fotis gathers his
people together in order to continue their pilgrimage. “‘‘In the name of
Christ,’ he cried, ‘the march begins again; courage, my children!’ And
again they resumed their interminable march toward the east” (p. 432).
It seems clear that in this work, Kazantzakis means to focus our atten-
tion on how the various aspects and dimensions of human spiritual life
may indeed reflect those of the Divine Spiritual realm. The shape of the
Divine is pictured right here in the push and pull, the give and take of
everyday human life. If we think of human history as a kind of “Passion
Play” that interpretation mirrors the contours of spiritual reality itself.
The key concept here is that of struggle. Both humans and the Divine
struggle to, in Kazantzakis’s words, “transubstantiate flesh into spirit.”
As priest Fotis put it: “God is a potter and He works with mud.”
CHAPTER 12
The Last Temptation of Christ
In the opening lines of the Prologue to his most controversial novel,

The Last Temptation of Christ, Kazantzakis offers his basic rationale for
writing it. “The dual substance of Christ - the yearning, so human, so
superhuman, of man to attain to God, or, more exactly, to return to
God and identify himself with him – has always been a deep, inscrutable
mystery to me” (p. 1). In this brief statement, he sets out the template
for this, as well as a number of his other novels. Somehow this dual-
ism between flesh and spirit manages to dominate his imagination and
animates his main storyline, as well as nearly every main character.
The above paragraph sets up a cosmic dualism between flesh, human-
ity, and spirit, the Divine. This is not a static dualism, as say that between
realms or levels in classical theological and philosophical traditions.
Rather, it is a dynamic dualism wherein each side functions as a pole in
an ongoing, developing continuum. In Kazantzakis’s view, especially
in this novel, humanity and divinity are not opposites, but they work
together to eventually create a vibrant, emerging reality. A more precise
and enriched explanation of this dynamic dualism will reveal itself in the
discussions that follow.
In this novel, Kazantzakis basically follows the storyline of the New
Testament Gospels, but he ignores the lengthy accounts of Jesus’s birth.
The plot initially unfolds with a flash-forward of a meeting between Jesus
and “the red-beard,” Judas Iscariot. The latter is trying to urge Jesus

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-93833-2_12
120 J. H. GILL
to finish up his lifelong journey by revealing himself as the Messiah.

Instead, Jesus, who is a carpenter, the village cross-maker, struggles with
the memories and dreams of his early life.
Memories of his mother’s frustration over her agitated and confused
son, who seems not to be in his right mind and struggling with some
sort of demon. Memories of his youthful love of Mary Magdalene and
dreams of having hoped to marry her. He had just finished making the
cross on which the Roman rulers would crucify Barabbas, the zealot,
whom the people had hoped would lead them in overthrowing the
Romans and bringing in the Messianic Kingdom.
In the midst of all this confusion in Jesus’s mind, which his mother
had always thought of as caused by some sort of mental or spiritual
illness, he tries to focus his own thoughts on and feelings for his child-
hood sweetheart, Mary Magdalene. He blames himself that she became
a prostitute as a result of him not claiming her for his own. Just as he
thought of her:
Ten claws nailed themselves into his head and two frenzied wings beat
above him, tightly covering his temples. He shrieked and fell down on his
face, frothing at the mouth…From that time on he was completely lost.
It came when the moon was full and he roamed the fields, or during his
sleep, in the silence of the night; and most often in springtime, when the
whole world was in bloom and fragrant. At the very opportunity he had to
be happy, to taste the simplest human joys – to eat, sleep, to mix with his
friends and laugh, to encounter a girl on the street and think I like her –
the ten claws immediately nailed themselves down on him, and his desire
vanished. (pp. 25–26)
From here Kazantzakis goes on to relate Jesus’s life story as a teacher and
healer, but only after he had succumbed to his calling of the Spirit. We
shall turn to this narrative after we have a chance to examine the impli-
cations of Kazantzakis’s at best shocking interpretation of Jesus’s calling
as described in the above passage. In light of his remarks in the Prologue
about the struggle between flesh and spirit in Jesus’s life, it seems fair to
say that Kazantzakis approached the person of Jesus Christ as one who is
tormented by trying to understand who and what he is, flesh or Spirit.
Just what are we to make of his portrayal of Jesus as something like
a mentally ill schizophrenic troubled by delusions of grandeur? The
whole plot of this novel revolves around Jesus trying to understand him-
self and God’s call upon his life, cast against the backdrop of a violent
12 THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST 121
conflict between his own will and that of God’s will for him. It seems
that Kazantzakis’s understanding of the struggle between the flesh and
the Spirit entails viewing these two poles of life as violent extremes
warring against each other.
I for one find this interpretation confused and off the mark. There is
no basis for it in the Gospels themselves. Surprisingly, Kazantzakis’s view
parallels that of certain fundamentalist writers I read in college, writers
who projected Jesus as some kind of “Superman” who came down from
Heaven and is diametrically opposed to everything and anything human
beings deem right and/or valuable. This interpretation can also be
found in Kazantzakis’s interpretation of Saint Francis, as we have seen.
God wants his followers to do and be the very opposite of whatever they
naturally want to do and be.
Having said this, I shall now proceed to follow Kazantzakis’s
account of Jesus’s life and ministry right up to, and including his fate-
ful “last temptation.” The storyline tends to skip back and forth from
present events to past and future ones, along with some side trips of
Kazantzakis’s own creating, so it gets a bit confusing at times. I’ll do
my best to sort these alternations out as we go along. Basically, what
we have are the doings and sayings of Jesus pretty much as they are
presented in the Gospels, along with Kazantzakis’s own interpretations
thereof.
In the midst of his ponderings and “worryings,” Jesus suddenly
decides to go into the desert to visit a monastery of which he had heard.
This is undoubtedly the monastery at the Qumran community where
many faithful Jews during his time gathered to form a community to
wait for the Messiah’s coming. They were called Essenes and followed
a strict regimen that forbade women and kept a library. What we know
as the Dead Sea Scrolls were found in caves nearby. There is no evidence
that Jesus ever visited this monastery, but many scholars think that John
the Baptist may well have visited there.
As he made his way toward the desert, Jesus found himself magically
drawn toward Magdala, the home of Mary. He simply could not resist
having another try at asking her forgiveness. He found her house and
waited in the courtyard until the other men had taken their turn inside,
and then he went in. At first Mary was furious to see him, but after they
talked a while she mellowed and gave him food. She told him, probably
dishonestly, that there was nothing to forgive. He lay down before the
hearth and she went to bed. Suddenly Jesus was up and out the door.
122 J. H. GILL
This, incidentally, is the scene that greatly upset so many Christian

groups, especially those of Western Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy.
They each castigated Kazantzakis, banning both the book and the film
that was made of it years later. His own Orthodox church had nearly
excommunicated him for his connections to Russian Communism,
and when he died it would not allow him to “lie in state” in Athens.
Fortunately, his widow Eleni was able to arrange for him to be buried in
his true homeland, Iraklion, Crete. All this fuss over an innocuous meet-
ing between Jesus and Mary Magdalene!
Jesus renews his journey to the monastery. Along the way, he goes
past Lake Gennesaret, commonly known as the Sea of Galilee, and vis-
its briefly with some of the fishermen, some who would later become
his disciples. Among them is the Redbeard, Judas, recruiting men for
the revolutionary cause of the group known as the Zealots. This group,
active in Jesus’s day, sought to overthrow the Roman occupational
forces. They were the ideological descendants of the Maccabees who
had, in fact, overthrown the Greeks who had oppressed them. Judas was
angry with Jesus for making crosses for the Roman executions.
At the monastery, Jesus has to wait a long time before he is granted
permission to speak with a rabbi. Once he begins to confess, his guilt
pours out of him, partly about having put the soles of his feet up against
Mary Magdalene’s when they were three, which he felt sent her into
prostitution because he never sealed their relationship when they had
grown up. Mostly, however, he confesses his arrogance: “There’s a devil
inside me which cries ‘You’re not the son of the carpenter, you’re the
son of King David! You are not man, you are the son of man whom
Daniel prophesied. And still more; the Son of God! And still more:
God!’” (p. 143).
The old Rabbi is taken aback by such hubris but says nothing as Jesus
leaves the cell. Jesus, however, finds great emotional and spiritual relief
from having confessed the deepest of his sins. Suddenly he is confronted
by Judas, who had followed him to the monastery to finish him off for
being a coward. Jesus simply leaves the monastery and begins his journey
back toward Capernaum. Sometime after he arrives there and Barabbas,
who had already arrived in the town, square off for a fight to determine
what should be done to Mary Magdalene for her many adulteries. But
before they could begin their show, a boy comes running into the square
shouting: “The Lord is coming!” (p. 169). It was Jesus the boy had seen
dressed in a white robe from the monastery.
Jesus begins to call everyone “Brother,” and goes around greeting

everyone and expressing his friendship. Meanwhile Barabbas and Judas
have decided to punish Mary Magdalene themselves by pushing her into
a nearby pit. Jesus stops them, lifts Mary up from the pit and says “Let
the one among you who has not sinned cast the first stone.” Barabbas
blows up at Jesus and slaps him across the face. Jesus merely offers him
his other cheek: “But when Judas saw Jesus offer the other cheek, with-
out anger and with a superb inhuman sweetness, he became frightened.
What is this man, he shouted to himself? This offering of the other
cheek; only an angel could do that, only an angel – or a dog” (p. 173).
A bit later on Jesus finds himself on a hillside, surrounded by a large
crowd. “He trembled secretly and struggled to find courage. This was
the moment he had feared for so many years. It had come; God had
conquered, had brought him by force where he wanted him – in front
of men – in order to make him speak. And now, what could he say to
them?” (p. 178). He begins to speak in parables, those with which we
are all familiar. When he got to the parable of the sower and the seed, his
new disciple John asks him, “‘What is the seed you hold?’… All at once
Jesus jerked himself erect, spread out his arms, and leaned toward the
multitude. ‘Love one another,’ the cry escaped from his very bowels –
‘Love one another’” (p. 180).
At this point in our explorations I am afraid that I have to enter a note
of criticism with respect to Kazantzakis’s rendition of Jesus’s awareness
of his own Messiahship. Kazantzakis has portrayed Jesus as some sort
of mystic, one given to near epileptic fits and schizophrenic visions, an
approach that is not in any way in harmony with the way the gospel writ-
ers present him. He acts as one possessed, one who has no understand-
ing of his own motives and commitments. I take it that this portrayal is
based on the conflict he speaks of in the opening words of his Prologue,
that between the flesh and the spirit.
Kazantzakis returns to this dualism in his Report to Greco where he
says: “Among responsible men, men who keep their eyes riveted day
and night upon the Supreme Duty, the conflict between flesh and spirit
breaks out mercilessly and may last until death” (p. 290). I submit that
his interpretation of Jesus’s self-understanding of his calling is more a
projection of Kazantzakis’s imagination than it is of what Jesus himself
might have experienced. Moreover, there is a long-standing trail of reli-
able scholarship about what is called Jesus’s “Messianic self-conscious-
ness” and none of it suggests the sort of dichotomy that Kazantzakis
124 J. H. GILL
imagines. I find his approach devoid of anything like what Jesus might
have experienced. Here, Kazantzakis’s literary license, in my opinion, has
gone too far.
From this point on in Kazantzakis’s account Jesus launches into what
has come to be known as “The Sermon on the Mount.” Everyone was
deeply moved, and he began to gather more and more followers. Then
Kazantzakis takes us through many of the events, healings, and teach-
ings with which we are all familiar. Jesus’s fame spread throughout all
Galilee and Samaria, but now it was time to turn toward Jerusalem. First,
however, Kazantzakis brings Jesus to meet John the Baptist, who, after
recognizing him as Lamb of God, challenges him to strike first with fire,
then later with love (p. 236). Jesus then goes into the desert for his well-
known temptations by Satan, who comes to him in the form of a snake.
Then, onward with the teaching and healing ministry. The disciples
argue among themselves, perform miracles of their own, and finally
acknowledge Jesus as the Messiah. At that point Jesus redirects himself
and his followers to return to Galilee. Judas commits himself to Jesus as
long as he stands, with John the Baptist’s ax, against the Roman occu-
piers. They return to Capernaum and Jesus reads from Isaiah about the
day of Jubilee, and is nearly run out of his own chosen city by angry
citizens who watched him grow up. All along it is Matthew who is writ-
ing all these events down for posterity, and Jesus has to keep him from
embellishing the facts.
When one man asks Jesus to tell them directly what they must do
to be saved, he replies: “Open your hearts, your larders, divide your
belongings among the poor.” Later on, he says: “Think not that I have
come to abolish the law and the prophets. I have come not to abolish the
old commandments but to extend them” (p. 339). He then offers a fresh
understanding of the various Laws of Moses. A while later Jesus sets his
face once again toward Jerusalem. After prophesying that the Temple
and the city with it must be destroyed so that a new Kingdom can be
established, Jesus takes a side trip to nearby Bethany, the home of Mary
and Martha, to raise their brother from the dead.
After a period spent teaching in Jerusalem, Jesus is arrested and taken
before Pontius Pilate, the Roman prefect. When he finds nothing to
charge Jesus with, Pilate sends him on to Caiaphas, the Jewish High
Priest. He, too, cannot find Jesus guilty of anything, and so sets him
free. Now, Jesus takes Judas aside and makes him promise to betray him
to the authorities so as to set things in motion for the final end. He tells
Judas he has been chosen because he is the strongest. Jesus explains to
Judas: “This is the way for the world to be saved, I, of my own will,
must die” (p. 179).
If I am not mistaken, this theory of Jesus’s explicit plan to die in order
to save the world was first introduced into modern scholarship by Albert
Schweitzer in his book The Quest for the Historical Jesus. Schweitzer
argues that Jesus was convinced that the only way for the Final Judgment
and God’s kingdom to be brought into reality was for the Messiah,
himself, to force the Jewish and Roman leaders’ hand by making them
crucify him, by throwing himself on the wheel of history, to paraphrase
Schweitzer. Kazantzakis seems to have borrowed this interpretation of
Jesus’s motivations.
During the Last Supper, Jesus takes Judas aside and reconfirms his
desire for Judas to betray him. “It is necessary for me to be killed and for
you to betray me. We two must save the world. Help me” (p. 413). After
Jesus had been turned over to the authorities, Pilate tries to set him aside
and crucify the criminal Barabbas instead, but the crowd, stirred up by
the authorities, is avid that Barabbas should be released and Jesus should
be sent to crucifixion. The disciples watch the crucifixion from afar and
retreat back to their old lives in Galilee. Jesus is nailed to a cross and left
to die the typical criminal’s death.
We come now to the crux of Kazantzakis’s novel. While on the cross,
Jesus faints. When he awakes the whole world has changed. Everything is
beautiful and peaceful. In fact, he has not been crucified at all. He soon
realizes that he is in Paradise, and has already married Mary Magdalene,
with whom he has had many children. Then some clouds come into this
world and Mary appears to have been killed. Jesus himself has somehow
been transformed into Lazarus. Later on, Jesus marries both Mary and
her sister Martha and they have many children together. His existence is
dreamlike and he travels around with a small Negro. Then Jesus receives
a fiery visitor, one Saul of Tarsus, who has become a Christian. When
Jesus asks if he is Saul, the answer is:
“I was, but I am not bloodthirsty Saul any more: I have seen the true
light; I am Paul. I was saved – glory be to God! – and now I’ve set out
to save the world! Not Judea, not Palestine, but the whole world! The
Good News I carry needs oceans and distant cities. Spaciousness. Don’t
126 J. H. GILL
shake your head, Master Lazarus; don’t mock. Yes, I shall save the world!”
(p. 466). Paul continues to tell the story of his conversion on the road
to Damascus including the whole Gospel story of Jesus’s death and
resurrection.
Jesus explodes: “‘Liar! Liar!’… ‘I am Jesus of Nazareth and I was never

crucified, never resurrected. I am the son of Mary and Joseph the car-
penter of Nazareth. I am not the Son of God, I’m the Son of Man like
everyone else. What blasphemies you utter. What effronteries! What lies!
Is it with such lies, swindler, that you dare save the world?’” (p. 468).
Then it is Paul’s turn to explode: “‘Shut your shameless mouth,’
he shouts, rushing at him. ‘Be quiet, or men will hear you and die of
fright. In the rottenness, the injustice and the poverty of this world, the
Crucified and Resurrected Jesus has been the one precious consolation
for the honest man, the wronged man. True or false, what do I care!
It’s enough that the world is saved.’ …‘I don’t give a hoot about what’s
true and what’s false, or whether I saw him or didn’t see him, or whether
he was crucified or wasn’t crucified. I create the truth, create it out of
obstinacy and longing and faith. I don’t struggle to find it, I build it.’….
‘If the world is to be saved, it is necessary – do you hear –… absolutely
necessary for you to be resurrected, and I shall resurrect you, like it or
not!’ … ‘I shall become your apostle whether you like it or not. I shall
construct you and your life and your teachings and your crucifixion and
resurrection just as I wish’” (pp. 469–470). With that Paul strides up the
road to Jerusalem.
Jesus feels weak and is taken to his bed by Mary and Martha. Then
in a dream he is confronted by all of his old Apostles, starting with
Peter and ending with Judas. Jesus says some conciliatory words to
Judas, but Judas lashes out: “‘Traitor! Deserter!’… ‘Your place was on
the cross. That’s where the God of Israel put you to fight. But you got
cold feet, and the moment death lifted its head you couldn’t get away
fast enough! You ran and hid yourself in the skirts of Martha and Mary.
Coward! And you changed our face and your name, you fake Lazarus,
to save yourself!’” (p. 482).
After a ferocious long diatribe, Judas continues: “You broke my heart,
son of the carpenter.’…‘You took me in your arms – do you remember?
– and begged ‘Betray me, betray me. I must be crucified and resurrected
so that we can save the world.’…‘What business do you have here? Why
weren’t you crucified? Coward! Deserter! Traitor!” (p. 483). Then Jesus
speaks: “‘I am a traitor, a deserter, a coward.’… ‘I lost courage and fled.

Forgive me, brothers, I cheated you. Oh if I could only relive my life from
the beginning!’” (p. 485). Now the other disciples who are gathered
around Jesus complain, each in his own way, that Jesus had failed them.
Jesus was confused and in turmoil. He felt as though he were fall-
ing and perishing “he felt a sponge soaked in vinegar rest against his
lips.”…“He breathed in deeply the bitter smell revived, swelled his
breast, looked at the heavens and uttered a heart-rending cry: ‘Lama
Sabacthani!’”…“Suddenly he remembered where he was, who he was,
and why he felt pain. A wild, indomitable joy took possession of him.
No, no, he was not a coward, a deserter, a traitor. No, he was nailed to
the cross. He had stood his ground honorably to the very end; he had
kept his word.”… “He uttered a triumphant cry: ‘It is accomplished!’
And it was as though he had said: Everything has begun!” (p. 487).
I have lingered so long and thoroughly over these last few pages
because they contain the essence of Kazantzakis’s understanding of Jesus
and his mission. So, the last temptation that Jesus experienced was a
dream in which he had refused the “Cup of Trembling” and gone off to
live a normal and happy human life with Mary Magdalene. He awoke,
realized that he could still fulfill his mission by dying for the sins of the
world, and gave up the ghost. In between, in the dream, he had endured
the scathing rebukes of both Judas and Paul. But he had not fallen for
their temptation.
There is, of course, a great deal that could be said, both about this
story and about its theological implications. However, our task is to
focus on what contribution does this novel make to Kazantzakis’s overall
view of God, to his interpretation of the Shape of the Divine. We shall,
to be sure, take a more direct approach to this question when we con-
sider Saviors of God in the next chapter. Sufficient unto the day are the
complexities of The Last Temptation of Christ itself. Overall, I would sug-
gest three major themes that arise from this novel.
First, it must be said that Kazantzakis’s view is strongly influenced by
the Greek Orthodox tradition. The view of God in this tradition is quite
strict and demanding. God is viewed as a stern Father who must be pla-
cated on a regular basis for one’s sins. The officials and sacraments of the
Church are in place to administer forgiveness to those who seek it. In
short, in many ways God is basically seen as a demanding taskmaster who
will reward those who obey His commandments and remain true to Him
alone.
128 J. H. GILL
Second, this Orthodox view is largely informed by the interpretation

of God offered by the Hebrew Scriptures, especially the earlier docu-
ments where God announces Himself as “a jealous God” who rewards
obedience and punishes disloyalty. The tone is softened by the later
“High Prophets” such as Isaiah, Micah, and Hosea. Nonetheless, in this
novel, Kazantzakis’s view is sketched out against the theological back-
drop in which God is assumed to be this sort of “Commander in Chief”
who controls the world for His own purposes.
Third, Kazantzakis seems to have been strongly influenced by
Nietzsche’s view of the centrality of struggle in human life. This motif,
rather than the “softer” more emergent view of Bergson, dominates his
writings. The image of the “will to power” is projected onto God and
the world itself as leading to a higher state of existence, but requiring
great struggle, sacrifice, and self-denial. Thus here, Kazantzakis can be
said to view God as a dominating “drill sergeant” who is constantly and
consistently demanding still more from those who would follow Him.
There is no hint of forgiveness, support, and comfort in this view of
God.
Here in The Last Temptation of Christ Jesus is seen as having to dis-
cover his own calling, indeed, as having to actually fight against God,
who haunts and even attacks him. Jesus receives no succor or forgiveness
from his God, no mercy or understanding. Ironically, the key messages
of Jesus about peace and love have to be squeezed out of him. He often
acts as if he has been possessed when he delivers his sermons. Moreover,
he shows little interest in those people who surround him as real persons,
not just his supporters. In addition, Jesus actually seems to be afraid of
God, to struggle against his calling and direction. God, here, is indeed
the “Tigress” Kazantzakis spoke of in Report to Greco (p. 275).
In short, in this novel, Kazantzakis’s God is essentially transcendent,
with little room for real immanence. He remains high above human real-
ity, setting standards and making demands. The closest a person can get
to God is through wrestling with Him, even as Jacob “wrestled with the
angel” to get his basic character changed. Perhaps another helpful image
for understanding Kazantzakis’s view of God would be that of an ath-
letic trainer, or even a sparring partner. In the end, then, in spite of the
creativity and insights involved, in this work Kazantzakis’s vision of the
Shape of Divinity leaves a great deal to be desired.
At its core, Jesus’s “last temptation” had been that in his swooning
dream he saw himself as having forsaken his true calling in favor of a nor-
mal life, with wife and children. He saw himself as having given into his
human flesh. Thus his great joy upon awakening to find that he had not
betrayed his true, divine calling after all. His flesh had, at last, become
Spirit! It is noteworthy, then, that in this work the conflict Kazantzakis
speaks of in his Prologue is resolved in favor of the spiritual reality of the
Divine over against its human and/or natural reality.
CHAPTER 13
Saviors of God
I should begin by explaining the title of this book. Initially Kazantzakis

entitled the book, in Greek, ASKETIKI, which may be translated
as either ‘ascetic’ or ‘asceticism’, neither of which quite gets at what
Kazantzakis seems to have had in mind. Kimon Friar, the translator of
this and several other of Kazantzakis’s works, with the author’s permis-
sion, switched the title and subtitle around because Saviors of God goes
more directly to the book’s purpose. Additional meanings of the original
title my Greek dictionary tells me, are ‘exercise,’ ‘practice’ or ‘drill.’ Any
of which would amplify Kazantzakis’s meaning.
The point is that this little book was meant by Kazantzakis to serve
as a guide book for the spiritual life, not to set seekers apart from oth-
ers and from life, but to challenge them to enter into the struggle to
enhance and perfect God’s work in the world. These are “Exercises”
for spiritual growth, much as those of Ignatius of Loyola the founder of
the Jesuit order set forth in his writings. Another goal of this title is to
suggest the necessity of human action in bringing God’s purposes and
God himself to fruition. Not only that, but exercises require effort and
regularity.
As we saw in Parts I and II of our own explorations, Saviors of God
includes insights and challenges pertaining to Kazantzakis’s understand-
ing of the natural and human realities, respectively. Our focus here is
on his understanding of Divine Reality. The “story line,” if you will,
of this book is the development or evolution of the reality of God, the
Divine, according to a rather militaristic or athletic agenda. It begins,

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-93833-2_13
132 J. H. GILL
after a brief Prologue, with “The Preparation.” Before proceeding with

an exegesis of the steps involved in Kazantzakis’s view of God, however,
it might be helpful to review the main views of the nature of God which
have generally been available in Western thought.
First, of course, there is atheism, which simply denies the existence of
such a being. Then there is pantheism, according to which God and real-
ity, or the cosmos, are identical. Kazantzakis is often thought, incorrectly
I believe, to have espoused this view. Next, there is theism, which affirms
the existence of a God who transcends the world and/or the cosmos. This
is the most common view of God in the West, one according to which
God created and supervises all of existence. This view is generally thought
to entail monotheism, namely that there can only be one God. Finally,
there is deism, which is very similar to theism except that according to it
God simply created the cosmos but does not in any way control it.
One major question before us is whether or not Kazantzakis ascribed
to any of, or to a combination of some of them. Many, if not most of
his interpreters see Kazantzakis as in one way or another formulating his
own view, which would appear to have best been described by Charles
Hartshorne as panentheism. The central idea here is that God and the
creation, especially humanity, are ongoing co-creators of the ongoing
evolutionary development of reality. We shall see how this idea is devel-
oped in the remainder of Saviors of God.
The Prologue states that there are two powerful forces driving the
evolution of reality, namely the one that promotes and leads to death,
the other that leads to and promotes life. These two struggle against
each other at every turn, and “It is our duty, therefore, to grasp that
vision which can embrace and harmonize these two enormous and inde-
structible forces, and with this vision to modulate our thinking and our
action” (p. 44).
In the “Preparation” Kazantzakis begins with the First Duty, which
involves learning to distinguish between appearances and reality and
how to balance them. This, and only this, will lead one to salvation.
The Second Duty is: “#9: Behind all appearances I divine a struggling
essence. I want to merge with it.” …“#30 let us give human meaning to
the superhuman struggle” (pp. 53, 55). The Third Duty is to “Conquer
the last, greatest temptation of all: Hope.” It ends with a brief passage
that restates the motto on Kazantzakis’s gravestone: “I do not hope for
anything, I do not fear anything, I have freed myself from both mind
and heart” (p. 59).
13 SAVIORS OF GOD 133
All of these preparatory exhortations are aimed at freeing humankind

from the dualisms that would trap us and hinder us from struggling to
make progress in our own growth and self-development. Kazantzakis
has here embraced Nietzsche’s call for humankind to advance beyond
whatever state it finds itself in. There is no end to the struggle to grow
and improve oneself, whether as an individual or as a species. So far this
March has not encountered the reality of a Divine.
When “The March” begins there comes a “Cry” from within human-
kind’s consciousness to free a deep, struggling reality that strives upward.
This Cry wants to be free of the struggling process and seems to need
humanity’s help to do so. It is here that we encounter the beginning of a
Divine reality. Humanity must learn to transcend the issues of ego, race,
and humanity itself. At this point in “The March” Divinity has not yet
emerged from the basic evolutionary process. We must even go beyond
the notion of Earth itself (The Fourth Step).
In “The Vision,” Kazantzakis finally focuses the concept of God itself.
It is itself that Spirit that struggles onward and upward. “What spirit?
The drive upward!”… “It is this drive toward freedom, this strife with
matter, which slowly creates the head of man” (p. 89). But this head,
this mind, is discovered to be united with the upward struggle. “God is
struggling to heave upward.”…“God huddles in a knot in every cell of
flesh.”…“God struggles in everything, his hands flung upward toward
the light. What light? Beyond and above everything!” (p. 91).
By means of all this poetic imagery, Kazantzakis has sought to create
more of a feeling of and for the Divine, rather than offer some sort of
conceptual definition. In short, when I attempt to decode it, the message
seems to be that the never-ending cycle of striving toward that which we
cannot ever reach is God. Put differently, the search for, the struggle to
find Divinity, is itself Divinity. God is in everything that exists and fulfills,
that creates itself as it goes.
Humanity is encouraged to put its shoulder to the wheel in order
to help God fulfill itself. This is the message of the section titled “The
Action.” “We have seen the highest circle of spiraling powers. We have
named the circle God. We might have given it any other name we
wished: Abyss, Mystery, Absolute Darkness, Absolute Light, Matter,
Sprit, Ultimate Hope, Ultimate Despair, Silence. But we have named it
God because only this name, for primordial reasons, can stir our hearts
profoundly” (p. 101).
134 J. H. GILL
Kazantzakis is not interested in defining God by means of the usual

categories. Rather, he wants us to see that “God is imperiled. He is not
almighty, that we may cross our hands, waiting for certain victory. He
is not all-holy, that we may wait trusting for him to pity and to save us.
Within the province of our ephemeral flesh all of God is imperiled. He
cannot be saved unless we save him with our own struggles; nor can we
be saved unless he is saved” (p. 105).
Our responsibility, then, is struggle to go forward, upward in every task
we face. In so doing, we will be bringing the Divine into ever more a real-
ity. “It is not God who will save us – it is we who will save God, by battling,
by creating, and by transmuting matter into spirit” (p. 106). Toward the
end of his section called “The Action,” Kazantzakis comes a bit closer to an
understanding the Shape of the Divine. “What is the essence of our God?
The struggle for freedom.”…“What is our duty? To ascend with this blood-
drenched line.”…“Out of things and flesh, out of hunger, out of fear, out
of virtue and sin, struggle continually to create God” (pp. 108–109).
It is at this point that Kazantzakis may begin to sound pantheistic.
God is in everything from plants, insects, animals, to human beings. And
like the evolutionary cycles, it is more of a spiral than a mere cycle, spiral-
ing ever upward, continuing to zero in the Divine Spirit, the cycles lead
us onward and upward toward perfection. “So may the enterprise of the
Universe, for an ephemeral moment, for as long as you are alive, become
your own enterprise” (p. 118).
When he comes to the individual tasks of different people, his gender
bias shows through. On page 122, he lists the tasks of laborer, warrior,
scholar, and then says that the task of woman is to love. Also, “The wife
of my God is matter; they wrestle with each other, they laugh and weep,
they cry out in their nuptial bed of flesh” (p. 123). Clearly one looks
in vain for some way to categorize the Kazantzakian view of Divinity.
Because he seems to wed God with both the processes of nature and of
history, he clearly seems to lean toward some sort of pantheism.
After several years Kazantzakis wrote an additional ending to this book
called “The Silence,” which he said would explode the whole book like
a bombshell. Beginning with a review of many of the themes and images
he has presented in the foregoing sections of the book, Kazantzakis
then moves forward to announcing what might be considered his final
“Creed.” It starts out like the regular Christian creeds: “I believe in one
God,” but then diverges to include statements like “not of omnipotent
powers,”…“the Commander in Chief of all luminous powers, the visible
and the invisible” (p. 130).
He reiterates the theme that of God calling for help in order to fulfill
himself, and concludes with announcements similar to those found at the
conclusion of his Odyssey: A Modern Sequel: “Blessed be all of those who
free you and become united with you, Lord, and who say: ‘You and I
are one.’ And thrice blessed be those who bear on their shoulders and
do not buckle under this great, sublime, and terrifying secret: ‘That even
this one does not exist!’” (p. 131).
This bombshell reminds one of some of Nietzsche’s aphorisms in
which he is said to “negate the negation” in order to rise to a yet higher
level of being. It certainly appears that Kazantzakis has affirmed a version
of nihilism, that even God, along with all the rest of the cosmos, is really
only a human construct, as Shakespeare would have it, “signifying noth-
ing.” The thing to remember, however, is that at the end of his Odyssey,
as well as here, Kazantzakis is urging us to rise above whatever level we
have arrived at, including that of nihilism.
In his commentary on Saviors of God, contained along with his trans-
lation, Kimon Friar has this to say about what appears to be a form of
nihilism in his thought. “Kazantzakis and his autobiographical hero
Odysseus negate the negation. Having stripped themselves of every illu-
sion”…“they looked full into the eyes of annihilation, faced the final
seduction of ‘rotten-thighed Hope’, hope of personal immortality, or of
God as a fixed, predetermined and final end- then embraced the Void,
the Silence. ‘What freedom?’ Odysseus cries. And answers: ‘To stare into
the black eyes of the Abyss/ with gallantry and joy as on one’s native
land’” (p. 36).
The idea here would seem to be that even after one has discerned that
all postures toward the meaning of life are empty, one still affirms oneself
and the struggle to attain a higher, richer mode of life. It would seem to
be a synthesis of sorts of the thought of Nietzsche and Bergson. Each
affirms the cruciality of leaping forward toward that which is higher. The
secret is that it is the struggling itself that constitutes the meaning—the
process toward the goal IS the goal.
It reminds me a bit of Descartes’s proof of his own existence. Even if
the Evil Demon is deceiving me about everything else, it cannot do so
without my existing in order to be deceived. Therefore, I am. Once one
has come to the conclusion that even nihilism is, in fact, true, one can
still say: “I shall go on struggling, nonetheless.” I can embrace mean-
ingless and out of it make my own meaning. “I hope for nothing, I fear
nothing, I am free.” Accepting none and all answers gives me a fresh
sense of freedom.
136 J. H. GILL
So, although much of Saviors of God reads like a piling up of force-

ful images and shocking pronouncements, in the end we are left with
Kazantzakis’s vision of the existential possibility of transcending tran-
scendence. Whenever one concludes that he or she has arrived, then they
have died. Just keep going, searching, struggling for its own sake! As
some wise person once said: “The road is the goal.” Or, alternatively,
“The means ARE the end.” Thus for Kazantzakis, God would seem to
be the struggle itself, the struggle to liberate Divinity from all bounda-
ries, definitions, and conclusions.
So, in a sense, for Kazantzakis Divinity must remain shapeless. Daniel
Dombrowski, in his book Kazantzakis and God makes a good case for
interpreting Kazantzakis’s understanding of God as “dipolar-theism”,
along Whiteheadian lines. This approach combines Divinity’s perennial
or primordial qualities with its consequential or interactive qualities as a
way of cognizing its Shape. Thus, the usual categories of God’s imma-
nence and transcendence are brought together in one reality. As we saw
previously, the name given to this view of God by Charles Hartshorne,
Whitehead’s major theological interpreter, is panentheism, connoting
that while the world is within God, God remains more than the world.
What I find lacking in Kazantzakis’s view, however, is any reference to
or possibility of God’s mercy, forgiveness, and love. His God is all duty,
struggle, and ascension upward, without any room for reflection, com-
promise, and self-sacrifice on behalf of others whereas, on the other hand,
Whitehead’s God is our fellow sufferer who takes tender care that nothing
is lost along the way, full of infinite patience, and luring the cosmos through
“persuasion” toward its higher end (Process and Reality, pp. 346–351).
Perhaps these conflicting views can be reconciled by means of the
dialectical understanding of them in Lewis Owens’ notion of “Creative
Destruction” developed in his book by that name. Here is how he
explains it in his Introduction: “My claim is that Kazantzakis’s prior-
ity lies with the metaphysical rather than with the personal or political.
Nevertheless, Kazantzakis sees both the individual and the political as
necessary steps toward the metaphysical, or what he calls the ‘abyss.’ This
ascent is dominated by a dialectic of destruction and creation, a dialectic
which, modelled on the process of Bergson’s élan vital, sees destruction
as a necessary prerequisite for renewed creative activity. The creative and
destructive elements of this life force are thus intimately linked” (p. 10,
Destructive Creation).
Clearly, this dialectical yet positive view of the struggle between the
positive and negative goes beyond the Nietzschean influence found in
Kazantzakis’s writings and seemingly dominant at the close of Saviors
of God. Although it is a view toward which I myself would like to lean,
I am uncertain it does justice to the more “destructive” themes of
Kazantzakis’s writings. Perhaps, there simply is no way to reconcile these
diverse emphases. And perhaps that is one of the more fascinating aspects
of his authorship.
At any rate, it seems clear that Kazantzakis can be classified as a pro-
cess thinker. Not only does he stress the need for an ongoing human
struggle to free and help fulfill Divinity, but he suggests that Divinity
itself is engaged in this struggle, that it, too, is in process and growing.
This twofold emphasis is very much in line with Whitehead’s view of
the Godhead. The process of shaping and fulfilling the richness of the
cosmos is an ever-developing one, and thus seeks our commitment and
involvement. Keep reaching for what you cannot ever, finally, reach. The
reaching is the crucial component.
Dombrowski affirms this view as one that fulfills Kazantzakis’s idea of
transubstantiating flesh into spirit. As I have already said, I must confess
that I have always thought Kazantzakis had it backwards. For me, the
goal is to transubstantiate spirit into flesh, as in the Christian notion of
the Incarnation: “The Word became flesh” (John 1: 14). This also seems
to fit better with Kazantzakis’s own concern of struggling to combine
with the Cry by embracing or ingesting it into oneself. Perhaps this is
what he meant by “the Cretan Glance”. We shall see.
Before moving on to my conclusion I would like to explore Darren
Middleton’s fascinating book God’s Struggler a bit further. It is a col-
lection of essays by various authors on different topics in Kazantzakian
studies, (edited jointly by Middleton and Peter Bien) focusing on his
understanding of authentic religious faith as a lifelong struggle with
God. Several of these essays examine the relationship between some of
Kazantzakis’s ideas and those of traditional Orthodox Christian theology.
In his Introduction, entitled Spiritual Levendia: Kazantzakis’s Theology
of Struggle, Middleton defines Kazantzakis’s notion of religious faith as a
never-ending “Heroic resistance to the lures of materiality.”
In their Introduction, Middleton and Bien distinguish between
Kazantzakis’s view of God and that of traditional Christian theology as
represented in that of Saint Augustine.
138 J. H. GILL
“Each of these views”…“is of course a theodicy attempting to justify

divine providence by reconciling the existence of evil with the goodness
and sovereignty of God. The difference”…“is centered in the problem
of process, which in the Kazantzakian theodicy is extended to Being
itself (which of course must now be considered as also Becoming). Both
views do assert eternal providence, but for Kazantzakis the underlying
spirituality (God) reaches fulfilment only by participating in the lures and
deceit of materiality, whereas for Augustinian Christianity the underlying
spirituality is never degraded by such participation” (p. 13).
In his essay “Nikos Kazantzakis: Orthodox or Heterodox? A Greek
Orthodox Appreciation,” Demetrios J. Constantelos says: “The dif-
ference between Kazantzakis’s conception of God and the Orthodox
Christian understanding is that while Kazantzakis’s God absorbs the
human in the divine, annihilating him or her as a person, Orthodox the-
ology emphasizes community with God’s uncreated glory, preserving the
ontology of the individual” (p. 45). This focuses the difference between
Kazantzakis and Orthodoxy even more pointedly.
In his essay in Middleton’s volume “Kazantzakis and Mysticism,”
Daniel Dombrowski draws the contrast between Kazantzakis’s view of
God and that of various Christian mystics in this way:
“Kazantzakis’s God is neither omnipotent nor omnibenevolent. It is per-

haps possible to be a Christian and yet deny divine omnipotence”…“but
to be any sort of Christian, even a heterodox one would seem to
require a belief in divine omnibenevolence. Consequently, even though
Kazantzakis’s treatments of religious experience rely heavily on Saints”…
“there will always be some difficulty in fully reconciling his view with
Christianity.” (God’s Struggler, p. 78)
All of which brings us to a more thorough examination of these issues in

Darren Middleton’s final essay “Vagabond or Companion? Kazantzakis
and Whitehead on God.” In seeking to contrast the traditional Christian
understanding of God with that of Kazantzakis, Middleton introduces
the insights of Process theologians.
Process theology is a form of theological understanding that recognizes

the valuational component in all theological models. It derives from the
efforts of Alfred North Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne to develop an
anthropologically relevant theology – that is, a way of thinking about God
and the world inspires, cultivates, and nurtures a genuine sense of rela-
tional becoming, a way in which God and humans are viewed as ‘co-crea-
tors’ in the development of new possibilities of human togetherness, and in
which human readiness to alter creative advance is seen as an expression of
authentic faith. (p. 197)
Middleton then quotes from Whitehead’s famous work Process and

Reality by way of drawing the contrast between the process view of God
and that of traditional Christian theology even more tightly. “The brief
Galilean vision of humility flickered throughout the ages but the con-
strual of God in the image of the Egyptian, Persian, and Roman impe-
rial rulers was retained. The Church gave unto God the attributes which
belonged exclusively to Caesar” (p. 342).
Middleton defines further: “Broadly speaking Whitehead’s doctrine
of God rests on his notion of a dipolar deity.”…“The mental pole of
divine polarity is God’s ‘primordial nature.’ It indicates that which is
abstract, immutable, unalterable, and changeless within the life of God.”
…“Whitehead’s contention, then, is that God’s primordial nature con-
tains within Godself all that might ever come to fruition within the
creative advance” (p. 200). “Yet Whitehead, when he posits God’s con-
sequent nature, affirms that everything that occurs within our world
affects, and in some cases actually enriches, divine becoming. This is the
emotional pole of divine dipolarity. The consequent reveals God’s modus
operandi as the ultimate experiencer, most sympathetic participator, and
the strongest spiritual presence in our world” (p. 201).
Middleton continues to characterize Whitehead’s image of God as “the
poet of the world,” or “the fellow-sufferer who understands.” “God’s
role is to lead the creative advance by the divine vision of truth, beauty,
and goodness” (Process and Reality, p. 346). Middleton concludes that
this Whiteheadian vision of God is incompatible with that of Kazantzakis,
who while he advocates a kind of “humanity” to God, also insists on
viewing God as totally beyond the human realm, as a “devouring eagle
or all-consuming fire” that seeks to tear humankind to pieces. The God
of Kazantzakis’s Saviors of God is continually calling us to rise above even
the good that we value to yet higher levels, to smash all our idols in true a
manner compatible with Nietzsche’s cry that “God is dead.”
In his conclusion, Middleton turns to the thoughts of John B. Cobb,
a renowned interpreter of Process theology, as providing a possible syn-
thesis of Kazantzakis’s thought with that of Whitehead. He introduces
140 J. H. GILL
Cobb’s suggestions by reiterating Kazantzakis’s claim that the divine

“Cry” comes as a “bloodcurdling shriek with its predatory claws digging
into humankind’s scalp,” even as it is described as so doing to Jesus in
The Last Temptation of Christ. Cobb suggests, as stated by Middleton,
that “Kazantzakis has a legitimate point to make, and that this may prof-
itably be seen as complementing, supplementing, and even refining the
Whiteheadian model” (p. 208).
There is a valid emphasis in Kazantzakis which is only partly to be found

in Whitehead. Kazantzakis perceives the Cry or call forward as terrible and
terrifying. Whitehead also knows that at times the situation is such that
the best that is offered us must appear as oppressive fate. But Kazantzakis
means more than this. He sees how passionately each thing wishes to con-
tinue essentially as it is, whereas the stability, the happiness, the security it
enjoys are shattered by the Cry. (God and the World, p. 56)
Middleton agrees with Cobb, that these two great theological visions
can be seen as compatible. “Kazantzakis says that the Cry lures us
toward fresh possibilities for authentic becoming, but that this involves
us in pain and loss as we reach beyond the tyranny of the given.”…
“[W]e can take heart, however, because to assume our place in the cre-
ative advance on such an uneasy basis is an enormous act of courage –
an heroic ordeal befitting true saviors of God.”…“For Kazantzakis there
exists an unending interaction between God and the creative advance –
between the divine and the world – since each needs the other for its
own redemption” (God’s Struggler, p. 209).
Along the way, Middleton suggests that part of the difference
between the visions of Kazantzakis and Whitehead may be a matter of
literary genre. Kazantzakis thinks and writes as a poet, with vivid imagery
and force. Whitehead thinks and writes as a philosopher, with logical
clarity and circumspection. Thus, when Kazantzakis concludes, in Saviors
of God, “Only you and I exist.”…“You and I are One.”…“Even this
one does not exist!” (p. 131) he is speaking poetically in order to keep
humanity on its toes and spur us to aim at ever higher levels of fulfill-
ment. “Reach what you cannot.” Even Whitehead’s God needs our full
participation.
So in this way, Middleton, following Cobb, seeks to harmonize the

thoughts of Kazantzakis and Whitehead with regard to their respective
views of the Divine. Although I am drawn to this interpretive effort on
their part, I find that I am still uneasy with it. As I mentioned earlier, as
I understand Whitehead he puts heavy stress on the “soft” side of the
Divine nature. He acknowledges the role of forgiveness, comfort, and
love in God’s character, as well as that of challenge, struggle, and pain.
As I see it, Kazantzakis’s God is, by contrast, more one-dimensional.
CHAPTER 14
Conclusion: The Cretan Glance
In the final chapter of Report to Greco Kazantzakis sums up his life phi-
losophy, both as it is found in his novels, especially Zorba the Greek, and
in his long and involved poetic epic The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel. This
present Conclusion is entitled “The Cretan Glance,” a phenomenon
with which he sought to capstone his creative efforts. It is in this glance
that he saw humanity’s challenge to bring together all its spiritual effort
focused on the struggle to ascend to greater maturity and strength. We
would do well to examine this notion of the Cretan Glance very carefully.
Just a few miles outside of Iraklion, the capital city of Crete, stands
the ruins of what has been called the Palace of King Minos, the pre-
sumed King of the great Minoan Civilization. This civilization flourished
in the years between roughly 300 bce and 1300 ce. These ruins were dis-
covered and partially reconstructed by Sir Arthur Evans around the turn
of the twentieth century, and many of its frescoes have been preserved in
the museum in Iraklion. Although Evans’s archeological methods were
rather primitive, the finished reconstruction provides rich and ample
background for following Kazantzakis’s reflections.
Only two Minoan linguistic scripts have been found. The one that
has been deciphered only contains bills of lading and other limited infor-
mation about the Minoans’ economic way of life. Over the years many
scholars have been working on the other script, but as of yet with no real
progress. There are also several other smaller Minoan palaces scattered
around the island of Crete, as well as on the island of Santorini, directly
north of Crete.

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-93833-2_14
144 J. H. GILL
Since no walls or fortresses have been uncovered, it is assumed that

even though it traded with the Phoenician and Egyptian nations, this
civilization seems to have lasted a thousand years without the need for
war. I have been fortunate enough to visit these ruins numerous times,
and they never cease to fill me with wonder and admiration. They are
beautifully constructed, with layers of courtyards and porticoes, as well
as stairwells and numerous reconstructed frescoes on their many walls. In
addition, there are series of tunneled waterways running underneath the
entire structure, seemingly for both drainage and drinking water.
It is this civilization to which mythical Theseus came in order to
kill the Minotaur living in its labyrinthine tunnels under the palace.
Of the many wonderful frescoes there is one that especially captured
Kazantzakis’s imagination, that which depicts young people dancing with
and on and over the huge bull. It is believed that the bull was viewed as
a god by the Minoans. So, it is presumed that these youths were putting
their lives at risk in order to perform acrobatics on the bull. It may have
been a ritual with religious significance.
One other feature of the frescoes that factors into Kazantzakis’s appre-
ciation of these acrobats pertains to the shape of their eyes, as well as
the eyes of the princesses and princes on additional walls. These eyes
are shaped like almonds. This creates the impression that these young
people are looking at, or glancing in the direction of, the viewer, even
as they dance dangerously on and over the bull. Clearly, such an under-
taking would have been dangerous, even death-defying. Here is how
Kazantzakis describes it near the end of his last chapter in Report to
Greco:
Surely a person needs great training of both body and soul if he is to have
the endurance to view the beast and play such a dangerous game. But once
he is trained and acquires the feel of the game, every one of his movements
becomes simple, certain, and leisurely; he looks upon fear with intrepidity.
As I regarded the battle depicted on the walls, the age-old battle between
man and bull (whom today we term God), I said to myself, ‘Such was the
Cretan Glance. And suddenly the answer invaded my mind, and not only
my mind but also my heart and loins. This was what I had been seeking,
what I wanted. I had to fill the eyes of my own Odysseus with the Cretan
Glance.’ (pp. 486–487)
14 CONCLUSION: THE CRETAN GLANCE 145
A bit further on Kazantzakis explains more concretely what this glance

would mean: “Odysseus, he who sailed upon the octameters I was writ-
ing, had to be made to view the abyss with such a Cretan Glance—
without hope and fear but also without insolence—as he stood proudly
at the very brink of the precipice. My life changed from that day onward,
the Day of the Cretan Glance, as I named it” (p. 487).
In his The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel, Kazantzakis picks up Homer’s
story shortly after Odysseus returns home from his long journey after the
battle in Troy. To put it bluntly, Odysseys soon found himself bored. So,
he gathered together a motley crew, stole some ships, and set off on a
tour of the then-known world. One of the main characters in this adven-
ture is a fellow named “Rocky.” During their many adventures, they go
to Crete, sacking the Minoan civilization, and then to Egypt.
At the close of their escapades, Kazantzakis and his idol Odysseus have
a final conversation. Kazantzakis insists on asking his Captain Odysseus if
and when they will arrive at the goal of their long journey. The Captain
replies that there is no final “arrival,” that the journey itself is the goal,
that to arrive is to embark. Each person struggles to reach beyond them-
selves, toward what they cannot reach, and this is their only fulfillment.
To embrace the meaninglessness of one’s own individual existence is to
transform it into something beyond itself.
This embracing can only be accomplished by means of “the Cretan
Glance,” the fearless leap across the Abyss not knowing what, if any-
thing, lies beyond. It should be remembered that the book Report to
Greco was written as a final report, a final confession, to the other famous
Cretan artistic genius, the painter Domenico Theotokopoulos, known as
El Greco, whom he affectionately calls his “grandfather.” It was to him
that he felt required to give the account of his life, his struggle: “Reach
What You Cannot.”
Many times I have enjoyed the incredible poise and daring of Cretan
dancers at various Greek festivals. They seem to me to paradoxically
combine both absolute control and complete abandon. They leap into
the air, flinging their legs far above their heads, in a daring display of lev-
endia. As far as I am able to determine this leap of abandon and control
is what is meant by this Greek term introduced by Middleton to describe
the spiritual struggle lived out and written about by Kazantzakis. In the
final pages of Report to Greco he himself called it “the Cretan Glance.”
So this became the final focal point of Kazantzakis’s entire philosophy
of life. The Cretan Glance contains no fear, no hope, and no insolence.
146 J. H. GILL
Perhaps, too, it expresses a certain degree of playfulness or existential

“hutzpah.” This is what Kazantzakis sought to find in his struggles as
he followed the upward path. The Cretan Glance focuses all that he was
trying to express in Saviors of God. To meet life head-on with confidence
and strength, with openness and acceptance, while striving to improve
and fill each minute of life with every ounce of one’s being—not ask-
ing for or expecting anything in return. The struggle upward is its own
reward.
Bibliography
Kazantzakis’s Works
The Greek Passion. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1963.
The Fratricides. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1964.
The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel. Translated by Kimon Friar. New York: Simon &
Schuster, 1958.
The Last Temptation of Christ. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1961.
Report to Greco. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1965.
Saint Francis. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1962.
Saviors of God. Translated by Kimon Friar. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1960.
Zorba the Greek. Translated by Peter Bien. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2014.
Secondary Sources
Bien, Peter. Kazantzakis: Politics of the Spirit. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 1989.
Cobb, John. God and the World. Philadelphia, PA: Westminster Press, 1976.
Dombrowski, Daniel. Kazantzakis and God. Albany, NY: SUNY Press 1997.
Hartshorne, Charles. The Divine Relativity. New Haven: Yale University Press,
1948.
Journal of Modern Literature. Nikos Kazantzakis Special Number, Vol. Two.
Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1972.
Maskaleris, Thanasis. The Terrestrial Gospel of Nikos Kazantzakis. Ithaca, NY:
Zorba press. 2016.
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence 147
to Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature 2018
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-93833-2
148 Bibliography
Middleton, Darren and Bien Peter. God’s Struggler. Macon, GA: Mercer
University Press, 1996.
Owens, Lewis. Creative Destruction. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2002.
Schweitzer, A. The Quest of the Historical Jesus. New York: Macmillan, 1909.
Whitehead, A. N. Process and Reality. New York: The Free Press, 1978.
Index
B E
Bergson, H., 2, 3, 28, 52, 87, 128, Evans, A., 143
135, 136
Bien, P., 4, 88–90, 137
Buddhism, 2, 75, 81, 82 F
females, 10, 12, 86
Friar, K., 27, 131, 135
C
Christian, 22–24, 29, 44, 45, 52, 53,
67, 79, 87, 107, 109, 116, 122, G
125, 134, 137–139 Greek Orthodoxy, 48, 102, 127, 138
Clara, 12, 46, 99, 102, 103
Cobb, J., 139–141
communism, 2, 29, 51, 57, 60, 62, 88 H
Constantelos, D., 138 Hartshorne, C., 24, 30, 103, 112,
Cretan Glance, 5, 137, 143–146 132, 136, 138
D K
dance, 9, 13, 38, 56, 76, 82–85, 112, Kazantzakis, Eleni, 2, 3, 27, 46, 85,
144 122
dipolarity, 139
Dombrowski, D., 24, 136–138
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence 149
to Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature 2018
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-93833-2
150 Index
L Paris, 2
Lenin, V., 2, 23, 47, 51, 53, 54 Passion Play, 16, 17, 63, 64, 66, 67,
Levitt, M., 5, 6 105, 109, 110, 117
M R
Maskaleris, T., 19, 30, 31 Roman Catholic, 1, 102
Middleton, D., 62, 137–141, 145 Russia, 2, 23, 29, 47, 51, 54, 62
Minoan, 2, 25, 31, 35, 45, 143–145
Mt. Athos, 2, 21, 48–50
Muslim, 37–39, 44, 73 S
Schweitzer, A., 125
Spengler, O., 89
N spiritual exercises, 27
Naxos, 1, 29
Nietzsche, F., 2, 3, 28, 52, 87, 128,
133, 135 T
theism, 24, 29, 91, 132, 136
Tobias, M.C., 31
O transubstantiation, 61, 108
Ottoman Empire, 35, 43, 45, 64, 109
Owens, L., 136
W
Whitehead, A.N., 24, 30, 112,
P 136–141
panentheism, 24, 30, 132, 136 women, 1, 9, 12, 40, 44, 45
pantheism, 24, 29, 91, 95, 103, 132,
134

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Reach What You Cannot

ISBN 978-3-319-93832-5 ISBN 978-3-319-93833-2 (eBook)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018944597

Cover image: © Matthew Taylor/Alamy Stock Photo

Printed on acid-free paper

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer

I initially encountered the thought of Nikos Kazantzakis in the early

At the beginning of his Prologue to Report to Greco Kazantzakis

Albany, USA Jerry H. Gill

Part I The Patterns of Nature

2 Zorba the Greek 7

3 The Greek Passion 15

Part II Human Dynamics

8 The Greek Passion 63

9 Zorba the Greek 73

Part III The Shape of Divinity

11 The Greek Passion 105

12 The Last Temptation of Christ 119

13 Saviors of God 131

14 Conclusion: The Cretan Glance 143

© The Author(s) 2018 1

lifelong friends. Eventually, he decided against a law career, opting

many of his stories concocted to alleviate their impoverished life at that

At the outset, I should mention that I shall be using Peter Bien’s

The Patterns of Nature

The framework of the novel is entirely naturalistic: animal imagery is

Further on Levitt says that in Freedom or Death “The relationship

Zorba the Greek

The rain continued. Mountaintops were covered over. No wind. Stones

© The Author(s) 2018 7

In Kazantzakis’s eyes the person of Zorba encapsulated and projected

In addition, more than once Kazantzakis images the natural elements

greater detail in Part Three when we consider the “shape of Divinity” in

perspective is in a sense correct, in my own view the sort of writing

The Greek Passion

In England, this novel is titled Christ Recrucified. In addition, a film was

© The Author(s) 2018 15

Thanasis Maskaleris, formerly Professor of Comparative Literature at

Unsurprisingly, Kazantzakis begins yet another story with a descrip-

© The Author(s) 2018 21

At that moment, a butterfly appeared. In the sunlight; it swept earthward

A parallel, yet alternative image is introduced by Kazantzakis when a

Yet, another bird image is introduced by Kazantzakis as Father Yanaros

Kazantzakis’s use of the term “Pancreator” when referring to God

and rich understanding of reality. This sensitivity will be heightened in

My earliest memory of my life is this: still unable to stand, I crept on all

Second, there is the account of his pilgrimage through Greece. He

Third, there is his description of the landscape on his journey to Mount

As rare as such naturalistic passages are in this important volume, they

My dear… yesterday I finished the Spiritual Exercises. Is it good? I don’t

© The Author(s) 2018 27

The “Fourth Step” in Kazantzakis’s call for us to march forward

In addition, as is well known, Kazantzakis went through a period when

All of Kazantzakis’s works contain a plethora of passages about rocks, soil,

Maskaleris’s analysis of Kazantzakis’s works reveals a dimension of the

Although the three themes of Kazantzakis’s philosophy around which I

© The Author(s) 2018 35

the dominant Turkish rulers and the passionately patriotic Cretans.

It is not hard to see the origin of this literary relationship between

Later on Nuri Bey confronts Manusakas, Captain Michales’s disrup-

Captain Polyxigis stood in front of Captain Michales’s horse and said:

As it turns out, Polyxigis couples up with Nuri Bey’s widow Emine,

At that moment Kosmas’s father Vendusos, from whom Captain

The Last Temptation of Christ