About the movie “The
Last Temptation of Christ”
(From the
Byzantine Icon to the TV Set)
The
Holy Scripture does not give us any detail concerning the aspect of
Jesus. This fact gave birth to some controversial theories concerning
the historic aspect of the Saviour. The truth about the aspect of God
preoccupied the minds of the Christians immediately after the epoch of
those who were eyewitnesses. The reason for which the aspect of the
Saviour did not spread among the first Christians arises from the very
essence of Christianity, from the high philosophical principles
concentrated around the spiritual world and not around the material one.
That is why the material aspect of Christ was replaced very easily by
symbols, for example the fish (made of stone or of amber and hung by
Christians at their neck in the same way we do today with the cross),
and had no impediment upon their belief in Him. The first Christians,
because they were waiting for the second coming of the Saviour (which
they considered to be immediate) focused more on the spiritual side,
that is the facts which concerned more their own Salvation and paid less
attention to external details, for example the physical aspect of the
Saviour. Certainly, this situation changed in time. Due to the fact that
very few people could reach the high Christian philosophy, and the fame
of the Wiseman from Nazareth surpassed the boundaries of His people
spreading among the pagans, some images of the Saviour began to appear
as each people could imagine Him. For instance, the Romans represented
Christ as a soldier carrying a sheep upon His back (The Kind Sheppard,
Roman catacombs, centuries II-III), while the Greeks represented Him as
a beardless young man, bearing in mind the model of Hermes. In one word,
the cult of the human body cultivated by the Greeks, the pagan
anthropocentricism reflects inevitably upon the painted representations
of Christ. It is against this fact that the fathers of the Vth–VIth
Ecumenical Synod (692) rise and interdict categorically all images by
means of the rule 100, images which “…put spells upon the eyes, corrupt
the mind and create explosions of devilish pleasures”. That is why, the
Byzantine style of canonic representation has been established to
represent the Saviour, His Mother and all the Saints and is present even
today in Orthodox churches. Serious and essential, the Byzantine style
catches the state of the deified, spiritual body lacking any allusion to
human body; this is the new body about which Apostle Paul speaks. This
canon was violated in the western countries where a soppy, even perverse
painting has been developed since the Renaissance and until nowadays.
But which is, in fact, the truth about the image of God because since He
had a human body and lived among us, it is clear that He had a historic
countenance, which He appeared with. Let’s see what the Christian
philosopher Origenes says in his work “Against Celsius”, written in the
year 248 where he quotes Celsius: “If the Spirit of God embodied truly
in him (Jesus), then he must distinguish himself from the other ones by
the beauty of his face, by the perfection of his body, as well as by the
art of speaking. Because one can’t believe that the one in whose body
was something of divine origin can’t distinguish himself from the other
ones. And still people say that Jesus had a miserable body and a face so
ugly that it provoked abhorrence”. 1 The opinion about un unpleasant
aspect of the Saviour belonged to the early Christian theologies
(Tertulianus, Saints Clement and Cyril of Alexandria, Saint Irineus of
Lyon, and others) and it was based on the literally understanding of one
of prophet Isaiah’s verses referring to the embodiment of God: “He had
neither a pleasant face, nor beauty so that we could admire Him and no
pleasant aspect to care for Him. He was despised even by the last man of
no importance” (Is. 53, 2-3). However, we incline to joint the parents
who find in this verse the direct indication to Saviour’s passions. In
this respect, the description, which is clearly repellant, does not
influence the conception about the physical perfection of Christ. In
fact, imperfection itself is a consequence of the falling. Because “God
created the man according to His own image” (Creation, 1, 27) “ and God
realized it was good” (Creation, 1, 12-18-21-25). So, creating Adam, God
made him perfect and only sin could generate all the later
imperfections, even the physical ones, as stigmata of “his death”
(Creation, 3, 3) and as a violation of the command of God. Yet “the
holiness of the body of our God and Saviour was infinitely greater than
the holiness in which the being’s body was created – the body of Adam”.
2 Any physical imperfection, in this case, in the description of our
Saviour, would come in contradiction with the lack of sin, which is said
to characterize Him. Christ’s physical perfection is the guarantee for
the success of the renewal of the old Adam by the new Adam – our
God.
Starting from the same fact - that of deifying of Christ as
noted by Origenes, Saint Ignatie Brancianinov writes: 3 “ The body of
the God-man had a strange grace and beauty, exactly as His proto-father
and prophet David sang about Him: Adorned with beauty art Thou more than
the sons of men (Psalm 44, 2). But the physical beauty of the God-man
had not the same effect upon women, as usually does the beauty of men6.
Such a blasphemy must be rejected although it is pronounced and accepted
by heretics.7 On the contrary, the body of Christ healed all the
passions – both of the body and of the soul. His body was impregnated
with divine grace and spread it all around to those who touched Him,
both men and women. Great power went out of Him – says the Gospel – and
healed everybody.(Luke, 6,19). And all those who touched Him were
healed. (Mark, 6, 56). This is that divine body about which God Himself
stated: The one who eats My body and drinks My blood will live forever
and I will raise him from the dead in the Last Day. (In.6, 54-56). Saint
Joannnis Chrisostomus is of the same opinion when he states that “Jesus
was a very beautiful man”; together with Saint Gregory of Nyssa, Blessed
Augustine, Saint Ambrosias of Mediolania they were convinced that the
God- man “adorned Himself with beauty more than the sons of men”; “ Thy
lips were covered with holy grace and this is why Thou art blessed by
God.” (Psalm 44, 3).
But the stage director Martin Scorsese considers
this problem in a very different way in his movie “The Last Temptation
of Christ” (made after Nikos Kazantzakis’s book). 8 For him, Jesus
Christ is not the Chosen One. Not only that He equals everybody, but
also He is completely trite, He is more than ordinary. His face lacks
any trace of the divine grace and is physically repulsive. His face is
full of platitude, exactly as His life is. In His discussion with Judah
He states that one needs to free his soul because if one does not so,
the chain of evil will never be broken, that the main purpose is the
salvation of the soul and not the liberation from the Roman oppression
or the salvation of the body, as Judah states. All these do not convince
the spectator through the metaphorical solutions given to the events,
especially the crucifixion, which abounds in purely physiological
elements and in the sufferance of Jesus crucified. He dies physically on
the Cross and one can’t believe His spirit will ever reach at His
Father.”9 The impression made by Scorsese’s movie is not even this base
philosophy but something even scarier. The idea that Christ was not God
is found in Gospels at the God-killing Jews and that is why they
crucified Him. “We found this man rebelling our people and saying He is
Christ”(Luke, 23, 2). The idea that Jesus was born in fornication and
that He was demonized is also present in Gospels at the same mad Jews
(Mark, 3, 22; John, 8, 41). Scorsese goes further and presents on the
screen the filthy gossips created around our Saviour and Mary
Magdalene.
In fact, this subject preoccupied not only Scorsese. The
Spanish writer Jose Saramago publishes a novel with the same subject
“The Gospel after Jesus” (immediately translated into Russian) for which
he was awarded with the 1997 Nobel Prize for literature. The Romanian
yogis who imported it for their western colleagues discussed this
subject. The yogis, especially the western ones, try to motivate their
orgies not only by the means of their deities as Krishna (who had 16,800
goppy-sheperdesses) but also by ascribing such lying “qualities” to our
saints and even to our Saviour Jesus Christ (we are aware of the
speculations made by the resemblance of the words Krishna and Christ).
They like to discuss not only on the case of Mary the Egyptian and of
Mary Magdalene but also on some other examples taken from the Patristic
Texts in which are presented the fallings of some monks followed by
their repentance and reformation.
The yogis even found the phrase
from the Gospel in which Jesus “praises” fornication: “Her multitude of
sins is forgiven because she loved a lot” (Luke, 7, 47). Considering
their clever minds, “she loved a lot” refers to the fact that she loved
lots of men. As I discussed more than half a day with one of these
yogis, a person who pretends to be a writer and I could not convince him
by the contrary, I dare to make things clear. If Jesus praised Mary
Magdalene for the fact that “she loved lots of men” as yogis pretend,
why did Mary Magdalene (who loved Jesus sincerely till the end of her
life) gave up fornication, if He praised her for doing this? Where do we
know she gave up fornication from? From her crying and tears. For what
reason such a famous woman as she was at that time, came and humiliated
herself in front of all the others? Because she spread His words
together with the Apostles till the end of her life and because she was
the first person to whom Jesus revealed Himself after Resurrection (John
20, 14-16). The trouble with this movie is not its subject because it
belongs to an unbeliever, but the fact that it was presented in an
orthodox country. Nowhere in the world can one present an anti-Semitic
movie without being followed by repercussions, especially in Israel.
Never the Istanbul Television will present a movie in which prophet
Muhammad is mocked at. While in India, no one dares to drive away a cow
from the autoroute because it is considered to be saint! The same movie
was presented in Russia in 1997. This is the opinion of the famous
theologian, with a doctorate in philosophy, maybe the most famous
apologist of contemporary Russia, deacon Andrei Kuraev: “the most
outrageous event of the religious life of Russia of the year 1997
happened on November 9th. On this Sunday evening the NTV presented the
movie “The Last Temptation of Christ”. The hidden conflict between the
huge informational kingdom of Russia and the Orthodox Church broke out,
the former declaring war on the latter.”11 The Church gave no occasion
for this. The calendar was the only reason: November the 9th, the
celebration of the Crystal Night. This is the sad night when
persecutions on Jews began in the Nazi Germany. It is understood that
the main director of the NTV, Alexandr Faifman as well as its owner, Mr.
Gusinski (general director of “media-MOST” and president of the Russian
Jewish Congress) keep in mind a painful recollection of this night. But
why he decided to revenge upon the Russian orthodox believers for the
crime of the German neo-pagans (it is already known that Nazism,
nourished by occultism, was an enemy not only for Judaism but also for
Christianity)? Why this pain of him flooded as an insult upon that
people who saved the European Jewish Community from annihilation?
No
insults? Was it only the right of every person the express freely his
own opinion? Yes, there is such a right, within its natural limits. The
free movement of my hand ends exactly where the face of another person
begins. The other one’s pain – this is the border upon which not even
the most legitimate sentiments of mine can pass. Neither my joy, nor my
sorrow must provoke other people’s pain (…)
Yes, every person has the
right do discuss with Christians, the right to criticize and to
contradict. But he has no right to spit and to utter blasphemies. It is
a blasphemy to stamp upon one’s memory bed scenes between Mary Magdalene
and… And there are the explanations: “Look, this fact is intended, these
are hallucinations created by the Devil in the consciousness of the
Crucified”, explanations which have no importance. According to
Christian knowledge, in general, bad and lying thoughts cannot appear in
the consciousness of the God-man Christ. The voice of the King of
Darkness cannot sound within the Son of God. But his movie is a
blasphemy not only from the point of view of the believer. A massive
anti-cultural movement promotes an intentional blasphemous reading of
The Gospel. Thirst for mockery, for defiling, everything is saint,
characterizes the contemporary nobility. Pushkine becomes interesting
not by his poetry but by his “Don Juan list”; they remember Chaikovsky
especially when talking about sexual minorities…”12 The fight of the
Church against such sub-productions is not the fight of some fanatic
persons against cultural progress but an impulse to direct towards the
true culture. An impulse to discover and make known the profoundness of
the human spirit that is not proper to animals, that is to make us aware
of the immortality of our human soul, of the high philosophy we are
summoned to understand. In this specific case, there is not a simple
violation of religious intimacy of Christians, but a distortion of
reality and a pathologic alienation from the minimum intellectual
stability, which is necessary to each person.
The movie “The Last
Temptation of Christ” was rejected not only by the believers but also by
non-believers, because it is full of improper realism, but not of
realism, widely speaking. In the Orthodox theology there is a concept as
“religious mystical realism” (Pavel Florenski, Leonid Uspenski, and
others) whose essence lays in the fact that iconography when creating
“the unimaginable face” (or “the incomparable resemblance”) reflects the
supreme deifying reality. And that is why the religious symbol is much
more realistic than the illusory imitation of life in realistic
painting. The symbol does not oppose to realism, but to the abstract
imagination, which declines any relationship with reality, except that
with itself.13 That is why the canonic representation of Christ in
orthodox iconography is the closest to His historical and mystical
reality and only the spiritual immaturity of some persons led to the
decay of the icon in its Renaissance and Roman-catholic variant. In this
respect it is very easy to follow the spiritual state of a certain
people end epoch, considering the way of thinking the icon, the seeing
face of the unseen. With the movie “The Last Temptation of Christ”,
mankind touches the climax of moral and spiritual regression. What God
did in the beginning “according to His face and resemblance”, does no
longer exist. Now it is the man who creates God according to his face
and rotten resemblance (Romans 1, 23).
And if through the means of
“the seventh art” – the movie, painting surpassed itself (and we are
entitled to call the movie a living painting), more than the essay of
the Ancients to stop the time, that helpless sigh of Goethe: “Stop, oh,
moment: how wonderful you are!” then the movie “The Last Temptation of
Christ” is the unavoidable sequel of a not respected iconographic canon
from the year 692.14 The lack of obedience of the Roman- Catholics as
well the practice of painting catalyzed by the feelings of the decayed
nature, developed together with the extension of painting within the
film art, towards the serious accents which result from this movie.
1. Iu.G. Bobrov,
Bases of Old Russian Iconography (Osnovi iconografii drevnerusscoi
jivopisi), Axioma, Sanct-Petersburg, 1995, p. 188
2. St. Ignatii
Brancianinov, Izlojenie ucenia Pravoslavnoi Tzercvi o Bojiei Materi,
Statisi, Sanvt-Peterburg, 1997, p. 10
3. Idem, p. 11
4. The case
of Mary Magdalene who, after touching His feet, got holiness and gave up
sin.
5. The novel inspired by the Gospel and known as Passion
douloureuse de notre Seigneur Jesus Christ, par Ecaterine dEmerich (
With he Saint’s note). For our century see, for instance, “ The Gospel
after Jesus” by Jose Saramago (the1997 Nobel Prize).
6. We note hat
Nikos Kazantzakis, considered the greatest Greek prose writer of the
XXth century was awarded both with Nobel Prize and with the anathema
thrown upon him by the Orthodox Church of Greece.
7. Iacovlev E.G.,
“The Image of Christ in Orthodoxy within the context of the Universal
Culture” ( “Obraz Hrista v pravoslavii v contexte morovoi relighioznoi
culturi’, Naucino Bogoslavskie Trudi, Belgorod, 1999, p. 240
8. NTV
(Russian HTB). An independent TV, the most popular in the post-soviet
Russia
9. Deacon Andrei Kuraev, “ Kak delaiut antisemitom”,Odighitria
Publishing House, Moscow, 1999
10. Deacon Andrei Kuraev,
ibidem
11. Quoted by Iacovlev E. G., ibidem, p. 240
12. It is
against this fact that the fathers of the Vth-VIth Ecumenical Synod
(692) rose and forbade all unchaste images by the means of the canon
100: “ That is why we command that from now on such images that put
spells on the eyes, corrupt the mind or create explosions of devilish
pleasures, should not be painted on wood or on other materials. If
somebody dares to do this, anathema must be thrown upon him
“.
Life After Death
Photos - Elders - Hermits from Mount Athos
Father Cleopa: The Elder of Romanian Orthodoxy
The Life and Works of PROTOSINGELOS IOANICHIE MOROI of Sihãstria Monastery
Glossologia (speaking in tongues) - Elder Cleopa
About Holy Scripture by Elder Cleopa of Romania
About Holy Tradition by Elder Cleopa of Romania
Magic and Occultism - by Elder Cleopa
On the Presuppositions of our Personal Salvation - by Elder Cleopa
The Second Coming of Christ - by Elder Cleopa
On the Thousand Year Reign (Chiliasm) - by Elder Cleopa
Movies for children - The Phenomenon Harry Potter - Resemblance to the occult activity
The mysteries of music - THE TRUTH ABOUT ROCK MUSIC
"CHRISTIAN" INTEREST IN UFO ( aliens )
Charismatic Revival As a Sign of the Times - by Fr. Seraphim Rose
About Evolutionism - SCIENCE AND RELIGION
How to Read the Holy Scriptures - Fr. Seraphim Rose
Orthodoxy in America - by Blessed Hieromonk Seraphim (Rose)
Signs of the Times - by Blessed Hieromonk Seraphim Rose
THE FUTURE OF RUSSIA AND THE END OF THE WORLD - by Blessed Hieromonk Seraphim Rose
THE HOLY FATHERS SURE GUIDE TO TRUE CHRISTIANITY - by Fr. Seraphim Rose
The Orthodox World-View - by Blessed Father Seraphim Rose
Fr. Seraphim (Rose) Speaks - Excerpts from His Writings
The Orthodox Revival in Russia AS AN INSPIRATION FOR AMERICAN ORTHODOXY - by Fr. Seraphim Rose
Buddism and orthodoxy - Through The Eastern Gate - By Nilus Stryker
Orthodox Catechism
GREAT MIRACLE GIVEN BY GOD ONLY TO THE ORTHODOX CHURCH
About Holy Angels
The Saints speak out on abortion
Hieromonk Savatie Bastovoi:
About pornography, pollutions and monasticism - A reply for a stranger who could be just anyone of us
THE FIRST LOVE
Between Christ and Freud
What I Intended to Understanding while Watching “The English Patient”
About the movie “The Last Temptation of Christ” (From the Byzantine Icon to the TV Set)
WHY DO THEY KILL THE LIGHTS IN DISCO CLUBS?
FREEDOM MEANS PUTTING NO BREAKS ON LOVE
WHO IS AFRAID OF SAINTS?
Fast and freedom
The scandalous commandment
Fatigue and love
The unborn people
Zodiacs, horoscopes …
The holiday of undeification
Among posters and stands
Hierarchy or church dictatorship ?
With a kiss closer to death
Defeated people
Postmodernism in frock
SINGING UNDER WATER
Why Is Flood a Gentle in Pain Scene
About the contradictory opinions regarding the obedience