Lecture 25 Notes

A.   Question: Why would Jesus be put to death if he came again?

• Dostoevsky clearly raises this question in "The Grand Inquisitor".
  
• It is also raised in "Jesus of Montreal".
  
• We suggest that the movie and the story give the same answer.
  

B.   Why Does the Grand Inquisitor Arrest Jesus?

• To see why the Grand Inquisitor arrests Jesus, we need to see why the priest stops the play.
• That the movie and story illuminate one another in this way suggests that they answer question in the same way. In both cases, Jesus brings a confusing message.  The message is confusing because of what people are really like.

C.   At the Heart of the Answer is a Conception of Human Nature

• Human beings are unruly children incapable of growing up.  They are incapable of grasping the simple message Jesus brings because most people care about other things instead.
  
• To see what people care about, we look at what advice Jesus got from Satan in the desert and the advice Daniel Coulombe got from devils of Montreal.

A.   The First Temptation: The Problem of Bread

• Satan tempts Jesus to turn stones into bread: "Seest Thou these stones in the parched and barren wilderness?  Turn them into bread, and mankind will run after Thee like a flock of sheep, grateful and obedient".
  

1. Jesus rejects the temptation, wants to offer the bread of heaven.
   
2. Earthly bread is something all people are capable of caring about.  Bread is what people really worship:
   

• Where in "Jesus of Montreal" do we hear Daniel told this "fundamental secret of human nature": that people are capable only of base desires, that what satisfies desires is what people really worship?
  

1. The producers and writers of the beer commercial say: "beer drinker has an IQ of a dog, any lower, he’d be a geranium".   "Maria Callas couldn’t turn these guys on".  "Nothing’s sacred to you but a good glass of brew".  "We worship beer".
   
2. A priest tells Daniel: "just tell them a nice story".
   

• Message of the First Temptation: all most people want are beer, bread, sexual fantasies, and entertainment.  Most people really aren’t capable of wanting any more.  It’s either naive (e.g., the first actress) or cruel to suppose otherwise.
  
• Problem: This message isn’t really plausible!  People do seem to want more out of life.  People do seem to have an interest in the meaning of life.
  

1. In "The Grand Inquisitor": "But he alone will prove capable of silencing and quieting their consciences, that shall succeed in possessing himself of the freedom of men. With "daily bread" an irresistible power was offered Thee: show a man "bread" and he will follow Thee, for what can he resist less than the attraction of bread? But if, at the same time, another succeed in possessing himself of his conscience--oh! then even Thy bread will be forgotten, and man will follow him who seduced his conscience. So far Thou wert right. For the mystery of human being does not solely rest in the desire to live, but in the problem--for what should one live at all?  Without a clear perception of his reasons for living, man will never consent to live, and will rather destroy himself than tarry on earth, though he be surrounded with bread."
2. In "Jesus of Montreal": people are hungry for more than bread--the makers of the cosmic movie try to provide it.  Moreover, the play is popular because it has spiritual dimension.
   

• Therefore, people do want something more. But what?

B.   The Second Temptation: The Problem of Conscience

• It might seem that people want "something to live for".  It might seem that people want the religion that Jesus offers.  But it is imperative to see what people really want from religion:
  

1. "firm foundation for setting the conscience at rest forever"
   
2. "miracle, mystery, authority"
   

• Jesus could have provided these.  Jesus could have cast himself from temple parapet.  Jesus could have come down from the cross, when tempted. Instead, Jesus:
  

1. "Thou hast chosen to stir up in him all that is abnormal, mysterious, and indefinite, all that is beyond human strength, and has acted as if Thou never hadst any love for him, and yet Thou wert He who came to "lay down His life for His friends!" Thou hast burdened man's soul with anxieties hitherto unknown to him. Thirsting for human love freely given, seeking to enable man, seduced and charmed by Thee, to follow Thy path of his own free-will, instead of the old and wise law which held him in subjection, Thou hast given him the right henceforth to choose and freely decide what is good and bad for him, guided but by Thine image in his heart. ".  Contrast Leviticus 11:1-28 with Matthew 6:25ff.
   

2. "not to enslave man through miracle, but to obtain faith in Thee freely and apart from any miraculous influence. Thou thirstest for free and uninfluenced love, and refuses the passionate adoration of the slave before a Potency which would have subjected his will once for ever."

• Where in "Jesus of Montreal" do we hear that: "no sooner would man reject miracle than he would reject God likewise"; "it is beyond the power of man to remain without miracles, so, rather than live without, he will create for himself new wonders of his own making; and he will bow to and worship the soothsayer's miracles, the old witch's sorcery, were he a rebel, a heretic, and an atheist a hundred times over."?
  

1. Galileans wanted a magic show--Palestine was full of them.
   
2. People don’t want to be religiously challenged, they want a saccharine passion play.
   
3. What people really want out of religion is what brings the halt, the lame, the Haitain charwomen to church: holy water, a cure, some counseling in confession.  They want something to make them feel good.
   

• Messages of the Second Temptation:

1. To satisfy the need most people have for religion, we must baffle them, put on magic show, make them feel good, and tell them what to do.
   
2. If the church doesn’t provide this, the coke pushers will.
   
3. If people aren’t provided this, they will look for it anyway--they will follow messianic political movements from medieval heresies to 20th century Nazism that "drenches the earth with blood".
   
4. Jesus wouldn’t provide this 2000 years ago, wouldn’t provide it 500 years ago, wouldn’t provide it if he came to Montreal now.
   
5. So if Jesus won’t provide it, the Grand Inquisitor will: "We corrected and improved thy work and based it on miracle, mystery and authority."
   

• Problem: It’s not enough to have something to worship.  People need to worship together in "universal unity".  People need to be in a "common and harmonious ant-hill".
  
• Therefore, there is one more thing Christ should have provided.
  

C.   The Third Temptation: The Problem of Unity

• "...they felt the stronger necessity of universal union among men..."
  
• Jesus refused to do so, refused all the kingdoms of the earth.  Since Jesus wouldn’t satisfy the "craving for universal unity", the Grand Inquisitor will "Eight hundred years now since we accepted from him the gift rejected by Thee with indignation; that last gift which he offered Thee from the high mountain when, showing all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them, he saith unto Thee: "All these things will I give Thee, if Thou will fall down and worship me!" We took Rome from him and the glaive of Caesar, and declared ourselves alone the kings of this earth, its sole kings, though our work is not yet fully accomplished. But who is to blame for it? Our work is but in its incipient stage, but it is nevertheless started."
  
• Daniel refused the lawyer’s offer.  His disciples did not, and began their work at the end of film.