Crucified by God: Kazantzakis and the Last Anfechtung of Christ
Christ's struggles in Nikos Kazantzakis's The Last Temptation against temptations of the flesh and trials of the spirit can be read as a post/modern analogy of the differentiation—as formulated by Martin Luther and reaffirmed by Søren Kierkegaard—between earthly ‘temptation’ [Versuchung] a...
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Oxford University Press
2008
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| In: |
Literature and theology
Year: 2008, Volume: 22, Issue: 4, Pages: 419-435 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (JSTOR) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | Christ's struggles in Nikos Kazantzakis's The Last Temptation against temptations of the flesh and trials of the spirit can be read as a post/modern analogy of the differentiation—as formulated by Martin Luther and reaffirmed by Søren Kierkegaard—between earthly ‘temptation’ [Versuchung] and divinely instigated spiritual trial [Anfechtung]. Moreover, Kazantzakis's novel enriches previous literature on Anfechtung by vividly and appositely illustrating how Anfechtung and temptation may coexist antagonistically within the same trial of Christ. Through this Kierkegaardian-Lutheran lens, Kazantzakis's novel may thus be read as evocatively transcribing a humanistic rendition of the angefochtene Christus which implicitly collapses the ‘infinite qualitative difference’ between humanity and divinity so essential to Kierkegaard's own modern rehabilitation of the archaic notion of Anfechtung.‘God himself is crucifying him!’1 |
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| ISSN: | 1477-4623 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Literature and theology
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1093/litthe/frn013 |