On the Temptation of Christ

Detail of an image showing the Devil bearing Jesus 

found in an old French liturgical book (c. 1470-75) 

Collection: Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library 

(MS 425, fol. 48r) [1]

 

 

... the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, 

and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them ... 

                                                       - Matthew 4:8 (KJV)

 

 

I.

 

The biblical verses pertaining to the Temptation of Christ are among the most critically (and theologically) fascinating verses in the New Testament.

 

For these verses tell us something crucial about Jesus that any thoughtful and naturally questioning person who thinks the story of Christ through to the bitter end will ultimately have to acknowledge; namely, that Jesus was a kind of idiot [2] whose teachings were inadequate and displayed a fatal misunderstanding of the nature (and limits) of man.

 

For those who are unfamiliar with the verses and don't have the Good Book to hand, here's how they appear in Matthew 4:1-11 (KJV): 

 

 

1 Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. 

 

2 And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred. 

 

3 And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread. 

 

4 But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. 

 

5 Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple, 

 

6 And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone. 

 

7 Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. 

 

8 Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; 

 

9 And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me. 

 

10 Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. 

 

11 Then the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him.

 

 

II. 

 

It's this version of the narrative that we shall base our reading upon here, essentially arguing - in agreement with Dostoevsky and D. H. Lawrence - that man doesn't want freedom (or even salvation), but demands rather miracle, mystery, and a powerful authority to whom he can willingly submit.

 

Only a very rare few can find fulfilment without these things and establish lives of sovereign individuality. Jesus either couldn't or wouldn't see this and via his ideal teaching he makes "demands greater than the nature of man can bear" [3]. 

 

Thus, if you want to establish a Christian Church and State, you're going to have to turn to "that other great Spirit" [4] who loves man for what he is and not for what he ought to be: the Father of Lies and Prince of Darkness, Satan.      

 

 

III. 

 

The first temptation takes place in the Judean desert, where Jesus has been fasting for forty days and forty nights; a symbolic period of trial and spiritual endurance within biblical mythology, during which Christ demonstrated his total reliance on God. 

 

The devil encouraged Jesus to surrender to his hunger and prove his divinity by turning desert rocks into bread, but, being the religious fanatic that he was, Jesus simply mumbled something about man not living by bread alone. 

      

One can't help wishing he'd replied rather: I can resist everything except temptation [5] and conjured up a fabulous feast, inviting the Devil to join him - that would have been the wittier thing to say and also would have thrown the Devil on the back foot; Jesus would have turned the tables and upped the stakes via an act of what anthropologists term potlatch. 

 

But, of course, Jesus is completely humourless - he is not recorded laughing even once throughout the New Testament, let alone cracking a good joke or making a genuinely witty remark of the kind Wilde was famous for. 

 

So we get the now proverbial line about bread which Dostoevsky's Grand Inquisitor says was his first mistake: Feed men, and then ask of them virtue [6] - that's the formula if one wishes to produce loyal followers. And if that bread happens to be produced miraculously from stone, all the better; men who are both well-fed and given a magical display of power will be doubly loyal [7]. 

 

D. H. Lawrence develops this criticism of Jesus. Like the Inquisitor, he insists that man "demands bread: and not merely as foodstuff, but as a miracle, given from the hand of God [...] The earthly bread must in itself be the miracle, and be bound up with the miracle [...] The earthly bread is leavened with the heavenly bread" [8].  

 

IV.  

 

The second temptation of Christ unfolds when the devil takes Jesus to the highest point of the temple in Jerusalem and urges him to throw himself over the edge, quoting scripture (Psalm 91:11-12) in support of the idea that the angels of Heaven would catch him, were he truly the Son of God and not just some delusional carpenter. 

 

This was an attempt not only to force Jesus into making a dramatic display of his divine status, but to manipulate God also into taking action. Predictably, Jesus declined to jump and refused to put his Father to the test.

 

Again, for me at least, it would have been more interesting had he succumbed to temptation and accepted the challenge. Or indeed if he had said something along the lines of 'Let's find out if the demons of Hell are as prepared to catch you as the angels me', and thrown the Devil off the top of the temple.

 

Casting himself down from the temple to be caught by angels - or turning the tables on the devil by pushing him from the temple - would, much like the stone-into-bread trick, demonstrate his godhood in the minds of the people and they would abandon their old ways and follow him to heaven and back.

 

But then I'm not a Christian and I suppose what I'm suggesting is, much like the Grand Inquisitor's philosophy, Satanic in character. 

 

 

V. 

 

Finally, the devil offers Jesus authority and political power over all the magnificent kingdoms of the Earth - providing that Jesus abandons his mission, derails God's plan, and agrees to kneel before him. 

 

Taking charge in this manner would ensure universal salvation, the Grand Inquisitor claims. But Jesus isn't tempted and firmly commands the devil to fuck off - Get thee hence! - making it clear that he submits to and serves no one other than his Father.

 

Lawrence is convinced that Jesus should have accepted earthly power and the responsibility of such; that he was profoundly and disastrously mistaken in his one-sided insistence on the Love ideal and his perverse self-absorption. 

 

For while he succeeds in providing a model of practice for the ascetic individual, by refusing to think of men as social beings and showing no understanding of how power and politics operate, Jesus surrenders us all to the State and opens the way for those who have no qualms about exercising power in the most brutal manner: 

 

"Jesus made it inevitable, when he said that the money belonged to Caesar. It was a mistake. Money means bread, and the bread of men belongs to no man. Money also means power, and it is monstrous to give power to the virtual enemy." [9] 

      

In his late essay 'The Risen Lord' (1929), Lawrence famously dreams of a very different Jesus: no longer a man of sorrows, but a power-lord who agrees to come down off his mountain top so that he might rule. Here is a Jesus with tongues of fire round his brows, not a crown of thorns, willing and able to take the devil on at his own game and resist those mechanical forces belonging to Mammon [10].   

 

It's a Jesus that the Grand Inquisitor would absolutely approve of. 

 

I suspect that the early founders of what became known as Christianity [11] quickly understood that it's the principles put forward by Satan - a kind of politics of evil - that allows for the long-term survival and success of an institution. Nietzsche writes of how, "with every extension of Christianity", it became more and more necessary to vulgarise the teachings of Jesus and incorporate "the doctrines and rites of every subterranean cult" [12]. 

 

 

VI.       

 

In conclusion: the Grand Inquisitor is quite right to say that the Catholic Church does not need Jesus - and that if he were to return, as promised, it would only throw a spanner in the works and interfere with their mission which is to rule mankind in the name of God, but using the Devil's tricks and techniques (even those which bring death and destruction).   

 

And even if Jesus himself were to kiss me on the lips, I would not say otherwise. For Dostoevsky's tale is, as Lawrence says, depressingly true whether we like it or not, presenting the "final and unanswerable criticism of Christ [...] borne out by the long experience of humanity" [13].   

 

Notes

 

[1] Artists have produced many visual representations of the Temptation of Christ, but this is by far my favourite, showing as it does Jesus being quite literally carried up the mountain. The image makes me smile, because Jesus appears to be no more than a large doll or dummy via whom the devil might ventriloquise his own Satanic philosophy.    

  

[2] The term idiot is used here in a philosophical sense that draws upon Nietzsche's characterisation of Jesus in The Anti-Christ (§ 29) as an idealist detached from material reality and living in his own inner world. It is highly likely that Nietzsche borrowed the term from Dostoevsky who used it in his 1869 novel of the same name to describe someone (Prince Lev Myshkin) who is equally pure in spirit, but seen as naive and foolish by others.  

 

[3] D. H. Lawrence, 'Introduction to The Grand Inquisitor, by F. M. Dostoevsky', Introductions and Reviews, ed. N. H. Reeve and John Worthen (Cambridge University Press, 2005), p. 128.

 

[4] Ibid., p.129. 

 

[5] This profoundly anti-Christian line was written by Oscar Wilde in his play Lady Windermere's Fan (1892) and is spoken by Lord Darlington in Act 1. 

 

[6] 'The Grand Inquisitor' is a story contained within Fyodor Dostoevsky's philosophical novel The Brothers Karamazov (1880). The line quoted is found in Book V, Chapter 5.   

 

[7] The Roman poet Juvenal would famously sum this up with the phrase panem et circenses - a practice of appeasing the people that he condemns. See Satire X in Book 4 of his Satires (a collection of satirical verses written between 100 and 127 AD). Today, we might say cibus rapidus et TikTok.   

 

[8] D. H. Lawrence, 'Introduction to The Grand Inquisitor, by F. M. Dostoevsky', Introductions and Reviews, pp. 128 and 132.  

 

[9] D. H. Lawrence, Apocalypse and the Writings on Revelation, ed. Mara Kalnins (Cambridge University Press, 1980), p. 146. 

 

[10] This essay can be found in Late Essays and Articles, ed. James T. Boulton (Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 265-273.  

 

[11] As Nietzsche points out, the term Christianity is already a misunderstanding (and a corruption) of the glad tidings taught by Christ. See The Anti-Christ (§ 39), where he claims there has only ever been one Christian - and he died on the cross. What followed in his name was a reversal and negation of the values he had lived his life by.     

 

[12] Nietzsche, The Anti-Christ (§ 37), trans. R. J. Hollingdale (Penguin Books, 1968), p. 149. Nietzsche refers to this as Christianity's fall into morbid-barbarism, but we could just as easily use the phrase cynical-satanism.     

 

[13] D. H. Lawrence, 'Introduction to The Grand Inquisitor, by F. M. Dostoevsky', Introductions and Reviews, p. 127. 

 

 

This is a sister post to (or variant of) an earlier (unexpected) text published on TTA discussing the Spanish Inquisition in relation to Dostoevsky's 'The Grand Inquisitor' (5 Aug 2026): click here. 

 

  

Nobody Expects a Post on the Spanish Inquisition! (Notes on Dostoevsky's The Grand Inquisitor)

 

The Spanish Inquisition Monty Python style: Cardinal Ximénez (Michael Palin), 

Cardinal Biggles (Terry Jones) and Cardinal Fang (Terry Gilliam)  

 

 

I. 

 

I have to admit that until very recently my knowledge of the Spanish Inquisition was largely shaped by a famous Monty Python sketch [1] which, when I was a child, I found frightening rather than funny: I think it was the red robes that scared me, although I was from a very early age highly sensitive to any display of religiosity and resistant to the idea of attending Sunday school.   

 

Having just read Dostoevsky's tale of the Grand Inquisitor, however - and having studied the history of the Spanish Inquisition in a little more detail - I now fully appreciate that it was no laughing matter for the thousands of people who were terrified, tortured, and killed and that I was right to childishly sense something sinister and malevolent about priests of every description.   

 

 

II.  

  

The Inquisition was originally established in 1231 by Pope Gregory IX, in an attempt to combat the spread of heresy; i.e., beliefs or opinions contrary to the established teachings of the Church. God may have given mankind free will, but make the wrong choice and you will be judged and punished accordingly. 

 

Inquisitors were allowed to investigate anyone, even on the slightest suspicion of wrongthink - regardless of whether there was or was not sufficient evidence to warrant an investigation - and those accused of heresy were not allowed to challenge their accusers. Cruel and ingenious methods of torture were often used in order to extract confessions of guilt.

 

The Spanish Inquisition, established by Pope Sixtus IV in 1478, was an early-modern revival of a medieval institution that had largely become irrelevant. D. H. Lawrence describes it as a "new fangled thing, peculiar to Spain, with her curious death-lust and her bullying; and, strictly, a Spanish-political instrument" [2] - i.e., both rabidly national in character and diabolic.  

 

Monarchs Ferdinand II and Isabella I were determined to maintain Spain as a devoutly Catholic country and the Inquisition operated more under royal control than papal authority, primarily targeting Jewish and Muslim converts to Christianity who were suspected of secretly practicing their former faiths [3], although it later gleefully targeted Protestants as a new type of heretic [4]. 

 

Under the first Inquisitor Generalis, Tomás de Torquemada, prosecutions rapidly expanded throughout Spain and the areas it controlled and more than 2,000 accused individuals were burnt at the stake as an auto da fé. The name Torquemada is now rightly associated with religious intolerance and fanaticism [5]. 

 

All in all, it has been estimated that 150,000 people were prosecuted by the Inquisition and of these, perhaps as many as 5,000 were executed. Others were either flogged in public, enslaved on ships, forced into exile, or imprisoned (sometimes for life). Any properties belonging to these poor souls were, of course, confiscated by the State (nudge, nudge, wink, wink - say no more).  

 

 

III. 

 

While history records the bureaucratic greed and physical cruelty of the real inquisitors, it took a novelist to lay bare the disturbing, inverted logic driving the institution's zeal. 

 

In Dostoevsky's 'The Grand Inquisitor' [6], Jesus himself has finally returned and is brought before the Inquisition in Seville, where the Grand Inquisitor defends the following crucial argument: only by adopting the principles of the Devil - not the Gospels - can the Catholic Church bring about mankind's unification. 

 

Thus, the Church no longer has any need for Jesus: We are not with Thee, but with him, and that is our secret! 

 

The Grand Inquisitor also informs Jesus he was fundamentally mistaken - that he should have given in to temptation - which, you have to admit, is a terrifically provocative and amusing idea and one which D. H. Lawrence not only picks up on, but ultimately endorses.   

 

 

IV.

 

In his younger days, when he first read Dostoevsky's story of the Grand Inquisitor, Lawrence was not impressed. It seemed to him rubbish: "just a piece of showing-off: a display of cynical-satanical pose which was simply irritating" [7].

 

But by the end of his life, Lawrence is able to admit that its central argument is depressingly true and it makes his heart sink: "I still see a trifle of cynical-satanical showing-off. But under that, I hear the final and unanswerable criticism of Christ [...] borne out by the long experience of humanity" [8]. 

 

Any thoughtful and naturally questioning person who thinks the story of Christ (and what becomes known as Christianity) through to the bitter end will, according to Lawrence, come to the same conclusion: Jesus was a kind of идиот whose teachings were inadequate and a fatal misunderstanding of the nature (and limits) of man. 

 

Ultimately, man doesn't want freedom (or even salvation), he demands rather miracle, mystery, and an authority to whom he must submit. Only a very rare few can live without these things and enjoy individual sovereignty. Jesus either couldn't or wouldn't see this and via his ideal teaching he makes "demands greater than the nature of man can bear" [9]. 

 

Thus, if you want to establish a Christian Church and State, you're going to have to turn to "that other great Spirit" [10] who loves man for what he is and not for what he ought to be: Satan. Dostoevsky is a marvellous visionary, but he is also a thinker of evil (which is at last merely a term for vivid life) and his diagnosis of human nature "is simple and unanswerable" [11]. 

 

What this means, then, is that Jesus should have been a little more Wildean and given in to temptation. Lawrence writes: "Jesus refused the three offers out of pride and fear: he wanted to be greater than these, and 'above' them. But we now realise that no man, not even Jesus, is really 'above' miracle, mystery, and authority." [12] 

 

And Jesus cannot be above money either: it cannot simply be rendered unto Caesar or left to the Devil: 

 

"Money is not life, it is true. But ignoring money and leaving it to the devil means handing over the great mass of men to the devil: for the mass of men cannot distinguish between money and life. It is hard to believe: certainly Jesus didn't believe it: and yet, as Dostoevsky and the Inquisitor point out, it is so." [13] 

 

So, where does this all leave us: must we too side with the Devil? 

 

Readers can decide that for themselves, but Lawrence suggests it may be possible to borrow certain things from the Devil without actually serving him or selling our souls. 

 

However, I'm a bit sceptical about that, although, unlike Lawrence, I don't worry about being seen as - what was the phrase he used to condemn Dostoevsky - cynical satanic and, push comes to shove, I'm sympathetic with the Devil and would always side with the anti-Christ, whatever the cost of so doing [14].   

 

 

 

A 1948 edition featuring wood engravings 

by Fritz Eichenberg  

 

  

Notes

 

[1] Written by Michael Palin and Terry Jones, this satirical (and unexpected) reimagining of the Spanish Inquisition became a running gag in the classic British sketch show Monty Python's Flying Circus. It first featured in the second episode of series two, broadcast on BBC1 on 22 September 1970. The catchphrase - 'Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!' - is now ingrained in the cultural imagination and lives on as an internet meme. 

      For those who wish to view the first sketch, please click here. I still don't find it funny, but no longer find it frightening either. 

 

[2] D. H. Lawrence, 'Introduction to The Grand Inquisitor, by F. M. Dostoevsky', Introductions and Reviews, ed. N. H. Reeve and John Worthen (Cambridge University Press, 2005), p. 131.

 

[3] The regulation of faith intensified following royal decrees issued in 1492 and 1502 ordering Jews and Muslims to either convert to Catholicism, go into exile, or face death. Hundreds of thousands of forced conversions, mass expulsions, and executions all resulted.

 

[4] The Inquisition wasn't only interested in identifying what we might think of as common or garden heretics; witches, sodomites, and Freemasons were also targeted. 

 

[5] Torquemada died in 1498 and was interred in the monastery to which he had semi-retired. His tomb was ransacked in 1832 - just two years before the Spanish Inquisition was finally disbanded - and his remains were allegedly stolen and ritually incinerated.

 

[6] 'The Grand Inquisitor' is a story contained within Fyodor Dostoevsky's philosophical novel The Brothers Karamazov (1880). It was first translated into English by Constance Garnett in 1912 (published by Heinemann).

 

[7] D. H. Lawrence, 'Introduction to The Grand Inquisitor, by F. M. Dostoevsky', Introductions and Reviews, p. 127. 

 

[8] Ibid. 

 

[9] Ibid., p. 128. 

 

[10] Ibid. p. 129. 

 

[11] Ibid. 

 

[12] Ibid., p. 130. 

 

[13] Ibid. For a sister post to this one on the tempation of Christ and Dostoevsky's 'The Grand Inquisitor', please click here.  

 

[14] Funnily enough, in a letter to Else Jaffe written in June 1929, Lawrence concedes to his sister-in-law that she is right, in a sense, to see him as siding with the anti-Christ, and a touch Satanisch (although he is not anti-life): "I am all for Lucifer, who is really the Morning Star." 

      See The Letters of D. H. Lawrence, ed. Keith Sagar and James T. Boulton (Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 331-332. 

 

 

For a sister post to this one on the tempation of Christ and Dostoevsky's 'The Grand Inquisitor', please click here.

 

 

Reflections on the Reality of Jesus in the Age of AI Chatbots

The Redeemed Christian Church of God [1]

 

What becomes of divinity when it reveals itself in icons, 

when it speaks to us through machines? 

  

 

I. 

 

This Saturday, as every Saturday, three African women in brightly-coloured dresses stand on a nearby street corner, smiling and spreading the Gospel. Because they are so friendly - and because it seems impolite to just walk past ignoring them - I invariably say hello and accept the leaflet being offered.

 

This week, it reads: JESUS is for REAL! And that naturally got me thinking once more about the latter as a philosophical concept ...

 

For our Christian friends, the Real is essentially the same as the True and the Good and it exists as the Ideal foundation of existence. God is Real and his reality includes not only all that is and has ever been but all that will be; i.e., it includes both the actual and the potential. 

 

I'm not a theologian, but I think that's a fair summary. God is conceived of as a huge Universal Mind and Reality is dependent upon his Will.    

 

 

II.

 

But what about Jesus? What can we say of his reality? 

 

I suppose that depends on which aspect of Jesus one wishes to discuss. 

 

For example, there's the historical Jesus, a 1st-century preacher from Galilee to whom we might accord mortal reality and an all-too-human existence. 

 

But then, on the other hand, there's the figure whom believers think of as the Christ: a semi-divine being who transcends his human reality and historical time and place; an Ideal Jesus who has eternal reality. 

 

For non-believers, this is a mytho-fictional figure born of the religious imagination; one who occupies a virtual space and exerts a powerful cultural influence even though they may lack any objective reality.   

 

I suppose if I'm interested in Jesus at all, it's in the latter. I'm particularly fascinated with the way in which the image of Jesus as a religious icon is mediated in contemporary culture - a subject discussed by the French philosopher Jean Baudrillard ...

   

III.

 

In America (1986), Baudrillard briefly mentions Jesus, observing how marble statues of Christ in Salt Lake City were all copied from Thorwaldsen's famous work of 1833 and made him "look like Bjorn Borg" [2]; i.e., a popular contemporary figure from the world of sports rather than a transcendent historical icon.

 

In other words, Baudrillard argued that the modern image of Christ reflects the present ideal of the perfect man and functions as just another part of the hyperreal landscape; religious art merging seamlessly with mass-media aesthetics.

 

His thinking here developed earlier ideas found in Simulacra and Simulation (1981) [3]. In this crucial text, Baudrillard analysed the role played by religious icons in the simulation of God, eventually replacing the original reality they were intended to represent. 

 

Here's how the game works in four easy to follow stages:    

 

(i) Start with early Christian signs and symbols, artworks and images: these were thought to embody and reflect a profound reality: God is all-powerful and ever-present and Jesus was His Son.  

 

(ii) Eventually, however, the evil genius of the image [4] begins to disguise and corrupt this reality. Art begins to depict Jesus not as he was, but as the Medieval mind wanted to see him; i.e., less Middle Eastern Jew and more Aryan superman used to justify crusades and European imperialism. Nevertheless, if pushed, everyone still agrees that an underlying reality (tied to Truth and Goodness and Beauty) still exists. 

 

(iii) In phase 3, the image - now mass produced within modern secular society - masks the absence of any such reality (Baudrillard calls this an act of sorcery). Jesus is seen everywhere, but his likeness no longer means anything and is no longer connected to a spiritual truth, nor even a historical reality. It mostly exists to trigger a consumerist response (think of the multiple gift shops located in the Vatican).    

 

(iv) Finally, we get pure simulacrum in the age of hyperreality; the image bears no relation to any reality whatsoever. Jesus is now merely a meme on social media or an AI chatbot designed to give comforting advice to those in need. Jesus is now just a copy of a copy of a copy; he refers only to other media images and functions completely independently of history, theology, or reality. 

 

Baudrillard was right here as he was right so many other times in so many other places: the religious iconoclast didn't destroy images because they were afraid such might insult or offend God - but because they intuitively understood that such images would ultimately prevail over God and succeed in making him untenable.   

 

Who needs Jesus to be for real when you can simulate his existence - and even his presence - with digital technology? A blessedly large language model trained on biblical writings and other religious texts can create a theo-algorithmic echo chamber so perfect that one might almost describe it as heavenly [5]. 

  

 

Notes

 

[1] The Redeemed Christian Church of God is a Pentecostal megachurch founded in 1952 by Pa Josiah Akindayomi in Nigeria. Today, it is one of the largest church denominations in the world with over nine million members located in almost 200 countries and territories. After Akindayomi's death in 1980, pastor Enoch A. Adeboye, a former university lecturer, became the RCCG's General Overseer.

 

[2] See Jean Baudrillard, America, trans. Chris Turner (Verso, 1989), p. 2.

 

[3] See Jean Baudrillard, 'The Precession of Simulacra', in Simulacra and Simulation, trans. Sheila Faria Glaser (The University of Michigan Press, 1994). 

 

[4] Playing on Descartes's concept of the malin génie, Baudrillard suggests that the image is a diabolical force that doesn't innocently reflect a pre-existing reality; rather, it ultimately works to replace the real via a process of simulation. 

      'The Evil Demon of Images' was originally a paper delivered by Baudrillard at the University of Sydney in July 1984. It was first published three years later by the Power Institute of Fine Arts and can be found in The Jean Baudrillard Reader, ed. Steve Redhead (Edinburgh University Press, 2008), pp. 83-98. 

 

[5] Baudrillard died in 2007 so didn't live to see the rise of the Ask Jesus AI chatbot, but it fits perfectly into his hyperreal scheme of things. Users claim to find the instant, personalised responses of the AI more comforting or emotionally validating than reciting traditional prayers or reading ancient scripture. 

      That is why they actively participate in the illusion, even whilst knowing they are chatting with a machinic intelligence and not communing with the Holy Spirit. What it might mean for the future of faith and organised religion when divine authority is outsourced to code, I don't know, but D. H. Lawrence warned long ago that man will first come to worship his machines, then come to resemble them. 

      See the essay titled 'D. H. Lawrence Against the Machine', by Micah Paul Veillon, in The European Conservative (17 June 2023).  

 

Never Ever Say Hey Ho! Off We Go: Why I'm Sceptical of the Work Ethic

       

linkedin.com 

 

 

I've expressed my contempt for those professional network hippies and Silicon Valley fascists at LinkedIn before on Torpedo the Ark - click here - but their Open to Work feature launched in 2020 (which has only just come to my attention) really takes the biscuit ...

 

Designed to let recruiters and potential employers know that you are available for new job opportunities - the feature works by securing a green-coloured slave collar round your profile picture - they may as well have asked members to hold up a cardboard sign with the words willing to work scrawled on it!

 

The primary issue, then, is that the feature makes a job seeker appear desperate: even some career experts agree with this and suggest it may warn off some employers - those who prefer to discreetly headhunt talented candidates, for example - whilst leading others to make derisory salalry offers [1].     

 

But the deeper issue, for me at least, has to do with the philosophy behind such a feature; for it echoes, does it not, those terrible words written on the gates of Auschwitz: Arbeit macht frei ...

 

 

II.  

 

This infamous slogan originated from a popular 19th century novel by Lorenz Diefenbach, the title of which - Die Wahrheit macht frei (1873) - refers to the phrase used by Jesus: 'And the truth shall set you free' (John 8:32). However, the book reimagines this as 'work makes free' and that's what really struck a chord with the Nazis and other advocates of an ultra-strong work ethic. 

 

Following their coming to power in 1933, the Nazis first utilised it in programmes designed to combat mass unemployment in Germany. But it is now forever associated in the cultural imagination with the concentration camps and forced labour carried out in the most atrocious conditions imaginable; the only freedom being death.      

 

Interestingly, the Nazis seemed to have used the slogan on the gates of Auschwitz neither with the intention to mock the inmates nor provide them with false hope. It was employed, rather, in the sincere belief that endless labour and self-sacrifice does result in a form of spiritual freedom. 

 

In other words, it illustrates their idealism, not their cynicism; just as 'Open to Work' doubtless illustrates the good intentions of the good people at LinkedIn and is not an attempt to humiliate and make members look needy.    

 

 

Notes

 

[1] For a discussion of whether you should (or should not) use LinkedIn's 'Open to Work' feature, see Elizabeth Perarson's article in Forbes (Sept 2024): click here. 

 

 

Musical bonus: Bow Wow Wow, 'W.O.R.K. (N.O. Nah, No No My Daddy Don't)', (EMI, 1981): click here for the extended 12" remix. This track, with lyrics written by Malcolm McLaren, is an amusing rejection of the work ethic. The sleeve, designed by Jamie Reid, also makes clear of how such an ethic can become malignant and fall into the black hole of fascism: 

 

 

 

Reflections on a Punk Jesus

Fig. 1: Jesus: Punk or Cunt?  

 

 

I.

 

We all know, thanks to the Ramones, that Jackie is a punk (and Judy is a runt), but Jesus ... can the Nazarene really be conceived as such? 

 

After all, Johnny Rotten campily affirms a cod-Nietzschean position vis-à-vis the Son of God in the opening line of the Sex Pistols' debut single: I am an anti-Christ [1]. 

 

And in case there should still be some doubt regarding this matter, the infamous Destroy shirt designed by McLaren and Westwood for Seditionaries, features (along with a swastika) an inverted crucifix [2] - could that be any more sacrilegious, as Chandler Bing might say.   

 

Despite this, however, there's recently been talk in certain punk circles around the need to enthuse the diverse global subculture that has emerged from what was once simply a sound and a look born of 430 King's Road with a form of Christian spirituality (or faith) [3] - and I for one don't like it! 

 

For as my friends in Cradle of Filth once succinctly put it, Jesus is a cunt [4].  

 

 

II. 

 

Having said that, even Nietzsche recognised Christ as someone in revolt against social hierarchy, writing: 

 

"This holy anarchist who roused up the lowly, the outcasts and 'sinners' [...] to oppose the ruling order [...] was a political criminal, in so far as political criminals were possible in an absurdly unpolitical society." [5]

 

So perhaps the idea of a punk Jesus is not so absurd as it seems at first (whilst remaining profoundly problematic). 

 

Or perhaps we might instead understand punk as merely another unfolding of the slave revolt in morality [6]; the marginalised, the disprivileged, and the talentless - driven by ressentiment - attempting to invert the value system of the music business and overthrow the pop elite: No Elvis, Beatles, or the Rolling Stones ... [7] 

 

 

Fig. 2: Johnny Rotten: Anti-Christ / Photo by Barry Plummer (1976)   

Fig. 3: Destroy shirt by Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood (1977)  

  

Notes

 

[1] Sex Pistols, 'Anarchy in the U.K.' (EMI Records, 1976). The track also features on the album Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols (Virgin Records, 1977): click here to play and watch the official video on YouTube. 

      As one critic writes, the opening line of this song has become one of the most famous in rock history: "As a simple declaration, these words possess an immediate shock value familiar in the themes of transgression and iconoclasm that helped define rock and roll." 

      See Benjamin Court, 'The Christ-like Antichrists: Messianism in Sex Pistols', in Popular Music and Society, Volume 38, Issue 4 (2015), pp. 416-431.

 

[2] The figure of Christ on the Cross was adapted by McLaren from Matthias Grünewald's Isenheim Altarpiece (1512-16). 

 

[3] In November 2019, for example, Francis Stewart and Mike Dines of the Punk Scholars Network, organised a two-day in person and online symposium on the theme of 'Punk and the Sacred': click here for details. 

      The peer-reviewed academic journal Punk & Post-Punk (ed. Russ Bestley) has also published several articles on punk spirituality; see, for example, Ibrahim Abraham's 'Postsecular punk: Evangelical Christianity and the overlapping consensus of the underground', in Volume 4, Issue 1, of the above (Mar 2015), pp. 91-105, which argues that "the negotiated inclusion of religiously diverse social actors in punk scenes can inform ongoing debates about diversity and inclusion ..." Abraham also edited Christian Punk: Identity and Performance (Bloomsbury, 2020).

      This attempt to give punk a religious gloss doesn't always involve a Christian makeover, however; there have also been attempts to blend punk with Buddhist and Hindu practices and beliefs, for example. If not exactly hostile, let's just say - as an anti-theist [click here] - I'm suspicious of this creeping religiosity; I don't want punk philosophy and art to be corrupted by theologenblut.

 

[4] This line was written on the back of the Vestal Masturbation T-shirt; a controversial item of Cradle of Filth band merchandise, originally printed and distributed in 1993 (the front of the shirt features an image of a masturbating, semi-naked nun). As with several of the early McLaren-Westwood shirt designs, it garnered much controversy and resulted in some fans being arrested for wearing it. 

 

[5] Nietzsche, The Anti-Christ, trans. R. J. Hollingdale (Penguin Books, 1990), § 27, p. 150.

 

[6] See sections 10-12 of the first essay in Nietzsche's On the Genealogy of Morality (1887).

      It's important to note that this slave revolt is not merely a politics of class war and revenge; it also, crucially, introduces into history the idea of a free-willing human subject (the modern individual) whose existence is conceived in moralistic terms (i.e., as good or evil). Thus, Nietzsche does not simply condemn the triumph of this revolt nor seek to reverse it: "Such an exercise, even if desirable, would be pointless because slave morality has become an essential part of what we are." 

      See Keith Ansell-Pearson, editor's introduction to On the Genealogy of Morality, trans. Carol Diethe (Cambridge University Press, 1994), p. xv.

 

[7] Lyrics from '1977', by The Clash; B-side to 'White Riot', their debut single (CBS Records, 1977).  

 

 

Heaven and How to Get There

Revival Movement Association

revivalmovement.org 

 

 

I. 

 

One of the ironic consequences of mass migration from sub-Saharan Africa is that there are suddenly lots of evangelical Christians on the street corners, preaching the gospel and reaching out as missionaries. 

 

In other words, having been colonised and converted by bible-bashing Europeans in the nineteenth-century, they are now attempting to undo secular modernity and effectively plunge us back into a world of religious mania.   

 

Thus it was I was given a little leaflet this morning, encouraging me to turn away from sin and put my faith and trust in Lord Jesus Christ, Saviour, as well as promising to reveal not only what Heaven is like, but, more importantly, how to get there.  

 

 

II. 

 

According to the leaflet, Heaven is a wonderful place whose beauty is incomparable:

 

The God of the Bible is a God of beauty, and this is why Heaven will be perfectly beautiful. It will be so beautiful that it cannot be compared to anywhere here on earth.   

 

Note how Heaven is capitalised, but earth is not: Nietzsche would argue that this provides a crucial insight into the Christian mindset; to the fact that Christianity prioritises that which comes after life whilst, at the same time, devaluing material (mortal) existence and is therefore profoundly nihilistic [1]. 

 

But let's leave aside the anti-Christian case against Heaven until later and continue with our reading of the leaflet ... 

 

Interestingly, no sooner are we told about the beauty of Heaven than we are informed that this is its least important aspect. What matters far more is the fact that Heaven is the place where all the purest, humblest, most unselfish people the world has ever known finally come together as one flock. 

 

And, to top it off, Jesus Christ Himself is there - as well as God in all His glory! Thus, in Heaven, we will finally have the opportunity to see God with our own eyes! 

 

I find the emphasis on this selling point a little perplexing; I'm no bible scholar, but didn't Jesus say somewhere or other that blessed are those who who have not looked upon the face of God and yet still believe in his majesty? Are we not encouraged to doubt our own eyes on the grounds that the senses can deceive us? [2]  

 

 

III. 

Moving on ... The little leaflet also tells us that Heaven is a place of happy reunions - i.e., a place where the dead and the living can catch up and renew relations, reminisce about old times, etc. 

 

There's no consideration of the fact that not everyone wants to meet with their former friends, partners, and family members - and certainly not if we are then never more to part. For as Larry David (mistakenly) reveals to his wife Cheryl in an episode of Curb, the great attraction of an afterlife is the thought of being free and single once more and able to make a fresh start: click here [3].  

 

 

IV. 

    

Clearly, as much as those who long for Heaven hate earthly life, the thing that really motivates their faith is fear of death, as this (inadvertently hilarious) passage makes abundantly clear:

 

Another great truth about Heaven is that there will be no death there. We will never have to endure the heartbreak of watching a loved one passing away. We will never again have to watch the undertaker as he screws down the coffin lid on the one we loved, there will be no black ties, no funerals passing through the streets, no standing by an open grave and watching a coffin lowered into it, no listening to the clods of earth as they fall remorselessly on the box that contains the remains of the one we love so much and whose death has left us so sad and broken. Thank God there is no death in Heaven!

 

Now, experiencing Angst - as Heidegger was at pains to explain - is a fundamental aspect of being human. Angst isn't merely a form of anxiety born of thanatophobia; rather, it is how Dasein grasps the idea of finitude and confronts the void at the core of existence [4].

 

In other words, angst allows us to understand that being-in-the-world rests upon non-being. An unsettling thought, perhaps, but ultimately a liberating one that dares us to live and become who we are (or find authenticity and accept responsibility for our own choices, as Heidegger would say).    

 

And those who would deny us this - and who would, in effect, rob us even of our own deaths - deserve our contempt.  

 

V. 

 

Finally, as to how to get to Heaven ... 

 

There is, apparently, only ONE way: and that is by accepting Jesus as your Lord and Saviour:  

 

Jesus is the only way, and no man can come to the Father except through HIM. If you reject Him you shut the door to heaven on yourself. 

 

Well, that's unfortunate, perhaps, because I do reject Jesus - and I don't even think, like Lawrence, that there are many saviours and that man can secure himself a spot in paradise via a number of paths leading to God [5]. 

 

And - just to be clear - I wouldn't want to go to a Heaven in which the purest, humblest, most unselfish people are all gathered; because these people are very often nothing of the kind and they seem to spend a good deal of their time revelling in the misfortune and torment of those burning in that other place, which, let us remind ourselves, has a sign above its gates declaring: Built in the name of eternal Love [6].  

 

Ultimately, I stand with the naked and damned and not the smug and saved in their new white garments; and I choose to be amongst the scarlet poppies of Hell rather than in a Heaven "where the flowers never fade, but stand in everlasting sameness" [7].   

  

 

Notes

 

[1] Nietzsche speaks of afterworldsmen who create a vision of paradise born of suffering, impotence, and an impoversished form of weariness: "It was the sick and dying who despised the body and the earth and invented the things of heaven [...] They wanted to escape from their misery and the stars were too far for them." See Thus Spoke Zarathustra, trans. R. J. Hollingdale (Penguin Books, 1969), p. 60. 

 

[2] See John 20:29. The KJV reads: "Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed." 

 

[3] Curb Your Enthusiasm season 4, episode 9: 'The Survivor' (2004), dir. Larry Charles, written by Larry David, starring Larry David and Cheryl Hines.    

 

[4] See Heidegger, Being and Time, Division I, Chapter 6, where Heidegger not only discusses Angst as a fundamental mood, but relates it to his important notion of Sorge (usually translated into English as care and which provides the basis for Heideggerian ethics).   

 

[5] See the fragment of text written by Lawrence given the title 'There is no real battle ...' in Appendix I of Reflections on the Death of a Porcupine and Other Essays, ed. Michael Herbert (Cambridge University Press, 1988), p. 385. 

      In this piece, Lawrence argues that "the great Church of the future will know other saviours" and that the reason he hates Christianity is because it declares there is only one way to God: "'I am the way' - Not even Jesus can declare this to all men. To very many men, Jesus is no longer the way. He is no longer the way for me." 

 

[6] This idea of the sign is found in Dante's Inferno Canto III. Lines 5 and 6 of which read: Fecemi la divina podestate / somma sapïenza e ’l primo amore (My maker was divine authority / the highest wisdom and the primal love). But note that Nietzsche says it displays a certain philosophical naivety on the part of the Italian poet and that if there is a sign it is placed rather above the entrance to Heaven, with an inscription reading: Built in the name of everlasting Hate. See my post - 'A Brief Note on Heaven and Hell' (18 October 2014): click here. 

 

[7] D. H. Lawrence, Apocalypse and the Writings on Revelation, ed. Mara Kalnins (Cambridge University Press, 1980), p. 144.   

 

On the Loving of Enemies

Liebe deine Feinde, 

denn sie bringen das Beste in dir zum Vorschein ...

 

 

I. 

 

As we all know, Jesus famously taught we should love our enemies (and not only our neighbours):

 

"Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you." 

- Matthew 5:43-44 (KJV)

 

Many Christians like to believe that this, one of the most widely quoted sections of the Sermon on the Mount, is what separates their faith from all earlier religious doctrines; i.e., that it's a distinctive moral innovation. 

 

But that's not quite true and there are, in fact, a number of ethical precedents, as scholars familiar with the writings of the ancient Babylonians and Egyptians have pointed out. Indeed, similar teachings can also be found in the works of Jewish, Greek, and Roman authors [1].   

 

Still, it remains an interesting and important idea; albeit one that requires careful consideration of its terms; the word love, for example - ἀγαπάω (agapan) in the original Greek - refers to a kind of universal affection that is spiritual rather than sexual in origin. We are encouraged to be charitable and forgive those who trespass against us, not sleep with the enemy or become erotically fixated on them. 

 

And yet, arguably, there is something a bit perverse (and paradoxical) about developing positive feelings towards those who curse, hate, and persecute you; is loving one's enemy not simply a passive-aggressive attempt by the despised and victimised to bond with those who are in a superior and more powerful position? 

In other words, is it not a type of coping mechanism disguised as morality? Nietzsche certainly seemed to think so ...

 

 

II. 

 

Writing in the first essay of the Genealogy, Nietzsche argues that love of enemies is a possibility only for the truly strong and noble individual, who can view his enemy with a high degree of respect (and even admiration); essentially seeing them as worthy opponents that elevate his own status. 

 

This is in stark contrast to the resentment-driven love of enemies preached by slave moralists who often use this concept to mask underlying hostility and their desire for the downfall of those whom they regard as the evil ones (even whilst secretly envying them).  

It takes something special to truly love one's enemies (and not merely forgive, but forget their misdeeds); it requires a generosity of spirit to not be consumed by hatred for those whom we blame for our suffering and misfortune [2].    

But the philosopher must go even further says Zarathustra and be able not only to love his enemies, but also to hate his friends ... [3] 

Notes

 

[1] I refer readers to John Nolland's The Gospel of Matthew (William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2005), which provides an extensive commentary on the Greek text of this work.

        

[2] See Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morality, I. 10.  

[3] Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, 'Of the Bestowing Virtue' (3). 

A Reflection on the Jean Cocteau Murals at the Church of Notre Dame de France

Jean Cocteau: detail from his Crucifxion scene mural
Notre Dame de France (London, 1960)

ndfchurch.org

 

I. 

 

I am not what you would call a Jean Cocteau specialist: I haven't read of any his poetry, fiction, or criticism; nor seen any of his works for stage and screen, with the exception of La Belle et la Bête (1946), which I watched as a child at school; nor am I familiar with his work as a visual artist, again with a single exception to this, namely, the murals he executed for the Church of Notre Dame de France ...

 

 

II. 

 

 

I'm not French, nor am I Catholic or a Christian of any description, but I do love to enter the church of Notre Dame de France, based in Soho, London - just off Leicester Square - which was consecrated in 1868 (although the original building prior to its redevelopment into a place of worship is somewhat older). 

 

Badly damaged by German bombs during the Blitz, the church had to have extensive structural repairs that were not completed until several years after the War ended.

 

The French Ambassador, Jean Chauval, promoted the idea of creating a sacred space with a uniquely French feel and so, during the 1950s, the French Cultural Attaché René Varin was tasked with commisioning eminent artists of the time to work on the decoration of the rebuilt church.

 

One of these artists was Jean Cocteau who, in November 1959 [1], completed three murals in the Lady Chapel depicting the Annunciation, Crucifixion, and Assumption ... 

 

 

III. 

 

In the first of these, located on the wall to the left of the altar, Cocteau shows the angel Gabriel appearing to the Virgin Mary to inform her that she is to conceive the Son of God - with or without her consent [2]. 

 

The second mural, depicting the Crucifixion of Christ beneath a black sun and adorning the central wall, is arguably the most powerful, even though only Jesus's lower legs and feet - complete with bloody puncture wounds - are visible. Mary is shown alongside, united in grief with two other female figures; Marys Magdalene and Clopas [3]. 

 

There is also another small group of figures, amidst which Cocteau has placed himself and he turns to gaze at the viewer with a look upon his face of an unbeliever who nevertheless possesses a spirit that is deeply religious in nature (see image above).

 

Finally, we see the Assumption of Mary - regarded by Cocteau as the most beautiful of all God's creatures - as she is taken up into heaven, accompanied by an angelic fanfare; something which, to my way of thinking - as a Lawrentian - is literally a fate worse than death [4]. 

 

IV. 

 

Having been restored in 2012, these lovely works can still be freely viewed in the church today (although now placed behind glass for security reasons) and I would encourage readers who may find themselves passing through central London with time on their hands to go and do so.  

For even if you don't much like Cocteau or care for his art - and even if you are a passionate anti-theist - Notre Dame de France is a genuine place of sanctuary from the noise, ugliness, and vulgarity of the world outside its walls.   

Jean Cocteau looking dapper as he sets to work at the 

church of Notre Dame de France (London, 1959)

Photo by Gary Heiss

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Although painted between November 3rd and 11th, Cocteau signs and dates the work 1960.

 

[2] Some readers may recall that I have discussed the Annunciation and spectral rape of Mary in a post published on Torpedo the Ark back in March 2014: click here. 

      I still find the story of how a 13-year-old girl was selected by God as a broodmare (and doubtless groomed by him and his angelic servants throughout her childhood) somewhat shocking.

 

[3] The presence of a group of female disciples at the Crucifixion is confirmed in all four Gospels of the New Testament. However, parallel accounts have led to uncertainty as to their number and identity. I'm following the Gospel of John and sticking with the idea that the Three Marys are the Virgin Mary, Mary Magdalene, and Mary of Clopas.

 

[4] Regardless of what I might think, the Assumption of Mary is one of the four Marian dogmas of the Catholic Church - albeit one that leaves open the question of whether Mary died first, or whether she was raised to eternal life without bodily death (theologians refer to a mortalistic versus an immortalistic interpretation). The Feast of the Assumption is held on 15 August, though it's not something that all Protestants choose to celebrate.