NATURALEZA DE LA POTESTAD NULIFICANTE EJERCIDA POR EL

In portraying Jesus as humane and compassionate, Gospel's portrait of Jesus is

complementary to that of the Gospels. As with the Gospel plotline, Saramago again retains enough external features of the Gospel Jesus to keep his version from appearing as a blatant contrast. Christological attributes are cloned from the original version and transferred to the rewritten Jesus where they are then subtly twisted. In other words, Saramago's Jesus is to the Gospel Jesus what Bizarro is to Superman. Both doppelgangers resemble their originals in externals but do not retain their characters and often bungle many of the attempts to emulate their actions.

Saramago constructs his Jesus by preserving, at least nominally, many of the titles of Jesus, such as Son of God (262-263, 297) and Messiah (357). On this point, Saramago is markedly different from Ricci, who refuses to portray his Jesus in either of these traditional categories. Yet even though cast in these orthodox roles, Saramago's Jesus is far from successful in them.

184 _{Bloom, “One with the Beard,” 162.}

126 By observing what happens when this rewritten Jesus tries to fit into roles that were originally shaped by another, we again see Saramago's distorting process at work.

To begin with, Saramago's Jesus is a rather unaware and ill-prepared Messiah. He does not even know of his own identity as the Messiah until the very end of the novel when in a reversal of roles Jesus must ask John the Baptist to confirm his messianic identity and to give him advice for what he should do as the Messiah. John, quite rightly, tells him to figure it out for himself. When Jesus first hears a description of John, he comments that John better fits the part of the Messiah than he does, and the reader cannot help but agree with this assessment (354). The sole occasion when Jesus claims his messianic identity is during his trials, and there he does so only so that he may be sentenced to death as a false Messiah, a pretender to Israel's throne rather than as the Son of God (369, 372). Ironically, the only act performed by Saramago's Jesus that could be categorized as messianic is his dying. Like the Gospel Jesus, he intends his death to be a liberating act for his people; however, Saramago's Jesus hopes to free them from the clutches of God rather than from their sins (cf. Matt 1:21; 26:28).

As the Son of God, Saramago's Jesus is also unconvincing, partly because he does not resemble his power-hungry Father and partly because the reader is never entirely sure about Jesus' paternity. Although God himself informs Jesus of his divine identity (308), the reader does not know whether to trust God's word on this matter since God also reveals that in Saramago's world gods can lie (320). Jesus could, after all, simply be the son of Joseph who has been hoodwinked by God into fulfilling his purposes. Because God supposedly mixed his seed with Joseph's and since paternity tests are never completely conclusive on these matters, the reader is told that it would be hard to prove which one is Jesus' true father (262-263, 308; cf. 318). Jesus, to his credit, would prefer to be Joseph's son rather than God's (312).

To say that the Father and Son have a strained relationship in Gospel is putting it mildly. Unlike the Gospel Jesus, Saramago's Jesus and his God are anything but one (cf. John 10:30).

127 Well-conditioned in Satan's humanism, Jesus questions the inhumanity of his Father's global domination plan, demanding to know why the one true God is unable to bring his purposes about without requiring the sacrifice of so many lives. Jesus, like Satan, believes that humans should be able to live and enjoy life on earth rather than renouncing their earthly existences so that they may have the chance of going to a heaven where none of life's joys await them (320). In Gospel, Jesus "emerges in the novel not as the divine Son of God but as an unfortunate and deluded victim of a faulty religious impulse."185 _{This Jesus is not a divine being in control}

of his destiny and the destinies of others but a pitiful figure "shanghaied by God, for God's own purposes of power."186 When Jesus tries to renounce his Father and to rescind their covenant in order to help humanity, he is prevented from doing so because of the constraints of the

fatalistic world that he inhabits where God forces everything and everyone to work according to his desires but not according to the good of humanity (315, 330, 369; cf. Romans 8:28). God takes control of even Jesus' words (340) and warns that if he refuses to perform miracles God will still make them happen (314-315). Even his final scheme to die as the "King of Jews" rather than as the Son of God is thwarted when God appears at the crucifixion announcing Jesus' identity as his Son (376).187

Ultimately, this rift between the Father and the Son undercuts the plausibility of

Saramago's Jesus functioning as the "Son of God," but such disunion has to exist because of the radical transformation of God's character in Gospel. Because God is a selfish being only

185 _{Cousland, "Kakaggelion," 55.} 186 _{Bloom, “One with the Beard,” 162.}

187 _{Jesus is not able to fully reject God's will even when he attempts to do so. Frier talks about the passive} acceptance of authority throughout the novel, citing examples of Mary's acceptance of the patriarchal system, the laity's acceptance of the superior religious authority of the rabbis, the soldiers' acceptance of Herod's order to kill the children, and Joseph's acceptance of the slaughter of those children. Likewise, it is "Jesus himself who, even when he attempts to reject the law of the father, still implicitly recognizes it by attempting to outwit rather than defy that authority. . . . [I]n the end he makes a token gesture to fulfil the letter of God's Word (by dying as the Messiah of the Jewish people) rather than rejecting outright the creation of a tradition (that of orthodox Christianity) whose practical consequences he finds too appalling to contemplate. . . . Jesus sees a lapse into fatalism and 'becoming one with his father-God' as preferable to a bid for independence" (Frier, “O Evangelho,” 380-381).

128 concerned with his own glory, he cannot work for the benefit and betterment of humanity. Whereas in the Gospels, the cross is seen as "the ultimate expression of God's compassion and mercy for humankind,"188 in Gospel, the cross is the beginning of the genocide of humanity, starting with Jesus. Therefore, for Jesus to be considered good, he has to reject his Father. Saramago can complement the Gospel portrait of Jesus as compassionate and caring only by allowing him to fail in his role as the Son of God. Instead of resembling the obedient Son in the Gospels who is one with his Father in person and purpose, this Jesus opposes his Father in order to be merciful to humankind.

Aside from retaining the qualities of love and compassion for humanity, Saramago's Jesus manages to convey successfully only one other essential feature of the Gospel Jesus—his humanity. Like Boyd, one of Saramago's main concerns seems to be the humanizing of Jesus, which is no surprise given Saramago's humanist philosophy. Like the Gospels, Saramago emphasizes Jesus' kinship with Adam and thus with all of humanity, but "instead of making him a sinless second Adam as Paul does [cf. Rom 5:12-21], Saramago shows him to be fallible, ignorant, and sinful."189

Perhaps the most shocking aspect of Saramago's portrayal of Jesus' humanity is his

sexuality. In Gospel, the reader meets a Jesus who desires to masturbate (227) and who, unlike Kazantkazis' Jesus, is not just tempted by sexual visions but actually fulfills them. Saramago's Jesus begins "living in sin with Mary Magdalene" (295) not long after he turns eighteen, and the two continue as lovers until his death.

Saramago's Jesus turns out to be fully human but not in the Chalcedonian sense. He is neither the prototype of what God intended humanity to be prior to the Fall nor the firstborn example of what resurrected humanity shall be. Instead, he is simply a reflection of what

188 _{Ben-Porat, “Saramago's Gospel,” 102.} 189 _{Cousland, "Kakaggelion," 66.}

129 flawed humanity currently is—sinful, weak, scared, and confused. And yet he is also capable of love, compassion, and enjoyment of life. According to Saramgo's humanist philosophy, this Jesus is a success because he functions as the symbolic everyman. All of his imperfections are to be embraced and celebrated because they are part of his humanity. This Jesus is the

prototypical tragic hero, who although destined to fail still chooses to strive against the oppressive forces, which in this case are God and religion. Saramago offers his Jesus as a noble example for the rest of humanity to emulate.

6. Conclusion

About halfway through the novel, the narrator informs us, "[T]his gospel was never meant to dismiss what others have written about Jesus or to contradict their accounts" (200), but if gods are capable of lying in Gospel's world, then narrators are too. After discussing the various ways in which Saramago twists and transforms the Gospels' worldviews and characters, it should be clear that contradicting their accounts and the religious system based upon them is precisely what Saramago intends to do. While Ricci's work tries to convince us that faith is for the dim-witted and credulous and that miraculous events are illusionary and are only a result of rumors, misperceptions, and lies, Saramago makes no such claim and readily accepts their existence. Instead, his major aim is to demonstrate that Christianity is an oppressive regime whose claims and whose God need to be dismantled in order to liberate humanity. Both authors offer competing narratives to those of the Gospels, but the problems that they have with the Gospels and their methods in targeting them are markedly different. Ricci's complaint with the Gospels is a historical one in which he questions the validity of any texts that claim absolute historical truth and of the testimony of the Gospels specifically. He makes

130 Saramago's primary issue with the Gospels, on the other hand, appears to be more theological than historical as he asks what kind of God could be behind such a history.

In order to explore his concerns, Saramago constructs a counter-gospel, a kakagelion, as Cousland coins it, but his aim is certainly not only exploratory in nature but also persuasive in nature as he tries to convert not only Jesus but also his audience to his gospel of humanitarian compassion. In this attempt, he is only partially successful. Within his own narrative world, Saramago's new gospel succeeds in convincing Jesus although it is ultimately unsuccessful in overcoming a tyrannical God. Jesus, the student of Saramago's humanitarian compassion, functions as the character that critiques the hegemony of this divine dictator. Rather than accepting God's bribe of power and glory and the magical powers that come along with such an allegiance, Jesus tries to reject them. He determines that humans would do better on their own instead of relying on the divine deliverance of God. Judging matters from inside Gospel's world, who would not agree with Saramago's critique of the God he has invented nor side with the humanitarian Pastor and his disciple Jesus in their efforts to overthrow such a dictator?

Saramago intends for his readers also to reject the hegemony of the Christian church and of its God in actuality just as Jesus rejects it in Gospel. Humanity does not need to be ruled by the majority religion. Instead, Saramago, along with other magic realists, calls us to celebrate, to perhaps even worship, the marvelousness of the ordinary. Instead of looking for divine deliverance, we are to deliver ourselves and to fight against oppressive tyranny wherever we find it, even if we find it in the so-called holy.

At the same time, Saramago undercuts his own persuasive rhetoric regarding the problem of evil and suffering with his presentation of God. As Paul Ricoeur once wrote, "Suffering is only a scandal for the person who understands God to be source of everything that is good in creation, including our indignation against evil, our courage to bear it, and our feeling of

131 sympathy toward victims."190 In the novel, suffering is only scandalous at first because Jesus and other characters believe God to be good. Once God's true character has been revealed, the puzzling problem of evil is solved, and the tension between a good God and humanity's

sufferings is resolved. The only one left scandalized is the reader who expects Saramago's God to match the character of the biblical God.

On one level, Gospel is ultimately unsuccessful in its critique of Christianity and will only serve to convince those who already hold a negative opinion of the faith and of its God. Its lack of success lies in its portrayal of God, which for all the novel's superficial fidelity to the Gospel narratives fails to take the claims of Christianity seriously. Because this fictional God does not resemble any monotheistic religion's traditional claims about God, let alone those of Christianity, Gospel's critiques of God, while landing within its own narrative world, mostly fall flat outside it. Christians reading the novel will likely see very little of their own beliefs about God in Saramago's creation and so will be able to dismiss not only this fictional portrayal of God but also its intended and extended critique of Christianity's God. Furthermore, there is something curiously duplicitous about Saramago's inversion of the Gospels' value system, since he seems to want to hold onto Christian values—which he hands often without any alteration to Satan—while at the same time wanting to denounce its heritage.

That being said, Saramago's God cannot and should not be entirely dismissed by thoughtful and careful readers of the Bible. While most would see Saramago's God as an inversion of the "biblical" God, Ben-Porat argues that even this maniacal version of the deity is a rewriting rather than a complete inversion because it "foregrounds elements that exist [in the biblical portrayal of God] but are largely ignored or explained away."191 _{While Ben-Porat is correct in}

assuming that many would prefer to turn a blind eye to some of the less than favorable

190 _{Paul Ricoeur, Figuring the Sacred: Religion, Narrative, and Imagination (ed. Mark I. Wallace; trans. David} Pellauer; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995), 260.

132 portrayals of God in the Bible, particularly some passages in the OT, there have certainly been many attempts to wrestle with these texts and to examine some of the more disturbing aspects of God's character and behavior narrated in the Bible.192

One of the best questions Saramago's narrative leads us to consider is how some of the traditional theories of atonement may negatively affect our view of God. For example, why is the violent death of Jesus necessary in order for God to draw all humanity to himself? Along with the midwife Salome, we may question whether or not God is so impotent or, worse, so sadistic that he cannot establish his kingdom without the shedding of his child's blood. Is God not great enough that he can offer forgiveness without founding it on violence? Such

theological questions are important for Christians to consider as we seek ways of explaining the atonement and of interpreting the meaning of Jesus' death, and Saramago does well to raise them.

Also important is Saramago's critique of religious violence and the atrocities committed in the name of God. As Longenecker concludes, "Saramago’s genius is in linking the history of the Church directly with the problem of evil, as if they were virtually interchangeable

phenomena."193 Saramago's criticism, though hardly original, is an important reminder of how religion can be coopted and distorted for political agendas, and we can only hope that the violence he condemns most Christians would not condone. Most would agree with Saramago that the Crusades and the Inquisition were horrible periods in the Church's history and were unjustifiable. Unlike Saramago, however, they would not affirm these events as representative of Christianity but as perverse distortions of the faith. As Longenecker goes on to say, "[I]n

192 _{e.g., Eric A. Seibert, Disturbing Divine Behavior: Troubling Old Testament Images of God (Minneapolis:} Fortress, 2009); Stanley N. Gundry, ed. Show Them No Mercy: 4 Views on God and Canaanite Genocide (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 2003); Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer, Jesus Against Christianity: Reclaiming the Missing Jesus (Harrisburg, Pa.: Trinity Press International, 2001).

193 _{Bruce W. Longenecker, "'What God Wants, God Gets, God Help Us All': The 'Hopeless' God of Saramago's}

The Gospel According to Jesus Christ" (paper presented at the Patterns of Promise: Art, Imagination and Christian Hope, St. Andrews, UK, 2006).

133 making this link, Saramago also turns a blind eye to the countless counter-instances that testify to another dimension within the history of the Christian church: that is, the enactment of Christian communities as the locus for care among the needy and for the offsetting of hardship and injustice. . . . Saramago’s novel gains its dramatic poignancy only by conjuring up a popular but wholly one-sided portraiture of the Church."194 Longenecker exposes Saramago's ploy and the deficiency of his portrayal of the Church. While Saramago is perfectly right in criticizing injustices committed by the Church and in the name of God, he is remiss in failing to tell the rest of the Church's story, of the countless ways in which it has shown compassion to humanity, fought against injustice, and succoured the suffering. In failing to do so, he weakens his own argument because he exposes it to charges of bias and distortion.

Ultimately, although Saramago's novel functions as a competing "gospel," it fails to