Why is Yeshua a wandering philosopher? Bulgakov and Dostoevsky: some thoughts on the genesis of the image of Yeshua Ha-Nozri from “The Master and Margarita”

3. Yeshua Ha-Nozri and the New Testament (continued). Philosophy of Yeshua

During the interrogation, Pilate's interest in the arrested person increases, reaching its peak after the healing of hemicrania. The further conversation, which looked less like an interrogation and more like a friendly conversation, helped Pilate to feel that his task was to save Yeshua. And not just to save, but also to bring him closer to himself, that is, not to release him, but to subject him “to imprisonment in Caesarea Stratonova on the Mediterranean Sea, that is, exactly where the residence of the procurator is” (p. 445). This decision is the fruit of the imagination of a man who knows no barriers to his whims: Pilate cleverly justified in his mind the possibility of taking Yeshua away, but it never occurred to him to disinterestedly free Yeshua, as the historical Pilate intended to do with Jesus. There is another character in the New Testament whose action resembles the desire of Pilate. This is what Herod Antipas, the tetrarch of Galilee, did to John the Baptist. The fortress of Macheron, in which Herod imprisoned the prophet, was located not far from the ruler’s palace in Tiberias, and Herod often talked with John, “for Herod was afraid of John, knowing that he was a righteous and holy man, and took care of him; I did a lot, listening to him, and listened to him with pleasure” (Mark 6:20), - this is how the Apostle Mark testifies about the unusual relationship between Herod and John.

But Bulgakov’s Pilate failed to become a follower of the Gospel Herod, and Judas of Kiriath, “a very kind and inquisitive man” (p. 446), prevented him. Judas from Kiriath is as different from his gospel prototype as Yeshua is from Christ. He was not a disciple of Yeshua, they met on the evening of Yeshua’s arrest, which he told Pilate about: “... the day before yesterday I met a young man near the temple who called himself Judas from the city of Kiriath. He invited me to his house in the Lower City and treated me…” (p. 446). There was no betrayal of the teacher either: Judas is a secret informant of the Sanhedrin and a provocateur who provoked a conversation about power, which the guards overheard. In this way he is close to Aloysius Mogarych and personifies in the novel the eternal theme of denunciation for self-interest (Judas loves money very much).

Dinner with Judas is an ordinary everyday episode from the life of Yeshua; it is not timed to coincide with the eve of Easter, because the action takes place on Wednesday, which means that in time, and externally, and, of course, in a mystical sense, it has nothing to do with the Last Supper of Christ general. This dinner is a trap for a political anarchist, whom the Jewish clergy has long sought to arrest, as well as a strong attack against mystical Christianity and the Church: since there was no Last Supper, it means, according to the authors of the “apocrypha,” the Christian Church is deprived of its main mystical Sacrament and commanded by Christ Communion is a fiction without any basis.

In a conversation about Judas, Pilate for the first time reveals insight bordering on clairvoyance, which “makes him in common” with the arrested man: “with devilish fire ... in his eyes” (p. 446), he recreates an atmosphere of special intimacy, conducive to frankness in the house of Judas: “He lit the lamps ... "(p. 446).

In general, the question of how the procurator knows about the role of Judas in the case of the “person under investigation from Galilee” is not so simple. Yeshua was brought to Pilate after being interrogated by Caiaphas, as eloquently evidenced by the marks of beatings on his face. Both parchments outlining the elements of the crime came from there: incitement to the destruction of the temple and anti-government statements. Pilate started talking about Judas immediately after reading the second report. It is natural to assume that the name of the provocateur is indicated in it. At the same time, Judas is in the service of Caiaphas secretly, and subsequently the high priest does not recognize his involvement in the arrest of Yeshua. When asked directly by Pilate whether Judas of Kiriath is known to him, Caiphas prefers to remain silent, so as not to sin by lying on the eve of Easter. But on the night of the Easter celebration, he still has to lie: after the death of Judas, Caiaphas lies to Afranius that Judas’s money has nothing to do with him, and indeed on that day no money was paid to anyone. He carefully conceals the complicity of Judas, which means that the name of the informant cannot appear in the report read by Pilate. The testimony of those people who overheard Judas’s conversation with the “philosopher” and burst into the house immediately after the seditious words was enough to take the freethinker to prison.

But Pilate knows absolutely everything - truly incredible knowledge. In everything that concerns Judas, Pilate is much more perspicacious than Yeshua. The clairvoyant “philosopher” behaves as if he had no idea who the “inquisitive young man” turned out to be, although this would be obvious to anyone in his place. Yeshua displays the simplicity of a genius. But is he so simple-minded? With unexpected surprise, Yeshua “suddenly” realizes that death awaits him: “Would you let me go, hegemon,” the prisoner suddenly asked, and his voice became alarmed, “I see that they want to kill me” (p. 448). And this despite the fact that he, of course, knows the sentence already passed by the Sanhedrin, as well as the fact that Pilate only has to confirm it. Yeshua's naivety is inexplicable from an ordinary, human point of view, but the master's novel has its own laws. True, the gift of insight does not leave Yeshua: he “has a presentiment” that “a misfortune will happen to Judas” (p. 447), and this presentiment does not deceive him. In general, if we consider the interrogation from a realistic position, many oddities are revealed, and Yeshua’s behavior is puzzling. But if we keep in mind that before us is a staging skillfully staged by the devil, then we have to analyze not the “truth of life”, but the brilliant verisimilitude of the theater with the inevitable conventions of stage action. The performance is designed for the consciousness to combine the events outlined by the master with the New Testament and the new interpretation, due to its clarity, will seem convincing, and for the actors the main thing is that they be believed. Therefore, there is a need for a touch of “miraculous” in the image of Yeshua and an element of simplicity in his character, which seems to be incompatible in one person, but reveals the image most fully in a very short time. All allusions to the New Testament are connected either with the main task - the denial of the Divine nature of Christ, or with strengthening the impression of authenticity.

The last hours of Yeshua’s life, as well as his burial, are only a continuation of two lines: the denial of the Divinity of Christ is the more convincing, the more subtle the game. The master's novel as a literary work (script) and as a performance is conceived in such a way that neither Yeshua, playing Jesus, nor Woland, playing Pilate, verbally refute the Divine Essence of Jesus. The actors simply do not talk about it, offering an option in which the very formulation of the question turns out to be inappropriate: it is absolutely obvious that Yeshua is not the son of God and not the Messiah, and his “biography” does not allow us to assume the opposite.

Yeshua does not follow Jesus' Way of the Cross to Calvary and does not carry the Cross. The condemned “rode in a cart” (p. 588), and on their necks were hung boards with the inscription in Aramaic and Greek: “Robber and rebel” (p. 588). On Bald Mountain there are no signs with inscriptions above the crosses, and there are no crosses as such: criminals were executed on pillars with a crossbar without an upper projection, as in N. Ge’s painting “The Crucifixion” (1894), although the artist still placed the signs. This kind of variation of crosses was used in the practice of Roman execution. Yeshua’s hands were not nailed, but only tied to a crossbar, which is also a type of Roman crucifixion, but this “reality,” which is reliable in itself, conflicts with the New Testament.

Christ was nailed to the Cross, and above His head there was an inscription “signifying His guilt”: “This is Jesus, the King of the Jews” (Matthew 27:37). According to the testimony of the Apostle John, the inscription also contained the mocking and contemptuous attitude of the Jews towards Him: “Jesus Nazarene, King of the Jews" (John 19:19).

The master also denies the parable of the prudent thief who believed on the cross that Jesus is the Son of God. Neither Dismas nor Gestas have anything but hostility towards Yeshua. Crucified on a nearby pillar, Dismas is absolutely sure that Yeshua is no different from him. When the executioner gives Yeshua a sponge with water, Dismas exclaims: “Injustice! I am a robber just like him” (p. 597), clearly parodying Yeshua’s words about the “kingdom of truth and justice” and giving the word “robber” a connotation of some superiority: probably, in his opinion, only robbers have the right to water before death . The names of the robbers correspond to the names included in the legend of the Crucifixion of Christ - Bulgakov could have drawn them from the apocryphal gospel of Nicodemus, a detailed analysis of which is contained in the collection “Monuments of Ancient Christian Writing” (Moscow, 1860). This book says that the records attributed to Nicodemus were included in the works of church writers, in the sacred chants of the creators of church songs and canons. Thus, the apocryphal gospels are important not only as monuments of Christian antiquity, but also as a tool for explaining the elements of church worship, folk beliefs, and works of art.

Nicodemus is identified with the secret disciple of Christ mentioned in the New Testament, a Pharisee, a member of the Sanhedrin, who was baptized by the apostles Peter and John (John 3: 1–21; 7: 50–52; 19: 38–42) and took part in the burial Jesus. He testifies in his notes that Jesus was crucified with a crown of thorns on his head, in a lention near his loins. A board was placed above his head indicating His guilt. The robbers Dismas and Gestas were crucified with him (on the right and on the left, respectively), of whom Dismas repented and believed in God on the cross.

Catholicism also mentions the names of these robbers, but in a different order. Anatole France, who wrote the story “Gestas,” took as his epigraph a quote from Augustin Thierry’s “The Redemption of Larmor”: ““Gestas,” said the Lord, “today you will be with Me in Paradise.” Gestas - in our ancient mysteries - the name of the thief crucified at the right hand of Jesus Christ." The New Testament does not name the names of the crucified thieves, but the parable of the repentant thief is in the Gospel of Luke (23: 39–43).

Judging by the fact that Bulgakov placed Dismas to the right of Yeshua, he did not use Catholic sources and not the version of A. France, but the testimony of Nicodemus. The motive of repentance is supplanted by the cry of Dismas, rejecting any thought about a possible change in his consciousness.

The execution of Yeshua is striking in the absence of the crowd that is inevitable in such cases, for execution is not only punishment, but also edification. (The New Testament, of course, speaks of a gathering of people.) The master’s novel explains this by saying that “the sun burned the crowd and drove it back to Yershalaim” (p. 590). Behind the chain of legionnaires under the fig tree “he established himself... the only viewer, A not a member execution, and sat on the stone from the very beginning” (p. 591). This “spectator” was Matvey Levi. So, in addition to two chains of Roman soldiers surrounding Bald Mountain, Matthew Levi as a spectator, Rat-Slayer, “sternly” looking “at the pillars with the executed, then at the soldiers in chains” (p. 590), and Afranius, who “placed himself not far away from the pillars on a three-legged stool and sat in complacent immobility” (pp. 590–591), there are no other witnesses to the execution. This circumstance emphasizes the esoteric nature of the moment.

In contrast to Jesus, who did not lose consciousness on the Cross, Yeshua was mostly in oblivion: “Yeshua was happier than the other two. In the very first hour he began to suffer from fainting spells, and then he fell into oblivion, hanging his head in an unwound turban” (p. 597). He woke up only at that moment when the guard brought him a sponge with water. At the same time, the “high” (p. 440) voice of Yeshua turns into a “hoarse robber” (p. 597), as if the sentence and execution changed the essence of the complacent philosopher. After Dismas’s malicious attack, Yeshua, true to his doctrine of “justice,” asks the executioner to give Dismas a drink, “ trying so that his voice sounds affectionate and convincing, and without achieving this” (p. 598). The unsuccessful attempt to change the “robber” voice to a “gentle” one somehow does not fit with the previous description of Yeshua: as if he is trying to play a certain role on the cross, but his intonation fails him.

The New Testament does not say that water was given to the hanged. They were given a special drink that had a narcotic effect, after taking which Jesus died immediately. In a conversation with Pilate, Afranius says that Yeshua refused this drink.

Yeshua was also buried in a unique way, contrary to all Jewish customs and testimonies about the burial of Jesus Christ. By the will of the authors of the “apocrypha”, the burial place of Yeshua turned out to be extremely far from the Holy Sepulcher. Jesus was buried here, on Golgotha, where there were rock caves in which the dead were placed, closing the entrance to the cave with a stone slab. The disciples did not carry the Teacher’s body far, but buried it in an empty tomb (cave) that belonged to a wealthy follower of the teachings of Jesus, Joseph of Arimathea, who asked Pilate for permission to bury it. The participation of Joseph of Arimathea is mentioned by all the evangelists, and we read in Matthew that the coffin belonged to him: “And Joseph took the body, wrapped it in a clean shroud and laid it in his new coffin, which he had hewn in the rock; and, rolling a large stone against the door of the tomb, he departed” (Matthew 27: 59–60).

The funeral team took Yeshua's body out of the city, taking Levi with them. " In two hours reached a desert gorge north of Yershalaim. There the team, working in shifts, dug a deep hole within an hour and buried all three executed people in it” (p. 742).

In general, it was the custom of the Jews to leave the bodies of criminals (if they had no relatives) in the valley of Hinnom (Gehenne), which until 622 BC. e. was a place of pagan cults, and then turned into a landfill and damned. One might assume that Yeshua's body was taken there, but Gehenna is located near south from Jerusalem, and the bodies of Bulgakov’s criminals were sent to north. Therefore, Bulgakov does not give any real indications of where the robbers were buried - the topography remains a secret, known only to the participants in the funeral procession and Pontius Pilate. “Desert Gorge” may be associated with the desert and the scapegoat, but this association does not shed any light on the mystery of Yeshua’s burial. Only the northern landmark remains.

The chain of negations associated with the birth, life and death of Jesus Christ in Bulgakov’s novel is closed: both the birthplace of Yeshua and the place of his last refuge are placed somewhere in the north of Palestine. Here we remember the aria that bursts into the telephone conversation of the “Moscow part” of the novel: “The rocks are my refuge,” which can be attributed to both the posthumous punishment of Pilate and the burial of Yeshua. Even if any miracles happened at the “philosopher’s” grave, no one could see them: no guards were left there; the pit was leveled to the ground and covered with stones so that it would not stand out against the background of the rocky desert. Levi, if he had happened to return here, would hardly have found the teacher’s grave, for only Tolmai, who led the funeral, knew the identification mark.

Tolmai, whom Afranius mentions three times in his conversation with the procurator, is, judging by his name, a Jew. This means that the funeral was presided over by a Jew in the service of the Romans. There is nothing strange in this fact, but it is still puzzling that a Jew, even in the service of the Romans, grossly violated the Law prohibiting burial on Saturday, and especially on Easter Saturday. After six o'clock in the evening it was strictly forbidden to bury anyone. The disciples of Jesus Christ were in a hurry and arrived at the right time. Yeshua died during a thunderstorm, which began “at the end of the day” (p. 714), then, after the thunderstorm, the bodies were taken beyond Yershalaim. While they were digging the grave, a lot of time passed, so the funeral coincided with the height of the holiday and the death of Judas. Of course, a Jew could not neglect Easter (as did Judas, who preferred a date with Nisa over the holiday) and defile himself by burial.

The second gross violation of the Law is that Yeshua was not buried according to Jewish custom, wrapped in a clean shroud, but dressed in a tunic. Both deviations from the Law make the funeral of Yeshua lawless, blasphemous and ambiguous.

To the north of Jerusalem there were densely populated cities all the way to Samaria, in which there lived many pagans and semi-pagans who formally converted to Judaism, but secretly professed their faith. The northern landmark of Yeshua’s grave, the unconventional funeral, and the participation in it of Tolmai, an apostate from the faith, may be evidence of the non-Jewish nature of the burial and deprive it of a certain religious overtones. This is probably a pagan burial, but not a Roman one: the Romans cremated the dead.

Levi's attempt to steal the body from Bald Mountain is also a negative allusion to the New Testament, of which we have already counted many. The fact is that when Christ was resurrected, the guards who were present informed the Sanhedrin about the Resurrection, and this circumstance plunged the clergy into confusion. It was decided to bribe the guards so that there would be no talk about the Resurrection, and spread the rumor that the body was stolen by the students while the unlucky guards were sleeping. “They took the money and did as they were taught; and this word spread among the Jews to this day” (Matthew 28:15). The master's novel reinforces the belief in an attempted theft, going back to the version of the bribed guards from the New Testament.

The motive for stealing the body is described in some detail in N. Notovich’s book “The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ,” which was called the “Tibetan Gospel” and was widely distributed at the beginning of the 20th century. It was published shortly after Notovich's 1887 journey along the upper Indus River in the Himalayas. According to Notovich, Pilate, who was extremely afraid of Jesus, ordered after the funeral to secretly dig up the body of Christ and bury it in another place. When the disciples found the tomb empty, they believed in the Resurrection. What is important for us here is the burial made by Pilate in an “unknown place.” The second point that brings the “Tibetan Gospel” closer to Bulgakov’s novel is Yeshua’s education. According to Notovich, Jesus at the age of fourteen left his father’s house and reached India with a caravan of merchants. There He learned various languages, preached among Hindus and Buddhists, and returned to his homeland at the age of 29. The hero of the “Tibetan Gospel” is similar to Bulgakov’s Yeshua in age (according to Bulgakov, Yeshua is a man “about twenty-seven years old” (p. 436)), knowledge of many languages ​​(there is no such information about Jesus, apart from the “Tibetan Gospel”), as well as vagrancy as a way of life. Of course, the Jesus of the New Testament could not deny that He had a home in Nazareth, where numerous relatives lived, and He had only been traveling for three years. Jesus from Notovich's book has not seen his family since he was fourteen, constantly moving from city to city, from country to country. The “Tibetan Gospel” could well have been known to the author of “The Master and Margarita”; in any case, the possibility of his acquaintance with this book should not be denied.

Yeshua does not call himself a philosopher, but Pontius Pilate defines him as such and even asks from which Greek books he drew his views. The procurator was prompted to think about the Greek primary sources of Yeshua’s knowledge by the reasoning that all people are good from birth. Yeshua's philosophical concept that “there are no evil people” is opposed to the Jewish knowledge of ontological evil. The Old Testament, regarding human nature as fallen as a result of original sin, insists on a clear division between good, which comes from God, and evil, which comes from Satan. Good can only be understood as the measure of things in God, and not a single impulse, not a single action is good if its criterion is not God and it is not consistent with the Law.

In contrast to this, Yeshua insists that there are no evil people from birth, goodness is inherent in a person as a given, and only external circumstances can influence a person, making him “unhappy,” like, for example, Ratkiller, but they cannot change the “good” nature they can. Speaking about Rat-Slayer, Yeshua says: “Since good people disfigured him, he became cruel and callous"(p. 444), but he does not want to classify even these acquired qualities as evil. Yeshua denies evil as such, replacing this concept with the word misfortune. A person in this world, in this case, depends only on circumstances that can be unhappy and introduce such new features as, say, cruelty and callousness into an initially good nature. But they can be “erased” by exhortation, education, preaching: Yeshua believes that a conversation with the Rat-Slayer would help the latter to change. Such reasoning is partly reminiscent of one of the provisions of Greek philosophy that evil is the absence of good, and the lack of proper behavior is a misfortune that occurred as a result of a fatal combination of circumstances. The absence of evil as a monotheistic metaphysical principle in this context removes the question of Satan - the bearer of cosmic evil that arose as a result of the free choice of created angels - and of his struggle for the individual human soul. It is not man’s free choice between good (in God) and evil (in Satan), but the game of chance that comes into force. Yeshua’s position is vulnerable: the “good people” who disfigured Rat-Slayer did not do a good deed, and the “unfortunate” Rat-Slayer seemed to “forget” about his natural kindness. Rejecting the ontological existence of evil, Yeshua undoubtedly rejects Satan as its bearer. His reasoning continues in the dialogue between Woland and Levi on the roof of Pashkov’s house. Woland, being evil incarnate, mocks Levi, who, being a direct follower of Yeshua, denies the existence of evil and at the same time knows perfectly well that it exists, and even communicates with Satan. Comparing evil to a shadow falling from an object, Woland asks Levi: “... what would your good do if evil did not exist?” (p. 776). We will talk about what exactly Yeshua’s disciple considers good in the chapter dedicated to him, but he understands good in a very unique way. From Woland’s reasoning it is clear that he considers good to be primary - after all, the “shadow of the sword” cannot arise without the sword itself. But in this case, it is clear that both the “good” of Yeshua, and Yeshua himself, are shadows of Jesus Christ, because Yeshua arose only because he was “copied” from Jesus and is His copy and, at the same time, a negative. “Good” of Yeshua and Levi is a concept that exists outside of God for those who believe only in life circumstances, in their decisive role.

Yeshua preaches goodness as an essential category given initially to all people. But for some reason, extremely unattractive people fall under the definition of “kind” - there is no opposition to them in the master’s novel. The gloomy fanatic and potential murderer (with the best intentions!) Levi, the “cruel”, self-centered, closed to people Pilate, the insidious and cunning Afranius, the monstrous Rat Slayer, the selfish informer Judas - they all do extremely bad things, even if their motives are in themselves good. Pilate defends Caesar and the law and guards order; Ratboy has distinguished himself as a brave warrior and deals with robbers and rebels; Judas serves the Sanhedrin and also stands up for order: everyone’s motives are good, but their actions are reprehensible.

It must be said that Yeshua’s hopes for the power of education and moral teachings were debunked by the example of Judas: the conversation with the “philosopher” did not change the money-loving informer at all, Yeshua’s death did not even fall on him as a shadow and did not darken the joyful excitement in anticipation of a meeting with someone like himself , the provocateur Nisa and from receiving money for a job well done.

Christ can be considered the antagonist of Yeshua in the matter of good and evil. The whole measure of goodness, according to Him, is found only in God. People can be evil and good, and this is determined by their actions: “For everyone who does evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds be exposed, because they are evil, but he who does righteousness comes to the light, so that it may be revealed.” his works were done, because they were done in God” (John 3:20–21).

Particularly important is the question of the proximity of “truth” to “justice”. If Yeshua speaks about the transition of humanity to the Kingdom of God, the question of state power disappears by itself, and why then talk about the power of Caesar is unclear. If we are talking about utopian times, about communism (or anarchism?) as a society in which the need for state power will disappear, this position is downright revolutionary in nature and, naturally, is perceived by representatives of the authorities as a call to rebellion. Bulgakov’s Pilate is not without reason interested in what exactly Yeshua understands by “truth,” for this is a philosophical category, while “justice” is a concept of a social nature. The answer he receives is quite materialistic: truth turns out to be relative, at the moment it is true that the procurator has a headache. Almost according to Marx. Yeshua fully explained his position by retelling to the procurator what he had said in the house of Judas: “Among other things, I said... that all power is violence over people and that the time will come when there will be no power of either the Caesars or any other power. Man will move into the kingdom of truth and justice, where no power will be needed at all” (p. 447). Not a word about the Kingdom of God. This means that a time of anarchy will come on earth. But before this, Yeshua clearly said that the “temple of the old faith” will be replaced by the “new temple of truth,” that is, truth (probably coupled with “justice”) will replace faith in God and will become a new object of worship. Yeshua is the prophet of the coming utopian communism. He accepts death for his beliefs and forgives Pilate. And although his death is not at all voluntary, it is accepted as ideals to which humanity tends to return and which have already won in the country in which the master was born, in a country that has not yet achieved the ideal of anarchy, but is on the way to it, and therefore has created the most terrible power in its sophisticated deceit.

The reader's sympathies are aroused by the innocence and complacency of Yeshua, although his “kingdom of truth” and “goodness” are very doubtful. The reader likes dissidents, the reader is always dissatisfied with the authorities. But Yeshua’s preaching is not at all peaceful, it is ideological - this is obvious. The Sanhedrin felt the anti-clerical orientation of the “philosopher’s” speeches: after all, although he did not immediately call for the destruction of the temple, he said that sooner or later the old faith would collapse. Caiaphas told the procurator: “You wanted to release him so that he would confuse the people, outrage the faith and bring the people under the Roman swords!” (p. 454). Kaifa's fear is understandable. It is clear that the opponent of the high priest, Pilate, would gladly act contrary to the wishes of Caiaphas, but he also understands how dangerous Yeshua is not only for Judea, but also for Rome. By telling at the bazaar that power is not inevitable, Yeshua is clearly capable of hastening the onset of blessed times and becoming the ideological instigator of a rebellion in the name of future communism, or political anarchy, or simply against power - for the sake of the immediate implementation of “justice.” It must be said that Kaifa is not in vain to fear possible unrest: the only disciple of Yeshua is ready to take revenge with a knife in his hand. As we see, Yeshua’s preaching did not bring peace to his gloomy soul. Levi accused God of injustice, but what did Yeshua see as injustice? Woland also touched on this topic. “Everything will be right...” (p. 797) - he consoled Margarita, who, as if adopting his soothing intonation, in turn exhorted Ivan Bezdomny: “... everything will be so for you, as it should"(p. 811). Satan, a woman in hell, a revolutionary prophet talk about justice without naming the path to it.

Every person is looking for a path. And the degree of Yeshua’s charm is a kind of litmus test of the spiritual state: the less identification with Christ the reader allows himself, compassionate with Yeshua, the more convincing the bold dissident beginning. We see a sufferer for humanistic ideals. In Bulgakov's time, this was a dangerous move, but in the context of Bulgakov's entire work it was quite logical. Who claims the advent of the “kingdom of justice”? A wandering philosopher, covertly ironizing Dostoevsky’s painful question: is truth possible without Christ? Well, of course, Yeshua answers, only in conjunction with justice.

In 1939, Bulgakov wrote the play Batum about Stalin's youth. It was originally called "Shepherd". The young revolutionary seminarian, who fearlessly rejected religion, is similar in his reasoning to Yeshua. But in the play, the character of young Stalin contains not only the obvious progressiveness and prophetic gift, demonic features clearly appear in him, a kind of hybrid of Christ, Satan, a revolutionary, in general, the Antichrist is created. Everything that is hidden latently in Yeshua and can only be deciphered with the help of the Gospels is presented frighteningly clearly in Stalin. Young Stalin becomes Yeshua incarnate, having erased the blissful make-up, or rather, gradually erasing it. Of course, he is also a prophet.

However, the prophet, philosopher and madman Yeshua is much more than these characteristics. He is in charge of the “light” in the supramundane sphere, dual to Woland, that is, in the spiritual hierarchy he is endowed with power of Manichaean proportions. But this is the unrighteous lamb, the lying copy of Christ, His opponent – ​​the Antichrist. Stalin in “Batum” is the earthly protege of the Antichrist, the implementer of political ideas. Bulgakov saw in the seminarian who had renounced God the features of the coming Antichrist on earth, but he had not yet grown into someone who would be enthusiastically accepted as the Messiah, because the atheism he professed gives rampage only to the cult of personality, but not to Satan. He is limited by personality, he is all “here and now,” although the passage into this “here” is open to Satan precisely thanks to the incarnation of the Antichrist.

Similar externally the impostor Antichrist must come to Christ at the end of times in order to deceive people who have long put the New Testament on the bookshelves visibility the second coming of Christ and to be accepted for Him. The teaching of the Holy Fathers of the Church about the Antichrist emphasizes this visible similarity. But the master’s novel is also structured in accordance with this: in the enacted mystery, Yeshua plays the role of Jesus, impersonating Him to the gullible reader (before that, to the audience or “intuitionists,” which the master probably turned out to be). In general, the icon, dusty with everyday life, suddenly sparkled with deceptively bright colors. The evangelists faded into the background.

In this world, Satan can only act through a person, through his thoughts, feelings, heart. Antichrist is the embodiment of Satan; he was born of an earthly woman and Satan (according to one version, he took the form of a dog or jackal) and after physical incarnation he gains exorbitant power over people.

In the master’s novel, naturally, there is no indication of Yeshua’s “pedigree” (the Syrian father is just a rumor). But in the other world, Yeshua creates opposition to Satan not because they are at war with each other: their spheres are different, their methods of influence are also different, but they are united in opposition to the Creator. In Bulgakov’s interpretation, it seems that Yeshua the Antichrist is not inclined to consider his “department” in any way inferior to Woland’s “department”. It’s just that the Antichrist has not been fully revealed until a certain time, his role is not as clear and readable as the role of Satan, it is more hidden.

The master is completely clear who Yeshua is: in his life he has seen enough of truth and justice without God. He saw in whose name the “new temple of truth” was being established, he saw giant idols, rivaling those of Yershalaim, placed in honor of a man who was called to benefit the world, ostensibly in the name of “justice,” but in fact, he put himself in the place of God devoted to him. This is why the master does not want the “light” of the Antichrist, does not ask for it, does not even strive to talk about Yeshua: Woland himself conveys to the master the “appreciation” of Yeshua. Having perfectly understood what it means to realize the ideals of the Antichrist, the master does not intend to worship Yeshua, and therefore did not deserve the “light”, preferring to go into the manifest darkness, to Satan. The seducer in the role of prophet and philosopher is not as terrible as the reality born thanks to him and feeding on his power.

Provocation is the main feature of the “satanic” characters in Bulgakov’s works. Stalin in “Batum” persuades a classmate to hand over a package of leaflets, which makes him an accomplice in the revolutionary activities of the rebellious seminarian; the provocateur is Rudolphi from The Theatrical Novel, etc. The entire novel “The Master and Margarita” is built on the effectiveness of provocation: Woland, Judas, Nisa, Aloysius are provocateurs. Yeshua also plays this role. He turns to Pilate with a naively provocative request: “Would you let me go, hegemon” (p. 448). Pontius Pilate (not the evangelical one, who I didn’t find any fault with Jesus at all, and Bulgakovsky, who had just encountered a “matter of national importance” - this is how the statement about the abolition of the power of the Roman Caesar in the future was perceived) knew perfectly well that such a statement could qualify as “lese majeste” or, in any case, as an encroachment on the “divine power" of Caesar. This kind of crime was punishable by hanging on a cross, which the Romans called the “cursed (or unfortunate) tree.”

Since all four Gospels claim that Pilate did not find any guilt in Jesus Christ, since the issue did not concern Roman power at all, then, naturally, no psychological conflicts, confrontations and pangs of conscience could arise for the Gospel Pilate, except for one thing: he could not protect Jesus from the Jewish crowd, which sentenced Him to death. The master’s version deliberately takes the reader into areas completely unrelated to the New Testament, associating with Bulgakov’s contemporary society, for the gospel Pilate can be accused of anything but cowardice: he made every effort to save the condemned man, persuading the crowd and forcing the Jews admit your guilt. “Pilate, seeing that nothing was helping, but the confusion was increasing, took water and washed his hands before the people, and said: I am innocent of the blood of this Righteous One; look you. And, answering, all the people said: His blood be on us and on our children"(Matthew 27: 24–25).

But in the events of Yershalaim, a tramp who admitted his guilt in the presence of witnesses and, according to Roman law, is subject to undisputed execution, asks the procurator to let him go. It is not difficult to imagine what would have happened if the procurator had agreed to such an adventure. Either he would have been executed along with Yeshua, or he would have had to flee “incognito” with the philosopher from Yershalaim. But where could Pilate hide from the all-seeing Afranius? Nevertheless, the request was made, and it made Pilate afraid, because he, the procurator, was not at all going to die because of a stranger, although he liked him. Career, power - this is reality. Moreover, he was not going to die for political views that he did not share. But Yeshua, before his execution, made it clear to him that he considered him a coward. This became the main guilt of the fifth procurator of Judea before Yeshua and could never be imputed to Pilate of Pontius, under whom Jesus Christ was crucified.

New Testament Translator: William Tyndale Year and place of first publication: 1526, Germany Literary form: religious text CONTENTS English Protestant reformer and linguist William Tyndale was the first to translate the Bible into English from Greek and Hebrew