Nikos Kazantzakis and Christ as Hero

This essay addresses the challenges associated with the literary representation of Christ. It analyzes two works by Nikos Kazantzakis, The Last Temptation of Christ and The Greek Passion, and it argues that Kazantzakis does not claim direct access to the actual historical figure of Jesus. Rather, Kazantakis constructs his Christ in relation to a sequence of events which are associated with the life of Christ—such as acceptance, opposition, rejection, suffering, and vindication—and his own intellectual quest for a new epic hero who will forge a new society by radically re-thinking its foundational principles.