There can be no question of two Gods. But I take care not to confuse, under this name of God, two very different things, different to the point of opposing each other. On one hand, the whole of Cosmos and the natural laws that govern it; matter and forces, energies; that is the role of Zeus; and that can be called God, but on taking out of the word all personal meaning and morality. On the other hand, the fascicles of every human effort toward the good and the beautiful; the slow mastery of brute forces and their putting into service in order to realize the good and beautiful on earth; that is the role of Prometheus; and Christ’s role, too; it is the unfolding of man, and all the virtues have part in it. But this God does not inhabit nature at all; he is created by man, or, if you prefer, it is through man that he creates himself; and every effort to exteriorize him by prayer remains futile. It was with him that Christ joined; but it is to the other one he addresses himself when, dying, he utters his despairing cry: “My God, why hast thou forsaken me?…”
He. — In order that “all be accomplished,” says the believer.
I. — But I who do not believe see in it only a tragic misapprehension. There is no desertion there because there was never an understanding; because the god of natural forces has no ears and remains indifferent to human sufferings, either in attaching Prometheus to the Caucasus, or in nailing Christ to the cross.
He. — Allow me: it was not natural forces that crucified Christ; it was man’s malignity.
I. — The God whom Christ represents and incarnates, the God-Virtue, must fight at the same time against Zeus and man’s malignity. That last word of Christ (the only one of the seven words of the Crucified reported by two Evangelists, the simple apostles Matthew and Mark, who report only that word) keeps me from confusing Christ with God, if all the rest had not already warned me. How can one not see, in that tragic word, not a letting go, a treachery on God’s part, but this: that Christ, believing and making others believe that he was one with God, was mistaken and deceived us; that the One he called “my Father” had never recognized him for Son, that the God he represented, that he himself, was only, as he sometimes says, “the Son of Man?” It is that God only whom I am able and wish to adore.
1 It concerns the Introduction to the Theatre of Goethe, which had just appeared in The Figaro during the spring of 1942.
31 LEAVES
February 1942.
MADEMOISELLE CHARRAS, with pious and affectionate intentions, had sent me, at La Croix, during the last Easter holidays, a little book of Protestant propaganda: For Faith, Unity and Action. I did not open it until last evening. It contains, independent of all context, only the words of Christ, and all of Christ’s words. It is a book in good faith, composed, or at least enlightened, by A. Westphal. But I find fault with a good deal of it. In the first place, his translation of the Gospel texts; I return to the reproaches I made them at the time of Numquid et tu.… His desire to touch souls leads him into bringing the words of Christ to us. Of those that do not seem to him sufficiently clear, he forces the sense slightly and twists it a little, in such a way, he believes, as to permit us to understand better; but immediately he limits its extent, and the significance loses in breadth what it gains in exactitude.
I shall hunt for no better example than the one I light on at once: Christ’s word to Mary Magdalene after the resurrection, that Noli me tangere, which is addressed in turn to every loving soul and anticipates every mystical aspiration, — for the words become, according to Westphaclass="underline" “Don’t attach yourself to me, for …” And naturally that is very easily understood: Mary Magdalene should not attach herself to the Christ so as not to disturb and hinder the Christ who must ascend to the Father. That is reasonable and brief. Those words lose their infinite reverberation.
But this bothers me still more:
Of Christ’s seven words on the cross, three are reported to us by Luke:
1—Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.
2—To-day shalt thou be with me in Paradise (word spoken to the one called “the good thief”).
3—Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.
Three are handed down to us by John:
1—Woman, behold thy son (to the Virgin Mary) and Behold thy mother (to the one of the disciples “whom Jesus loved”).
2—I thirst.
3—It is finished.
For those six solemn words, loaded with inexhaustible meaning, no “concordance.” The seventh is the only one handed down to us, at the same time, by two Evangelists, who bring us only that one. I say “the seventh,” but merely because I am quoting it last. It is important to notice that it has been handed down to us by the two of the four Evangelists, by far the most simple and the least concerned with doctrine and mystical interpretation. They report only this one word, and both of them give it as the last one of Christ; and this word is terrible; it is the tragic cry of every soul that puts its confidence in a God that does not exist. Or, without going so far, for it in no way denies the existence of God, at least it disassociates God from Christ, opposes them (as I do irresistibly): My God! My God! why have you forsaken me?
In that word alone, how can one help seeing, shockingly, not a letting go, a betrayal on the part of God, but this: that Christ, believing and making others believe that he was a part of God, was mistaken and misled us; that the one he called “his Father” had never recognized him for “Son” and that all the superhuman teaching of Christ took place outside of God, even in opposition to him.
Naturally Westphal takes care not to give this cry of despair as the last word of Christ. It is important for the believer to be reassured, and for that reason, to join it to I thirst. So it takes on the meaning of a temporary and quasi-human weakness in which Christ suffers and doubts in as much as he is man and “the word made flesh.” And this word must be followed immediately by the It is finished, by which the mission of Christ is confirmed, as he assumes, in view of saving humanity, every weakness and suffering that belongs to man. Then, finally, in order to establish the sonship firmly: Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.
The terrible word can be explained in the following manner: Momentary weakness, for “the flesh is weak,” and in this very weakness is the proof that Jesus was really made man, consenting to suffer in human flesh. And God, although He is love, refuses to help him, in order that “everything be accomplished.” The frightful sacrifice must be accepted to the end. “Why have you abandoned me?” So that humanity might be saved through you. Otherwise you would not be the Savior.
Thus everything becomes clear, logical and reassuring. But that is not at all the way it has been presented to us. Luke and John, much more sentient than Mark and Matthew, bring to their account a concern that goes way beyond that of the simple chroniclers and reporters that the first two guileless Evangelists are. Luke and John do not even report a word that appears to them, as it is, very dangerous.
I come across the rough copy of a letter that I addressed to Mademoiselle M.S. Saint-Cyr on August 15, 1941, in answer to a letter I had just received from her. It is not out of place for me to transcribe it in this notebook: