Hero Yeshua. The image and characteristics of Yeshua in the novel The Master and Margarita essay

"… - Name?

- My? the arrested man hastily responded, expressing with his whole being his readiness to answer sensibly, not to arouse more anger.

- Mine - I know. Don't pretend to be more stupid than you are. Your.

“Yeshua,” the prisoner hastily answered.

- Is there a nickname?

- Ga-Notsri.

- Where you're from?

“From the city of Gamala,” the prisoner answered, pointing with his head that there, somewhere far away, to his right, in the north, there is the city of Gamala.

- Who are you by blood?

“I don’t know for sure,” the prisoner replied briskly, “I don’t remember my parents. I was told that my father was a Syrian ... ... "

In interpreting the image of Jesus Christ as the ideal of moral perfection, Bulgakov departed from traditional, canonical ideas based on the four gospels and the apostolic epistles. IN AND. Nemtsev writes: “Yeshua is “the author’s embodiment of the cause of a positive person, to whom the aspirations of the heroes of the novel are directed.” There is not a single effective heroic gesture in Yeshua's novel. He is an ordinary person: “He is not an ascetic, not a hermit, not a hermit, he is not surrounded by the aura of a righteous man or an ascetic. Torturing himself with fasting and prayers. Like all people, he suffers from pain and rejoices at being freed from it. The mythological plot, on which Bulgakov's work is projected, is a synthesis of three main elements - the Gospel, the Apocalypse and Faust. Two thousand years ago, "a means of salvation that changed the course of world history" was found. Bulgakov saw him in the spiritual feat of a man who in the novel is called Yeshua Ha-Nozri and behind whom his great gospel prototype is visible. The figure of Yeshua was Bulgakov's outstanding discovery. There is evidence that Bulgakov was not religious, did not go to church, and refused unction before his death. But vulgar atheism was deeply alien to him. The real new era (under V.M. Akimov) in the 20th century is also the era of “personification” (the term of S.N. Bulgakov - V.A.), the time of new spiritual self-salvation and self-government, similar to which was once revealed to the world in Jesus Christ" 1. According to M. Bulgakov, such an act can save our Fatherland in the 20th century. The rebirth of God must occur in each of the people.

The story of Christ in Bulgakov's novel is not presented in the same way as in Holy Scripture. This attitude is fixed, it becomes the subject of a polemic between the narrative and the biblical text. As an invariant plot, the writer offers an apocryphal version of the gospel narrative, in which each of the participants combines opposite features and plays a dual role. “Instead of a direct confrontation between the victim and the traitor, the Messiah and his disciples and those who are hostile to them, a complex system is formed. Between all members of which relations of kinship of partial similarity appear. Rethinking the canonical gospel narrative gives Bulgakov's version the character of an apocrypha. The conscious and sharp rejection of the canonical New Testament tradition in the novel is manifested by the fact that the notes of Levi Matthew (ie, the future text of the Gospel of Matthew) are evaluated by Yeshua as completely untrue. The novel appears as the true version.

The first idea of ​​the apostle and evangelist Matthew in the novel is given by Yeshua's own assessment: “... He walks, walks alone with goat's parchment and continuously writes, but once I looked into this parchment and was horrified. Absolutely nothing of what is written there, I did not say. I begged him: burn your parchment for God's sake! Therefore, Yeshua himself rejects the authenticity of the testimonies of the Gospel of Matthew. In this regard, he shows unity of views with Wolond - Satan: “... Someone who, - Woland turns to Berlioz, but you should know that absolutely nothing of what is written in the Gospels did not actually happen never...". It is no coincidence that the chapter in which Woland began to tell the Master's novel was titled "The Gospel of the Devil" and "The Gospel of Woland" in draft versions. Much in the Master's novel about Pontius Pilate is very far from the gospel texts. In particular, there is no scene of the resurrection of Yeshua, there is no Virgin Mary at all; Yeshua's sermons do not last three years, as in the Gospel, but several months at best.

If the dual nature of the protagonist (creative strength and weakness, etc.) makes him the hero of the apocryphal Bulgakov Gospel, then this gives his mission a Faustian character and his death an amphibious meaning.

As for the details of the "ancient" chapters, Bulgakov drew many of them from the Gospels and checked them against reliable historical sources. Working on these chapters, Bulgakov, in particular, carefully studied the "History of the Jews" by Heinrich Graetz, "The Life of Jesus" by D. Strauss, "Jesus Against Christ" by A. Barbusse, "The Archeology of the Traditions of Our Lord Jesus Christ" by N.K. Maskovitsky, “The Book of My Life” by P. Uspensky, “Gethsemane” by A. M. Fedorov, “Pilate” by G. Petrovsky, “Procurator of Judea” by A. Drans, “The Life of Jesus Christ” by Ferrara, and of course, the Bible “Gospel. A special place was occupied by E. Renan's book "The Life of Jesus", from which the writer drew chronological data and some historical details. From Renan's "Antichrist" Aphranius came to Bulgakov's novel. In addition, the Master's novel is reminiscent of Renan's "Life of Jesus" conceptually as well. Bulgakov accepted "understood" the idea of ​​the influence of the gospel parable on European culture of the last two millennia. According to Renan, Jesus is the best moral doctrine in history, dogmatized by a church hostile to him. The idea of ​​a cult, based on morality and purity of heart and the brotherhood of people, turned into "several sensations collected from memory by his listeners, especially ... the apostles."

To create many details and images of the historical part of the novel, some works of art served as primary impulses. So Yeshua is endowed with some of the qualities of a serving Don Quixote. To Pilate’s question whether Yeshua really considers all people to be kind, including the centurion Mark the Ratslayer, who beat him, Ga-Nozri answers in the affirmative and adds that Mark, “it’s true, an unhappy person ... If I were to talk to him, he would suddenly say dreamily prisoner - I'm sure he would have changed dramatically. In the novel Cervantes: Don Quixote is insulted by the priest in the castle. Calling him an "empty head", but meekly replies: "I must not see. And I do not see anything offensive in the words of this kind man. The only thing I regret is that he did not stay with us - I would prove to him that he was wrong. It is the idea of ​​“charging” that kindly makes Bulgakov’s hero related to the Knight of the Sad Image. In most cases, literary sources are so organically woven into the fabric of the narrative that it is difficult to say for many episodes whether they are taken from life or from books.

M. Bulgakov portrayed Yeshua. Nowhere does it show by a single hint that this is the Son of God. Yeshua is everywhere represented by Man, philosophy, sage, healer, but - Man. There is no halo of holiness over the image of Yeshua, and in the scene of painful death there is a goal - to show what injustice is happening in Judea.

The image of Yeshua is only "a personified image of the moral and philosophical ideas of mankind ... the moral law entering into an unequal grip with the legal right"3. It is no coincidence that the portrait of Yeshua as such is virtually absent in the novel: the author indicates the age, describes the clothes, facial expression, mentions bruises and abrasions - but nothing more: “... They brought in ... a man of about twenty-seven. This man was dressed in an old and tattered blue chiton. His head was covered with a white bandage with a strap around his forehead, and his hands were tied behind his back. The man had a large bruise under his left eye, and an abrasion with dried blood in the corner of his mouth. Driven by anxious curiosity, he looked at the procurator.

To Pilate's question about his relatives, he answers, “There is no one. I am alone in the world." But what is strange again: this does not at all sound like a complaint about loneliness ... Yeshua does not seek compassion, there is no feeling of inferiority or orphanhood in him. For him it sounds something like this: “I am alone - the whole world is in front of me” or - “I am alone in front of the whole world”, or - “I am this world”. Yeshua is self-sufficient, absorbing the whole world into himself. V.M. Akimov rightly emphasized that “it is difficult to understand the integrity of Yeshua, his equality to himself - and to the whole world that he has absorbed into himself. Yeshua does not hide in the colorful polyphony of roles; the flickering of imposing or grotesque masks that hide the lust of "Yeshua" is alien to him. He is free from all the "jumping" that accompanies the splitting through which many (not all?!) characters of "modern" chapters go through. One cannot but agree with V.M. Akimov that the complex simplicity of Bulgakov's hero is difficult to comprehend, irresistibly convincing and omnipotent. Moreover, the power of Yeshua Ha-Nozri is so great and so embracing that at first many take it for weakness, even for spiritual lack of will.

However, Yeshua Ga-Notsri is not a simple person: Woland - Satan thinks himself with him in the heavenly hierarchy approximately on an equal footing. Bulgakov's Yeshua is the bearer of the idea of ​​a god-man. It implements the philosophical principle of N. Berdyaev: "Everything must be immanently raised to the cross." E.O. Penkina recalls in this regard that in the existential plan, God shares his power with Satan. Based on the domestic tradition of developing the idea of ​​a superman, the author argues that Bulgakov creates a hero - the antithesis of Yeshua. “An antithesis in the sense of a philosophical opponent in a dispute between the ambiguity of good and evil. This greatest opposite will be Woland. The realm of Woland and his guests, feasting on the full moon at the spring ball, is the Moon - "a fantastic world of shadows, mysteries and illusoryness." The cooling light of the moon, moreover, is calm and sleep. As V.Ya. Lakshin subtly notes, Yeshua is accompanied by the Sun on his way to the cross - "a familiar symbol of life, joy, true light", "the study of hot and scorching reality."

Speaking of Yeshua, one cannot fail to mention his unusual opinion. If the first part - Yeshua - transparently alludes to the name of Jesus, then the "dissonance of the plebeian name" - Ha-Notsri - "so mundane" and "secularized" in comparison with the solemn church one - Jesus, as if called upon to confirm the authenticity of Bulgakov's story and its independence from evangelical tradition. The vagabond philosopher is strong in his naive faith in the good, which neither the fear of punishment nor the spectacle of flagrant injustice, of which he himself becomes a victim, can take away from him. His unchanging faith exists in spite of common wisdom and the object lesson of execution. In everyday practice, this idea of ​​goodness, unfortunately, is not protected. “The weakness of Yeshua’s preaching is in its ideality,” V.Ya. Lakshin rightly believes, “but Yeshua is stubborn, and there is strength in the absolute integrity of his faith in goodness.” In his hero, the author sees not only a religious preacher and reformer - the image of Yeshua embodies free spiritual activity.

Possessing a developed intuition, a subtle and strong intellect, Yeshua is able to guess the future, and not just a thunderstorm, which “will begin later, towards evening,” but also the fate of his teaching, which is already being incorrectly expounded by Levi. Yeshua is inwardly free. Even realizing that he is really threatened by the death penalty, he considers it necessary to tell the Roman governor: "Your life is meager, hegemon." B.V. Sokolov believes that the idea of ​​“infection with goodness, which is the leitmotif of Yeshua’s preaching, was introduced by Bulgakov from Renan’s Antichrist.” Yeshua dreams of a future kingdom of "truth and justice" and leaves it open to absolutely everyone. “.... the time will come when there will be no power, nor any other power. A person will pass into the realm of truth and justice, where no power will be needed at all.

Ha-Notsri preaches love and tolerance. He does not give preference to anyone; Pilate, Judas, and Ratslayer are equally interesting to him. All of them are “good people”, only they are “crippled” by certain circumstances. In a conversation with Pilate, he succinctly outlines the essence of his teaching: "... there are no evil people in the world." Yeshua's words echo Kant's statements about the essence of Christianity. Certain or as a pure faith in goodness, as a religion of a good way of life. Commitment to internal improvement. The priest in it is just a mentor, and the church is a meeting place for teachings. Kant considers good as a property inherent in human nature, as well. and evil. In order for a person to become a person. Those. creature. Able to perceive respect for the moral law, he must develop the good in himself and suppress the evil. And everything here depends on the person himself. Yeshua. I even understood. That the decision of his fate depends on his words. For the sake of his own idea of ​​good, he does not utter a word of unrighteousness. If he had even a little twisted his soul, then “the whole meaning of his teaching would have disappeared, for good is the truth!”. And "it's easy and pleasant to tell the truth."

What is the main strength of Yeshua? First of all, openness. immediacy. He is always in a state of spiritual impulse "towards". His very first appearance in the novel captures this: “The man with his hands tied leaned forward a little + and began to say:

A kind person! Trust me..." .

Yeshua is a man always open to the world. “The trouble is,” continued the unstoppable bound man, “that you are too closed off and have finally lost faith in people.” "Openness" and "isolation" - these, according to Bulgakov, are the stripes of good and evil. "Movement towards" - the essence of goodness. Withdrawal into oneself, isolation - this is what opens the way for evil. By retreating into himself, a person somehow comes into contact with the devil. M. B. Babinsky notes the biased ability of Yeshua to put himself in the place of another. To understand his condition. The basis of the humanism of this person is the talent of the subtlest self-consciousness and on this basis - the understanding of other people with whom his fate brings him together.

But isn't the passion for the world "towards" it at the same time a true "movement"?

This is the key to the episode with the question: "What is truth?" To Pilate, who is tormented by hemicrania, Yeshua answers this way: “The truth ... is that your head hurts.”

Bulgakov is true to himself here too: Yeshua's answer is connected with the deep meaning of the novel - a call to see the truth through hints to the "bottom" and "middle"; open your eyes, start seeing.

Truth for Yeshua is what it really is. This is the removal of the cover from phenomena and things, the liberation of the mind and feeling from any fettering etiquette, from dogmas; it is the overcoming of conventions and hindrances. Going away from all sorts of "directives", "middles" and even more so - pushes "from below". “The truth of Yeshua Ha-Nozri is the restoration of a real vision of life, the will and courage not to turn away and not lower one’s eyes, the ability to open the world, and not close oneself from it either by the conventions of the ritual or by the outbursts of the “bottom”. Yeshua's truth does not repeat "tradition", "regulation" and "ritual". It becomes alive and every time a new ability to dialogue with life.

But here lies the most difficult thing, for fearlessness is necessary for the fullness of such communion with the world. Fearlessness of the soul, thoughts, feelings.

A detail characteristic of Bulgakov's Gospel is a combination of miraculous power and a feeling of fatigue and loss in the protagonist, and a higher power that sent Yeshua on his mission, and then left him and caused his death; and a description of the death of the hero as a universal catastrophe - the end of the world: “twilight came, and lightning plied the black sky. Fire suddenly burst out of it, and the cry of the centurion: “Take off the chain!” - drowned in the roar. ...". Darkness covered the gospel. The downpour poured suddenly ... The water collapsed so terribly that when the soldiers ran from below, raging streams were already flying after them.

Despite the fact that the plot seems complete - Yeshua is executed, the author seeks to assert that the victory of evil over good cannot be the result of a social and moral confrontation, this, according to Bulgakov, is not accepted by human nature itself, should not be allowed by the entire course of civilization. There is an impression. That Yeshua never found. that he died. He was alive all the time and left alive. It seems that the very word "died" is not in the episodes of Golgotha. He stayed alive. He is dead only for Levi, for Pilate's servants. The great tragic philosophy of Yeshua's life is that the truth (and the choice of life in truth) is also tested and affirmed by the choice of death. He "managed" not only his life, but also his death. He "hung" his bodily death just as he "hung" his spiritual life. Thus, he truly "governs" himself (and the whole order on earth in general); governs not only Life, but also Death. Yeshua's "self-creation", "self-management" passed the test of death, and therefore it became immortal.

Having met the reader at the Patriarch's Ponds, Bulgakov leads him through Moscow of the twenties, along its alleys and squares, embankments and boulevards, along the alleys of gardens, looks into institutions and communal apartments, into shops and restaurants. The wrong side of theatrical life, the prose of the existence of the literary fraternity, the life and cares of ordinary people appear before our eyes. And suddenly, with the magical power given by talent, Bulgakov takes us to a city hundreds of years distant, thousands of kilometers away. Beautiful and terrible Yershalaim... Hanging gardens, bridges, towers, hippodrome, bazaars, ponds... And on the balcony of a luxurious palace, bathed in hot sunlight, stands a short man of about twenty-seven and bravely makes strange and dangerous speeches. “This man was dressed in an old and torn blue chiton. His head was covered with a white bandage with a strap around his forehead, and his hands were tied behind his back. The man had a large bruise under his left eye, and an abrasion with dried blood in the corner of his mouth. This is Yeshua, the wandering philosopher, the image of Christ rethought by Bulgakov.
Yeshua Ha-Notsri, this is how Jesus Christ was called in Jewish books (Yeshua literally means Savior; Ha-Notsri means “from Nazareth”, Nazareth is a city in Galilee where Saint Joseph lived and where the Annunciation to the Blessed Virgin Mary about the birth of her Son took place Jesus, Mary and Joseph returned here after their stay in Egypt, where Jesus spent his childhood and adolescence). But further personal data diverge from the original source. Jesus was born in Bethlehem, spoke Aramaic, read Hebrew and possibly spoke Greek, and was put on trial at 33. And Yeshua was born in Gamala, did not remember his parents, did not know Hebrew, but also knew Latin, he appears before us at the age of twenty-seven. It may seem to those who do not know the Bible that Pilate's chapters are a paraphrase of the gospel story of the trial of the Roman governor in Judea, Pontius Pilate, over Jesus Christ and the subsequent execution of Jesus, which took place at the beginning of the new history of mankind.

Indeed, there are common features between Bulgakov's novel and the Gospels. Thus, the reason for the execution of Christ, his conversation with Pontius Pilate and the execution itself are described in the same way. It can be seen how Yeshua is trying to push ordinary people to the right decision, trying to direct them to the path of truth and truth: “Pilate said to Him: so You are the King? Jesus answered: You say that I am the King. For this I was born and for this I came into the world, to bear witness to the truth; everyone who is from the truth hears my voice” (Gospel of John 18:37).
In The Master and Margarita, Yeshua also tries in a dialogue with Pontius Pilate to answer the question of what truth is: “The truth is, first of all, that your head hurts, and it hurts so badly that you cowardly think about death. Not only are you unable to speak to me, but it is difficult for you to even look at me. And now I am unwittingly your executioner, which saddens me. You can't even think of anything and only dream of your dog coming, the only creature you seem to be attached to. But your torment will now end, your head will pass.
This episode is the only echo of the miracles performed by Jesus and described in the Gospels. Although there is one more indication of the divine essence of Yeshua. There are such lines in the novel: "... dust caught fire near that pillar." Perhaps this place is designed to be associated with the 13th chapter of the Bible book "Exodus", which refers to how God, showing the way to the Jews in the Exodus from Egyptian captivity, walked before them in the form of a pillar: "The Lord walked before them in the daytime in a pillar cloudy, showing them the way, and by night in a pillar of fire, shining for them, so that they can go day and night. The pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night did not depart from the presence of the people.”
Yeshua does not show any messianic destiny, much less justifies his divine essence, while Jesus clarifies, for example, in a conversation with the Pharisees: he is not just the Messiah, the Anointed of God, He is the Son of God: "I and the Father are one."
Jesus had disciples. Only Levi Matthew followed Yeshua. It seems that the prototype of Levi Matthew is the Apostle Matthew, the author of the first Gospel (before meeting Jesus, he was a publican, that is, just like Levi was a tax collector). Yeshua met him for the first time on the road to Bethphage. And Bethphage is a small settlement near the Mount of Olives near Jerusalem. From here began, according to the Gospels, the solemn procession of Jesus to Jerusalem. By the way, there are also differences with this biblical fact: Jesus, accompanied by his disciples, enters Jerusalem on a donkey: “And as he rode, they spread their clothes along the road. And when he approached the descent from Mount Elernskaya, all the multitude of disciples began to joyfully publicly praise God for all the miracles that they saw, saying: Blessed is the King, the coming of the Lord! peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” (Gospel of Luke 19:36-38). When Pilate asks Yeshua whether it is true that he entered the city “through the Susa gate on a donkey,” he replies that he “has no donkey either.” He came to Yershalaim exactly through the Susa gates, but on foot, accompanied by Levi Matvey alone, and no one shouted anything to him, since no one in Yershalaim knew him at that time.
Yeshua was a little familiar with the man who betrayed him - Judas from Kiriath: “... 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 ... A very kind and inquisitive person ... He showed the greatest interest in my thoughts, received me very cordially ... ”And Judas from Carioth was a disciple of Jesus. Christ himself proclaimed that Judas would betray him: “When evening came, He lay down with the twelve disciples; and as they were eating, he said, “Truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me.” They were very sad, and began to say to Him, each of them: Is it not I, Lord? He answered and said, He who dips his hand with me into the dish, this one will betray me; However, the Son of Man goes as it is written about Him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed: it would have been better for this man not to have been born. At the same time, Judas, betraying Him, said: Is it not I, Rabbi? Jesus said to him: You said (Gospel of Matthew 26:20-25).
At Pilate's first trial in God's Law, Jesus behaves with dignity and looks like a real king: “Pilate asked Jesus Christ: "Are you the King of the Jews?" Jesus Christ answered: "You say" (which means: "yes, I am the King"). When the chief priests and elders accused the Savior, He did not answer. Pilate said to Him, "You don't answer anything? You see how many accusations are against You." But even to this the Savior did not answer, so that Pilate marveled. After that, Pilate entered the praetorium and, calling Jesus, again asked Him: "Are you the King of the Jews?" Jesus Christ said to him: "Are you saying this on your own, or have others told you about me?" (i.e. do you yourself think so or not?) "Am I a Jew?" - answered Pilate, - "Your people and the high priests delivered you to me; what did you do?" Jesus Christ said: "My kingdom is not of this world; if my kingdom were of this world, then my servants (subjects) would fight for me, so that I would not be delivered to the Jews; but now my kingdom is not from here." "So You are the King?" Pilate asked. Jesus Christ answered: "You say that I am the King. For this I was born and for this I came into the world, to bear witness to the truth; everyone who is from the truth listens to My voice." From these words, Pilate saw that before him stood a preacher of the truth, a teacher of the people, and not a rebel against the power of the Romans. And in the novel, Yeshua behaves insignificantly and looks completely defenseless and, as Bulgakov himself writes, “his eyes became meaningless” and “expressing with his whole being his readiness to answer sensibly, not to cause more anger.” Also important here is another point. “When they brought Jesus Christ to Calvary, the soldiers gave him to drink sour wine mixed with bitter substances in order to alleviate suffering. But the Lord, having tasted it, did not want to drink it. He did not want to use any remedy to relieve suffering. He voluntarily accepted these sufferings upon Himself for the sins of people; therefore I wished to endure them to the end,” – this is exactly how it is described in the Law of God. And in the novel, Yeshua again shows himself weak-willed: “Drink,” said the executioner, and the water-soaked sponge at the end of the spear rose to Yeshua's lips. Joy flashed in his eyes, he clung to the sponge and greedily began to absorb moisture ... ".
At the trial of Jesus, described in God's Law, it is clear that the chief priests conspired to condemn Jesus to death. They could not carry out their sentence, because there was no guilt in the actions and words on the part of Jesus. Therefore, the members of the Sanhedrin found false witnesses who testified against Jesus: “We heard Him say: I will destroy this man-made temple, and in three days I will raise another, not made by hands” (Law of God). And Bulgakov is trying to make a prophet out of his hero at the trial at Pilate. Yeshua says: “I, hegemon, said that the temple of the old faith would collapse and a new temple of truth would be created…”
The essential difference between Bulgakov's hero and Jesus Christ is that Jesus does not avoid conflicts. “The essence and tone of his speeches,” S.S. Averintsev believes, “are exceptional: the listener must either believe or become an enemy ... Hence the inevitability of a tragic end.” And Yeshua Ha-Nozri? His words and deeds are completely devoid of aggressiveness. The credo of his life lies in these words: "Telling the truth is easy and pleasant." The truth for him is that there are no evil people, there are unfortunate ones. He is a man who preaches Love, while Jesus is the Messiah who affirms the Truth. Let me clarify: the intolerance of Christ is manifested only in matters of faith. In relations between people, He teaches: “... do not resist evil. But whoever strikes you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also” (Gospel of Matthew 5:39).
The Apostle Paul clarifies these words in this way: “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good,” that is, fight evil, but do not multiply it yourself. In The Master and Margarita, Bulgakov gives us his interpretation of the commandment of Jesus Christ. Can we say that the words of the Apostle Paul are applicable to Yeshua Ha-Notsri, Bulgakov's Christ? Of course, because throughout his life he does not deviate a single step from his goodness. It is vulnerable, but not despised, perhaps because it is difficult to despise those who, not knowing you, believe in your kindness, are disposed towards you, regardless of anything. We cannot blame him for inaction: he is looking for meetings with people, he is ready to talk with everyone. But he is completely defenseless against cruelty, cynicism, betrayal, because he himself is absolutely kind.
Nevertheless, the same fate awaits the non-conflicting Yeshua Ha-Nozri as the “conflicting” Jesus Christ. Why? It is possible that here M. Bulgakov tells us: the crucifixion of Christ is not at all a consequence of His intolerance, as one might assume when reading the Gospel. The point is something else, more important. If we do not touch on the religious side of the issue, the reason for the death of the hero of The Master and Margarita, as well as his prototype, lies in their attitude to power, or rather, to the way of life that this power personifies and supports.
It is common knowledge that Christ strongly distinguished between "Caesar's" and "God's". Nevertheless, it is the earthly authorities, secular (viceroy of Rome) and church (Sanhedrin), that sentence him to death for earthly crimes: Pilate condemns Christ as a state criminal, allegedly claiming the royal throne, although he himself doubts this; The Sanhedrin - as a false prophet, blasphemously calling himself the Son of God, although, as the Gospel specifies, in fact the high priests wished him death "out of envy" (Gospel of Matthew 27, 18).
Yeshua Ha-Nozri does not claim power. True, he publicly assesses it as “violence against people” and is even sure that someday she, the power, may not exist at all. But such an assessment in itself is not so dangerous: when else will it be so that people can completely do without violence? Nevertheless, it is precisely the words about the “non-eternity” of the existing power that become the formal reason for the death of Yeshua (as in the case of Jesus Christ).
The true reason for the death of Jesus and Yeshua is that they are internally free and live according to the laws of love for people - laws that are not characteristic and impossible for power, and not Roman or any other, but power in general. In M. A. Bulgakov's novel Yeshua Ha-Nozri and in the Law of God, Jesus is not just free people. They radiate freedom, are independent in their judgments, sincere in expressing their feelings in a way that an absolutely pure and kind person cannot be sincere.

In the novel The Master and Margarita, the two main forces of good and evil, which, according to Bulgakov, should be in balance on Earth, are embodied in the faces of Yeshua Ha-Notsri from Yershalaim, close in image to Christ, and Woland, Satan in human form. Apparently, Bulgakov, in order to show that good and evil exist outside of time and for thousands of years people live according to their laws, placed Yeshua at the beginning of a new time, in the fictional masterpiece of the Master, and Woland, as the arbiter of cruel justice, in Moscow in the 30s . 20th century. The latter came to Earth to restore harmony where it had been broken in favor of evil, which included lies, stupidity, hypocrisy and, finally, betrayal that filled Moscow.

The Earth was initially firmly established between hell and paradise, and there must be a balance of good and evil on it, and if its inhabitants try to break this harmony, then heaven or hell (depending on which way people “tipped” their House) they will “suck” the Earth, and it will cease to exist, merging with that of the kingdoms that people will earn with their actions.

Like good and evil, Yeshua and Woland are internally interconnected, and, opposing, they cannot do without each other. It's like we wouldn't know what white is if there were no black, what day is if there were no night. This relationship in the novel is expressed in the descriptions of both characters - the author focuses on the same things. Woland "in appearance - more than forty years old", and Yeshua - twenty-seven; “Under the left eye of a man (Yeshua - I.A.) there was a big bruise ...”, and Woland’s “right eye is black, the left one is green for some reason”; Ga-Notsri “had an abrasion with dried blood in the corner of his mouth”, and Woland had “some kind of crooked mouth”, Woland “was in an expensive gray suit ... He famously twisted his gray beret in his ear ...”, Yeshua appears before the procurator dressed “in an old and torn blue tunic. His head was covered with a white bandage with a strap around his forehead ... ”and, finally, Woland openly declared that he was a polyglot, and Yeshua, although he did not say this, knew Greek and Latin in addition to Aramaic.

But the dialectical unity, the complementarity of good and evil is most fully revealed in the words of Woland, addressed to Levi Matthew, who refused to wish health to the “spirit of evil and the lord of shadows”: “You spoke your words as if you do not recognize shadows, and also evil. Would you be so kind as to think about the question: what would your good do if evil did not exist, and what would the earth look like if shadows disappeared from it? After all, shadows are obtained from objects and people. Here is the shadow of my sword. But there are shadows from trees and from living beings. Don't you want to rip the whole globe, blowing away all the trees and all living things from it because of your fantasy of enjoying the naked light? You are stupid".

How does Woland appear? At the Patriarch's Ponds, he appears before M.A. Berlioz and Ivan Bezdomny, representatives of Soviet literature, who, sitting on a bench, again, nineteen centuries later, judge Christ and reject his divinity (Bezdomny) and his very existence (Berlioz). Woland tries to convince them of the existence of God and the devil. So, again, a certain connection between them is revealed: the devil (i.e. Woland) exists because Christ exists (in the novel - Yeshua Ha-Nozri), and to deny him means to deny his existence. This is one side of the issue. The other is that Woland is in fact "... part of that force that always wants evil and always does good."

No wonder Bulgakov took the lines of Goethe's Faust as the epigraph of the novel. Woland is the devil, Satan, the "prince of darkness", "the spirit of evil and the lord of shadows" (all these definitions are found in the text of the novel), which is largely focused on Mephistopheles "Faust". In this work, the name Woland is mentioned only once and is usually omitted in Russian translations. This is how Mephistopheles calls himself in the scene of Walpurgis Night, demanding from evil spirits to give way: “Nobleman Woland is coming!” Woland is also associated through literary sources with the image of a famous adventurer, occultist and alchemist of the 18th century. Count Alessandro Cagliostro; An important literary prototype of Woland was Someone in Gray, called He from Leonid Andreev's play "The Life of a Man"; finally, many consider Stalin one of Woland's prototypes.

It is absolutely clear that the novel Woland is the devil, Satan, the embodiment of evil. But why did he come to Moscow in the 1930s? The purpose of his mission was to reveal the evil inclination in man. I must say that Woland, unlike Yeshua Ha-Nozri, considers all people not good, but evil. And in Moscow, where he arrived to do evil, he sees that there is nothing left to do - evil has already flooded the city, penetrated into all its corners. Woland could only laugh at people, at their naivety and stupidity, at their disbelief and vulgar attitude towards history (Ivan Bezdomny advises sending Kant to Solovki), and Woland's task was to extract Margarita, the genius of the Master and his novel about Pontius Pilate.

He and his entourage provoke Muscovites to unfaithful deeds, convincing them of complete impunity, and then they themselves punish them in a parody. During a session of black magic in the Variety Hall, turned into a laboratory for the study of human weaknesses, the Magician exposes the greed of the public, shamelessness and impudent confidence in Sempleyarov's impunity. This, one might say, is the specialty of Woland and his retinue: to punish those who are unworthy of light and peace - and they have been doing their job from century to century. Proof of this is the great ball at Satan's in apartment No. 50. Here, the evil spirit demonstrates its undoubted achievements: poisoners, scammers, traitors, madmen, lechers of all stripes pass in front of Margarita. And it is at this ball that the murder of Baron Meigel takes place - he had to be destroyed, because he threatened to destroy the whole world of Woland and acted as an extremely successful competitor of Satan in the devil's field. And then, this is a punishment for the evil that primarily destroyed Moscow and which Meigel personified, namely: betrayal, espionage, denunciations.

And what about Yeshua? He said that all people are kind and that someday the kingdom of truth will come on Earth. Of course, in the novel, he is the embodiment of the ideal to which one must strive. Yeshua haunts Pontius Pilate. The procurator of Judea tried to persuade the prisoner to lie in order to save him, but Yeshua insists that "it is easy and pleasant to tell the truth." So, the procurator declared: "I wash my hands" and doomed an innocent person to death, but he had the feeling that he did not say something with an unusual, something attractive prisoner. Yeshua performed a sacrificial feat in the name of truth and goodness, and Pilate suffered and suffered for “twelve thousand moons” until the Master gave him forgiveness and the opportunity to negotiate with Ha-Nozri. Bulgakov's Yeshua, of course, goes back to the Jesus Christ of the Gospels. The name "Yeshua Ha-Notsri" Bulgakov met in Sergei Chevkin's play "Yeshua Ganotsri. The Impartial Discovery of Truth" (1922), and then checked it against the writings of historians.

I think the writer made Yeshua the hero of the Master's masterpiece in order to say that art is divine and can incline a person to search for truth and strive for good, which was so lacking for most residents of Moscow in the 30s - the Master turned out to be almost the only servant of real art, worthy, if not of light (because he was disappointed in himself, for some time he surrendered to the onslaught of fools and hypocrites, through Margarita entered into a deal with the devil), then of peace. And this proved that Woland does not have the power to drag those who strive for truth, goodness and purity to the underworld.

There is a clear parallel between the fate of Yeshua and the suffering life of the Master. The connection between the historical chapters and the contemporary chapters reinforces the philosophical and moral ideas of the novel.

In the real plan of the narrative, Bulgakov depicted the life of Soviet people in the 20-30s of the twentieth century, showed Moscow, the literary environment, representatives of different classes. The central characters here are the Master and Margarita, as well as Moscow writers in the service of the state. The main problem that worries the author is the relationship between the artist and the authorities,

Individuals and societies.

The image of the Master has many autobiographical features, but an equal sign cannot be put between him and Bulgakov. In the life of the Master, the tragic moments of the fate of the writer himself are reflected in artistic form. The master is a former unknown historian who renounced his own surname, “as well as from everything in life in general”, “had no relatives anywhere and had almost no acquaintances in Moscow.” He lives, immersed in creativity, in understanding the ideas of his novel. He, as a writer, is concerned with eternal, universal problems, questions of the meaning of life, the role of an artist in society.

The very word "master" acquires

symbolic meaning. His fate is tragic. He is a serious, deep, talented person who exists under the conditions of a totalitarian regime. The master, like Faust I. Goethe, is obsessed with a thirst for knowledge and the search for truth. Freely navigating the ancient layers of history, he searches for eternal laws in them, according to which the society of people is built. For the sake of knowing the truth, Faust sells his soul to the devil, and Bulgakov's Master meets Woland and leaves this imperfect world with him.

The Master and Yeshua have similar traits and beliefs. The writer gave these characters little space in the overall structure of the novel, but in terms of their meaning, these images are the most important. Both thinkers have no roof over their heads, rejected by society, both betrayed, arrested and, innocent, destroyed. Their fault is incorruptibility, self-esteem, devotion to ideals, deep sympathy for people. These images complement each other and feed each other. At the same time, there are differences between them. The master was tired of fighting the system for his novel, voluntarily retired, while Yeshua goes to execution for his beliefs. Yeshua is full of love for people, forgives everyone, the Master, on the contrary, hates and does not forgive his persecutors.

The Master professes not religious truth, but the truth of fact. Yeshua is a tragic hero created by the Master, whose death he thinks is inevitable. With bitter irony, the author introduces the Master, who appears in a hospital gown and tells Ivan himself that he is crazy. For a writer to live and not create is tantamount to death. Desperate, the Master burned his novel, which is why "he did not deserve the light, he deserved peace." The heroes have one more thing in common: they do not feel who will betray them. Yeshua does not realize that Judas has betrayed him, but he anticipates that misfortune will happen to this man.

It is strange that the closed, distrustful by nature Master converges with Aloisy Mogarych. Moreover, already being in a lunatic asylum, the Master “still” “misses” Aloysius. Aloysius "conquered" him "with his passion for literature." “He did not calm down until he begged” the Master to read to him “the whole novel from cover to cover, and he spoke very flatteringly about the novel ...”. Later, Aloysius, “having read Latunsky’s article about the novel,” “wrote a complaint against the Master with the message that he kept illegal literature.” The purpose of the betrayal for Judas was money, for Aloysius - the apartment of the Master. It is no coincidence that Woland argues that the passion for profit determines people's behavior.

Yeshua and the Master each have one disciple. Yeshua Ga-Notsri - Levi Matthew, Master - Ivan Nikolaevich Ponyrev. The students were at first very far from the position of their teachers, Levy was a tax collector, Ponyrev was a poorly gifted poet. Levi believed that Yeshua is the embodiment of Truth. Ponyrev tried to forget everything and became an ordinary employee.

Having created his heroes, Bulgakov traces the change in the psychology of people over many centuries. Master, this modern righteous man, can no longer be as sincere and pure as Yeshua. Pontius understands the injustice of his decision and feels guilty, and the persecutors of the Master triumph confidently.

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