In interpreting the image of Jesus Christ as an ideal of moral perfection, Bulgakov departed from traditional, canonical ideas based on the four Gospels and the apostolic epistles. V. I. Nemtsev writes: “Yeshua is the author’s incarnation in the affairs of a positive person, to whom the aspirations of the heroes of the novel are directed.”
In Yeshua's novel, not a single spectacular heroic gesture is given. 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 in the 20th century is also the era of "personification", the time of new spiritual self-salvation and self-government, similar to which was once revealed to the world in Jesus Christ. Such an act can, according to M. Bulgakov, save our Fatherland in the 20th century. The revival of God must take place in each of the people.
The story of Christ in Bulgakov's novel is not presented in the same way as in Holy Scripture: the author offers an apocryphal version of the gospel narrative, in which each of
participants combines opposite features and acts in 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 in the fact that the writings of Levi Matthew (i.e., as it were, 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 himself: “... he walks, walks alone with goat 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 the unity of views with Woland-Satan: “Already someone who,” Woland turns to Berlioz, “but you should know that absolutely nothing of what is written in the Gospels never really happened” . 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 at best - several months.
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 Book of My Being" by P. Uspensky, "Hofsemane" by A. M, Fedorov, “Pilate” by G. Petrovsky, “Procurator of Judea” by A. Frans, “The Life of Jesus Christ” by Ferrara, and of course, the Bible, the Gospels. 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.
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 qualities of a sideboard Don Quixote. To Pilate’s question whether Yeshua really considers all people kind, including the centurion Mark the Ratslayer, who beat him, Ha-Nozri answers in the affirmative and adds that Mark, “it’s true, an unhappy person ... If you could talk to him, it would suddenly be dreamy said the prisoner, “I am sure that he would have changed dramatically.” In Cervantes' novel: Don Quixote is insulted in the duke's castle by a priest who calls 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 "infection with good" that 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, portraying Yeshua, nowhere shows a single hint that this is the Son of God. Yeshua is everywhere represented by a Man, a philosopher, a sage, a healer, but a Man. There is no halo of holiness over 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, which enters into an unequal battle with the legal right. 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 tunic. 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. The man brought in looked at the procurator with anxious curiosity.
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, taking in the whole world. 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.” 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 Ha-Nozri is not an ordinary person. Woland-Satan thinks of himself with him in the heavenly hierarchy on an equal footing. Bulgakov's Yeshua is the bearer of the idea of a god-man.
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 ordinary wisdom and the object lessons 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 - he embodies the image of Yeshua in free spiritual activity.
Possessing a developed intuition, a subtle and strong intellect, Yeshua is able to guess the future, and not just a thunderstorm that “will begin later, in the evening:”, but also the fate of his teaching, already now 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 good", which is the leitmotif of Yeshua's sermon, was introduced by Bulgakov from Renan's Antichrist. Yeshua dreams of "the future kingdom of truth and justice" and leaves it open to absolutely everyone: "... the time will come when there will be no power of either the emperor or any other power." Man 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 resonate with Kant's statements about the essence of Christianity, defined either as a pure faith in goodness, or as a religion of goodness - a way of life. 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 as evil. In order for a person to become established as a person, that is, a being capable of perceiving respect for the moral law, he must develop a good beginning in himself and suppress the evil. And everything here depends on the person himself. For the sake of his own idea of good, Yeshua does not utter a word of untruth. 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 person who is always open to the world, "Openness" and "isolation" - these, according to Bulgakov, are the poles of good and evil. "Movement towards" - the essence of goodness. Withdrawal into oneself, isolation - this is what opens the way for evil. Withdrawal into oneself and a person one way or another comes into contact with the devil. M. B. Babinsky notes the ability of Yeshua to put himself in the place of another in order 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.
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 open one's eyes, to begin to see.
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 feelings from any fettering etiquette, from dogma; it is the overcoming of conventions and hindrances. “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 each time full capacity for 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. The death of the hero is described as a universal catastrophe - the end of the world: “twilight came, and lightning plowed 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 Yershalaim. The downpour poured suddenly ... The water fell so terribly that when the soldiers ran down, 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. One gets the impression that Yeshua never realized that he was dead. 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 right to truth (and to choose to live 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 routine on earth), 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 (the governor of Rome) and church (the 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.
With the beginning of the third millennium, all the great churches, except Islam, alas, turned into profitable commercial enterprises. And almost a hundred years ago, unsafe tendencies began to emerge in Russian Orthodoxy, turning the church into an appendage of the state. This is probably why the great Russian writer Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov was not a church person, that is, he did not go to church, he even refused to take unction before his death. But vulgar atheism was deeply alien to him, as was savage empty holiness. His faith came from the heart, and he turned to God in secret prayer, I think so (and even firmly convinced).
He believed that two thousand years ago an event took place that changed the entire course of world history. Bulgakov saw the salvation of the soul in the spiritual feat of the most humane person, Yeshua Ha-Nozri (Jesus of Nazareth). The name of this feat is suffering in the name of love for people. And all subsequent Christian denominations first tried to forgive the theocratic state, and then they themselves turned into a huge bureaucratic machine, now - into commercial and industrial firms, to use the language of the 21st century.
In the novel, Yeshua is an ordinary person. Not an ascetic, not a hermit, not a hermit. He is not surrounded by the aura of a righteous man or an ascetic, he does not torture himself with fasting and prayers, he does not teach in a bookish way, that is, in a Pharisee way. Like all people, he suffers from pain and rejoices in the release from it. And at the same time, Bulgakov's Yeshua is the bearer of the idea of the God-man without any church, without a "bureaucratic" mediator between God and man. However, the power of Yeshua Ha-Nozri is so great and so all-encompassing that at first many take it for weakness, even for spiritual lack of will. The vagabond philosopher is strong only by 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 contrary to ordinary wisdom and serves as an object lesson to the executioners and scribe-Pharisees.
The story of Christ in Bulgakov's novel is presented apocryphally, that is, with heretical deviations from the canonical text of Holy Scripture. This is most likely a description of everyday life from the point of view of a Roman citizen of the first century after the birth of Christ. Instead of a direct confrontation between the apostles and the traitor Judas, the Messiah and Peter, Pontius Pilate and the Sanhedrin with Kaifa, Bulgakov reveals to us the essence of the Lord's Sacrifice through the psychology of perception of each of the characters. Most often - through the lips and records of Levi Matthew.
Yeshua himself gives us the first idea of the apostle and evangelist Matthew in the form of Levi Matthew: “He walks, walks alone with goat parchment and continuously writes, but I once looked into this parchment and was horrified. I did not say anything of what is written there I begged him: burn your parchment for God's sake!" The author makes us understand that it is not possible for a person to comprehend and display the Divine idea in letters in words. Even Woland confirms this in a conversation with Berlioz: "... someone, and you, must know that absolutely nothing of what is written in the Gospels never really happened ..."
The novel "Master and Margarita" as if itself continues a series of apocryphal gospels written in Aesopian language in later times. Miguel Cervantes' Don Quixote, William Faulkner's Parable or Chingiz Aitmatov's Scaffold can be considered such gospels. To Pilate’s question whether Yeshua really considers all people to be kind, including the centurion Mark the Ratslayer, who beat him, Ha-Nozri answers in the affirmative and adds that Mark, “it’s true, an unhappy person ... If I could talk to him ... I I'm sure he would change dramatically." In Cervantes' novel, the noble hidalgo Don Quixote is insulted in the duke's castle by a priest who calls him "an empty head." To which he meekly replies: "I should 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." And the incarnation of Christ in the 20th century, Obadiah (son of God, in Greek) Kallistratov, felt for himself that "the world ... punishes its sons for the purest ideas and impulses of the spirit."
M. A. Bulgakov nowhere shows with a single hint that before us is the Son of God. There is no portrait of Yeshua as such in the novel: “They brought in ... a man of about twenty-seven. This man was dressed in an old and torn blue tunic. His head was covered with a white bandage with a strap around his forehead, and his hands were tied behind his back. Under his left eye The man had a large bruise, an abrasion with dried blood in the corner of his mouth. The man who was brought in looked at the procurator with anxious curiosity.
But Yeshua is not quite a son of man. When asked by Pilate if he has relatives, he answers: "There is no one. I am alone in the world," which sounds like: "I am this world."
We do not see Satan-Woland next to Yeshua, but we know from his dispute with Berlioz and Ivan Bezdomny that he always stood behind him (that is, behind his left shoulder, in the shadow, as it should be for evil spirits) at moments of mournful events. Woland-Satan thinks of himself in the heavenly hierarchy on an equal footing with Yeshua, as if ensuring the balance of the world. But God does not share his power with Satan - Woland is powerful only in the material world. The kingdom of Woland and his guests, feasting on the full moon at the spring ball, is the night - a fantastic world of shadows, mysteries and ghostly. The cold light of the moon illuminates him. Yeshua is accompanied everywhere, even on the way of the cross, by the Sun - a symbol of life, joy, true Light.
Yeshua is not only able to guess the future, he builds this future. The barefoot wandering philosopher is poor, miserable, but rich in love. Therefore, he mournfully remarks to the Roman governor: "Your life is meager, hegemon." Yeshua dreams of the future kingdom of "truth and justice" and leaves it open to absolutely everyone: "... the time will come when there will be no power of either the emperor or any other power. Man will move into the kingdom of truth and justice, where there is no no power will be needed."
For Pilate, such words are already part of the crime. And for Yeshua Ha-Nozri, everyone is equal as the creations of God - Pontius Pilate and Ratslayer, Judas and Levi Matthew. All of them are "good people", only "crippled" by certain circumstances: "... there are no evil people in the world." If he had even a little twisted his soul, then "the whole meaning of his teaching would have disappeared, for good is true!" And "it's easy and pleasant to tell the truth."
The main strength of Yeshua is primarily in openness to people. His first appearance in the novel is as follows: “The man with his hands tied leaned forward a little and began to say: “Good man! Believe me ... "A closed person, an introvert, always instinctively moves away from the interlocutor, and Yeshua is an extrovert, open towards people. "Openness" and "isolation" are, according to Bulgakov, the poles of good and evil. Moving towards is the essence of good. Leaving In one way or another, a person comes into contact with the devil.This is the key to the episode with the question: "What is the truth?" "Pain is always a punishment. Only "one God" punishes. Therefore, Yeshua is the truth itself, and Pilate does not notice this.
And the catastrophe that followed the death of Yeshua serves as a warning of the coming punishment: "-... half-darkness came, and lightning plowed the black sky. Fire suddenly burst out of it ... The downpour poured suddenly ... The water fell so terribly that when the soldiers fled down, raging streams were already flying after them. It is like a reminder of the inevitable Last Judgment for all our sins.
The image of Woland
Messir Woland is the most powerful character in the novel. He has tremendous power over the inhabitants of the real and the afterlife, and his power is constantly emphasized by members of his retinue. Immediately after his appearance in Moscow, life is turned upside down, and no one can resist him, including people from the “relevant bodies”. Woland is able to recklessly dispose of human destinies at his own discretion, to make a person unhappy or happy.
Bulgakov's Woland, like his assistants, is not a bearer of evil in the novel. He is not a representative of the power opposed to God, but rather his helper doing the dirty work. The Good, embodied by the Master and Yeshua Ha-Nozri, is depicted by the author as weak and defenseless. The role of Woland and his retinue is to protect the forces of good from evil. Thus, these characters administer justice on earth. Woland is in the novel a symbol of retribution according to merit, a symbol of higher justice. So he punished Berlioz and Ivan Bezdomny for disbelief.
The main characters of the novel, the Master and Margarita, are the only ones whom Woland did not punish, but rewarded. For this, Margarita had to endure serious trials: having fallen into sin, to preserve her pride, having made a promise, not to refuse it, even sacrificing herself. Satan rewards the master without trials - only for the novel written by him, and for the suffering endured because of this novel. He returns the burnt novel to the Master, convincing him that "manuscripts do not burn."
In Bulgakov's depiction, Jesus Christ is neither God nor the son of God. And in behavior, and in appearance, and in his thoughts there is almost nothing from the hero of the gospel legend. This is a completely earthly, ordinary person, a wandering preacher named Yeshua and nicknamed Ha-Notsri. Yeshua is a physically weak person who experiences pain and suffering, he is afraid that he will be beaten and humiliated, he is not so brave and not so strong. But at the same time, he is a highly developed individuality. He is a man of thought, lives "by his own mind".
Yeshua was brought as a criminal to the procurator Pontius Pilate, one of the most powerful men in Judea. Pontius Pilate imbues this weak man, the defendant, with great sympathy and respect, because he gave completely sincere answers to all questions, was an interesting conversationalist, and did not give up his convictions in order to save his life.
Yeshua Ha-Nozri is convinced that "there are no evil people in the world." In addition, he argued that "the temple of the old faith would collapse." It was for these words that he was sentenced to death, as they undermined the power of the high priest Kaifa.
Bulgakov's Christ is sincere, kind, honest, wise and weak; possesses purely human features. It seems that there is nothing divine in the preacher and philosopher at all. However, there is one feature in his character, thanks to which people declared Yeshua a saint. This trait is mercy, which stemmed from his amazing kindness and belief that "there are no evil people in the world." Ga-Nozri did not judge anyone for their actions, and even for the evil inflicted on him.
In the image of Yeshua Ha-Notsri, Bulgakov portrayed not just a person, he showed him from the best side, the way he should be, an ideal, an example to follow. Yeshua was executed - and at the same time he could afford to forgive his tormentors and executioners. And these same tormentors and executioners repented of their crime. This is the main feature of Bulgakov's hero: the ability to use the power of words to make people better, cleaner, happier.
The image of Yeshua Ha-Notsri in the novel by M. A. Bulgakov. According to literary critics and M. A. Bulgakov himself, The Master and Margarita is his final work. Dying from a serious illness, the writer said to his wife: “Maybe this is right ... What could I write after the “Master”?” And in fact, this work is so multifaceted that the reader can not immediately figure out which genre it belongs to. This is a fantastic, and adventurous, and satirical, and most of all a philosophical novel.
Experts define the novel as a menippea, where a deep semantic load is hidden under the mask of laughter. In any case, such opposite principles as philosophy and fantasy, tragedy and farce, fantasy and realism are harmoniously reunited in The Master and Margarita. Another feature of the novel is the displacement of spatial, temporal and psychological characteristics. This is the so-called double novel, or a novel within a novel. Before the eyes of the viewer, echoing each other, two seemingly completely different stories pass.
The action of the first takes place in modern times in Moscow, and the second takes the reader to ancient Yershalaim. However, Bulgakov went even further: it is hard to believe that these two stories were written by the same author. Moscow incidents are described in living language. There is a lot of comedy, fantasy, devilry. In some places, the author's familiar chatter with the reader develops into outright gossip. The narrative is built on a certain understatement, incompleteness, which generally casts doubt on the veracity of this part of the work. When it comes to the events in Yershalaim, the artistic style changes dramatically. The story sounds sternly and solemnly, as if it were not a work of art, but chapters from the Gospel: “In a white cloak with a bloody lining, shuffling gait in the early morning of the fourteenth day of the spring month of Nisan, the procurator of Judea, Pontius Pilate, entered the covered colonnade between the two wings of the palace of Herod the Great ... ". Both parts, according to the writer's intention, should show the reader the state of morality over the past two thousand years.
Yeshua Ha-Nozri came into this world at the beginning of the Christian era, preaching his doctrine of goodness. However, his contemporaries failed to understand and accept this truth. Yeshua was sentenced to the shameful death penalty - crucifixion on a stake. From the point of view of religious figures, the image of this person does not fit into any Christian canons. Moreover, the novel itself was recognized as "the gospel of Satan." However, Bulgakov's character is an image that includes religious, historical, ethical, philosophical, psychological and other features. That is why it is so difficult to analyze. Of course, Bulgakov, as an educated person, knew the Gospel perfectly, but he was not going to write another sample of spiritual literature. His work is deeply artistic. Therefore, the writer deliberately distorts the facts. Yeshua Ha-Nozri is translated as a savior from Nazareth, while Jesus was born in Bethlehem.
Bulgakov's hero is "a man of twenty-seven years old", the Son of God was thirty-three years old. Yeshua has only one disciple Levi Matthew, Jesus has 12 apostles. Judas in The Master and Margarita was killed on the orders of Pontius Pilate, in the Gospel he hanged himself. With such inconsistencies, the author wants to emphasize once again that Yeshua in the work, first of all, is a person who managed to find psychological and moral support in himself and be faithful to it until the end of his life. Paying attention to the appearance of his hero, he shows readers that spiritual beauty is much higher than external attractiveness: “... he was dressed in an old and torn blue tunic. 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 man was not divinely imperturbable. He, like ordinary people, was subject to fear of Mark the Ratslayer or Pontius Pilate: “The one who was brought in looked at the procurator with anxious curiosity.” Yeshua was unaware of his divine origin, acting like an ordinary person.
Despite the fact that in the novel special attention is paid to the human qualities of the protagonist, his divine origin is not forgotten either. At the end of the work, it is Yeshua who personifies the higher power that instructs Woland to reward the master with peace. At the same time, the author did not perceive his character as a prototype of Christ. Yeshua concentrates in himself the image of the moral law, which enters into a tragic confrontation with legal law. The protagonist came into this world with the moral truth - any person is kind. This is the truth of the entire novel. And with the help of it, Bulgakov seeks to once again prove to people that God exists. A special place is occupied in the novel by the relationship between Yeshua and Pontius Pilate. It is to him that the wanderer says: “All power is violence against people ... the time will come when there will be no power of either Caesar or any other power. A person will pass into the realm of truth and justice, where no power will be needed at all. Feeling a grain of truth in the words of his prisoner, Pontius Pilate cannot let him go, fearing that this will harm his career. Under the pressure of circumstances, he signs Yeshua's death warrant and greatly regrets it. The hero tries to atone for his guilt by trying to convince the priest to release this particular prisoner in honor of the holiday. When his idea fails, he orders the servants to stop the torment of the hanged man and personally orders to kill Judas. The tragedy of the story of Yeshua Ha-Nozri lies in the fact that his teaching was not in demand. People by that time were not ready to accept his truth. The protagonist is even afraid that his words will be misunderstood: "... this confusion will continue for a very long time." Yeshuya, who did not renounce his teachings, is a symbol of humanity and perseverance. His tragedy, but in the modern world, repeats the Master. Yeshua's death is quite predictable. The tragedy of the situation is even more emphasized by the author with the help of a thunderstorm, which also completes the storyline of modern history: “Darkness. Coming from the Mediterranean Sea, it covered the city hated by the procurator... An abyss descended from the sky. Yershalaim disappeared - the great city, as if it did not exist in the world ... Everything was devoured by darkness ... ".
With the death of the protagonist, the whole city plunged into darkness. At the same time, the moral state of the inhabitants inhabiting the city left much to be desired. Yeshua is sentenced to "hanging on a stake", which entails a long painful execution. Among the townspeople there are many who want to admire this torture. Behind the wagon with prisoners, executioners and soldiers “was about two thousand curious people who were not afraid of the hellish heat and wanted to be present at an interesting spectacle. To these curious ... curious pilgrims have now joined. Approximately the same thing happens two thousand years later, when people strive to get to the scandalous performance of Woland in the Variety. From the behavior of modern people, Satan concludes that human nature does not change: “... they are people as people. They love money, but it has always been ... humanity loves money, no matter what it is made of, whether it is leather, paper, bronze or gold ... Well, they are frivolous ... well, mercy sometimes knocks on their hearts " .
Throughout the novel, the author, on the one hand, draws a clear line between the spheres of influence of Yeshua and Woland, however, on the other hand, the unity of their opposites is clearly traced. However, despite the fact that in many situations Satan appears to be more significant than Yeshua, these rulers of light and darkness are quite equal. This is the key to balance and harmony in this world, since the absence of one would make the presence of the other meaningless.
Peace, which is awarded to the Master, is a kind of agreement between two great forces. Moreover, Yeshua and Woland are driven to this decision by ordinary human love. Thus, as the highest value of Bulgako
