Fictional Transfigurations of Jesus

Many novels revolve round the figure of Jesus. Some of the finest of them are defined by Ziolkowski as fictional transfigurations of Jesus. They share a modern hero patterned on Jesus the culture-hero whose life consisted of the motifs of the last supper lonely agony betrayal trial and crucifixion. The aesthetic challenge of adapting this most familiar story for their generation has attracted an unusual number of great writers among them Papini Kazantzakis Hesse Mann Greene Faulkner and Gore Vidal. The form began with the new image of a humanized Jesus which developed in the 19th century. The interest in religious paranoia and hysteria at the turn of the century instantly expanded its potentialities as novelists began to explore the theme of christomania. This was followed by studies of Jesus as a mythic figure and then Marxist-oriented portraits of Comrade Jesus. Finally the form became inverted into parody in the Fifth Gospels in which not Jesus but Judas is the central figure.