121
As opposed to the «rationalist» socialism of a Proudhom or a Marx, who at most use the wise sayings and good deeds of jesus as justifications for their political credo.
122
On the important theme that good can only come through evil, and on Romantic eschatology, see the excellent, succinct first chapter of León Cellier's Epopée romantique (1954). Of the fourth theme, of Christ the King, little can be said for the simple reason that, although we possess A. Hamon's excellent five-volume Histoire de la dévotion au Sacré-Coeur (1907-1940), analyses of the Magdalene theme, of the teacher of love tradition, of mystic socialism (since Troeltsch, Maxime Leroy, Histoire des idées sociales en France (1946-1962), and D.G. Charlton, Secular religions in France (193), there seems to be no serious study of the Christus Rex cultus. However, it is not strikingly present in Nazarín.
123
Such is not the case for the second part of the novel, which however was originally a different story, and in which there is no true Christ figure.
124
«The death of Julien Sorel», L'Esprit créateur, II, 1 (1962), p. 26-30.
125
I am not sure why «collapsing and coincidence» take place so often in these and many other works derived from the Gospels. Clearly, the Gospel sources are incomplete and somewhat chaotic, and these devices provide additional coherence. They perhaps also compensate for the effects of adding «invented» material to the Gospel sources, by insisting on the presence of the known.
126
There is logically a category missing in the list I have offered -the satirical warped kerygma which presents Jesus in the Gospel setting. The historicity of the Jesus myth may exclude any such treatment, but Lawrence's novel may be an instance -or Anatole France's Le procurateur de Judée (1902).
127
Most of my readers know the one of SS. Mathew and Mark at the foot of the cross, the former saying: «Well, he was a great teacher» and the latter. «Yes, isn't it too bad he didn't publish?».
128
I should consider Mauriac's Vie de Jésus (1936), a devotional work rather than a «fictionalized biography» of Jesus; a comparison of it with Renan's work of the same title will make the point clear.
129
Todas las citas y referencias a Nazarín y Halma están basadas en Obras Completas, ed. F. C. Sainz de Robles, vol. V.
130
Galdós parece estar imitando los consejos -más bien reproches- que da a Ntro. Señor Jesucristo el Gran Inquisidor de Dostoyevsky. «I swear, man is weaker and baser by nature than Thou hast believed him! Can he, can he do what Thou didst? By showing him so much respect, Thou dist, as it were, cease to feel for him, for Thou didst ask far too much from him» (The Brothers Karamazov Tr. by Constance Garnett [The Modern Library, New York, 1950], lib. V, cap. v, p. 304).