And Was Made Man

For us men and for our salvation
he came down from heaven,
and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary,
and became man.
(from The Nicene Creed)

Right from the start, the notion that Jesus is in some sense not a real man, but a god like being who has disguised himself as a man has been present. Of course, the Pagan gods, such as Zeus, could do this all the time, appearing in a human form, but that being an illusion to deceive the sense of mortal man.

And it is perhaps hardly surprising. The gospel stories abound in strange tales, tales that seem to belong more to the realm of legend than fact. While the healing stories are something common to other human beings, stories in which Jesus turns water into wine, walks on water, or feeds the five thousand with a few loafs and fishes, are not commonplace even by the most remarkable of ordinary men.

The notion that Jesus was somehow a divine being in disguise was called the Docetic heresy, and elements of it still pervade Christianity today.

A modern form for a scientific age is Superman,, and it is informative to compare Batman with Superman. Batman is simply an ordinary man, well trained in methods of fighting, aided by gadgets, and a crime fighter; he hides himself beneath a mask, but beneath that mask is a normal man. Superman, on the contrary, hides himself as Clark Kent, an apparently normal man; his real appearance is an alien from the planet Krypton, imbued with super powers by earth’s sun. Clark Kent is a façade, disguising the being with superhuman powers beneath.

And that, in a nutshell, is like the docetic heresy. Jesus appears like a man, but every so often, he gets out his superpowers and does those clever miracles like a Harry Potter wizard.

Here is a second look at a very different portrayal of Jesus, that in the play “Son of Man”. Dennis Potter’s Jesus is very different. There is only one “miracle”, driving a demon from a woman, and this is seen as if it could be healing of a psychological disorder. But elsewhere, lest we forget it, Jesus is human. He is not a fake. He is not Superman in human disguise as Clarke Kent. There is no halo visible.

Where he is man, he is true man, and Potter hammers this home, probably in ways which caused Mary Whitehouse to want him prosecuted for blasphemy, because Potter does not skate delicately over those bodily functions which we all have as human beings:

JESUS: The son of man must be a man. He must be all of a man. He must pass water like a man. He must get hungry and feel tired and sick and lonely. He must laugh. He must cry. He cannot be other than a man, or else God has cheated.

JUDAS: But Jesus - if -

JESUS [urgently]: And so my Father in Heaven will abandon me to myself. And if my head aches he will not lift the ache out of it. And if my stomach rumbles he will not clean out my bowels. And if a. snake curls into my thoughts, then the fang will be in my mind. If I were to have no doubt I would be other than a man.

[Pause.]

And God does not cheat.

That’s the great strength of Potter’s Jesus. When asked how people will know, what sign he will give, he won’t do anything special. You have to take him as he is, and see him for who he is, and that insight, that moment of clarity, is the miracle of faith. It is the holiness of the man that is the sign. God does not cheat.

Mark Lee comments on Jesus that why might glean from Son of Man: “He was man as to his conscious thought, and bodily desires, needs and sensations: and being a man he was vulnerable to all human weakness and frailty to which we are all inclined. But, according to this view, also being inwardly God, his soul was divine and this meant he had the divine goodness, wisdom and power of his inner self to resist all selfish desires and impure thoughts.”

Over it all, as in the previous part, is context: a cross present, a sign of what the Roman’s do, of someone else’s death, rather like in England there used to be a scaffold at crossroads, which might have a hanged felon on it, or would stand as a stark warning. It is in fact something we don’t see or hear about in the gospels until the end, but here, it is present, although as Potter notes, it has become so much part of the landscape of the people under Roman rule that they don’t see it for what it is, just as someone passing the empty scaffold would simply see it as part of its surrounds.

This act finishes with a note of irony which I rather like, because Jesus knows where he is going, and he and Judas both know the threat of the cross, and we also get a reminder that Jesus is a carpenter.

God does not cheat

An Extract from "Son of Man" by Dennis Potter

JESUS: Love God your Father above all things. And love your neighbour as yourself.

JUDAS: Who is my neighbour?

JESUS: The man next to you. Or him in the corner of your eye. [dryly] You can't miss him.

JUDAS: I try to follow the Commandments.

JESUS: Good.

JUDAS: What else must I do?

JESUS: Go home and sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor.

JUDAS: Or to the Temple?

JESUS [bitingly]: The poor!

JUDAS: And then?

JESUS: And then follow me. Give up everything else - family, friends, money, security - and come with me. We are about to - illuminate this land.

[JUDAS suddenly sinks to his knees.]

JUDAS: Yes, I will follow you.

[JESUS smiles and touches JUDAS' head.]

JESUS: What is your name?

JUDAS: Judas Iscariot.

JESUS: Welcome, Judas. [He embraces him.]

JUDAS: MyL - l - lord --?

JESUS: Yes?

JUDAS: Jerusalem is full of rumours about you. Some even dare to say that you are - [He stops.]

JESUS [quietly]: I am that I am.

JUDAS: That you - you are the - Messiah.

[Silence.]

JESUS: Is that what they say?

JUDAS: Are you?

[Silence.]

JESUS: I am that I am.

JUDAS: But - Jesus --?

PETER: Leave him be!

JUDAS: Jesus - !

[JESUS, strangely agitated, has gone to the cross. It is as though he has just seen it, just realised what is there.]

[With urgency] Jesus - Be careful. Please be careful.

[JESUS throws back his head and roars with laughter.]

JESUS: Careful I Have you trekked out all this way to tell me to be careful!

[The four others join in his laughter.]

JUDAS [shrilly]: They'll nail you up on the Cross!

[The laughter dies.]

[Embarrassed]: If you put a foot wrong - it's that horrible thing...

[He points at the cross. The others, except JESUS, automatically cringe back from it.]

ANDREW: I didn't even see it - I didn't even...

JESUS [harshly]: It is part of the landscape.

[Silence.]

JAMES [agitated]: Come on. I -.suddenly I don't like this place.

ANDREW: Me neither. By God, no!

[But PETER, who has been glaring at JUDAS, suddenly bursts out angrily at the newcomer.]

PETER: What do you want? Eh? What do you have to say that for!

JUDAS: It is a warning.

PETER: Well stuff your bloody warning --

JESUS [interrupting]: Peter I

PETER: Well - he comes out here, all poshed up, and starts -

JESUS [severely]: Peter!

[JESUS looks closely at JUDAS, who lowers his eyes.]

[Quietly] I understand where you are from. I understand what you are saying. But what is written is written. What is foretold is foretold.

[The others are out of it; this is between JESUS and JUDAS. They listen, but only half-understand.]

JUDAS: Then you are He?

JESUS: Perhaps. [A little smile.]

JUDAS [imploring]: Don't you know?

JESUS: God does not cheat.

JUDAS: I don't understand - ?

JESUS: The son of man must be a man. He must be all of a man. He must pass water like a man. He must get hungry and feel tired and sick and lonely. He must laugh. He must cry. He cannot be other than a man, or else God has cheated.

JUDAS: But Jesus - if -

JESUS [urgently]: And so my Father in Heaven will abandon me to myself. And if my head aches he will not lift the ache out of it. And if my stomach rumbles he will not clean out my bowels. And if a. snake curls into my thoughts, then the fang will be in my mind. If I were to have no doubt I would be other than a man.

[Pause.]

And God does not cheat.

[Pause. ]

JUDAS: Then how shall we know?

JESUS: By what you see. By what you hear. How else?

[Again JUDAS points at the cross.]

JUDAS : Then you know - that thing ! You know it waits for you.

JESUS [very calm]: It waits.

[Silence. The others want to go.]

JOHN: We don't like it here, Master.

PETER: That thing!

JAMES: Let us go down into the village -

ANDREW: Please. Jesus -

JOHN: We don't like it here!

[JESUS's calm is shattered by their whimpering. His own fear bubbles to the top. He rounds on them, almost savagely.]

JESUS [with harsh mockery]: `We don't like it here, Master.' Too bad. Too flaming bad, my friends. Just look at that cross. Go on! Look at it!

PETER [Angrily]: Why should we?

JESUS: So that we can keep it in our minds. [He taps angrily at his forehead.] Keep it in here. Keep the shape stinging behind our eyes. And let one little splinter of that bloodied wood stick and fester in our brains. Right? [He strides up to the cross and holds the upright beam, clinging to it.] God won't let me alone. Not now. I am His. Oh, oh. He burns inside me. He tears at my chest. He lights up my eyes. He tugs at my clothes. Oh Holy Father, you have hunted me down. You have opened the top of my head. I have heard you. I have seen you. Dear Lord God on High - shall I show a man a chair, or shall I show man the truth of your justice and the path to your Kingdom?

[Feverish now, and impressive. The others kneel, except JUDSASs, who stares wide-eyed at JESUS]

Oh, oh, He burns inside me! The Lord God is in my head and in my eyes and in my heart and in my mouth. Yes, in my mouth. He has told me what to do, what to say. I am His. I am His. I am His. I am the Chosen One. I am the Way. I am the Messiah. Yes. Yes!

[Pause. JESUS lowers his arms. Now he is calm and matter-of-fact.]

Go into Jerusalem all of you, one by one. Tell the people about Jesus of Nazareth. Tell them He is the One. The One they have been waiting for. Tell them that in three days I shall enter the Holy City on an ass, so fulfilling the prophecies of our forefathers. Tell them to greet me as they would their King. But it is the Kingdom of God I come to honour. Go now! Do as I say! Go! Go!

[They rise and move off, and JESUS turns back to smack at the cross.]

[Smiling] Ach! You should have stayed a tree. A tree. [Slight pause.] And I should have stayed a carpenter. A carpenter.

[Pause. Then he follows the others. The light fades.]