The abysses of the human soul as the main object of the image (review of the works of L. Andreev)

Leonid Nikolaevich Andreev (1871-1919) is one of those Russian writers who determined the mentality of society at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. it is enough to cite the opinion of I. A. Bunin, who was not generous with praise: “Still, this is the only modern writer to whom I am attracted, whose every new thing I immediately read.”

He began as a newspaper feuilletonist and court reporter, later began writing stories, became close to Gorky, with the writers of the Sreda literary circle, and participated in the publication of the Knowledge collections.

You are a little familiar with the work of Leonid Andreev. What works of his do you remember?

(Stories “Petka at the Dacha”, “Bargamot and Garaska”, “Kusaka, etc.)

The writer himself explained the choice of the hero of the last story as follows: “In the story “Bite” the hero is a dog, for all living things have the same soul, all living things suffer the same sufferings and merge into one in greatness and equality before the formidable forces of life.” These words largely reflected the writer’s philosophical ideas.

Andreev wrote about loneliness (no matter a person, a dog or an abstract character), about the disunity of souls, and thought a lot about the meaning of life, about death, about faith, about God. He also wrote on topical, contemporary topics, but even in them the writer’s view was generalized and philosophical. This is the story “Red Laughter” (1904), dedicated to the events of the Russian-Japanese War. With extraordinary expressiveness, Andreev showed the madness of bloodshed, the madness, the inhumanity of war. The symbolic title of the story emphasizes its accusatory, anti-war pathos.

A deep insight into the psychology of a doomed man in “The Tale of the Seven Hanged Men” on the topical topic of terrorism a hundred years ago. The author writes with sympathy about the terrorist revolutionaries sentenced to death. This story is a response to real events. Andreev sees the condemned not so much as criminals, but as people.

In the work of Leonid Andreev, the urgency of contemporary issues is combined with the desire for their deep interpretation, the desire to comprehend the “abyss” of the human soul, the contradictions of existence.

Andreev did not accept the October coup of 1917; he became an emigrant, remaining in the territory that went to Finland.

II. The history of the creation of the story “Judas Iscariot”

Let's remember our history. What events started the first Russian revolution of 1905-1907?

(The first Russian revolution began with Bloody Sunday, January 9, 1905, when, on the initiative of the priest Gapon, St. Petersburg workers went to the Winter Palace with a petition to Nicholas II, and this peaceful mass procession was shot by the tsarist troops. A year later it turned out that Gapon had been exposed by the Socialist Revolutionaries as an agent secret police and hanged by them in Ozerki, a dacha suburb of St. Petersburg.)

Leonid Andreev conceived a work that would reflect these events. From Andreev’s letter to Serafimovich: “By the way, I’m thinking about eventually writing “Notes of a Spy,” something on the psychology of betrayal.” Over time, the plan acquired more general, philosophical features: the writer rethinks the gospel plot, poses the eternal questions of good and evil from an unusual angle. Gradually, the planned story grew into a novel; it was completed in February 1907.

Alexander Blok responded to the publication of Andreev’s story: “Behind it (the story) is the author’s soul - a living wound. I think that her suffering is solemn and victorious. (...) We all already know the powerful breath of Andreev’s talent, and one can only be surprised that even years do not kill this monstrous tension.”

III. Conversation on the story “Judas Iscariot”

Find a description of the appearance of Judas Iscariot. What is unusual about his portrait?

First, let us note the unusualness of the selected details of the portrait. Andreev describes the skull of Judas, the very shape of which inspires “mistrust and anxiety.” Secondly, let us pay attention to the duality in the appearance of Judas, emphasized several times by the writer. Duality is not only in the words “double”, “doubled”, but also in pairs of homogeneous members, synonyms: “strange and unusual”; “mistrust, even anxiety”, “silence and harmony”; bloody and merciless" - and antonyms: "cut up... and again composed", "living" - "deadly smooth", mobile" - "frozen", "neither night nor day", "both light and darkness."

Such a portrait can be called psychological: it conveys the essence of the hero - the duality of his personality, the duality of behavior, the duality of feelings, the exclusivity of his fate.)

Why did Judas spend his entire life searching for a meeting with Jesus?

(Judas is connected by blood with the poor and hungry people. Life left its deadening imprint on one half of both his soul and appearance. The other half thirsted for knowledge, truth. He knew the truth about the sinful, dark essence of people and wanted to find the power that could transform this essence .)

Whose side is Judas on: the side of the people or the side of Jesus?

(Judas is one of the people, he believes that Jesus will not be understood by those who do not even have their daily bread. By mocking the apostles, he commits a sin: he steals money, but steals to feed a hungry harlot. Jesus is forced to approve the act of Judas, dictated love for one's neighbor. Jesus recognizes the victory of Judas over the apostles. Judas is able to influence the crowd, with the power of his humiliation he protects Christ from the rage of the crowd.

Judas becomes a mediator between Jesus and the people.)

What is the root of the conflict between Jesus and Judas?

(Jesus preaches mercy, forgiveness, long-suffering. Judas passionately desires to shake the foundations of a sinful world. He always lies, he is a deceiver and a thief. Jesus knows about the curse of Judas, but accepts his fate.)

How does Judas behave after the betrayal?

Teacher's comment:

In his 1907 article “On Realists,” Alexander Blok wrote: “Having sold Christ to the high priest, Judas surrounds Jesus with “quiet love, tender attention,” “bashful and timid, like a girl in her first love.” “With the kiss of love” he betrays Jesus and “high above the crown of the earth raises love crucified on the cross with love.” And the betrayer is not separated for a moment from the Devotee: he warms his bony hands over the fire and listens to Peter’s denial. He is mortally sad at the window of the guardhouse, where the soldiers torture Jesus the way modern jailers torture him.”

Why, according to Andreev, did Judas betray Christ?

(Discussion: Andreev shows that Judas was forced to condemn Jesus to sacrificial death in order to awaken true faith, the conscience of people.

Judas is a tragic figure. He believes that in order for the dark, poor in spirit crowd to believe in the ideal, in Christ, they need a miracle. This miracle will be the resurrection of Christ after martyrdom.

Judas also chose his cross. By betraying Christ, he dooms himself to eternal damnation, forever securing for himself the shameful nickname of a traitor.)

Problematic issues:

Do you agree with the idea that Judas in Andreev’s story is a “reluctant traitor”, that his betrayal is the flip side of love for Jesus?

Is it possible to justify a “reluctant traitor”?

(Discussion.)

Poetry of the Silver Age

Lesson 14. Symbolism. "Senior Symbolists"

Lesson objectives: give an idea of symbolism; briefly characterize the work of the founders of Russian symbolism.

Methodical techniques: teacher lecture; analysis of poems.

During the classes

I. Repetition

Let us remember the meaning of the expression “Silver Age”.

What is the essence of this metaphor?

II. Teacher lecture

The concept of “Silver Age” refers primarily to poetry. This time is characterized by an active literary life: books and magazines, poetry evenings and competitions, literary salons and cafes; abundance and variety of poetic talents; huge interest in poetry, primarily in modernist movements, the most influential of which were symbolism, acmeism and futurism.

Symbolism- a literary and artistic movement that considered the goal of art to be an intuitive comprehension of world unity through symbols. The unifying principle of such unity was seen as art, “the earthly likeness of divine creativity.” The key concept of symbolism is symbol- a polysemantic allegory, in contrast to an allegory - an unambiguous allegory. The symbol contains the prospect of limitless development of meanings. “The symbol is a window to infinity” (F. Sologub). In addition, a symbol is also a full-fledged image; it can be perceived without the potential meanings it contains. The symbol in a compressed form reflects the comprehension of the unity of life, its true, hidden essence.

Many artistic discoveries and philosophical ideas of the 20th century were predicted by the outstanding philosopher, poet, translator Vladimir Sergeevich Solovyov (1853-1900). He believed in the saving mission of Beauty (Let us remember the “positive unity” - Beauty, Goodness and Truth. Dostoevsky, with whom Solovyov was close in his youth, wrote about this). Art was called upon to become a mediator in achieving “all-unity.” The appearance of “positive unity” is the embodiment of the eternal feminine principle in the mystical images of the soul of the World, the Wisdom of God, Sophia. Solovyov's Eternal Femininity is an object of platonic cult and contemplative admiration, and not an action that presupposes a reciprocal feeling. Soloviev was prone to the active use of symbols, mysterious in meaning, but defined in form. The only true path of poetry, from the point of view of the symbolists, is the insight into “other worlds” through an imaginary, illusory reality. A poem by V. Solovyov from 1892 is a vivid illustration of these views:

Dear friend, don’t you see,

That everything we see is

Only a reflection, only shadows

From the invisible with your eyes?

Dear friend, don’t you hear?

That everyday noise is crackling -

Only the response is distorted

Triumphant harmonies?

Dear friend, don’t you hear,

What is one thing in the whole world -

Only what is heart to heart

Says in a silent hello?

Solovyov's philosophical images generated a creative response among his Symbolist followers.

The theoretical foundations of symbolism were given by D. S. Merezhkovsky (1866-1941), who in 1892 gave a lecture “On the causes of the decline and new trends in modern Russian literature.” New movements, according to Merezhkovsky, had to revive literature by completing “enormous transitional and preparatory work.” He called the main elements of this work “mystical content, symbols and the expansion of artistic impressionability.” In 1894, three collections with the programmatic title “Russian Symbolists” were published in Moscow, the leading author of which was the aspiring poet Valery Bryusov. Social and civic themes were pushed aside by symbolism. Existential themes came to the fore: Life, Death, God.

Information for teachers

Reference: existentialism (philosophy of existence) is a worldview that raises questions about how a person can live in the face of impending historical catastrophes, based on the principle of contrasting subject and object. A person is responsible for everything he has done, and does not justify himself by “circumstances.”

From the very beginning of its existence, symbolism turned out to be a heterogeneous movement. D. Merezhkovsky and V. Bryusov became the leaders of the so-called “senior symbolists”, who understood symbolism as a literary school. The heterogeneity of the flow was even evident geographically. The Moscow wing, grouped around Bryusov, limited the tasks of the new movement to the literary framework itself. The main principle of their aesthetics is “art for art’s sake.” Bryusov’s aphorism is typical: “Creations of art are ajar doors to eternity.” Much attention was paid to formal experimentation and improvement of technical techniques of versification. The focus on the self-worth and autonomy of art is expressed in Bryusov’s lines: “Perhaps everything in life is just a means for brightly melodious poetry.” One of Bryusov’s iconic poems is “Creativity” (1895):

(Read by the teacher or a previously prepared student.)

Shadow of the Uncreated Creatures

sways in his sleep,

Like patching blades

On an enamel wall.

Purple hands

On the enamel wall

Half-asleeply draw sounds

In a ringing silence.

And transparent kiosks

In the ringing silence

They grow like sparkles

Under the azure moon.

The moon rises naked

Under the azure moon...

The sounds roar half asleep,

Sounds caress me.

Secrets of the Created Creatures

They caress me with affection,

And the shadow of patches trembles

On an enamel wall.

III. Analysis of the poem "Creativity"

What are the features of this poem?

Let us note the original way of connecting the stanzas: the last line becomes the second in the next stanza. Let us note the characteristic vocabulary and images: shadows, sleep, silence, night, secrets, moon; color painting: violet, azure (i.e. red, do not be alarmed with azure - blue); sound writing: pronounced alliteration - the consonance of smooth sonorant consonants “l”, “m”, “n”, “r”, thanks to which the poem sounds like a bewitching stream of sounds.

Subject: The abysses of the human soul as the main object of the image (review of the works of L. Andreev)

Goals:

Educational:

To give an idea of the artistic originality of Andreev’s philosophical and psychological works;

Observation of the language of a work of art as a means of realizing the writer’s intention.

Educational:

Improve your skills in interpreting a literary work;

Development of logical thinking (the ability to analyze actions, draw conclusions, explain, prove one’s point of view);

Development of monologue speech of students.

Educational:

Cultivate a conscious, thoughtful attitude to life, an active life position;

Foster a love of literature;

Arouse interest in the work of L. Andreev.

Equipment:

Russian literature of the twentieth century, practical textbook, M.: Mnemosyna, 2001;

Interactive board.

During the classes:

I Organizing time:

(On the board: Leonid Nikolaevich Andreev 1871-1919)

Hello guys! Today we will get acquainted with the work of the unique writer Leonid Andreev. “Talented like the devil,” M. Gorky wrote about him. The task of our lesson will be to evaluate the validity of this statement.

The works of L. Andreev leave absolutely no one indifferent. They do not become obsolete, do not cease to be relevant, and their impact on the reader’s consciousness is difficult to overestimate. What is the mystery of this effect? Let's try to figure it out.

Andreev was born into the family of a poor official. Graduated from the Faculty of Law of Moscow University. He began his literary career in the early 1890s as a newspaper feuilletonist and court reporter. And later, in 1898, he began publishing stories.

Andreev’s first story is “Bargamot and Garaska” - a work that declares the name of its creator and introduces him to great literature. Until the very denouement, the author adheres to the genre canons of the Easter story: is it not an idyll when the policeman Bargamotov, nicknamed Bargamot on the street, brought the tramp Garaska into his house to break his fast together? “Here, stunned and quiet, Garaska sits at the tidied table. He is so ashamed that he will fall through the ground. Ashamed of your rags, ashamed of your dirty hands, ashamed of your whole self, ragged, drunk, nasty. Burning himself, he eats devilishly hot cabbage soup, swollen with fat...” The behavior of the hostess, the wife of Bargamot, does not destroy the canon. Although she “at first went wide-eyed” when an unusual guest appeared in the house, “in her feminine kindness she quickly realized what to do”: when treating Garaska, she shows, one might say, the maximum of Christmas cordiality, friendliness and politeness. And this is where an unexpected denouement, not canonized by the genre, occurs.

“Eat, eat,” Marya treats. - Gerasim... what is your name, father?

Andreich.

Eat, Gerasim Andreich.

Garaska tries to swallow, chokes and, throwing the spoon, falls head on the table... Bargamot looks at his wife with a confused and pitiful expression.

Well, what are you talking about, Gerasim Andreich! Stop it,” she reassures the restless guest.

By patronymic... how I was born. Nobody called me by my patronymic name...”

-What thoughts does what you read make you think?

It should be noted that symbol plays a huge role in the early stories. So in “Bargamot and Garaska” this is an Easter egg accidentally broken by Bargamot when Garaska went to him to “confess Christ”; it brings two former opponents under one line, confirms the equality of all in the face of God, and at the same time is the embodiment of peace. The stories “Angel”, “The Theft Was Coming”, “Once Upon a Time”, “Petka in the Dacha” are written in this manner.

Gradually, the author moves away from the symbol and the personality and the conflict within it become the center of his work: between light and darkness, between God and Satan, between the rational and the unconscious. At this stage of creativity, it is important to highlight the work “The Life of Vasily Fiveysky”. In the writer's depiction of the life of Fr. Vasily - an endless chain of harsh, often simply cruel tests of his boundless faith in God. His beloved son, dark and quiet, will drown, he will drink out of grief and become a drunkard of the priest - oh. Vasily will remain the same ardently believing Christian. In the field where he went, loud, clear words were heard: “I believe.” And then the twelve-pound hog will die, the daughter will get sick, the expected new child will be born an idiot in fear and doubt. And as before, the completely exhausted priest will drink and, in despair, try to commit suicide. O. Vasily admits to his wife that he cannot go to church, decides to remove himself from the rank and leave. This decision brings peace to the house, but fate has prepared Fr. Vasily has another tempting test: his house burns down, his wife dies from burns, and a catastrophe breaks out.

Having surrendered to the contemplation of God in a state of religious ecstasy, Fr. Vasily wants to accomplish for himself what the Almighty is supposed to do - he wants to resurrect the dead!

"ABOUT. Vasily opened the jingling door and walked through the crowd... towards the black, silently waiting coffin. He stopped, raised his right hand commandingly and hurriedly said to the decaying body:

I’m telling you, get up!” He pronounces this sacramental phrase three times, leans towards the coffin, “closer, closer, he grabs the sharp edges of the coffin with his hands, almost touches his blue lips and breathes into them the breath of life - the disturbed corpse answers him with the stinking, coldly ferocious breath of death.” And the shocked priest finally has an insight: “So why did I believe? So why did you give me love for people and pity - to laugh at me? So why did you keep me captive, in slavery, in chains all my life? Not a free thought! No feelings! Not a breath!” Contrite in his faith in God, having found no justification for human suffering, Fr. Vasily, in horror and dizziness, runs away from the church onto a wide and rough road, where he fell dead, fell “prone, bony face into the roadside gray dust... And in his pose he retained the swiftness of his run... as if even dead he continued to run.”

The Birth of an Idiot is a tragic parody version of resurrection; According to the scheme of the hero’s life, starting from the birth of the new Vasya, the word “idiot” is crowned. An idiot is like fate, his power over the world is limitless like the power of God. The face of the Idiot, growing to infinity, covering heaven and earth (in Father Vasily’s dream, which was not included in the final version) expresses demonic reality, fills the mythologized void formed as a result of the absence of God.

The emerging doubt about ideal love - for God - leads the hero to real love - for man. The previously existing gap between Father Vasily and other people is being overcome, and the priest is finally coming to an understanding of human suffering. He is shocked by the simplicity and truth of the revelations of parishioners in confession; pity, compassion for sinful people and despair from understanding his own powerlessness to help them push him to revolt against God.

The path of miraculous healing of the world is beyond the power of anyone. Therefore, the final symbolic image is dual: he continues to move forward, but along the old road. God-fighting and God-seeking form a complex unity in St. Andrew's text.

At the next stage of L. Andreev’s creativity, he moves away from descriptive everydayism, from the psychology of the individual person and turns to universal human problems. At this stage, it is important to highlight the work “Red Laughter. Excerpts from the found manuscript." This work was a response to the events of the Russo-Japanese War. However, Andreev’s task was more ambitious: these are reflections on war in general, which, according to Andreev, should not exist at all, since war is violence, a contradiction to the law of life.

“Red Laughter” was written in nine days, in a state of extraordinary nervous tension, leading to hallucinations. Andreev was afraid to be alone, and Alexandra Mikhailovna, the writer’s wife, sat silently in the office whole nights without sleep.

Andreev saw his task not in describing real events, but in reflecting an emotional subjective attitude towards them. He needed to express his tragic experiences in a way that would be heard. This is the desire to awaken an indifferent crowd with a cry of despair and horror, to evoke compassion for human grief. Andreev is looking for new artistic and expressive means and comes to expressionism, which is often characterized as “the art of screaming.” It contains eighteen passages, precisely fragments: the shocked consciousness is not able to comprehend reality, perception is devoid of integrity - hence the “fragmented composition”: fragments of facts, thoughts, feelings.

“My theme,” the author emphasized, “is madness and horror.” These words open the work. The writer presents the war as a senseless and unnatural “movement”: “A million people, gathered in one place and trying to give correctness to their actions, kill each other, and everyone is equally hurt, and everyone is equally unhappy - what is this, this is madness?... “The writer himself answers: “This is red laughter. When the earth goes crazy. There are no flowers or songs on it, it has become round, smooth and red, like a head from which the skin has been torn off.”

... A young volunteer stood in front of me and reported, holding his hand to his visor, that the general asks us to hold out for only two hours, and then reinforcements will arrive. (...) I have not seen anything whiter than this face: even the dead have more color in their faces than on this young, beardless one. (…) - Are you afraid? - I asked, touching his elbow. His lips twitched, trying to utter a word, and at the same instant something incomprehensible, monstrous, supernatural happened. A warm wind blew on my right cheek, shook me strongly - and that’s all, and in front of my eyes, in place of the pale face, there was something short, dull, red, and blood flowed from there, as if from an uncorked bottle, as they are depicted on bad signs. And in this short, red, current, some kind of smile continued, a toothless laugh - a red laugh.

He saw how the wire, cut off at one end, cut through the air and wrapped itself around three soldiers. The thorns tore their uniforms, pierced their bodies, and the soldiers whirled around madly, screaming, and two were dragging behind them the third, who was already dead. Then there was only one survivor, and he pushed two dead men away from him, and they dragged, circled, rolled over one another and over him - and suddenly everyone immediately became motionless.

Some, as if blind, fell into deep funnel-shaped holes and hung with their bellies on sharp stakes, twitching and dancing like toy clowns; they were pressed down by new bodies, and soon the entire pit to the brim turned into a swarming pile of bloody living and dead bodies.

He clearly remembers: when he was wounded in the chest and fell, for some time, until he lost consciousness, he kicked his legs, as if he was dancing with someone.

He lay on his back, yellow, pointed-nosed, with prominent cheekbones and sunken eyes - he lay like a dead man, and dreamed of an order. He had already developed an abscess, had a strong fever, and in three days they would have to dump him in a pit, among the dead, but he lay there, smiling dreamily and talking about the order.

the entire field, flooded with the motionless red glow of the fires, began to stir, as if alive, and lit up with loud cries, screams, curses and groans. These dark tubercles swarmed and crawled, like sleepy crayfish released from a basket, splayed out, strange, hardly human-like in their ragged, vague movements and heavy immobility. Some were silent and obedient, others moaned, howled, cursed and hated us, who saved them, so passionately, as if we had created this bloody, indifferent night, and their loneliness in the middle of the night and the corpses, and these terrible wounds. There was no longer enough space in the carriages, and all our clothes became wet with blood, as if we had been standing for a long time in the bloody rain, while the wounded were still being carried, and the revived field was still swarming wildly.

-What are your impressions?

However, the work, large and fruitful, continues. Perhaps the most significant work of this period was “Judas Iscariot”, where a well-known biblical story was re-interpreted.

-Who is Judas? What do you know about him?

The disciples of Christ appear as cowardly ordinary people, and Judas appears as a mediator between Christ and people. The image of Judas is dual: formally a traitor, but in essence the only person devoted to Christ. He betrays Christ in order to find out whether any of his followers are capable of sacrificing themselves to save their teacher. He brings weapons to the apostles, warns them of the danger threatening Christ, and after the death of the Teacher follows him. The author puts a very deep ethical postulate into the mouth of Judas:

“Sacrifice is suffering for one and shame for all. You have taken upon yourself all the sin. You will soon kiss the cross on which you crucified Christ!.. Did he forbid you to die? Why are you alive when he is dead?.. "What is truth itself in the mouths of traitors? Doesn't it become a lie?" The author himself described this work as “something on the psychology, ethics and practice of betrayal.” According to Andreev’s idea, Judas is the purest and most enlightened disciple of Christ.

Read an excerpt from the work of L. Andreev, where a portrait of Judas Iscariot is given:

Short red hair did not hide the strange and unusual shape of his skull: as if cut from the back of the head with a double blow of a sword and put back together again, it was clearly divided into four parts and inspired distrust, even anxiety: behind such a skull there cannot be silence and harmony, behind such a skull there is always the sound of bloody and merciless battles can be heard. Judas’s face was also double: one side of it, with a black, sharply looking eye, was alive, mobile, willingly gathering into numerous crooked wrinkles. On the other there were no wrinkles, and it was deathly smooth, flat and frozen, and although it was equal in size to the first, it seemed huge from the wide open blind eye. Covered with a whitish turbidity, not closing either at night or during the day, he equally met both light and darkness, but whether because he had a living and cunning comrade next to him, one could not believe in his complete blindness.

-What is unusual about the details of the portrait of Judas Iscariot? Can we say that these details give the portrait of Judas a symbolic meaning?

With the image of Judas, Andreev illustrates the riddle of “two faces.” In different situations, two natures of Judas are revealed: one is “poisonously prickly”, the other is “painfully crushed”. The consequence of the disclosure is a description of Judas’s face, his voice, the contrast of internal strength and strength with external weakness and soreness.

Judas’s inner world is equally dual: on the one hand, he is convinced of the correctness of his ideas about people, on the other, he hopes for a miracle, longing to be proven wrong.

In Andreev's hero, a dreamer and a martyr merged together. He is well aware of the cowardice of Christ’s disciples and the unreliability of the crowd, but he dreams of transforming the “terrible people” into “beautiful ones.” Judas believes that the torment of Christ and his own will acquire a high spiritual meaning, awaken the consciousness of people and return them to moral truths.

-How do the disciples of Christ appear on the pages of the story?

L. Andreev draws them with evil irony. For example, Peter (his name means “stone” in Greek) is huge, strong and limited. It is he and John who argue about which of them will be in the Kingdom of Heaven next to Christ. It is Peter who drinks almost all the wine bought for Jesus, “with the indifference of one who attaches importance only to quantity.” It is Peter, as predicted by Jesus, who three times denies the Teacher, who is taken into custody.

Christ’s favorite disciple, John, is depicted with the same evil irony. In Andreev, he is pampered and arrogant, not wanting to give up his place next to Jesus to anyone.

Thomas, always doubting everything, is depicted as limited and incapable of understanding irony.

The disciples fall asleep while Jesus prays in the Garden of Gethsemane, when he asks them to stay awake, to be with him in his hour of trial. And finally, they did not protect Christ from the Roman guards during his arrest.

-Andreev has no opposition between Jesus and Christ; They are united by the suffering that love condemns them to. Try to explain why Jesus and Judas are united by Andreev.

True love is sacrificial. Judas loves Jesus, kisses him and betrays him, from which he dooms himself to an eternal unenviable place next to Jesus. Jesus loves humanity, and suffers for them, atones for their guilt.

-How is Judas externally transformed?

“...his gaze was simple, and direct, and terrible in its naked truthfulness.” Duplicity disappears - there is nothing to hide.

-read the ending of the story.

And before pushing off with his foot from the edge and hanging, Judas from Kariot once again carefully warned Jesus:

So meet me kindly, I'm very tired, Jesus.

And he jumped. (...)

All night, like some monstrous fruit, Judas swayed over Jerusalem; and the wind turned him now to face the city, now to the desert - as if he wanted to show Judas to both the city and the desert. But, no matter where the face disfigured by death turned, red eyes, bloodshot and now identical, like brothers, relentlessly looked into the sky. And the next morning someone sharp-eyed saw Judas hanging over the city and screamed in fear. People came and took him down, and, having found out who it was, they threw him into a remote ravine, where they threw dead horses, cats and other carrion.

And that evening all the believers learned about the terrible death of the Traitor, and the next day all of Jerusalem learned about it. Stony Judea knew about her, and green Galilee knew about her; and to one sea and to another, which is even further away, the news of the death of the Traitor reached. Neither faster nor quieter, but along with time she walked, and just as time has no end, so there will be no end to the stories about the betrayal of Judas and his terrible death. And everyone - good and evil - will equally curse his shameful memory; and among all nations, which were and are, he will remain alone in his cruel fate - Judas of Kariot, Traitor.

-Why did Judas hang himself?

I saw the inevitability of evil on earth, the lack of love, betrayal.

- After the publication of the work, accusations of justifying betrayal rained down on L. Andreev. Do you agree with this statement?

L.N. Andreev received from his great teacher F.M. Dostoevsky the highest level of moral demands on a person, on his consciousness of personal responsibility. The story “Judas Iscariot” is by no means an indulgence towards betrayal, much less an excuse for it. Moreover, the story is an irreconcilable rejection of implicit, non-obvious, unjustifiable betrayal - silent connivance with it. The most striking events of the work are those that tell about what happened after the crucifixion. L. Andreev judges as traitors all those who are silent and inactive in the face of betrayal. This is precisely the main ideological pathos of the work.

The author boldly recasts two-thousand-year-old images to make the reader outraged by the revealed nonsense. The story reflected the contradictions of the era in which L. Andreev lived. He is concerned with eternal questions: what rules the world: good or evil, truth or lies, is it possible to live righteously in an unrighteous world. What do we think?

-Is Gorky’s assessment justified?

This is Andreev’s artistic world, full of contradictions, at first glance, infinitely deep, representing a response not so much to historical events as to the movement of the human soul, thereby becoming timeless.

“Judas Iscariot” by L. Andreev: the system of characters, the essence of the conflict. Features of style. Rethinking the Gospel story.

The story again raises the problem of “co-creation” of God and man, which was discussed in “The Life of Basil of Thebes.” In the mosaic structure of the image of Judas (he is simultaneously cowardly and courageous, vulgar and lyrical, dually flawed in his emotional and physical appearance and monolithically integral in his intellectual and volitional effort), it is the creative, dynamic principle that predominates (especially contrasting with the static, weak-willed apostles) . Judas is a provocative chaos, filled with creative potential, which opposes the self-sufficient cosmos of other disciples of Jesus, obedient executors of the Teacher’s will, reverently preserving the letter of His teaching. With all the vital tangibility of his figure, it is impossible to grasp the core of Judas’s personality, so he becomes the most contradictory image of Andreev, making the story itself the least amenable to unambiguous interpretation of the writer’s work.

Of the many interpretations of the story, the most vulnerable seem to be those that directly correlate St. Andrew's philosophical saga with the New Testament plot and Christian teaching in general. The author did not set out to rewrite the Gospels, for which he was reproached not only by naive orthodox Black Hundred publicists, but also even by V. Rozanov, who was very experienced in the twists and turns of religious and mystical thought. Closer to the truth is I. Annensky, who powerfully noted that “the melancholy and spontaneity of Judas are too understandable and close to us to look for them at the Dead Sea”3, and connected him with those heroes of Dostoevsky, whose dominant character is “twist” and “tear” , and to an even greater extent - with the anxious soul of a contemporary. The betrayal of Judas is a kind of monstrous experiment in its extreme: on the disciples, on the people of Jerusalem, even on oneself. A modern researcher considers the main semantic core of the story to be precisely this painful creative impulse, daring to the point of self-destruction, thanks to which a new spiritual reality is created: “According to the plot of the work, it was Judas Iscariot, his efforts, foresight and self-denial in the name of love<...>The victory of the new teaching is ensured, a new universe is created, the spiritual ruler of which is Christ.”1

The story “Judas Iscariot” became a response to the phenomenon of renegadery and betrayal that has spread in Russian society. Andreev developed the theme of betrayal in such a way that A. Lunacharsky had reason to evaluate the story as a work “about the baseness of the human race.” “Judas Iscariot is convinced of the dominance of evil and hates people. By committing betrayal, he wants to test both the correctness of the humanistic teachings of Christ and the devotion of his disciples. They turn out to be cowardly ordinary people; The masses of the people also do not rise to the defense of Christ.”

The plot of the story is based on the Gospel story, although, as Gorky wrote, “in the first edition of the story “Judas” he had several errors that indicated that he did not even bother to read the Gospel.” Indeed, using the gospel story, the author conveyed it very subjectively. From the very beginning and throughout the entire story, the words “Judas the Traitor” sound as a refrain; such a name was ingrained in the minds of people from the very beginning, and Andreev accepts and uses it, but only as a “nickname” given by people. For the writer, Judas is in many ways a symbolic traitor.

In Andreev, at the very beginning of the story, Judas is presented as a very repulsive character: his appearance is already unpleasant (“an ugly lumpy head”, a strange expression on his face, as if divided in half, his changeable voice is strange “now courageous and strong, now loud, like an old woman’s, scolding her husband, annoyingly thin and unpleasant to hear"). His words repel him, “like rotten and rough splinters.” So, from the very beginning of the story we see how vicious the nature of Judas is, his ugliness is exaggerated, the asymmetry of his features is exaggerated. And in the future, Judas’ actions will surprise us with their absurdity: in conversations with his disciples, he is sometimes silent, sometimes extremely kind and cordial, which even frightens many of his interlocutors. Judas did not talk to Jesus for a long time, but Jesus loved Judas, like his other disciples, often looked for Judas with his eyes and was interested in him, although Judas seemed unworthy of this. Next to Jesus, he looked low, stupid and insincere. Judas constantly lied, so it was impossible to know whether he was telling the truth again or lying. It is quite possible to explain the great sin of Judas - the betrayal of his Teacher - by the nature of Judas. After all, it is possible that his envy of the purity, integrity of Jesus, his unlimited kindness and love for people, which Judas is not capable of, led to the fact that he decided to destroy his teacher.

But this is only the first impression of L. Andreev’s story. Why does the author, at the beginning of the story and then many times later, compare Jesus and Judas? “He (Judas) was thin, of good height, almost the same as Jesus,” that is, the writer puts two such seemingly opposite images on a par, he brings them together. There seems to be some kind of connection between Jesus and Judas; they are constantly connected by an invisible thread: their eyes often meet, and they almost guess each other’s thoughts. Jesus loves Judas, although he foresees betrayal on his part. But Judas, Judas loves Jesus too! He loves him immensely, he reveres him. He listens carefully to his every phrase, feeling in Jesus some kind of mystical power, special, forcing everyone who listens to him to bow before the Teacher. When Judas accused people of depravity, deceit and hatred of each other, Jesus began to move away from him. Judas felt this, taking everything very painfully, which also confirms Judas’ unlimited love for his Teacher. Therefore, it is not surprising that Judas desires to get closer to him, to be constantly near him. The thought arises whether the betrayal of Judas was a way to get closer to Jesus, but in a completely special, paradoxical way. The Teacher will die, leave this world, and there, in another life, they will be side by side: there will be no John and Peter, there will be no other disciples of Jesus, there will only be Judas, who, he is sure, loves his Teacher most of all. When reading L. Andreev’s story, the thought often arises that Judas’s mission is predetermined. Not one of Jesus' disciples could have endured this, could not have accepted such a fate. Indeed, Andreev’s images of other students are only symbols. Thus, Peter is associated with a stone: wherever he is, whatever he does, the symbolism of the stone is used everywhere, even with Judas he competes in throwing stones. John - the beloved disciple of Jesus - is tenderness, fragility, purity, spiritual beauty. Thomas is straightforward, but in reality, Thomas is an unbeliever. Even Foma’s eyes are empty, transparent, no thought lingers in them. The images of the other disciples are also symbolic: none of them could betray Jesus. Judas is the chosen one who suffered this fate, and only he is capable of co-creation in the feat of Jesus - he also sacrifices himself. Knowing in advance that he will betray Jesus, commit such a grave sin, he struggles with this: the best part of his soul struggles with the mission destined for him. And the soul cannot stand it: it is impossible to defeat predestination. So, Judas knew that betrayal would be committed, there would be the death of Jesus and that he would kill himself after this, he even marked out a place for death. He hid the money so that he could later throw it to the high priests and Pharisees - that is, greed was not the reason for Judas’ betrayal. Having committed a crime, Judas blames it... on his disciples. He is amazed that when the teacher died, they could eat and sleep, they could continue their previous life without Him, without their Teacher. It seems to Judas that life is meaningless after the death of Jesus. It turns out that Judas is not as heartless as we first thought. Love for Jesus reveals many of his hitherto hidden positive traits, immaculate, pure sides of his soul, which, however, are revealed only after the death of Jesus, just as with the death of Jesus the betrayal of Judas is revealed. “The paradoxical combination of betrayal and the manifestation of the best qualities in the hero’s soul is explained only by predestination from above: Judas cannot defeat him, but he cannot help but love Jesus. And the whole psychology of betrayal then lies in the struggle of the individual with predestination in the struggle of Judas with the mission destined for him.”

The first thing Andreev wrote in Capri was a story "Judas Iscariot" the idea of which he had been nurturing for a long time. " Something on psychology, ethics and practice of betrayal"(46) - this, of course, is far from a complete definition of the content of the story. As we remember, in the image of Judas he was reborn ugly god-fighting demon Oro, one of the first characters in Andreev’s work . But Judas is much more complex than Oro. He strives not down, but up, following Christ; at the same time, he hates and despises the world and people no less than Savva. And if we are to arrange Andreev’s heroes in genealogical chains, then the direct predecessor of Judas should be called King Herod (“Sava”), who brought himself closer to Christ through the torment of self-torture, eternal and terrible penance as punishment for the murder of his own son.

But Judas is more complex than Herod. He does not just want to be first after Christ in order to revel in the grief of his betrayal. He wants to stand at least next to Christ, placing a world unworthy of him at his feet. “He, brother, is a daring and intelligent man, Judas,” Andreev told Gorky. “...You know, if Judas had been convinced that Jehovah himself was before him in the person of Christ, he would still have betrayed him. Killing God, humiliating him with a shameful death, this, brother, is not a trifle!”(47) The image of Judas is paradoxical and inspires contradictory feelings: this at the same time a cynical, narcissistic intriguer and a proud, brave fighter against “inescapable human stupidity”"; a vile traitor to the best of people and the only one among all the students who sincerely and selflessly loves him.

The natural question is: what causes the choice of Judas as a fighter against the earthly (and in the future also with the heavenly) structure? After all, isn’t it the author’s desire to justify betrayal? M. Voloshin wrote in his review: “There is nothing more rewarding and responsible for art than gospel themes... Only having a solid basis in popular myth can an artist achieve the transmission of the subtlest shades of his feelings and his thoughts” (48). Voloshin found it indelicate and even rude to introduce Andreev’s “I” into the “finished crystals of the Gospel story” (49), but this directness and unceremoniousness is all Andreev. He boldly reshapes two-thousand-year-old images in order to reshape the reader’s consciousness with them, to force him to experience the nonsense discovered by the author and be indignant at it. After all, she is not only in the sky, but also in people who easily betray their idols, shouting “Crucify!” as loud as "Hosanna!" It is in their eternal lack of freedom, although it relieves them of the unbearable burden of choice, but thereby deprives them of truly humanity, turning them into stones, into grains of sand.

The purpose of the lesson: expand students’ knowledge about the work of L. N. Andreev, show the relevance of his work, improve text analysis skills.

Lesson equipment: portrait of L.N. Andreev, publications of his books.

Methodical techniques: teacher’s story, conversation, repetition of what has been covered, interdisciplinary connections (with history), commented reading, text analysis.

During the classes.

I. The teacher’s word about Leonid Andreev.

You are a little familiar with the work of Leonid Andreev. What works of his do you remember?

(Stories “Petka at the Dacha”, “Bargamot and Garaska”, “Kusaka”, etc.)

A deep insight into the psychology of a doomed man in “The Tale of the Seven Hanged Men” on the topical topic of terrorism a hundred years ago. The author writes with sympathy about the revolutionary terrorists sentenced to death. This story is a response to real events. Andreev sees the condemned not so much as criminals, but as people.

Andreev did not accept the October coup of 1917; he became an emigrant, remaining in the territory that went to Finland.

Let's remember our history. What events started the first Russian revolution of 1905–1907?

III. Conversation on the story “Judas Iscariot”.

Find a description of the appearance of Judas Iscariot. What is unusual about his portrait?

(“Short red hair did not hide the strange and unusual shape of his skull: as if cut from the back of the head with a double blow of a sword and put back together again, it was clearly divided into four parts and inspired distrust, even anxiety: behind such a skull there can be no silence and harmony, behind such the skull always hears the noise of bloody and merciless battles. The face of Judas was also double: one side of it, with a black, sharply looking eye, was alive, mobile, willingly gathering into numerous crooked wrinkles. On the other there were no wrinkles, and it was deathly. smooth, flat and frozen; and although it was equal in size to the first, it seemed huge from the wide open blind eye. Covered with a whitish turbidity, not closing either at night or during the day, it equally met both light and darkness; but is it because next to He was a lively and cunning comrade, I couldn’t believe in his complete blindness.”
First, let us note the unusualness of the selected details of the portrait. Andreev describes the skull of Judas, the very shape of which inspires “mistrust and anxiety.” Secondly, let us pay attention to the duality in the appearance of Judas, emphasized several times by the writer. Duality is not only in the words “double”, “doubled”, but also in pairs of homogeneous members, synonyms: “strange and unusual”; “mistrust, even anxiety”, “silence and harmony”; “bloody and merciless” - and antonyms: “cut... and put together again”, “living” - “deadly smooth”, “moving” - “frozen”, “neither night nor day”, “both light and darkness” .
Such a portrait can be called psychological: he conveys the essence of the hero - the duality of his personality, the duality of behavior, the duality of feelings, the exclusivity of his fate.)

Why did Judas spend his entire life searching for a meeting with Jesus?

Whose side is Judas on: the side of the people or the side of Jesus?

Judas becomes a mediator between Jesus and the people.)

What is the root of the conflict between Jesus and Judas?

How does Judas behave after the betrayal?

Description of the presentation by individual slides:

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Andreev and Bunin Leonid Nikolaevich Andreev (1871-1919) is one of those Russian writers who determined the mentality of society at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. It is enough to cite the opinion of I. A. Bunin, who was not generous with praise: “Still, this is the only modern writer to whom I am attracted, whose every new thing I immediately read.”

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Andreev and Gorky He began as a newspaper feuilletonist and court reporter, later began writing stories, became close to Gorky, with the writers of the Sreda literary circle, and participated in the publication of the Knowledge collections. Gorky will create a memoir portrait of Leonid Nikolaevich Andreev. This is a real mini-novel with a beginning, a high point in the development of action and a denouement. By the time the memoirs were written, L.N. Andreev was no longer alive; he died in Finnish emigration (1919), cursing the Bolsheviks and speaking sharply negatively about M. Gorky, whom he, not without reason, accused of collaborating with these “Germans.” spies."

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Kusaka Bargamot and Garaska Angel What the jackdaw saw Theft was coming “In the story “Kusaka” the hero is the dog, for all living things have the same soul, all living things suffer the same sufferings and merge into one in greatness and equality before the formidable forces of life.” . These words largely reflected the writer’s philosophical ideas.

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The themes of Andreev’s work were about loneliness (no matter a person, a dog or an abstract character), about the disunity of souls, and he thought a lot about the meaning of life, about death, about faith, about God. He also wrote on topical, contemporary topics, but even in them the writer’s view was generalized and philosophical. This is the story “Red Laughter” (1904), dedicated to the events of the Russian-Japanese War. With extraordinary expressiveness, Andreev showed the madness of bloodshed, the madness, the inhumanity of war. The symbolic title of the story emphasizes its accusatory, anti-war pathos. A deep insight into the psychology of a doomed man in “The Tale of the Seven Hanged Men” on the topical topic of terrorism a hundred years ago. The author writes with sympathy about the terrorist revolutionaries sentenced to death. This story is a response to real events. Andreev sees the condemned not so much as criminals, but as people. In the work of Leonid Andreev, the urgency of contemporary issues is combined with the desire for their deep interpretation, the desire to comprehend the “abyss” of the human soul, the contradictions of existence.

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The history of the creation of the story “Judas Iscariot” The first Russian revolution began with Bloody Sunday, January 9, 1905, when, on the initiative of the priest Gapon, St. Petersburg workers went to the Winter Palace with a petition to Nicholas II, and this peaceful mass procession was shot by the tsarist troops. A year later, it turned out that Gapon had been exposed by the Socialist Revolutionaries as an agent of the secret police and hanged by them in Ozerki, a dacha suburb of St. Petersburg.

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There are two poles in the story: Christ is good, Iscariot is evil. The author brings to the fore the figure of Judas. It was this hero, complex, contradictory and terrible, and his act that attracted the attention of the writer and pushed him to create his own version of the events of the 30s of the beginning of our era and to a new understanding of the categories of “good and evil.”

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The tragedy of betrayal Taking the gospel legend of the betrayal of Judas as a basis, Andreev rethinks its plot and fills it with new content. Having passed the gospel events through the prism of his consciousness, the writer forces the reader to experience the tragedy of betrayal that he discovered and be outraged by it.

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Everyone must go their own way. The biblical narrative differs from St. Andrew's only in its artistic form: The central character of the legend is Jesus Christ. All four Gospels tell exactly about his life, preaching activities, death and miraculous resurrection, and Christ’s sermons are conveyed through direct speech. In Andreev's work, Jesus is rather passive, his words are conveyed mainly as indirect speech. In all four Gospels, the very moment of the betrayal of Christ by Judas is episodic. Iscariot’s appearance, his thoughts and feelings, both before and after the betrayal, are not described anywhere.

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The most complete information about Iscariot is contained in the Gospel of Matthew. It is in it that the sum (thirty pieces of silver) that the high priests offered him for Jesus Christ is told; about the return of this money by Judas after betrayal; about Judas' repentance and his suicide. But Matthew does not explain either the reasons that pushed Judas to betrayal, or his internal state

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“Short red hair did not hide the strange and unusual shape of his skull: as if cut from the back of the head with a double blow of a sword and put back together, it was clearly divided into four parts and inspired distrust, even anxiety: behind such a skull there cannot be silence and harmony, behind such a skull You can always hear the sound of bloody and merciless battles. Judas’s face was also double: one side of it, with a black, sharply looking eye, was alive, mobile, willingly gathering into numerous crooked wrinkles. On the other there were no wrinkles, and it was deathly smooth, flat and frozen; and although it was equal in size to the first, it seemed huge from the wide open blind eye. Covered with a whitish turbidity, not closing either at night or during the day, it met both light and darkness equally; but was it because there was a living and cunning comrade next to him that one could not believe in his complete blindness.”

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Such a portrait can be called psychological: it conveys the essence of the hero - the duality of his personality, the duality of behavior, the duality of feelings, the exclusivity of his fate. Judas is connected by blood with the poor and hungry people. Life has left its deadening imprint on one half of both his soul and appearance. The other half thirsted for knowledge, truth. He knew the truth about the sinful, dark essence of people and wanted to find the power that could transform this essence.

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For L. Andreev, Judas is not a symbol, but a living person. Many passions and feelings are intertwined in him. There is no doubt that he loves Christ sincerely and strongly. But Judas is offended by him and cannot come to terms with the fact that it is not he, but John, who is Jesus’ beloved disciple. St. Andrew's Judas does not commit his crime for the sake of money (as in one of the Gospels). He is driven by resentful love. And in a strange way, the story of Andreev, whom many church critics accused of blasphemy and immorality, suggests a deeply moral thought: love should not be offended, it should be noble.

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This love is not enough for Judas: opposing himself to the disciples in the sincerity of his love and devotion to Jesus, he longs for his recognition of his merits and elevation above other disciples. This moment can be traced in the Gospels: at the Last Supper, when Jesus said that one of those sitting here would betray him, the disciples began to ask: “Is it not I, Lord?”, and only Judas asked: “Is it not I, Rabbi?” - thereby showing that he sees in Jesus only a teacher, but not a Lord. At the moment of betrayal, Judas consciously chooses kissing as a sign for the enemies of Jesus, since in the society of rabbis a kiss served as the highest praise and was given by a teacher to a student. But the students did not dare to kiss the teacher. This is how he emphasizes his equality with Christ every time.

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Michelangelo da Caravaggio "The Arrest of Christ or the Kiss of Judas"

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“a reluctant traitor,” is his betrayal the other side of love for Jesus? Andreev shows that Judas was forced to condemn Jesus to sacrificial death in order to awaken true faith, the conscience of people. Judas is a tragic figure. He believes that in order for the dark, poor in spirit crowd to believe in the ideal, in Christ, they need a miracle. This miracle will be the resurrection of Christ after martyrdom. Judas also chose his cross. By betraying Christ, he dooms himself to eternal damnation, forever securing for himself the shameful nickname of a traitor.

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Thirty pieces of silver 3 Then Judas, who had betrayed Him, saw that He was condemned and, repenting, returned the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, 4 saying, “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.” They said to him: What is that to us? take a look yourself. 5 And throwing away the pieces of silver in the temple, he went out, went and hanged himself. 6 The chief priests took the pieces of silver and said, “It is not permissible to put them in the church treasury, because it is the price of blood.” 7 Having taken counsel, they bought a potter's land with them for the burying of strangers; 8 Therefore that land is called “the land of blood” to this day. 9 Then was fulfilled what was spoken through the prophet Jeremiah, who said, “And they took thirty pieces of silver, the price of Him who was valued, whom the children of Israel valued, 10 and gave them for the potter’s land, as the Lord said to me.” Gospel of Matthew, chapter 27

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Thirty pieces of silver The contemptuous expression “thirty pieces of silver” is a popular phrase or phraseological unit in the Russian language, used to mean the price of betrayal. The word “unmercenary” is associated with thirty pieces of silver in the Russian language, denoting not only the face of saints in the Orthodox Church, especially famous for their selflessness, non-covetousness, renunciation of wealth, and generosity for the sake of their Christian faith; but also in the everyday speech of disinterested people, indifferent to wealth and material gain.

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Judas had long ago, during his lonely walks, marked out the place where he would kill himself after the death of Jesus. It was on a mountain, high above Jerusalem, and there was only one tree standing there, crooked, tormented by the wind, tearing it from all sides, half-withered. It extended one of its broken crooked branches towards Jerusalem, as if blessing it or threatening it with something, and Judas chose it to make a noose on it. Are you listening, Jesus? Now will you believe me? I am going to you. Greet me kindly, I'm tired. I am very tired. Then you and I, hugging like brothers, will return to earth. Fine? I'm going to hell! And on the fire of your hell I will forge iron and destroy your sky. Fine? Then will you believe me? Then will you come with me back to earth, Jesus? And that evening all the believers learned about the terrible death of the Traitor, and the next day all of Jerusalem learned about it. Stony Judea learned about her, and green Galilee learned about her, and the news of the death of the Traitor reached one sea and another, which was even further away. Neither faster nor quieter, but along with time she walked, and just as time has no end, so there will be no end to the stories about the betrayal of Judas and his terrible death. And everyone - good and evil - will equally curse his shameful memory, and among all nations, which were and are, he will remain alone in his cruel fate - Judas of Kariot, Traitor. Death of Judas

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Pontius Pilate There is another figure in the story, which is very difficult to attribute to the forces of good and light. This is the procurator Pontius Pilate. It was to him that Jesus was handed over for trial; he conducted the final interrogation. The story does not contain a description of this conversation, unlike the Gospels. Otherwise, the image of Pilate and his actions completely coincide with the biblical one. After a conversation with Jesus, he, going out to the crowd and “disdainfully pulling his lips down to his round shaved chin,” “throws dry, short words into the crowd...”. Pilate declares that he did not “find this man guilty...”

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Are the apostles traitors? The goodness of other disciples of Christ, in particular and those especially close to him - John, Peter, Matthew and others, is also doubtful. Being with the still living Jesus and being in the full dawn of years, they are already arguing about which of them “will be the first near Christ in his heavenly kingdom.” Peter, in essence, is also an oathbreaker. He swore that he would never leave Jesus, but in a moment of danger he denied him three times. Both his renunciation and the flight of other students are also a kind of betrayal. Their cowardice is a sin, no less than that of Judas.

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