What is the essence of Yeshua's teachings? Bulgakov Encyclopedia (short) Yeshua ha-notsri
good evil novel bulgakov
M. Bulgakov’s novel “The Master and Margarita” is a multi-dimensional and multi-layered work. It combines, closely intertwined, mysticism and satire, the most unrestrained fantasy and merciless realism, light irony and intense philosophy. As a rule, several semantic, figurative subsystems are distinguished in the novel: everyday, associated with Woland’s stay in Moscow, lyrical, telling about the love of the Master and Margarita, and philosophical, comprehending biblical story through the images of Pontius Pilate and Yeshua, as well as the problems of creativity based on the material literary work Masters. One of the main philosophical problems The novel is the problem of the relationship between good and evil: the personification of good is Yeshua Ha-Nozri, and the embodiment of evil is Woland.
The novel “The Master and Margarita” is, as it were, a double novel, consisting of the Master’s novel about Pontius Pilate and a work about the fate of the Master himself, connected with the life of Moscow in the 30s of the 20th century. Both novels are united by one idea - the search for truth and the fight for it.
Image of Yeshua-Ha Notsri
Yeshua is the embodiment of a pure idea. He is a philosopher, a wanderer, a preacher of goodness, love and mercy. His goal was to make the world a cleaner and kinder place. Life philosophy Yeshua is like this: “There are no evil people in the world, there are unhappy people.” “A good man,” he addresses the procurator, and for this he is beaten by Ratboy. But the point is not that he addresses people this way, but that he really behaves with everyone an ordinary person as if he were the embodiment of good. The portrait of Yeshua is virtually absent in the novel: the author indicates his age, describes clothing, facial expression, mentions a bruise and abrasion - but nothing more: “...They brought in a man of about twenty-seven. 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.”
When asked by Pilate about his relatives, he answers: “There is no one. I am alone in the world." But 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.
The power of Yeshua Ha-Nozri is so great and so comprehensive that at first many take it for weakness, even for spiritual lack of will. However, Yeshua Ha-Nozri is not an ordinary person: Woland sees himself as approximately equal to him in the heavenly hierarchy. Bulgakov's Yeshua is the bearer of the idea of the God-man. The author sees in his hero not only a religious preacher and reformer: the image of Yeshua embodies free spiritual activity. Possessing developed intuition, subtle and strong intellect, Yeshua is able to guess the future, and not just the thunderstorm that “will begin later, in the evening,” but also the fate of his teaching, which is already being incorrectly stated by Levi.
Yeshua is internally free. He boldly says what he considers to be the truth, what he has reached himself, with his own mind. Yeshua believes that harmony will come to the tormented land and the kingdom of eternal spring will come, eternal love. Yeshua is relaxed, the power of fear does not weigh on him.
“Among other things, I said,” the prisoner said, “that all power is violence against people and that the time will come when there will be no power of either the Caesars or any other power. Man will move into the kingdom of truth and justice, where no power will be needed at all.” Yeshua bravely endures all the suffering inflicted on him. There's a fire burning inside of him forgiving love to people. He is confident that only goodness has the right to change the world.
Realizing that he is in danger the death penalty, he considers it necessary to say to the Roman governor: “Your life is meager, hegemon. The trouble is that you are too closed and have completely lost faith in people.”
Speaking about Yeshua, one cannot fail to mention his unusual name. If the first part - Yeshua - transparently hints at the name of Jesus, then the “cacophony of the plebeian name” - Ha-Notsri - “so mundane” and “secular” in comparison with the solemn church - Jesus, as if called upon to confirm the authenticity of Bulgakov’s story and its independence from evangelical tradition."
Despite the fact that the plot seems completed - Yeshua is executed, the author seeks to assert that the victory of evil over good cannot be the result of social and moral confrontation; this, according to Bulgakov, she herself does not accept human nature, the entire course of civilization should not allow: Yeshua remained alive, he is dead only for Levi, for the servants of Pilate.
The great tragic philosophy of Yeshua's life is that truth is tested and confirmed by death. The tragedy of the hero is his physical death, but morally he wins.
YESHUA HA-NOZRI
A character in the novel “The Master and Margarita”, going back to Jesus Christ of the Gospels. Bulgakov met the name “Yeshua Ga-Notsri” in Sergei Chevkin’s play “Yeshua Ganotsri. An impartial discovery of truth" (1922), and then checked it against the works of historians. Extracts from the book are preserved in the Bulgakov archive German philosopher Arthur Drews (1865-1935) “The Myth of Christ,” translated into Russian in 1924, which argued that in Hebrew the word “natzar” or “nazer” means “branch” or “branch”, and “Yeshua "or "Joshua" - "help to Yahweh" or "God's help." True, in his other work, “Denial of the Historicity of Jesus in the Past and Present,” which appeared in Russian in 1930, Drewe preferred a different etymology of the word “natzer” (another option is “notzer”) - “guard”, “shepherd” ", joining the opinion of the British biblical historian William Smith (1846-1894) that even before our era, among the Jews there was a sect of Nazarenes, or Nazarenes, who worshiped the cult god Jesus (Joshua, Yeshua) "ha-notzri", i.e. . "Guardian Jesus." The writer’s archive also preserves extracts from the book “The Life of Jesus Christ” (1873) by the English historian and theologian Bishop Frederick W. Farrar. If Drewe and other historians of the mythological school sought to prove that the nickname of Jesus Nazarene (Ha-Nozri) is not of a geographical nature and is in no way connected with the city of Nazareth, which, in their opinion, did not yet exist in Gospel times, then Farrar, one of the most prominent adherents historical school(see: Christianity), defended traditional etymology. From his book, Bulgakov learned that one of the names of Christ mentioned in the Talmud, Ha-Nozri, means Nazarene. Farrar translated the Hebrew “Yeshua” somewhat differently than Drewe, “whose salvation is Jehovah.” The English historian connected the city of En-Sarid with Nazareth, which Bulgakov also mentioned, causing Pilate to see in a dream “the beggar from En-Sarid.” During interrogation by prosecutor I.G.-N. the city of Gamala, mentioned in the book, appeared as the birthplace of the wandering philosopher French writer Henri Barbusse (1873-1935) "Jesus versus Christ." Extracts from this work, published in the USSR in 1928, are also preserved in the Bulgakov archive. Since there were different etymologies of the words “Yeshua” and “Ha-Notsri” that contradicted each other, Bulgakov did not in any way reveal the meaning of these names in the text of “The Master and Margarita”. Due to the incompleteness of the novel, the writer did not make his final choice on one of the two possible places of birth of I. G.-N.
In the portrait of I. G.-N. Bulgakov took into account the following message from Farrar: “The Church of the first centuries of Christianity, being familiar with the elegant form in which the genius of pagan culture embodied his ideas about the young gods of Olympus, but also aware of the fatal depravity of the sensual image in it, apparently tried with particular persistence to free himself It was from this idolization of bodily qualities that she took as Isain’s ideal the image of a stricken and humiliated sufferer or David’s enthusiastic description of a despised and reviled man by people (Ex., LIII, 4; Ps., XXI, 7, 8, 16, 18). His beauty, says Clement of Alexandria, was in his soul, but in appearance he was thin. Justin the Philosopher describes him as a man without beauty, without glory, without honor. His body, says Origen, was small, ill-built and unattractive. “His body,” says Tertullian, “had no human beauty, the less heavenly splendor." The English historian also cites the opinion of the Greek philosopher of the 2nd century. Celsus, who made the tradition of the simplicity and ugliness of Christ the basis for denying His divine origin. At the same time, Farrar denied the error-based Latin translation Bible - Vulgate - statement that Christ, who healed many of leprosy, was himself a leper. The author of “The Master and Margarita” considered the early evidence about Christ’s appearance reliable, and made his I.G.-N. thin and homely with traces of physical violence on his face: the man who appeared before Pontius Pilate “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. The man brought in looked at the procurator with anxious curiosity.” Bulgakov, unlike Farrar, strongly emphasizes that I.G.-N. - a man, not God, which is why he is endowed with the most unattractive, unmemorable appearance. The English historian was convinced that Christ “could not have been in his appearance without the personal greatness of a prophet and high priest.” The author of “The Master and Margarita” took into account Farrar’s words that before being interrogated by the procurator, Jesus Christ was beaten twice. In one of the versions of the 1929 edition, I. G.-N. He directly asked Pilate: “Just don’t hit me too hard, otherwise they’ve already beaten me twice today...” After the beating, and even more so during the execution, Jesus’ appearance could not possibly contain signs of the greatness inherent in a prophet. On the cross at I. G.-N. rather ugly features appear in his appearance: “...The face of the hanged man was revealed, swollen from bites, with swollen eyes, an unrecognizable face,” and “his eyes, usually clear, were now cloudy.” External disgrace I. G.-N. contrasts with the beauty of his soul and the purity of his idea about the triumph of truth and good people (and evil people, in his opinion, does not exist), just as, according to the Christian theologian of the 2nd-3rd centuries. Clement of Alexandria, the spiritual beauty of Christ contrasts with his ordinary appearance.
In the image of I. G.-N. reflected the reasoning of the Jewish publicist Arkady Grigorievich (Abraham-Uriah) Kovner (1842-1909), whose polemic with Dostoevsky became widely known. Bulgakov was probably familiar with the book dedicated to Kovner by Leonid Petrovich Grossman (1888-1965) “Confession of a Jew” (M.-L., 1924). There, in particular, a letter from Kovner was quoted, written in 1908 and criticizing the reasoning of the writer Vasily Vasilyevich Rozanov (1856-1919) about the essence of Christianity. Kovner argued, turning to Rozanov: “There is no doubt that Christianity has played and is playing a huge role in the history of culture, but it seems to me that the personality of Christ has almost nothing to do with it. Not to mention the fact that the personality of Christ is more mythical than real, which many historians doubt its very existence, that Jewish history and the literature about him does not even mention that Christ himself is not at all the founder of Christianity, since the latter formed into a religion and church only a few centuries after the birth of Christ - not to mention all this, because Christ himself did not look at himself as to the savior of the human race. Why do you and your associates (Merezhkovsky, Berdyaev, etc.) place Christ as the center of the world, the God-man, holy flesh, monoflower, etc.? You and your family cannot be allowed to sincerely believe in all the miracles that are told in the Gospels, in the real, concrete resurrection of Christ. And if everything in the Gospel about miracles is allegorical, then where do you get the deification of a good, ideally pure person, such as, however, The World History knows a lot? You never know good people died for your ideas and beliefs? How many of them suffered all sorts of torment in Egypt, India, Judea, Greece? In what way is Christ higher, more holy than all the martyrs? Why did he become a god-man?
As for the essence of Christ’s ideas, as far as they are expressed by the Gospel, his humility, his complacency, among the prophets, among the Brahmins, among the Stoics you will find more than one such complacent martyr. Why, again, is Christ alone the savior of humanity and the world?
Then none of you explains: what happened to the world before Christ? Humanity has somehow lived for how many millennia without Christ, but four-fifths of humanity live outside of Christianity, therefore, without Christ, without his atonement, that is, without needing it at all. Are all the countless billions of people lost and doomed to destruction simply because they were born before the Savior Christ, or because they, having their own religion, their own prophets, their own ethics, do not recognize the divinity of Christ?
Finally, ninety-nine hundredths of Christians to this day have no idea about true, ideal Christianity, the source of which you consider Christ. After all, you know very well that all Christians in Europe and America are rather worshipers of Baal and Moloch than of the monoflower of Christ; that in Paris, London, Vienna, New York, St. Petersburg they still live, as the pagans lived before in Babylon, Nineveh, Rome and even Sodom... What results did holiness, light, God-manhood, the redemption of Christ give if his fans remain pagans still?
Have courage and answer clearly and categorically all these questions that torment unenlightened and doubting skeptics, and do not hide under expressionless and incomprehensible exclamations: divine cosmos, god-man, savior of the world, redeemer of humanity, monoflower, etc. Think about us , hungering and thirsting for righteousness, and speak to us in human language."
I.G.-N. Bulgakov speaks to Pilate in completely human language, and appears only in his human, and not divine, incarnation. All the gospel miracles and the resurrection remain outside the novel. I.G.-N. does not act as creator new religion. This role is destined for Matvey Levi, who “writes down incorrectly” for his teacher. And nineteen centuries later, even many of those who consider themselves Christians continue to remain in paganism. It is no coincidence that in the early editions of "The Master and Margarita" one of Orthodox priests organized a sale of church valuables right in the church, and another, Father Arkady Elladov, convinced Nikanor Ivanovich Bosogo and other arrested people to hand over their currency. Subsequently, these episodes were removed from the novel due to their obvious obscenity. I.G.-N. - this is Christ, cleared of mythological layers, good, pure man, who died for his belief that all people are good. And only Matthew Levi, a cruel man, as Pontius Pilate calls him, and who knows that “there will still be blood”, is able to found a church.
Yeshua is tall, but his height is human
by nature. He is tall in human terms
standards He is a human. There is nothing of the Son of God in him.
M. Dunaev 1
Yeshua and the Master, despite the fact that they take up little space in the novel, are central characters novel. They have a lot in common: one is a wandering philosopher who does not remember his parents and has no one in the world; the other is a nameless employee of some Moscow museum, also completely alone.
The fates of both are tragic, and they owe this to the truth that was revealed to them: for Yeshua this is the idea of good; for the Master, this is the truth about the events of two thousand years ago, which he “guessed” in his novel.
Yeshua Ha-Nozri. From a religious point of view, the image of Yeshua Ha-Nozri is a deviation from Christian canons, and Master of Theology, Ph.D. philological sciences MM. Dunaev writes about this: “On the tree of lost truth, refined error, a fruit has ripened called “The Master and Margarita”, with artistic brilliance, wittingly or unwittingly, distorting the fundamental principle [the Gospel. - V.K.], and the result was an anti-Christian novel, “the gospel of Satan”, “anti-liturgy”" 2. However, Bulgakov’s Yeshua is an artistic, multidimensional, its assessment and analysis are possible from various points of view: religious, historical, psychological, ethical, philosophical, aesthetic... The fundamental multidimensionality of approaches gives rise to a multiplicity of points of view and gives rise to disputes about the essence of this character in the novel.
For the reader opening the novel for the first time, the name of this character is a mystery. What does it mean? "Yeshua(or Yehoshua) is the Hebrew form of the name Jesus, which translated means “God is my salvation,” or “Savior”" 3. Ha-Nozri in accordance with the common interpretation of this word it is translated as “Nazarene; Nazarene; from Nazareth”, that is hometown Jesus, where he spent his childhood (Jesus, as you know, was born in Bethlehem). But, since the author has chosen an unconventional form of naming the character, the bearer of this name itself must be unconventional from a religious point of view, non-canonical. Yeshua is an artistic, non-canonical “double” of Jesus Christ (Christ translated from Greek as “Messiah”).
The unconventionality of the image of Yeshua Ha-Nozri in comparison with gospel Jesus Christ is obvious:
Yeshua from Bulgakov - "a man of about twenty-seven". Jesus Christ, as you know, was thirty-three years old at the time of his sacrificial feat. Regarding the date of birth of Jesus Christ, indeed, there are discrepancies among the church ministers themselves: Archpriest Alexander Men, citing the works of historians, believes that Christ was born 6-7 years earlier than his official birth, calculated in the 6th century by the monk Dionysius the Small 4. This example shows that M. Bulgakov, creating his “fantastic novel” ( author's definition genre), was based on real historical facts;
Bulgakov's Yeshua does not remember his parents. The mother and official father of Jesus Christ are named in all the Gospels;
Yeshua by blood "I think he's Syrian". Jewish origin Jesus is traced to Abraham (in the Gospel of Matthew);
Yeshua has one and only disciple - Levi Matthew. Jesus, according to the evangelists, had twelve apostles;
Yeshua is betrayed by Judas - some barely familiar young man, who, however, is not a disciple of Yeshua (as in the Gospel Judas is a disciple of Jesus);
Bulgakov's Judas is killed on the orders of Pilate, who wants at least to calm his conscience; the evangelical Judas of Kerioth hanged himself;
After the death of Yeshua, his body is kidnapped and buried by Matthew Levi. In the Gospel - Joseph from Arimathea, “a disciple of Christ, but secret out of fear from the Jews”;
the nature of the preaching of the Gospel Jesus has been changed, only one moral position has been left in M. Bulgakov’s novel "All people are kind", to this, however, Christian teaching does not reduce;
The divine origin of the Gospels has been disputed. In the novel, Yeshua says about the notes on the parchment of his disciple, Matthew Levi: "These good people...they didn’t learn anything and they all mixed up what I said. I'm actually starting to fear that this confusion will continue for a very long time. for a long time. And all because he writes me down incorrectly.<...>He walks and walks alone with a goat's parchment and writes continuously. But one day I looked into this parchment and was horrified. I said absolutely nothing of what was written there. I begged him: burn your parchment for God’s sake! But he snatched it from my hands and ran away";
there is no mention of the divine origin of the God-man and crucifixion - the atoning sacrifice (Bulgakov’s executed "sentenced... to be hanged from poles!").
Read also other articles on the work of M.A. Bulgakov and the analysis of the novel "The Master and Margarita":
- 3.1. Image of Yeshua Ha-Nozri. Comparison with the Gospel Jesus Christ
“Nothing can be understood in the novel
Misha, if just for a minute
forget that he is the son of a professor
theology."
(Elena Bulgakova, co
words of a literary critic
Marietta Chudakova)
If you conduct a survey of readers of Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov’s novel “The Master and Margarita” on the topic: who in your opinion is Yeshua Ha-Nozri, the majority, I am sure, will answer: the prototype of Jesus Christ. Some will call him God; someone an angel preaching the doctrine of soul salvation; someone simple, not having a divine nature. But both of them will most likely agree that Ha-Notsri is a prototype of the one from whom Christianity came.
Is this so?
To answer this question, let’s turn to the sources about the life of Jesus Christ - the canonical Gospels, and compare it with Ha-Nozri. I’ll say right away: I’m not a big expert in analysis. literary texts, but in in this case You don’t have to be a great specialist to doubt their identity. Yes, both were kind, wise, meek, both forgave what people usually could not forgive (Luke 23:34), both were crucified. But Ha-Nozri wanted to please everyone, but Christ did not want to and said everything he thought to his face. Thus, at the treasury in the temple, he publicly called the Pharisees children of the devil (John 8:44), in the synagogue its elder - a hypocrite (Luke 13:15), in Caesarea, the disciple Peter - Satan (Matthew 16:21-23). He did not beg the disciples for anything, unlike Ha-Notsri, who begged Matvey to burn the goat parchment with the texts of his speeches, and the disciples themselves, with the possible exception of Judas Iscariot, did not even think of disobeying him. And, of course, it is completely absurd to consider Yeshua Ha-Nozri Jesus Christ after the first, answering Pilate’s question what truth is, declared: “The truth, first of all, is that you have a headache...”, which is inconsistent with the words of Jesus Christ himself: “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). And further. In the twenty-ninth chapter of the novel, Woland and Azazello at the hour when they were viewing the city from the roof of “one of the most beautiful buildings in Moscow,” Ha-Notsri’s envoy Levi Matvey appeared with a request to take the Master with him and reward him with peace. It seems to be nothing special - an ordinary, completely realistic scene, if, of course, it is permissible to evaluate a mystical novel in such categories, but one has only to imagine Christ in the place of Ha-Nozri, how a completely realistic scene turns into an openly surreal one. Just think about it: Jesus Christ, God, the son of God, makes a request to his primordial enemy Satan! Not only is this offensive to Christians, which Bulgakov, despite his ambiguous attitude towards religion, would hardly have allowed, it contradicts church dogmas - God is omnipotent, which means he is able to solve his problems himself, but if he cannot solve his problems, then he is not omnipotent and, therefore, not a god, but God knows who - some kind of endowed psychic abilities son of a Syrian from Palestine. And the last thing on the topic: why Yeshua Ha-Nozri is not Jesus Christ. Most of the names in the Master's built-in novel have gospel prototypes - the prefect of Judea Pontius Pilate, Judas, the high priest Caiaphas, the tax collector Levi Matthew (Matthew), and the events take place in the same city (Yershalaim - the Hebrew phonetic version of the pronunciation of Jerusalem). But the names of the main characters, although similar, are still different: in the New Testament - Jesus Christ, in the novel of the Master - Yeshua Ha-Nozri. There is between them and fundamental differences. So, thirty-three-year-old Jesus Christ had twelve followers-disciples, and they crucified him on the cross, and twenty-seven-year-old Yeshua Ha-Nozri had only one, and they crucified him on a pillar. Why? The answer, in my opinion, is obvious - for the author of the novel, Mikhail Bulgakov, Jesus Christ and Yeshua Ha-Nozri are different people.
Then who is he, Yeshua Ha-Nozri? A person who does not have a divine nature?
One could agree with this statement, if not for his stormy posthumous activity... Let us remember: in the sixteenth chapter he dies, being crucified on a pillar, in the twenty-ninth he is resurrected, meets with Pilate, and easily turns to Woland with the request that was mentioned higher. Woland - for some unknown reason - performs it, and then best traditions Soviet communal apartments get along with Levi Matvey as if they have known each other for at least two thousand years. All this, in my opinion, bears little resemblance to the actions of a person who does not have a divine nature.
Now it’s time to ask another question: who invented the novel about Pilate. Master? Then why were its first chapters voiced by Woland, who had just arrived in Moscow “at the hour of an unprecedentedly hot sunset”? Woland? During his first meeting with the Master, which took place immediately after Satan’s ball in the house at Bolshaya Sadovaya, 302 bis, he had no idea of attributing his authorship to himself. And then there are the mysterious words of the Master, spoken by him after the poet Ivan Bezdomny recounted the first chapters to him: “Oh, how I guessed right! Oh, how I guessed everything!” What did he guess? Events in the novel that you yourself invented, or something else? And is this a novel? The Master himself called his work a novel, but he characteristic features, such as: branching plot, plurality storylines, large time coverage, did not spoil the readers.
Then what is this if not a novel?
Let's remember where the story of the preacher was copied from, who, on the recommendation of the Sanhedrin headed by the high priest Caiaphas, was sent to execution by the Roman prefect of Judea, Pontius Pilate. From the canonical Gospels. And if so, then perhaps we should agree with some literary critics who call the Master’s work a Gospel or, as T. Pozdnyaev did, an anti-Gospel.
A few words about this genre. WITH Greek language The word Gospel is translated as good news. IN in a broad sense words - the news of the coming of the Kingdom of God, in a narrow way - the news of the birth, earthly ministry, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ. The canonical Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are usually called divinely inspired or divinely inspired, that is, written under the influence of the Spirit of God on the human spirit. And here two questions immediately arise: if the Master’s work is truly the Gospel, who is the person who was influenced by the spirit, and who is the spirit that led the man’s hand? My answer is this. Considering that there are angels in Christian tradition are generally considered to be creatures devoid of creativity, then the person influenced by the spirit was the Master, and the spirit whispering to the Master what to write was the fallen angel Woland. And here it immediately becomes clear: how the Master “guessed everything”, how Woland knew what was written in the Master’s novel before meeting him, why Woland agreed to take him with him and reward him with peace.
In this regard, one episode from the thirty-second chapter is noteworthy, where the horsemen leaving Moscow - the Master, Margarita, Woland and their retinue witnessed the meeting of Ha-Nozri with Pilate.
“...here Woland again turned to the master and said: “Well, now you can finish your novel with one phrase!” The master seemed to be waiting for this already, while he stood motionless and looked at the sitting procurator. He clasped his hands like a megaphone and shouted so that the echo jumped across the deserted and treeless mountains: “Free! Free! He is waiting for you!".
Pay attention to Woland’s words addressed to the Master: “...now you can end your novel with one phrase,” and the Master’s reaction to Woland’s appeal: “It’s as if the Master was already waiting for this.”
So, we found out: from whom the Gospel was written - from the Master. Now it remains to answer the question: the good news about whose earthly ministry, death, resurrection sounded on its pages, and we will finally find out who he is, Yeshua Ha-Nozri.
To do this, let us turn to the beginning of the Gospel of the Master, namely, to the interrogation of the “wandering philosopher” by Pontius Pilate. To the accusation made by the prefect of Judea that Ha-Nozri, according to “the testimony of the people,” was inciting the people to destroy the temple building, the prisoner, denying his guilt, replied: “These good people, hegemon, did not learn anything and confused everything that I said. I'm actually starting to fear that this confusion will continue for a very long time. And all because he writes me down incorrectly.” Now let's figure it out. The fact that Ha-Notsri meant Levi Matthew - a prototype of the evangelist Levi Matthew, when he said: “he writes down incorrectly for me” is beyond doubt - Ha-Notsri himself mentioned his name during the interrogation of Pilate. And who did he mean when he said: “these good people, hegemon, did not learn anything and got everything mixed up”? In general - the listening crowd, in particular - those who listened and conveyed his speeches to others. Hence the conclusion: since there are no people listening and reporting, except Matthew Levi, in the Gospel from the Master, and the Master himself passes off Ha-Nozri as Jesus Christ, the speech in this replica, apparently, is about the evangelists - those who listened and reported the teachings of Christ to those who could not hear him. And this is what happens...
If you imagine Christianity in the form of a building, then at the base of the foundation of this building lies the Old Testament (all the apostles, along with Jesus Christ, were Jews and were brought up in the traditions of Judaism), the foundation consists of the New Testament, reinforced by four cornerstone pillars - the Gospels, the superstructure - walls with a roof , from Sacred Tradition and the works of modern theologians. In appearance, this building seems solid and durable, but it seems so only until someone posing as Christ comes and says that the “good people” who created the New Testament Gospels got everything mixed up and distorted for the reason that they were recording him incorrectly. Then - you can guess - other people will come, not so kind, who will say: since the Church of Christ stands on four defective pillars, all believers should urgently leave it for safety reasons... Ask: who needs this and why? My grandmother, if she were alive, would answer this question like this: “God damn it, there’s no one else!” And I would be right. But not some abstract Antichrist, but a very concrete one with a capital letter “A”. He definitely needs this. His very name is Antichrist, which translated from Greek means: instead of Christ - better than any declaration of intentions, expresses the meaning of existence and the purpose of life - to replace God. How to achieve this? You can gather an army and give battle to the army of Jesus Christ at Armageddon, or you can imperceptibly, quietly oust his image from mass consciousness Christians and himself will reign in it. Do you think this is not possible? Jesus Christ thought it was possible and warned: “...they will come in My name and say: “I am the Christ.” (Matthew 24:5), “...false Christs and false prophets will arise and show great signs and wonders to deceive” (Matthew 24:24), “I have come in the name of My Father, and you do not receive Me; and another will come in his own name, accept him” (John 5:43). You can believe in this prediction, you can not believe it, but if the false Christ and the false prophet do come, we will most likely accept them and not notice how for a long time we did not notice that one of the popular programs on the historical TV channel “365” The hour of truth” was preceded by an epigraph from the already quoted gospel from the Master: “These good people did not learn anything and confused everything that I said. I'm actually starting to fear that this confusion will continue for a very long time. And all because he writes me down incorrectly.” It is unlikely that anti-Christians and Satanists sit in the leadership of the TV channel. No. It’s just that none of them, seduced, saw deception in Ha-Nozri’s words, but accepted it on faith, not noticing how they were deceived.
Perhaps this is exactly what Woland was counting on when, for one hundred thousand rubles, he “ordered” the Master to write a gospel about the coming of the kingdom of the Antichrist. After all, if you think about it: the idea of proclaiming in Moscow - the Third Rome, first one “good news”, followed by another, a third, and canonizing the best of them at the next Ecumenical Council, does not seem so unthinkable either now, much less in the twenties of the Godless years, when Bulgakov conceived the novel “The Master and Margarita”. By the way: it is believed that Woland came to Moscow because it had become godless, and left, realizing that his help in the religious degradation of Muscovites was not needed. May be. Or maybe he left it because, in order to prepare for the coming of the Antichrist, he needed believers, which Muscovites no longer were, as Woland was able to verify personally by visiting the variety theater. And the fact that he tried to convince Berlioz and Ivan Bezdomny of the existence of Jesus, and, moreover, of his existence without any evidence or points of view, perfectly confirms this version.
But let's return to Ga-Notsri. Having recognized him as the Antichrist, it can be explained why he has one follower, and not twelve, like Jesus Christ, whom he will try to imitate, for what reason he was crucified on a stake and not on a cross, and why on earth Woland agreed to respect Ha’s request -Nozri give the Master peace. So: Ha-Notsri in the built-in novel has one follower, since the Antichrist in the New Testament also has one - a false prophet, whom Saint Irenaeus of Lyons called “the squire of the Antichrist”; The Antichrist was crucified on a stake because to be crucified on the cross means to be associated with Christ, which is categorically unacceptable for him; Woland could not fail to fulfill Ha-Notsri’s request due to the fact that he was, or more precisely: will be, or already is, the spiritual, and possibly blood father of the Antichrist.
The novel “The Master and Margarita” is a multi-layered novel. It is about love and betrayal, about the writer and his relationship with power. But this is also a story about how Satan, with the help of the Master, wanted to ensure the coming of the Antichrist, as they would put it today: information support, but failed in his opposition to Muscovites, who were spoiled by housing and other vital “issues.”
And the last thing... I must admit, I myself don’t really believe that Mikhail Bulgakov copied his Yeshua Ha-Nozri from the Antichrist. And yet, who knows? - perhaps this is precisely the only case in the history of literature when one of the characters in a novel used an unsuspecting author for his own purposes far from literature.
21. She will give birth to a son, and you will name him Yeshua [which means ‘Adonai saves’], because he will save his people from their sins.”
Verse 21 This verse is an example of “Semitism” (a common Hebrew or Aramaic expression) literally translated into Greek. This phenomenon provides strong evidence in support of the theory that, in addition to the surviving Greek manuscripts, there was an oral or written tradition in Hebrew or Aramaic, since the disclosure of the meaning of the name Yeshua makes sense only in Hebrew and Aramaic. In Greek (or Russian) it means nothing.
The Hebrew word for “he saves” is “yoshia,” the root of which (jud-shin-ayin) is also the root of the name Yeshua (jud-shin-vav-ayin). Thus the name of the Messiah explains what he must do. From an etymological point of view, the name Yeshua is a shortened version of Jewish name Yehoshua, which in turn means “YHVH saves.” It is also a form male the words “Yeshua”, which means “salvation”. The Synodal translation of this verse sounds like this: “...you will give birth to a Son, and you will call his name Jesus; for He will save His people from their sins.” But from the point of view of the Russian language, saving people cannot be the reason for calling someone Jesus, any more than Vladimir or Anatoly. The Greek version also does not explain anything. Only Hebrew or Aramaic can truly explain the reason. In modern Hebrew, Yeshua sounds like Yeshu (Jud-shin-vav, without the letter Ayin) when used by non-believers. This verse shows why the name "Yeshu" would not be correct - it does not include all three letters of the root word Yoshia. However, this issue requires further analysis. According to Professors David Flusser and Shmuel Safray, both Orthodox Jews, the name "Yeshua" was pronounced "Yeshu" by first-century Galileans. We learn further from 26:73 that the Jews from Galilee spoke a different dialect from the dialect of Judea. According to Flusser (Jewish sources early Christianity, p. 15), the Galileans did not pronounce the letter Ayin at the end of the word. That is, instead of saying “Yeh-shu-a,” they said “Yeh-shu.” Sure, some people started writing the name the way it was pronounced. However, the story doesn't end there. In Jewish anti-Christian polemics, it has become common to consciously and deliberately use the distorted “Yeshu” instead of the name Yeshua, since someone once came up with the idea that “Yeshu” is an acronym consisting of the first letters of the insult in Hebrew: “Yimah shemo uzikro” (“Let his name and his memory will be blotted out”; the expression is taken from the book of Psalms 109:13 and slightly modified). Thus, “Yeshu” became a kind of coded mantra against Christian preaching. Moreover, since traditional Judaism viewed Yeshua as a false prophet, a blasphemer, and an idol to be worshiped as God, and since the Torah says, “Do not mention the names of other gods” (Exodus 23:13), the name of the Messiah was deliberately changed. Nowadays, when many Israelis say “Yeshu,” they assume that this is his real name and do not mean anything offensive. The JNZ does not use the name "Yeshu" because of incorrect etymology, and also because in Hebrew this name is used in the sense of "god worshiped by the pagans." However, Yosef Vactor (see com. 10:37) deciphers the acronym “Yeshu” to praise Yeshua: “Yitgadal shmo umalchuto!” (May his name and kingdom be exalted!)
