God, Devil and Mary Magdalene

Illustration by GeminiAI: Jesus, Magdalene and God

The Devil turns out to be a more likeable character than God in Jose Saramago’s novel, The Gospel According to Jesus Christ. The devil is called Pastor in this novel written by a Nobel laureate. There comes a time in the novel when Pastor, the Devil, tells God that he would obey God’s commands and be submissive provided that can end the violence and evil that’s perpetrated on earth in the name of God. God doesn’t accept the proposal. “Without the devil, there won’t be God,” God says. “If I am to exist as goodness, you have to exist as evil. If the devil doesn’t live as devil, God cannot be God.”

“Only God can endure so much evil,” the devil says with a sigh.

As I said yesterday, I was rereading Saramago’s novel after a gap of about a quarter century. I didn’t like the novel much when I read it first. Nor do I like it any better now though I have a better understanding of it now. God is a wicked autocrat here. Jesus is merely a pawn in His hands. Jesus has to die on the cross simply because such an ignominious death, which will be perceived by people as a great sacrifice, will bring more glory and power to God.

Saramago’s God is far worse than his devil. This God is a ruthless sadist, autocrat, and egotist. A shameless narcissist. Saramago was an avowed atheist and staunch Communist. But as a literary artist, he fails to rise above his personal convictions. His vision of God fails to satisfy me as a reader though I am a nonbeliever too.

I gave up God precisely because of the preponderance of evil in the human world as well as in nature. Is it the same God that created both the deer and the tiger? That’s one of the many questions that vexed me before I decided to reject God altogether. If there is a God, He [why not She or a genderless entity?] must be quite like the one Saramago portrays. But my problem is that I can’t call that entity God. The very word ‘God’ is associated with benignity in my mind. I would rather have nothing in its place than have a malevolent force. I can accept the sheer absurdity of the universe far more easily than a God who is evil.

Mary Magdalene, prostitute, teaches Jesus more about morality, compassion, and true divinity than God or Pastor. Saramago’s Magdalene possesses a profound emotional intelligence that exposes the absurdity of formal religious dogma. She understands the human heart in a way God never can.

When Jesus discovers his divine destiny, Magdalene does not celebrate his prospective elevation to divinity. She recognises God’s grand plan for what it is: a divine power play that will demand suffering, violence and death. She mourns Jesus’ impending martyrdom, urging him to choose earthly love and human life over celestial glory.

Saramago frames the love life of Jesus and Magdalene as the highest form of holiness attainable on earth. In Saramago’s universe, true redemption is found not in dying on a cross for an autocratic deity, but in loving another human being fully.

At the Crucifixion, while God sits back to watch His grand geopolitical drama unfold, Magdalene stands at the foot of the cross, bearing witness to the agony of her beloved who is now dying in futility. Her grief is devoid of theological pretence. She does not see a divine sacrifice bringing salvation to the world, but the senseless, tragic waste of a gentle human life.

In short, Magdalene emerges as the heroine of the novel. And I am with her on this: life is better off without God and devil.