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Reach What You Cannot
JERRY H. GILL
Kazantzakis’ Philosophical and Theological
Thought
Jerry H. Gill
Kazantzakis’
Philosophical
and Theological
Thought
Reach What You Cannot
Jerry H. Gill
College of Saint Rose
Albany, NY, USA
ISBN 978-3-319-93832-5 ISBN 978-3-319-93833-2 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-93833-2
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For
Timothy Doherty
My Long-Time Friend and Colleague
Preface
I initially encountered the thought of Nikos Kazantzakis in the early

1960s when reading Zorba the Greek. A few years later, I was able to visit
his gravesite, on a fortress wall in the city of Heraklion, near the Minoan
ruins on the island of Crete. Slowly over a number of years, I worked
my way through all of his books and actually had the privilege of visiting
with his widow Eleni in Geneva. Then, in the summer of 1972, I went
to Crete to write a book about Nikos and his philosophical thought.
Somewhere along the way, I lost track of that effort.
Actually, I was sidetracked by good fortune, for when driving along
the Cretan coast looking for a good place in which to write about
Crete’s most famous writer. I followed a small sign to a tiny fishing vil-
lage, called “Mochlos,” perched on the edge of the Mediterranean Sea.
The village had about 40 people, only one of whom spoke English. I
stayed there for the entire summer and made many lasting friendships. In
fact, over the ensuing years, I returned to Mochlos, and its nearby town
of Sitia, at least a dozen times, always accompanied by a small crowd of
students and my wife Mari. I even learned a little of the wonderful Greek
language.
So now, over 40 years of college teaching and a good number of
books on other philosophical thinkers, I am actually sitting down to
write a book on the thought of Nikos Kazantzakis. I will trace three
main themes of his thought, namely Nature, Humanity, and God,
through his major novels, as well as his unofficial autobiography Report
vii
viii Preface
to Greco and his “spiritual exercises” Saviors of God. These are the
volumes I used when teaching occasional seminars on Kazantzakis’s

thought over the years.
For the subtitle, I have chosen the particular phrase, Reach What You
Cannot, from among Kazantzakis’s many different “mottos,” because I
think it best captures his overall vision. In addition to having learned a
good many things about Nikos’s life and character from his widow Eleni.
I am also indebted to Kimon Friar, one of his major translators who so
graciously granted me a whole day at his home on the island of Aegina.
In addition, I am also very grateful for my readers’ insightful and
textual suggestions regarding the initial manuscript. Their thorough
knowledge of Kazantzakis’s life as well as of his writings saved me from a
number of mistakes.
Now a brief word about the proposed format. I’m going to treat the
various major volumes under main headings, or Parts, according to how
they seem to fit within each of these broader categories. Naturally, there
will be considerable overlap, but this will allow for some organizational
structure while avoiding jumping back and forth between volumes as I
go. This would seem to be the least confusing way to treat Kazantzakis’s
wide range of topics and characters, while at the same time minimizing
the readers’ confusion.
My aim is to track each of the main themes through the respective
works. Unavoidably, this will necessitate a certain degree of repeating
of the storyline from chapter to chapter, but in each case, the focus will
be on the three overarching themes of each Part. In other words, the
emphasis will be on how these three themes present themselves in each
of Kazantzakis’s different works. Because of its biographical nature,
I have chosen to treat Report to Greco all along the way within each
chapter.
A final disclaimer. I have chosen not to include any detailed analysis
of Kazantzakis’s great, and huge, The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel, both
because of its size (over 5000 lines of iambic pentameter) and because
of its poetic format. It simply includes so many themes, events, and
images as to defy analysis in a volume such as this. Fortunately, many, if
not most, of the themes and images contained in this great work of art
shall be encountered in our exploration of Kazantzakis’s major novels.
We shall more than have our hands full with these. Kazantzakis provides
a summary interpretation of this major work near the end of Report to
Greco, which I shall take up at that juncture.
Preface ix
At the beginning of his Prologue to Report to Greco Kazantzakis

writes: “I collect my tools: sight, smell, touch, taste, hearing, intellect.”
So I, too, now gather my tools, as it were, to begin the long-delayed but
joyous task of seeking to present something close to an engaging account
of the thought of a truly deep and craft-full writer. Wish me luck!
Albany, USA Jerry H. Gill

Acknowledgements
I wish to express my deep gratitude for my wife Mari Sorri for her
participation in this project. Not only did she spend many hours in pains
taking page editing but she often provided very helpful insights into
the content of the text itself. In many ways, this book has had a dual
authorship.
xi
Contents
1 A Biographical Sketch 1
Part I The Patterns of Nature
2 Zorba the Greek 7
3 The Greek Passion 15
4 The Fratricides 21
5 Saviors of God 27
Part II Human Dynamics
6 Freedom or Death 35
7 The Fratricides 47
9 Zorba the Greek 73
xiii
xiv Contents
Part III The Shape of Divinity
10 Saint Francis 93
12 The Last Temptation of Christ 119
13 Saviors of God 131
14 Conclusion: The Cretan Glance 143
Bibliography 147
Index 149
CHAPTER 1
A Biographical Sketch
Nikos Kazantzakis was born in Iraklion, the modern Capital city of Crete,
in 1883. His youth was dominated by his father, an extremely taciturn
and tightly wound patriarch whose life was formed by the unceasing and
cruel occupation of Crete by the Ottoman Turkish Empire. Nonetheless,
Nikos felt that his childhood life was “magical.” His earliest memories
included the beauty of the garden in the family courtyard, where his
mother and the neighborhood women held daily conversations as they
went about their household tasks.
Nikos’s schoolmasters were stern, even mean at times, but he very
much enjoyed his school studies, especially those involving Sacred
History and the Lives of the Saints. When it came time for his middle
school education, his father delivered him to the Priests of a Roman
Catholic school on the island of Naxos in order to avoid the revolution-
ary conflict on Crete at the time. There he shined as a student of crea-
tive writing. When Crete was finally delivered from the 400-year Turkish
occupation in 1898, Nikos returned to Crete for his high school. During
the following years, he experienced the usual turmoil of a young adoles-
cent. Nearly all we know of his youth comes from his creative, but some-
what fictionalized “autobiography” Report to Greco.
After having distinguished himself as a student with great prom-
ise in high school, Nikos went off to the University of Athens to study
law. Having come from the remote island of Crete, he was rather over-
whelmed by the splendors of the City of Athens. He did spend a good
many hours wandering through the Greek countryside and made several
© The Author(s) 2018 1

J. H. Gill, Kazantzakis’ Philosophical and Theological Thought,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-93833-2_1
2 J. H. GILL
lifelong friends. Eventually, he decided against a law career, opting

instead to study literature. He actually won an important prize for one
of the plays he wrote. After a brief return to his home on Crete, he fell
in love with the famous palaces of the Minoan civilization and met and
married his first wife Galatea.
At this point, Kazantzakis’s life took a radical turn, leading him
to study for a doctorate degree at the University of Paris. There he
encountered the spirit of Frederick Nietzsche and the teaching of
Henri Bergson. Both of these philosophers became primary figures in
Kazantzakis’s own philosophical worldview. We shall consider both of
these thinkers in some detail as we consider how they factor into the vari-
ous novels within which Kazantzakis expressed his understanding of real-
ity and human life. While he was inspired and soothed by the beauty and
insights of Bergson’s lectures, Kazantzakis was challenged, even terrified,
by the power of Nietzsche’s writings, eventually writing his doctoral
dissertation on them.
Subsequently, Nikos embarked on a three-month tour of his Greek
homeland. Along the way, he had several conversations with some tradi-
tional, and some not so traditional, monks, especially during his visit to
Mount Athos. There he came face to face with the dualism between the
life of the spirit and that of the flesh. This was a dualism with which he
continued to struggle, both in all of his novels as well in his personal life.
He also visited various “Holy Places,” such as the home of Saint Francis
of Assisi and the Monastery of St. Catherine on Mount Sinai. Later on,
Kazantzakis traveled to Vienna where he immersed himself in the teach-
ings of Buddhism. While there he struggled with a rare skin disease,
often called the “Saint’s disease” because it attacked people who were
suffering under the pressure of great sexual guilt. Next, he spent several
months in Berlin, where he had a serious affair with a Russian woman
named Itka who introduced him to the ideas of Lenin. He temporar-
ily embraced Communism because of its desire to erase human suffering
and political oppression, and later the two traveled together to Moscow.
In Moscow Kazantzakis became disenchanted with the grandiose
claims of Communism, and especially the practices of Communism
under the rule of Stalin. He and Itka argued over these issues and even-
tually, Kazantzakis returned to Crete, and with his second wife, Eleni,
moved to the island of Aegina near Athens where they weathered World
War Two. During the Nazi occupation of Greece Kazantzakis wrote his
novel Zorba the Greek. In my all-too-brief visit with Eleni, she shared
1 A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 3
many of his stories concocted to alleviate their impoverished life at that

time. She also shared many of his stories and feelings about his great
friend Zorba.
One day, while the inspiration for his great work, The Odyssey: A
Modern Sequel, was forming within him, Kazantzakis came upon a tiny
chrysalis beginning to open up. Impatient to witness the emergence of
the butterfly, he began to blow on the cocoon in order to hurry its birth
along. When the butterfly finally came forth it was underdeveloped and
deformed because he had hurried its birthing process. He was stricken
with guilt, and proclaimed “To this day I carry the responsibility for that
deformation in my heart.” He lamented his impetuosity that taught him
the value of waiting for nature’s processes to follow their natural course.
Finally, in 1957, while stopping in Japan on a trip to China, Kazantzakis
received a vaccination which soon became infected and brought him
to death’s door. Eleni flew him to Freiburg, Germany for medical treat-
ment, but it was too late. Eleni told me that Aristotle Onassis offered
to fly Nikos back to Greece, but she decided rather to have a driver take
them to Athens. Regrettably, the Bishop of Athens, who had long detested
Kazantzakis’s writings, would not allow him to lie in state in his Province.
Eleni appealed to the Bishop of Crete, who was pleased to have the great
writer buried on the ruins of the Venetian wall surrounding Iraklion, what
Kazantzakis, in his novels, called “Megalo Kastro.”
On his gravestone is the inscription, which he himself chose, “I hope
for nothing. I fear nothing. I am free.” Although he had always admired
“men of action,” he had eventually resigned himself to merely being
“a weak-bottomed pen-pusher.” In the end, he was castigated by both
the religious leadership of his own church and the Greek leaders of the
Communist movement, for being on the one hand too liberal, and on
the other hand too idealistic. Among his fellow Cretans, however, he will
always be a national hero, a national treasure.
By virtue of his many writings, as well as the two popular American
films, “Zorba the Greek” and “The Last Temptation of Christ,”
Kazantzakis has, as well, become a worldwide symbol of freedom, cour-
age, and artistry. In the pages that follow I shall trace the diverse themes
his writings embraced under the headings of “Nature,” “Humanity,”
and “Divinity.” As we shall see, he sought to devise a philosophy that
incorporated the teachings of Christ, Buddha, Bergson, Nietzsche,
Marx, and most of all Zorba. Through it all, he struggled to “Reach
what he could not.”
4 J. H. GILL
At the outset, I should mention that I shall be using Peter Bien’s

more recent and reliable translation of Zorba the Greek as the text for my
analysis of this well-known novel. Professor Bien is universally regarded
as the “Dean” of Kazantzakis translation and interpretation. His own
book Kazantzakis: Politics of the Spirit is more than worth a careful
reading.
PART I
The Patterns of Nature
It should be said at the outset of this unit that for Kazantzakis the nat-
ural world is alive with spirituality. That is to say, he clearly regarded the
patterns of nature as mediating the richer, more comprehensive dimen-
sions of reality. It is almost tempting to say that he was an animist.
However, for Kazantzakis, the forces and qualities of the natural world
are not so much a result of their own reality, but rather of how they
mediate a yet higher dimension. In this unit, we shall explore these par-
ticular forces and qualities with an eye to discerning those realities that
they mediate or convey to the people in his novels and to us the readers.
Although the following examination of this theme does not include the
novel Freedom or Death, Morton Levitt uses this work to set the tone for
our explorations in his insightful essay “The Cretan Glance: The World
and Art of Nikos Kazantzakis” (Journal of Modern Literature, Vol. 2, # 2).
The framework of the novel is entirely naturalistic: animal imagery is

applied to all the characters, and especially to Mihalis, the protagonist,
who is described variously as a wild boar, a dragon, a lion, a bull and a
minotaur.” … “All of nature is, in fact, anthropomorphic: the first spring
air came to Crete at night, ‘leaped over the fortress walls and through the
chinks of doors and windows’…Man, too, is a force of nature—Mihalis
‘like an earthquake,’ ‘a hard knotty bough on a tree,’ and old Sifakas, his
father, ‘like a great oak tree’ which has ‘breathed storms, suffered, tri-
umphed’. (p. 180)
6 PART I: THE PATTERNS OF NATURE
Further on Levitt says that in Freedom or Death “The relationship

between Crete, man, and God - a God of nature - is similarly anthropo-
morphic, suggesting the dealings between the Children of Israel and the
God of the Torah. The nature and animal images are thus more than just
naturalistic description, more than a means of characterizing the harsh-
ness of Cretan life; they become a part of the religious symbolism of the
novel, offering a view not of man degraded by his naturalistic surround-
ings, but of man rising above them, ascending perhaps because of them,
because there is no hope in the natural scheme of things” (p. 181).
CHAPTER 2
Zorba the Greek
“It was almost daybreak – rain, strong southeast wind, sea spray reaching
the small café, its glass doors shut, the air inside smelling of sage and
human sweat” (Zorba, p. 9). With these words Kazantzakis begins
the story of his eventful and deep relationship with Alexis Zorba.
Throughout his novels, Kazantzakis makes use of the natural elements
when creating his vision of the world and human life. Water, in the form
of rain and sea, frequently finds its way into his descriptions of the sur-
rounding scene. In many ways water, especially rain, actually functions as
an additional character in the development of his stories.
Later on, in the book, we find this passage, again referencing the rain:
The rain continued. Mountaintops were covered over. No wind. Stones

shiny. The low lignite mountain was smothered in fog. One could say
that the hill’s female face had lost consciousness beneath the rain and
was wrapped in human sorrow. ‘Rainfall affects the human heart’ Zorba
declared. ‘Don’t fuss with it in bad weather.’ (p. 112)
This mention of the lignite hill brings another natural “character” into
his vision of the world. The Boss had come to Crete to reopen a lignite
mine that he had recently inherited. Much of the dynamic of his relation-
ship to Zorba centers on their efforts to bring this project to fruition.
Zorba and the crew had burrowed their way into the mountainside and
had shored up the shaft with timber.

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-93833-2_2
8 J. H. GILL
But “The logs were not thick enough. With that faultless instinct of
his that made him experience the entire underground labyrinth with such
immediacy, he felt that the props were not secure. He heard – still too
faintly to be noticed by the others – the ceiling’s rigging creak as though
it were sighing on account of the weight above” (p. 128).
A bit later on Kazantzakis writes: “I watched Zorba at work. With
nothing else in mind he devoted one hundred percent of himself to his
job, becoming one with the earth, the pickax, the coal. The hammer and
nails seemed to have metamorphosed into his body fighting with the
wood and with gallery’s bulging ceiling” (p. 130). This struggle, then,
with the mine provides the backdrop for the entire story and the mine
actually has become one of the main characters at the conclusion of the
adventure.
This leads us to yet another aspect of nature that plays a part in the
drama that shapes this story, namely the island of Crete itself. In Greek,
the island is called Kriti and it is often addressed and spoken of by native
Cretans as if it were an actual person. Crete was, we should remember,
Kazantzakis’s homeland and he repeatedly returned to it with affection.
Indeed, his remains are buried there. We shall return to this piece of
information later on when we treat Kazantzakis’s vision of human life.
Here is how he describes the island of his birth:
I felt that this Cretan scene resembled good prose: well-worked, reticent, lib-
erated from superfluous wealth, strong, restrained, formulating the essence by
the simplest of means, refusing to play games, not deigning to employ tricks
or grandiloquence, but saying what it means with virile simplicity. Between
this Cretan scene’s severe lines, however, one could distinguish unexpected
sensitivity and tenderness. Lemon trees and orange trees exuded their sweet
savor in wind-protected hollows. Unquenchable poetry gushed from the
boundless sea. ‘Crete, Crete,’ I murmured with fluttering heart. (p. 41)
In Kazantzakis’s eyes the person of Zorba encapsulated and projected

the entire natural universe. He saw in him the focal point of all of real-
ity. More specifically, he saw all of this incarnated in Zorba’s embodied
activity. “Time had acquired a new taste in Zorba’s presence. It was no
longer a mathematical succession of events; nor was it an unsolved prob-
lem inside me. It was warm, finely sifted sand that I felt passing tenderly
through my fingers, tickling them. ‘God bless Zorba,’ I murmured. He
has given a warm beloved body to the abstract concerns shivering inside
of me. When he is absent I begin to feel cold again” (p. 179).
2 ZORBA THE GREEK 9
In addition, more than once Kazantzakis images the natural elements

of the earth and sky as actual personas in the ongoing drama of the phys-
ical world. “Listening to Zorba, I sensed the world’s virginity being
renewed. Everyday things that had lost their luster regained the bright-
ness they had possessed the moment they emerged from God’s hands.
Water, women, stars, and bread returned to their primordial, mysterious
source; the divine wheel retained its rotational momentum in the sky”
(pp. 64–65).
Perhaps, the most poignant passage in this book with respect to the
rhythms of nature is that found near the end of Chapter 10. Kazantzakis
describes finding a cocoon from which a butterfly was struggling to
emerge. He blew on it in order to speed up the miracle of its birth, but
when it emerged he was horrified to see that his efforts to speed up the
butterfly’s birth. He describes his horror in the following way:
My breath had forced the butterfly to emerge ahead of time, crumpled and
premature. It came out undeveloped, shook desperately, and soon died in
my palm. This butterfly’s fluffy corpse is, I believe, the greatest weight I
carry on my conscience. What I understood on that day was this: to hasten
eternal rules is a mortal sin. One’s duty is confidently to follow nature’s
everlasting rhythm. (p. 142)
It is possible that we have here an important lesson for our own times
when we are increasingly aware of our responsibilities toward the natu-
ral world around us as we continue to pollute and rape the earth and its
atmosphere at an astonishing rate. We have failed to pay attention to the
patterns and rhythms of the natural world because we have been impa-
tient with it, forcing it to fit into our patterns and to provide us with
all of the things we think we need to make our lives comfortable. It is
interesting to note that Zorba’s project, near the end of the book, to
bring huge logs down from the mountainside using his very best tech-
nology, collapsed entirely. And then he and the “Boss” danced their way
to acceptance of the catastrophe.
The Boss, ostensibly Kazantzakis himself, finally turned to Zorba and
cried “Teach me to dance.” Zorba was delighted and threw himself into
teaching the Boss to dance. They were both able to accept the disaster
and thereby to transcend it. Both abstract rationality and technological
calculating went by the boards. Zorba blustered: “To hell with paper
and inkpots Eh, my boy! Now that Your Highness dances – learns my
10 J. H. GILL
language – we’ve got so very much to tell each other” (p. 321). In the
end, however, although it may be that Zorba has won the Boss over,
because he ended up writing this book, it may be that Kazantzakis him-
self had the last word.
Yet, another aspect of this theme needs to be addressed before mov-
ing on. In a number of places in Zorba, the Greek Kazantzakis has some
rather questionable things to say about the role and nature of what Zorba
calls “the female of the species.” Not only are Madame Hortense and the
widow pretty much portrayed as secondary to the whims and desires of
men, but the world of nature is several times depicted as having a female
character, one that corresponds to the physical and sensuous dimension
of reality. In short, females are seemingly depicted as being primarily
physical in nature, without lives and brains of their own. Even the Boss’s
romance with the widow clearly implies that she is there for his taking.
Moving on it is easy for me to identify with Kazantzakis in his descrip-
tions of and feelings for Crete. I have had the privilege of visiting this
majestic island many times, and my wife Mari and I actually spent three
years living there while we administered a semester abroad program for
the college where we taught in Albany, New York. During these years I
came to know and love the island of Kriti very deeply. It stands all by itself
about 150 miles from both mainland Greece to the north and the North
African coast to the south. Its mountains reach over 7000 feet above the
sea and its coastline is dotted with numerous inlets and beautiful beaches.
In a way, even politically, Crete functions as a nation unto itself.
We were situated near the far eastern end of Crete, but were able to
visit nearly every part of the island during our time there. We swam at
a number of its beaches, hiked through the famous and deep Samaria
Gorge several times, and climbed to the top of Mt. Ida, or Psiloritis
as the locals call it. As you immerse yourself in this island, it comes to
indwell you so that you tend to feel as though you belong to it. Its rug-
gedness is easily offset by its immense beauty. Moreover, its people are
extremely friendly and hospitable. In contrast to the common malady
known as xenophobia, one could easily characterize Cretan people as
having xenophilia. They genuinely embrace strangers as guests, which
is what the Greek word xenos actually means: happily sharing their food
and homes with open arms.
It is clear that Kazantzakis comes close to announcing a pantheis-
tic view of nature, one in which God and the natural world are under-
stood as one and the same reality. We shall return to this question in
2 ZORBA THE GREEK 11
greater detail in Part Three when we consider the “shape of Divinity” in

Kazantzakis’s thought. Suffice it to say at this juncture that he was obvi-
ously supremely aware of, and in awe of, the great mystery and power
of the processes and patterns of the natural world. This is an interest-
ing observation in light of the fact that he frequently describes himself as
a mere “pen-pusher” and effete intellectual, as one who never was able
to unite his ideas with his actions. This is a dichotomy in Kazantzakis’s
character that has always struck me as intriguing.
All the way through Zorba the Greek, the Boss belittles and derides
himself for not being like Zorba, a man of action rather than one who is
constantly struggling with abstract ideas. Indeed, the Boss’s original pro-
ject in coming to Crete had been an opportunity to finish his book man-
uscript on the thought of Buddha. The coal mining project was more or
less an excuse to get away from the distractions of the everyday world
so as to be able to come to grips with the eternal truths of Buddhist
philosophy. Fortunately, in Kazantzakis’s view, this original plan was
demolished by his encounter with Zorba.
Frequently in his disguised autobiography Report to Greco Kazantzakis
bemoans the fact that he, unlike Zorba, could never integrate his men-
tal activity and his desire to actually accomplish something in the real
world of events. This in spite of the fact that on two separate occasions
he did actually serve as a foreign diplomat for his native Greece, one of
which involved rescuing several thousand Greek refugees in the Caucasus
mountains. Nonetheless, from the list of his many books and interna-
tional acclaim as a writer, it is clear that Kazantzakis was not a “man of
action,” but was, rather, primarily a creative literary artist.
In his chapter on Zorba in Report to Greco he writes that after he had
received a telegram from Zorba many years later that simply said: “Found
beautiful green stone. Come immediately. Zorba,” he was unable to tear
himself away from his writing project. “I had harnessed myself again to
paper and ink. I had come to know Zorba too late. At this point there
was no further salvation for me. I had degenerated into an incurable
pen-pusher” (Greco, p. 448).
Zorba brought out everything in Kazantzakis that he wanted to be
but felt he could not actually be. Near the end of Zorba the Greek Zorba
says to the Boss: “No, you are not free.” … “The string to which you are
tied is a little longer than other people’s string, that’s all. Your Highness
has a long cord, you come and go, think that you are free, but you do
not cut the cord, and if you do not cut it—”(p. 331). Although Zorba’s
12 J. H. GILL
perspective is in a sense correct, in my own view the sort of writing

Kazantzakis did was in its own way a kind of action. Thousands, if not
millions of lives have been touched for the better because of his writings,
especially because of Zorba the Greek. It is true that we “intellectuals”
need to balance our lives with a good portion of Zorba’s “folly,” but it is
possible as well to point out that the line between folly and irresponsibil-
ity is a difficult but necessary one to discern. A fully integrated way of life
would seem to be the best yet tricky balance to achieve.
I began this particular discussion because Zorba’s character seemed to
Kazantzakis to embody a harmony of the powers and enhancements of a
naturalist appreciation of and approach to understanding life. Kazantzakis
saw all of these virtues focused on Zorba’s embodiment, in the way he
simply lived naturally. It should not be overlooked that in his dealings
with the Boss Zorba more than once acted irresponsibly. He wasted
a great deal of the Boss’s money when he was sent to buy supplies for
the mine, and he failed to pay attention to the realistic possibilities when
attempting to protect the widow from those who would kill her.
This leads us back to the issue of Kazantzakis’s portrayal of females in
his novels. It can be said that they are almost always presented as weak,
or at least as incidental to the main plot. Madame Hortense is essentially
a secondary factor in relation to Zorba’s own needs. And, the widow is
mostly a mysterious person inserted in the story to help the Boss over-
come his own inadequacies. Neither of these women emerges as an
important character and person in her own right.
At the same time, it must be said that nearly all of the male charac-
ters in Kazantzakis’s other novels always show respect for and positive
feelings toward the women characters with whom they interact. And yet,
when it comes right down to it, the women who do play a major role in
these novels almost always end up taking an oppositional and negative
role in relation to the main male characters. The major exception to this
pattern is, of course, Clara in the St. Francis story. Throughout his qua-
si-autobiography Report to Greco, it becomes clear that Kazantzakis had
many relationships with women who can be said to have held their own.
To return to the issue of Kazantzakis’s problem with being a pen-
pusher, in my view Kazantzakis was unduly hard on himself when com-
paring his life to that of Zorba’s. Nevertheless, in the sense that Zorba
pointed the way toward a heartfelt appreciation for the patterns and
rhythms of the natural world and sought to live in accord with them I
must applaud him mightily. To appreciate and seek to be in harmony
2 ZORBA THE GREEK 13
with the wondrous powers and gifts of nature lying all around us is an
important task and opportunity. Perhaps, the best clue we have to how
to find our way into this appreciation and harmony is found in the music
of Zorba’s santuri, his guitar-like instrument. For, music, too, is a maker
of patterns within nature.
Actually, a great many admirers of Zorba only know him through the
movie Zorba which came out in 1964 and starred Anthony Quinn and
Alan Bates. The movie ends with Zorba teaching Boss how to dance on
the beach. It is a marvelous scene indeed, and perfectly focuses their rela-
tionship and the prospect of a fuller life for both of these two antithetical
yet mutually harmonizing individuals. It is fitting that in the film they are
dancing on a beach, surrounded by the beautiful sea, mountains, and sky
that render Crete what it was and is. Years later, after receiving a letter
from Zorba’s widow announcing his death, Kazantzakis found himself
freed to write his novel about his great friend.
These are some of the natural elements that comprise the context of
this wonderful novel. Let me conclude by noting Kazantzakis’s treat-
ment of eating as a spiritual though naturalistic act. Shortly after settling
in on the Cretan coastline the Boss reflects on the spiritual aspects of the
natural act of eating:
One evening when they had started eating, Zorba raised a penetrating
question: “Tell me what you do with the meal you eat…and I’ll tell you
who you are. Some convert it into lard and dung, some into work and
good spirits, some apparently, so I’ve heard, into God. So, people are of
three types. I am neither one of the worst nor one of the best. I stand in
the middle, Boss. The meals I eat turn into work and good spirits. Not
bad, eh!” (p. 82)
CHAPTER 3
The Greek Passion
In England, this novel is titled Christ Recrucified. In addition, a film was

made of it which in French is titled “Celui qui doit mourir” (“He Who
Must Die”). These different titles often confuse people but hopefully, we
are now clear about the book we are going to discuss. In broad strokes,
the story is about a Greek village that every year reenacts the Passion of
Christ, much as they have done for many years at the famous town in
Bavaria, Germany named Oberammergau. Different villagers are assigned
the respective roles in the familiar Gospel drama and the last days of
Christ’s life are reenacted.
As the natural landscape played an important role in Zorba the Greek,
so it does as well in The Greek Passion. It will be recalled that Zorba
began in a violent rain storm. Here again the rain factors into the tell-
ing of the story of these peasant folks seeking to be true to the Gospel
narrative. More than a few times the action is set in the middle of a rain
storm. For example, at a crucial stage of their struggle to follow God’s
way two of the main characters, Michelis and Manolios, decide to wait
for further guidance through the night during a strong rain storm. Here
is how their waiting went:
The rain redoubled, violently, joyfully; the dry grasses of the mountain
were refreshed and balmy, the wind brought in soft gusts, from a long way
away, the resinous smell of pines; the earth exhaled its fragrance. Manolios’
brain, like a clod of earth, welcomed the rain and drew from it refresh-
ment. Was that God’s answer? Was he coming down this evening in the

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16 J. H. GILL
form of a beneficent rain? Manolios welcomed God and felt happy from
head to foot. The night birds, also, as they huddled in the rocks and in
the hollows of the trees, felt God descending upon their soaked wings.
(p. 282)
The plot of this novel revolves around the conflict between two groups
of people. The one, the villagers of Lycovrissi who are afraid of the
strange refugees who have come asking them for help, and the other,
the band of wanderers who have come asking the villagers for help. Each
group is led by a priest, although they stand in stark contrast to each
other. Grigoris desires to protect his flock against these invaders, while
Fotis hopes the villagers will give his wandering flock some much-needed
land. “‘We have no other hope, no other consolation than this,’ he said,
brandishing high his heavy Gospel” (p. 39).
Many people were weeping when these two groups confronted one
another “Only the two priests were not weeping, the one because he
had lived all these misfortunes and was past tears, the other because he
did not cease to ruminate anxiously what way he could find to get rid of
this famished band and of its fierce guide who upset men’s souls” (p.39).
The latter was asked what he expected from the villagers, “‘Land,’
replied priest Fotis; ‘land in which to put forth roots. We have heard that
you have waste land, for which you have no use: give it to us, we will
share it out, we will sow it, we will harvest it, we will make bread for all
these starving people to eat’” (p. 39).
When the priest and his flock refuse to give the pilgrims any land
and send them away emptyhanded, Manolios, who had been given the
role of Jesus in the village’s Passion play, together with his “disciples,”
suggests to priest Fotis that his people endeavor to set up life and live-
lihood in some unused caves in the nearby mountainside. Priest Fotis
joyfully accepts their suggestion as the voice of God, and after blessing
the rocky mountain as the “Daughter of the Almighty” leads his people
to that mountain and its nearby plain, which they name the “Sarakina.”
Henceforth, the plot revolves around these two groups of people and
their different needs and values.
Here, once again, one can clearly see the crucial role played by the
natural environment in Kazantzakis’s novels. These caves in the moun-
tain become a kind of holy shrine, both for those who carve out a living
in the land around them and for “Jesus” and his “disciples” as well. After
they arrive at the foot of the cavernous mountain priest Fotis announces
3 THE GREEK PASSION 17
to his people that “It is here, on this sheer mountain, that with God’s aid
we shall take root” (p. 81). Then he embraces the mountain with a hier-
atic gesture and proceeds to “baptize” the mountain with what he calls
“holy water” from a gourd he himself had fashioned. “Follow me, all of
you my children; I’m going to mark out the boundaries of the village!”
cried the priest, plunging his sprinkler into the water he had blessed. “In
the name of Christ! In the name of Greece!” (p. 82).
It is clear that Kazantzakis is seeing the natural elements of land and
water as central to the story he is laying out here. These elements actu-
ally serve a spiritual purpose in this socioreligious drama set in the moun-
tainous region of the Greek countryside. It is no accident that the village
leaders eventually call priest Fotis and his flock “Bolsheviks,” for they
seek to share everything with each other, “From each according to his
ability and to each according to his need.” The material world is seen by
them, and by Kazantzakis, as a manifestation of the spiritual world, and is
thus “holy ground.”
Eventually, there is a great fire that virtually destroys the village of
Lycovrissi as well as that of the refugees who had worked so diligently to
develop it. Manolios, the Christ figure in the town’s passion play, actu-
ally takes the blame for this destruction and is murdered by one of priest
Grigoris’s henchmen. His motive in claiming to be guilty was to save
the refugee people from the wrath of priest Grigoris and his followers.
Priest Fotis laments that Manolios had died in vain because his death did
not bring about peace and harmony. His death was, then, in the eyes of
priest Fotis, a vain sacrifice. “In vain, Manolios, in vain will you have sac-
rificed yourself ” (p. 429).
Priest Fotis’s vision had been focused for him in a dream he had about
pursuing a tiny yellow bird, a canary. “Defying capture, the little canary
flitted from branch to branch, from flower to flower and sang as if pos-
sessed” (p. 429). Because, this little bird refused to be captured, priest
Fotis concludes that his quest, as well as that of his people, must still
continue on to yet another place where they might take root. In another
context he describes his people’s situation as similar to that of the famous
flower known as “the Marvel of Peru,” which remains shut all day in the
sunshine, opening up only at night time. “So this evening, more guess-
ing than seeing you there in the darkness, I can feel my soul unfolding”
(p. 265).
Kazantzakis extends his inclusion of the natural world as a mediator of
the spiritual reality to include animals, as well. In the midst of one of the
18 J. H. GILL
gatherings of Manolios and his brethren they heard the song of a distant
flute and then they received an unexpected visitor, a butterfly. “A white
orange spotted butterfly fluttered for an instant above the five heads and
went to settle on priest Fotis’s hair. It beat is wings and plunged its snout
into the grey hair, taking it for brambles in blossom. Then it flew off,
climbed very high and was lost in the sun” (p. 169).
One of Manolios’s “disciples,” Yannakos, has a donkey for his best
friend. His donkey’s name is Youssoufaki. As the current Easter Season
slides by they are all in anticipation of the following Easter yet to come
when Manolios will fulfill the role of the Christ in his passion. Yannakos
goes to the stable to tell his donkey all about the anticipations. After
a bit he reveals a secret to his donkey friend. “Next Easter the Passion
of Christ will be acted in our village; you must have heard talk of it.
They need a donkey. Well, I asked the notables, as a favor, that you,
Youssoufaki, should be that donkey of the Holy Passion. It’s on your
back that Christ will enter Jerusalem” (p. 50).
A bit later on Yannakos reveals to his donkey friend that when he gets
to the pearly gates he will not go into Heaven unless his donkey can go
with him. He is sure that his request will be honored because “God loves
asses.” Kazantzakis also makes frequent use of the sunlight as one of his
major characters in several of his works. There is one place in this book
where he describes the fading sunlight as bearing the people’s struggles.
“The sun had set; the stars were not out yet, the light was still strug-
gling desperately. She had taken the path up to the heights, but the
night was still climbing up from the earth and pursuing her from stone
to stone, right to her last entrenchment, the little white church of the
prophet Elijah, at the very top of the mountain. At length, unable to
resist anymore, she leaped skyward and disappeared” (p. 251). This scene
of the vanishing sunlight stands as a symbol of the coming downfall of
the refugees at the hands of the villagers led by priest Grigoris.
Thus, we see that for Kazantzakis the natural world is not only a
vibrant context within which the actions of people play themselves
out, but it is as well a living participant in these actions. The earth, the
stones, the sunlight, the nightfall all interact with the human characters
throughout the development of the story. It is this sense of naturalism
that constitutes one of Kazantzakis’s most dominant artistic qualities.
Even though he often castigated himself for being an intellectual “pen-
pusher,” he clearly lived and wrote within the context of a vibrant natural
world.
3 THE GREEK PASSION 19
Thanasis Maskaleris, formerly Professor of Comparative Literature at

San Francisco State University, focuses this aspect of Kazantzakis’s phi-
losophy in the following passage from his The Terrestrial Gospel of Nikos
Kazantzakis : “For Kazantzakis, the central drama in Nature – seeding,
growth, fruition – is the supreme model for human development; and
the agrarian life, because of its closeness to the earth, is the best teacher
for humans and their communities; cultivation of the soil – cultura in
Latin – is the most authentic culture” (p. 19).
CHAPTER 4
The Fratricides
Unsurprisingly, Kazantzakis begins yet another story with a descrip-

tion of the rising sun, followed by a corresponding description of a vil-
lage and its people as stones, destitute of its warmth. “The sun rose in
Castello. It had flooded the rooftops and now overflowed, spilling onto
the dripping, narrow backstreets, pitilessly uncovering the harsh ugliness
of the village…everywhere, only stone upon stone….Mountains, houses,
people – they were all granite” (p. 7). The people of the village were pre-
paring to leave their beloved village, in search of a new home, because of
the civil war currently raging around them.
As the people of Castello gathered themselves and their meager
belongings “It was thundering and a light rain began to fall.” After their
final visit to their centuries old cemetery, “The rain fell in torrents now,
making both mud and people one” (p. 16). After walking for weeks the
village of people finally settled on a small village, recently vacated by
their traditional rival Turks. The village was too small for two priests, so
Father Yanaros continued to wander until he stumbled his way onto the
famous Holy Mountain of Athos.
After living a number of years in a monastery on the Holy Mountain,
Father Yanaros left out of disgust for its other-worldliness. He came to
feel that Christ was a person of action, in and among the people, striving
for justice. He soon found himself in the middle of a civil war among his
own Greek people, fighting brother against brother as “fratricides.” The
novel The Fratricides is the story of this civil war in which brother was
pitted against brother to the death. One group was on the side of the

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22 J. H. GILL
traditional Greek society, the Christian’s, while the other was on the side
of the new ideas proffered by the Communists.
The vast majority of the story revolves around this conflict in which
brother is pitted against brother after the conclusion of World War Two.
Its storyline is dominated by the human battle between these two ide-
ologies; thus the emphasis is far more on the human struggle, and even
the question of the significance of God, than it is with the role of nature.
Nevertheless, since it is nearly impossible for Kazantzakis to tell a story
without frequent allusions to the ubiquitous role played by the natural
world, we can centerpiece some of his naturalistic images. One of these
images is, unsurprisingly, that of the butterfly.
At that moment, a butterfly appeared. In the sunlight; it swept earthward

and settled upon the camomile branch; it, too, sniffed the remains of the
dead; then it fluttered around Father Yanaros’s beard. He held his breath
for fear of frightening it away; he watched it. A sweet emotion suddenly
lifted the weight from Father Yanaros’s chest. Of all the birds and beasts,
this fearless firewalker loved butterflies the best – in them he placed his
faith. It was only when he was once asked that he discovered why. ‘Because
the butterfly was once a worm,’ he replied, ‘a worm that crawled into
the earth and emerged a butterfly when spring came. What spring? The
Second Coming!’ (p. 74)
A parallel, yet alternative image is introduced by Kazantzakis when a

bishop passes through Father Yanaros’s village and asks about the little
creature being held by Christ in a painting on the ceiling of his church
done by Father Yanaros himself.
‘Look closely, Your Eminence,’… ‘can’t you see that it has wings?’ ‘And
what of it? What does it represent?’ ‘The mouse that ate of the body
of Christ from the Holy Alter and sprouted wings – a bat!’ ‘A bat!’ the
Bishop shouted, ‘Lord have mercy on us; and what does that mean? Aren’t
you ashamed, Father Yanaros?’ Anger filled the priest. ‘The Pancreator
holds the soul of man in His hand! The mouse is the soul which ate of the
body of Christ and sprouted wings.’ (pp. 141–142)
Yet, another bird image is introduced by Kazantzakis as Father Yanaros

reflected upon the futile character of a collection of monks gathered for
worship in the monastery hall. “A swallow entered from the open win-
dow and fluttered over the bowed heads of the monks. It recognized
4 THE FRATRICIDES 23
each of them… The bird was pleased, and it fluttered gaily, tweeting over
the head of the abbot, longing to pluck out a hair of his white beard to
strengthen his nest, but as it opened its beak, fear overcame it; it rushed
for the open window, toward the light, and disappeared” (p. 157).
Father Yanaros took this flight of the swallow as a sign of Christ’s escape
from the spiritual deadness of the monks everywhere.
With a far more violent image, Kazantzakis describes a villager com-
paring Father Yanaros to a half-breed wolf bitch that his father beat
and chased away from his farm. The bitch howled every night, perched
between the wolves and the sheep, without a home. “‘That bitch,’ the
teacher said bitterly ‘that bitch, comrades, is the soul of Father Yanaros.
He howls in the same manner, between the reds and the blacks, and he’s
going to die; pity on his soul.’ Father Yanaros did not say a word, but a
knife had slashed his heart; for a moment he was terrified” (p. 182).
The priest is prepared to die for his cause, that of standing between
the fratricides, the Communist “reds” and the Christian “blacks” in this
Albanian war, both groups his Greek brothers. This is the main story-line
of the novel, this conflict that led to the killing of one’s own broth-
ers over a difference in ideologies. Father Yanaros’s own son, Captain
Drakos, becomes embroiled in this war, and at one point, while hiding
out in the mountains, he likens himself to a centaur whose lower half is,
indeed, the mountain on which he took refuges during the war.
He felt that he was a centaur – that from the waist down he was this
mountain; he had taken of its wildness and its hardness, and the mountain
seemed to have taken on the soul of man. Indeed it had, for as it stretched
up to the sky and looked at the valley, it seemed to be calling to the black-
hoods below. It felt that it was no longer a hill like other hills, but a shield
of freedom. (p. 193)
The Greek Civil War took place in three separate phases between 1943
and 1949. It was a conflict over ideologies: the Western democratic
way of life and that of the newly arrived theory of Karl Marx, by way of
Vladimir Lenin’s revolution in Russia. The former were backed by the
Western powers, while the latter were backed by the Communist Party
International. The Greek Church stood in between these two points
of view. Obviously, Father Yanaros is trying to steer a middle course
between these two forces, but against unlikely odds. Eventually the
Western way prevailed, but a strong Communist Party was formed in
Greece, and continues still today.
24 J. H. GILL
Kazantzakis’s use of the term “Pancreator” when referring to God

in a passage quoted earlier warrants a brief explanation. There has been
a good deal of debate about whether Kazantzakis was a pantheist. The
point is that in his view God is both an active agent and the context
within which human activity transpires. This is a very complex topic in
Kazantzakis’s system of thought, but let me broach the subject briefly
here. Traditional Christian theism views God as the sole creator of reality,
ex nihilo, out of nothing. As such God stands over against reality, essen-
tially independent of it. Pantheism, on the other hand, claims that God
and reality are one and the same. Thus, God and all that exists in reality
are always in complete harmony.
The term “Pancreator” suggests the possibility that Kazantzakis was
a pantheist, even though it literally means “the Creator of everything.”
However, as Professor Dombrowski makes amply clear in his fine book
Kazantzakis and God, Kazantzakis’s view of God more closely aligns
with the thought of “Process” philosophers such as Alfred North
Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne. The latter introduced the term
“panentheism” in order to suggest that while all of reality is “in” God,
God and reality are not one and the same.
The key idea here is that of God as “di-polar,” having two comple-
mentary natures, a primordial nature and a consequential nature. Thus,
God can be seen as involved in guiding the world toward its full achieve-
ment, while at the same time honoring human freewill. More about this
when we take up Saviors of God in the next and subsequent sections.
At the conclusion of The Fratricides Captain Drakos stands up against
the hardline members of his communist group by complaining that the
ends must never justify the means in their struggle. In his speech he lik-
ens their cause to ripening fruit. As he puts it: “Because the cause is not
a piece of fruit that hangs ripe and ready at the end of the road for us to
pick; no, no, never! The cause is a fruit that ripens with each deed that
takes the dignity or the vulgarity of our deeds. The path we take will give
the shape and flavor and taste to the fruit, and fill it with either honey or
poison” (p. 236).
Once again it can easily be seen that Kazantzakis’s vision of reality was
replete with images from the natural world. In spite of the fact that he
was a life-long “pen pusher,” as he called himself, he was alive to the
textures and rhythms of the natural world around him. Plants, animals,
landscapes, sexual functions, and the starry heavens all factor into his vast
4 THE FRATRICIDES 25
and rich understanding of reality. This sensitivity will be heightened in

the next volume for our consideration, namely Saviors of God.
However, before moving ahead I would like to take a few pages to
consider some of Kazantzakis’s passages on the natural world in his
Report to Greco. Surprisingly, there are few such passages in his some-
what disguised autobiography. He mostly describes his encounters with
people, travels around the world, and his own psychological/spiritual
development. The description of his return to his homeland of Crete is
devoted almost entirely to his encounter with the ruins of the famous
Minoan palace at Knossos. There are, nonetheless three passages that
bear directly on our subject.
First, there is his remembrance of his childhood:
My earliest memory of my life is this: still unable to stand, I crept on all

fours to the threshold, and fearfully, longingly extended my tender head
into the open air of the courtyard. Until then, I had looked through the
windowpane but had seen nothing. Now I not only looked but actually
saw the world for the very first time. And what an astonishing sight that
was. Our little courtyard seemed without limits. There was buzzing from
thousands of invisible bees, an intoxicating aroma, a warm sun as thick
as honey. The air flashed as though armed with swords, and between the
swords, erect angel-like insects with colorful, motionless wings advanced
straight for me. I screamed from fright, my eyes filled with tears, and the
world vanished…Such were my first contacts with earth, sea, woman, and
the star- filled sky. Even now, in the most profound moments of my life, I
experience these four terrifying elements with exactly the same ardor as in
my infancy. (Report to Greco, pp. 42–43)
Second, there is the account of his pilgrimage through Greece. He

remarks about the dualism exuding from every region of his homeland,
namely the contrast between harshness and tenderness, first as seen in
the countryside surrounding Sparta, the original home of Helen of Troy,
and later in that of the plain of Mistra. Here is how he put it:
Various regions in Greece are dual in nature, and the emotion which
springs from them is also dual in nature. Harshness and tenderness stand
side by side, complementing each other and coupling like a man and a
woman. Sparta is one such source of tenderness and harshness…Just as
you begin to grow savage and to disdain the earth’s sweetness, suddenly
26 J. H. GILL
Helen’s breath, like a flowering lemon tree, makes your mind reel… Is the
fragrance of its oleanders really so intoxicating – or does all this fascination
perhaps spring from Helen’s oft-kissed, far-roving body? (p. 158)
Third, there is his description of the landscape on his journey to Mount

Sinai to visit the Monastery of St. Catherine. He gives this brief reflec-
tion on crossing the desert:
How can anyone have a true sense of the Hebrew race without crossing
this terrifying desert, without experiencing it? For three interminable days
we crossed it on our camels. Your throat sizzles from thirst, your head
reels, your mind spins about as serpent-like you follow the sleek tortuous
ravine. When a race is forged for two score years in this kiln, how can such
a race die? I rejoiced at seeing the terrible stones where the Hebrews’ vir-
tues were born; their perseverance, will power, obstinacy, endurance, and
above all, a God, flesh of their flesh, flame of their flame…To this desert
the Jews owe their continued survival and the fact that by means of their
virtues and vices they dominate the world. (pp. 264–265)
As rare as such naturalistic passages are in this important volume, they

take us directly to the heart of Kazantzakis’s own emotional life. Many
of the descriptions in his various novels of the wonders and powers of
the natural world stem from raw feelings such as those spoken of in these
passages. Although he continuously lamented the fact that he was not a
man of action, but rather a weak pen-pusher, Kazantzakis seems to have
been driven primarily by the strength of his emotions. Moreover, these
emotions, as we have seen in the above passages, were directly tied to a
deep sensitivity to the natural world around him.
CHAPTER 5
Saviors of God
Although the main theme of this small but powerful book has to do with
the nature of God and humankind’s relationship with Divinity, it too is
chock full of references to and images of the natural world. This volume
contains the closest thing to a summary of Kazantzakis’s world view. We
shall deal with the implications of its title when we get to the final part of
our explorations. Sufficient for now is an examination of what he has to
say here about the nature and place of the natural world in what Kimon
Friar believed was Kazantzakis’s final “Credo.”
Below is the passage that Friar, one of Kazantzakis’s closest collab-
orators, quotes from one of Kazantzakis’s letters to his wife Eleni in
1923. The original title in the Greek version of the book was Askitiki,
or “Spiritual Exercises,” with the subtitle “Saviors of God.” I think this
title actually follows the traditional way of entitling such books, as with
those of Ignatius of Loyola and Thomas à Kempis. The emphasis is on
the challenge to the reader to chart a course toward spirituality and the
divine, rather than on a way to theorize about God.
My dear… yesterday I finished the Spiritual Exercises. Is it good? I don’t

know. I tried in simple words, as in confession, to trace the spiritual strug-
gles of my life, from where I set out, how I passed over obstacles, how the
struggle of God began, how I found the central meaning which regulates
at last my thoughts, my speech, my actions. (Saviors of God, p. 19)

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The “Fourth Step” in Kazantzakis’s call for us to march forward

within and toward the final cosmic destination of life, namely a merg-
ing with and leap beyond the entire cosmic, evolutionary process itself, is
entitled “The Earth.” As we struggle to follow “the Cry” of God which
eternally beckons us forward, we must never forget the role played by
the earth, the natural world, in our quest. Here he says: “It is not you
who call. It is not your voice calling from within your ephemeral breast.
It is not only the white, yellow, and black generations of man calling in
your heart. The entire earth, with her trees and her waters, with her ani-
mals, with her men and her gods, calls from within your breast” (p. 81).
Kazantzakis goes on to speak of the earth in very evolutionary terms.
Indeed, the unspoken image here is much like that of the children’s toy,
the “slinky.” He says the earth turns back on itself to acknowledge the
“Cry” calling it forward. “I passed beyond the thick-leafed plants, I
passed beyond the fishes, the birds, the beasts, the apes. I created man. I
created man and now I struggle to be rid of him…During those fearful
moments when the Cry passes through our bodies, we feel a prehuman
power driving us ruthlessly” (p. 83). The evolutionary drive comes to us
from nature, and passes through us toward the future.
One recognizes the influence of both Henri Bergson, whose Parisian
lectures Kazantzakis actually attended, and Frederick Nietzsche, whose
works he devoured. These two highly influential and post-Darwinian
thinkers both spoke of the drive of nature, of the evolutionary process, as
a super cosmic force that drives humankind and all of the natural world
forward beyond itself. Bergson employed the concept of the élan vital, a
supernatural dynamic that continues to recycle every aspect of existence,
pushing them ever forward beyond themselves and each other. Nietzsche
spoke of humankind as the final “prehuman” species that will yet in the
future surpass itself and produce the “overman” or Ubermensch.
It is worth bearing in mind that Kazantzakis, along with the likes of
Bergson and Nietzsche, lived at the turn of the twentieth century when
Charles Darwin’s works and ideas were not only extant, but strongly
enticing and dominant. It is clear that a good part of Kazantzakis’s vision
was driven by this revolutionary idea of every aspect of the natural world
evolving through stage after stage. Kazantzakis often personifies this pro-
cess in his writings, and nowhere else is this as obvious as in Saviors of
God. The “Cry” struggles to overcome itself in and through the entire
cosmos. Thus, the natural world serves as the stage or canvass upon
which this dynamic plays itself out.
5 SAVIORS OF GOD 29
In addition, as is well known, Kazantzakis went through a period when

he was greatly enamored of communism in Russia. He went there several
times after the revolution, and his first wife, Galatia, became devoted to
the Party. Eventually Kazantzakis parted ways with communism, but his
thought is everywhere imbued with the spirit of Marxism. There is a clear
dialectical theme in his writings, and nowhere is this clearer than here in
Saviors of God. Every stage of the “March” to give continual rebirth to
the Cry is marked with by the birth pangs of a revolutionary struggle.
This dialectical dynamic is well focused in the final section before “The
Silence,” entitled “The Relationship Between Man and Nature.”
On the first page of this section, Kazantzakis speaks of “two enor-
mous powers of the Universe permeated with all of God. One power
descends and wants to scatter, to come to a standstill, to die. The other
power ascends and strives for freedom, for immortality. These two, the
dark and the light, the armies of life and death, collide eternally. The
visible signs of this collision are, for us, plants, animals, men….The
antithetical powers collide eternally; they meet, fight, conquer and are
conquered, become reconciled for a brief moment, and then begin to
battle again throughout the Universe” (pp. 119–120).
Kazantzakis seems to see a spiritual evolution emerging within the mate-
rial processes of the natural world. It expresses itself at each stage of the
evolutionary cycle. It is God’s Cry to humankind to struggle to extricate
divinity from its encasement within matter. On the one hand, at each fresh
stage, spiritual, divine reality asserts itself and rises above those processes,
powers, and especially those human categories that encase it. On the other
hand, no sooner has it accomplished this than it itself gives rise to a whole
new set of processes, powers, and categories which threaten to hold it back.
As we see at the conclusion of Kazantzakis’s huge poem, The Odyssey: A
Modern Sequel, there is no end to this dialectic. The process is its own end.
Once again the issue of pantheism versus traditional theism arises.
We shall deal with this issue more thoroughly in the final part of the
book, but it deserves another brief hearing here before we move on to
Part Two. As was mentioned early on, Kazantzakis’s thought had tran-
scended the traditional theism of his youth long before he wrote Saviors
of God. He had been introduced, if not indoctrinated by, this form of the
Christian religion as a boy through his Church in Iraklion, Crete. More
specifically, it will be recalled that he spent his middle school years in a
Catholic preparatory school on the island of Naxos. He spent his high
school years in Iraklion.
30 J. H. GILL
The above passages make it clear that Kazantzakis had left this way
of thinking about God behind. For him God was no longer viewed as
the one-time creator of the cosmos, nor as its sole sustainer and control-
ler. There are in these passages some hint of a pantheistic view of God,
wherein the divine and the cosmos are essentially identical. This was the
view made popular by the ancient Stoic thinkers, such as Zeno, and by
the modern philosopher Spinoza. However, if one reads these passages
carefully, it becomes clear that Kazantzakis’s view is much more complex
than this. There is a clear sense in which God dances, if you will, with the
cosmos and is thus not identifiable with it. At the same time, however,
there is also some indication that for Kazantzakis divinity arises out of
the material universe.
We shall return to this seeming confusion in Kazantzakis’s thought
later on. Suffice it to repeat at this juncture that the Process Philosophy
of Whitehead and Hartshorne, with its notions of a di-polar divinity
and “panentheism,” that is, God within the world rather than above
it or equated with it, in my view go a long way toward delineating
Kazantzakis’s understanding of divinity’s relation to the natural world.
The “en” in the term “panentheism” represents the Greek preposition
“in,” so as to say that God is “in the world” as well as in some sense
“beyond” it. This issue will arise, if only tangentially, numerous times in
the pages that follow. One might even propose that it is the central issue
around which Kazantzakis’s thought revolves.
By way of conclusion in regard to this overall theme of Kazantzakis’s
perspective on the significance of the natural world I should like once
again to share some of the thoughts of Professor Thanasis Maskaleris
found in his fascinating book The Terrestrial Gospel of Nikos Kazantzakis.
The book offers helpful contributions about Kazantzakis’s insights into
the role played by the natural order in human existence by a number of
thinkers as well as translations of a number of key passages from some of
Kazantzakis’s own novels.
All of Kazantzakis’s works contain a plethora of passages about rocks, soil,

seeds, rain, rainbows, the sea, flowers, and flowering. Few other mod-
ern writers have written so extensively about the cosmogonic energies of
Nature, with as much poetic brilliance. And what is more, Kazantzakis
constantly integrates the terrestrial, the material womb of life, with human
life in all its manifestations – and this with insights and a dynamism that
only mythology can surpass. Human life, he passionately declares, is rooted
in the soil and its growth parallels the essential life of Nature. (p. 19)
5 SAVIORS OF GOD 31
Maskaleris’s analysis of Kazantzakis’s works reveals a dimension of the

Cretan’s authorship that has largely gone unnoticed amongst his many
followers and admirers. Generally their focus has been on the existen-
tial and cosmic aspects of his worldview, without noticing that these
are systematically couched in the natural and environmental realities.
Kazantzakis was a child of the earth as much as he was a child of philoso-
phy and literature.
The gifts of the earth, as Kazantzakis depicts them, are boundless: there
is the great joys of the senses, the heart and the soul, as they take in her
beauty; then there is her gift of nurturing all living things and sustaining
all growth. But Kazantzakis does not stop there; he derives from nature,
and especially from those who work the soil, essential lessons that can
become foundations in building individual character and communal life.
Together with the fruits of the earth come the earth-hewn wisdom of the
farmers, shepherds, artisans, and all those who work the earth’s infinite
matter. (p. 20)
Maskaleris, together with those who have helped him put this volume
together, has sought to place Kazantzakis and his creative talent within
the framework of our contemporary ethical and environmental concerns
over the future of our planet. This book contains essays and reflections
by such well-known activists as Bill McKibben, Jane Goodall, Carl Sagan,
John Muir, Loren Eiseley, and Jean-Michel Cousteau, Michael Pastore,
as well as brief quotations from such well-known thinkers as Thoreau,
Emerson, and St. Francis of Assisi.
The book also includes a very thought-provoking essay by a Dr. Michael
Charles Tobias entitled “Kazantzakis, Crete, and Biodiversity.” This essay
provides the reader with a plethora of information about the flora and
fauna of the island of Crete, as well as about its animal diversity and his-
tory, from the Minoans right up to the present. Tobias concludes:
Kazantzakis got it right, in one masterpiece after another, and all those on
Crete, across Greece, and throughout the world, can look to this aston-
ishing artist and see in his visionary environmentalism a message more
vital, more relevant, more crucial today than ever before. He saw what
was coming. He told it from the perspective of a flying fish that transcends
its world; from the vantage of an eagle who looks down at the world…
with perspectives spanning all horizons. But as one who also inhabits those
horizons. (p. 81)
PART II
Human Dynamics
Although the three themes of Kazantzakis’s philosophy around which I

have chosen to structure this exploration are in many ways inextricably
interrelated, it does make some sense to consider them independently,
if only to demonstrate how Report to Greco itself came to be structured
around these three themes. The focus of this Part will be on the charac-
ter of, and the interrelations among, various individuals, and groups of
people involved in his stories. Unlike the previous examinations, these
will be centered on the inter-dynamics of these individual characters and
groups of people with an eye to discerning their particular motivations
and decisions.
CHAPTER 6
Freedom or Death
This novel takes place on Crete during its people’s struggle to extricate
themselves from the 400-year domination and oppression of the Turkish
Ottoman Empire. The title of this book varies from publisher to pub-
lisher, with the British publisher preferring Freedom and Death and the
American publisher that of Freedom or Death. I have decided that both
versions make sense in relation to its theme and in regard to the final
scene of the story, although the text of that scene in both publications
does, in fact, say “Freedom or Death.” In any case, we shall be exploring
the various people and places that comprise this story, both with an eye
to tracing the dynamics of the individual characters and in an endeavor
to discern Kazantzakis’s overall view of humankind.
The Isle of Crete has known a great many wars. Its history goes back
to the mysterious Minoans, who were conquered by the Mycenaeans,
who in turn gave way to the Greek civilization. Then, all through the
wars between Persia, Alexander the Great, the Venetians, and finally the
dominance of the Islamic Ottoman Empire, Crete stood as the 50 yard
line between all these warring factions. It was even dominated for a time
by the various powers of North Africa and thus acquired a strong Arabic
influence and flavor. So, in a very real sense, Crete has never been free
until very recent times.
Although a part of Greece itself was liberated from Turkish rule by the
European powers in the late 1800s, Crete remained under Turkish dom-
inance until early in the nineteenth century. The novel Freedom and/or
Death takes place during one of the conflicts in the late 1800s between

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-93833-2_6
36 J. H. GILL
the dominant Turkish rulers and the passionately patriotic Cretans.

Nearly every decade had seen such a revolt on the part of the Cretan
people, and this, too, will meet the same fate as the previous efforts.
The story is laid out as a personal conflict between the powerful Turkish
warrior Nuri Bey and Captain Michales, an unofficial yet acknowledged
leader of the people of Iraklion, Crete’s capital city.
Before going ahead with our examination of the role of humanity in
Kazantzakis’s worldview, we might take a minute to note a couple of ref-
erences to the importance of the natural world in this novel. Nuri Bey
has a powerful and lovely horse, which signifies his connection to the
animal dimension of reality. Kazantzakis, in fact, connects the beauty
of this horse with that of Nuri Bey’s wife, or “hanum” (pp. 12–16).
The identification between and conflict over the horse and the woman
focuses one of the main themes of the novel. Captain Michales both
admires Nuri Bey’s horse and woman, while also envying and resenting
him for having them.
There are also numerous references to landscapes, sunsets and rises,
rain, as well as to the diverse foods comprising the Cretan cuisine in this
fast-moving story. Kazantzakis always has an eye for the natural world,
but only as a backdrop for his characters and their activities. Crete
has regularly been plagued by forceful earthquakes, and one makes its
appearance on pages 105ff. People on Crete have historically attributed
these calamities to God, and this story is no exception. Captain Michales
simply attributes the earthquake to the fact that Crete is a living, moving
reality that has a will of its own.
There is one prominent example of this thematic pattern concerning
the natural world in Freedom or Death. This pertains to the way Crete
itself is personified as a living being. In one place, when Captain Michales
is reflecting on his love for Crete, he says: “He loved Crete like a living
warm creature with a speaking mouth and weeping eyes; a Crete that
consisted not of rocks and clods and roots, but of thousands of forefa-
thers and foremothers, who never died and who gathered every Sunday
in the churches” (p. 244).
Or again, when Kosmas, one of Captain Michales’s nephews, was
returning to Crete by ship: “Kosmas could now clearly distinguish,
behind Megalo Kastro [the common name for Iraklion], the celebrated
mountain Iuchtas, with its human shape; a gigantic head lying on the
ground among olives and vineyards, with a high, bold forehead, a bony
nose, a wide mouth, and a beard of bluffs and boulders. It lay there, a
6 FREEDOM OR DEATH 37
dead, pale-moon, marble god” (p. 384). I cannot resist noting how I
myself, on my returning visits to Crete, stood on the deck of the ship
and watched with joy this silhouette appear on the horizon.
Finally: “The face of Crete is stern and weathered. Truly, Crete has
about her something primeval and holy, bitter and proud, to have given
birth to all those mothers, so often stricken by Charos, and all those
palikaris [mountain warriors]” (p. 56). It is difficult, if not impossible, to
walk the roads and hike the mountains of Crete without feeling something
of its chaotic and tragic history, and of its vast suffering. In many ways, it is
like a world of its own, full of magic, wonder, blood, and pain. Even more
so, when one talks with the people of Crete, as I have been privileged to
do, one cannot help but see both their suffering and deep zest for life.
Now, to move along. A convenient matrix for tracking the various
dimensions of the human reality in this, or perhaps any, novel includes
such relationships as: (1) individuals in one-to-one interaction (often
gender-related), (2) families and tribal groups, (often in conflict), and
(3) national and international interactions (often involving warfare).
Applying this matrix in Freedom and/or Death we find several cru-
cial individual relationships forming the dynamic that is this story. The
main individual one would clearly seem to be that between Captain
Michales and Nuri Bey. Another is that between Nuri Bey and his wife
or “hanum.” At the end of the story, Captain Michales also turns out to
have to deal with a gender situation as well.
In addition, there are several such relationships between and among
various friends and family members on both the Muslim and Christian
sides. Also, the overall drama of the story is the socio-political conflict
between the Turkish occupying forces and the Cretan inhabitants of the
island. This has been a very long-term situation, with many struggles,
revolts, and concessions having been endured. At the center of these
dynamics has stood the religious differences between the occupying
forces and the Cretan citizenry. Freedom is dreamt of by the latter for
literally centuries.
So, with this background in place, we can embark on our exploration
of Kazantzakis’s overall portrayal of humanity and human relations. The
story starts right out with a conflict between Captain Michales and his
nephew, who will not be able to return to Crete as soon as was expected
because he is “studying.” “He’s studying, he says …What the devil is
he studying? He’ll come back like his uncle Tityros the school master!
A seedy creature with a hollow rump” (p. 9).
38 J. H. GILL
It is not hard to see the origin of this literary relationship between

Captain Michales and his studious nephew in Kazantzakis’s relation-
ship with his own father, after whom the character Captain Michales is
patterned. His own father never really respected young Nikos’s deci-
sion to continue his studies by going abroad, first to France and then to
Germany. Moreover, Kazantzakis’s descriptions of his father in Report to
Greco strongly parallel those of Captain Michales in the present book.
This may be the main reason Kazantzakis always lived with a complex
over having ended up as a “pen-pusher” rather than as a man of action.
To return to the juxtaposition of Captain Michales and Nuri Bey, as
the main axis of the first half of the story, we see that they were born in
the same village and played together throughout their childhood, even
though one was a Christian and the other a Muslim. Indeed, as youths
they bonded themselves together as “blood brothers” in their teen-
age years. This involved drinking each other’s blood and swearing never
to harm the other. Although the city of Megalo Kastro was divided into
regions separating the Cretan Christians from the largely Turkish Muslims,
in the villages the two faiths, as well as the races, were intermixed.
The first encounter that we see between these two arresting characters
takes place on page 22 when Nuri Bey demands that Captain Michales
order his brother Manusakas, to stop taunting the Muslims in his village.
“‘Your brother Manusakas,’ he said, ‘scoffs at Turkey. The day before
yesterday, March 25, he was drunk again, hoisted an ass on to his back
and took it into the Mosque to pray. I came in from the village and
found all my people beside themselves. Your people were armed, there
was serious trouble brewing. I’m telling you this, Captain Michales, so
that you will not make a fuss later. It was my duty to tell you, and yours
to listen. Do as God directs you’” (p. 22).
Before Captain Michales left Nuri Bey’s home the latter invited his new
wife, Emine, to dance and sing for them. She was a beautiful yet mysteri-
ous woman from Circassia, on the coast of the Black Sea. Captain Michales
was deeply moved by this woman, and later she becomes the center of a
deep struggle within his heart. He is so overcome by her presence that
he places two fingers in his wine glass, spreads them with all his might,
breaking the glass to pieces. Emine immediately challenges her husband
“Can you do that?” she yells at Nuri Bey. After having yet another drink
together, Captain Michales promises to do what Nuri Bey asked and leaves.
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CHAPTER IX
Christmas at Sea and George the Greek’s
Story
After losing the south-east trades we had light winds and fine
weather with smooth calm sea until we sighted the Falkland Islands;
standing like two silent sentinels of that stormy region of the South
Atlantic Ocean, they have been the scene of many a shipwreck. A
cold, bleak, inhospitable rock-bound coast, around which almost
perpetual gales blow. There are two large islands and several
smaller ones with an area of about thirteen thousand square miles,
very mountainous, situated in latitude 51° 40′ south, longitude 59°
30′ west. They are right in the track of vessels going to and fro
around Cape Horn.
We sighted the islands on Christmas Eve, my first Christmas at
sea. It being summer time, we had twenty-two hours daylight, and
very little darkness. The sun rose at 3 a.m., and set at 11 p.m. The
mountains on the island were covered with pure white dazzling snow,
while in the valleys you could see cattle grazing in beautiful green
pastures, and the rocks by the water’s edge were literally covered
with seals.
Christmas day broke fine and clear, with the most beautiful sunrise
human eyes had ever gazed upon. I have been in many parts of the
world since then, but never have I beheld a sky like that on
Christmas morning off the Falkland Islands. No words could describe
it, for it was indescribable. There was just a gentle breeze, the sea
rising and falling in gentle undulations, with a soft murmuring sound,
whitened by the ivory of crumbling foam, then shaken into sparkle as
though a rain of splintered diamonds was falling, each breath
bringing with it the smell of the kelp from the rock-bound coast. The
sky to the westward was slightly overcast, thinning out towards the
meridian—and towards the east small feathery patches of cloud
floated about in a silver sea, while down near the horizon it was a
clear soft grey. Then the wonderful sight burst upon us, heralding the
rising of the sun the most magnificent coloured rays spread over the
sky. It would need a painter’s brush, and a poet’s language to
describe their beauty. The watch on deck actually called out to the
watch below to come and see it, it seemed to me a fitting scene to
celebrate the day on which the Saviour of the world was born. Many
years have passed since I stood spellbound by that sight, and my
Christmas days have been spent in many lands, but it is as fresh in
my mind as though it were yesterday, and every Christmas day has
brought back the memory of that glorious sunrise off the Falklands.
About eight a.m. the breeze freshened from the eastward, and the
“Stormy Petrel” had every stitch of canvas set, and was making
about ten knots per hour. A course was set for the Straits of Le
Maire, which separate Staten Island from the southern extremity of
the South American Continent. We washed the decks before
breakfast, and from then the day was as a Sunday. The captain
ordered the steward to give us soft tack for breakfast, a luxury you
don’t often get at sea, and an eight bell dinner for all hands in honour
of the day, with a bottle of rum to each watch.
We heard eight bells strike with more relish than usual, as the
captain screwed the sun’s meridian altitude on his sextant, and the
second mate glanced across and actually smiled from the weather
side of the poop. Then forrard one of the men and I went to the
galley for the kids, or food tins. Chaff and good humour were the
order of the day at the galley door, and I rather think cook was not
sorry when it was all over. Then followed the tramp tramp along the
deck with the steaming kids, and at last we had the food all served
up and sat down to eat it. There was real fresh pork, none ever
tasted so sweet, rice soup and potatoes, followed by plum duff, real
genuine plum pudding, with some left over for tea. This was a luxury,
and we made the most of it and for once at sea we had a meal which
made us satisfied with ourselves and things in general. We cleared
away and put things tidy. The day passed away very quietly among
the men, and after supper, the weather being fine, they all sat round
the fore-hatch and spun yarns, real sailors’ yarns, not stories of
goblins and ghosts, but real stern facts out of their own hard lives.
Before they started they tossed up who should begin, and the lot fell
to old George the Greek, and thus he began his story, which was the
best of all.
George the Greek’s Story.
“When I was a boy I lived with my parents at Smyrna. My father
was a fisherman, and I often used to go with him in his boat. I was
passionately fond of the water and all things connected with it, fond
of athletics, and could swim, run, jump or wrestle with any boy in
Smyrna, and was utterly fearless. All the fishermen of the port knew
me and were very good to me.
“My dear old father and mother were good, God-fearing people.
Their dearest and most honoured friend was good Padre Nicola. The
dear old Padre, how he loved me and watched over my young life.
He taught me, with other lessons, to be a brave loving boy, and when
I was old enough he taught me to sing in the little church that his
loving flock had built for him, it was just outside Smyrna on the road
to Ephesus. Often when he came to our house and sat in the little
garden that was so full of flowers and sweet-scented herbs, he would
pat me on the head and say he hoped and prayed that I would grow
up a good man, and a comfort and help to my dear father and
mother.
“Oh, Jesu Christi,” he groaned, and for a few minutes he could not
speak, but after a while he controlled himself and proceeded:
“When I was fourteen years old, an old friend of my father’s,
Captain Petri, came to Smyrna in his brig the ‘Alexanovitch.’ He was
a dear old man, he and my father were boys together in Patras, and
they had not met for years. He spent all his spare time at my little
home and took a great fancy to me. He soon found out that I was
fond of the sea, and asked my father to let me go with him, promising
he would watch over me and treat me as his own son, and make a
sailor of me too. My father and mother were very loth to part with me,
but Captain Petri had no son or daughter of his own, and they knew
he would do all he had promised for me.
“So they spoke to the Padre about it. The dear old man said how
sorry he, too, would be to lose me from the choir of the little church,
but it was a good chance for me. He would pray the good God to
bless me, and keep me good and true, and so, to my delight, it was
settled that I was to go with Captain Petri in the ‘Alexanovitch.’
“My poor mother was heartbroken to lose her boy, for deep down
in her heart she had hoped to see me settle at home, and become
the village schoolmaster, but it was not to be.
“The following week was both a busy and a happy one for me, the
happiest week of my life. The choir of the church in which I had now
sung for several years got up a grand supper and the dear old Padre
took the chair. What good wishes were given to me, what earnest
prayers for my future. They presented me with a beautiful Douay
Bible and Missal with my name on the fly leaf, written by the dear
Padre himself. Oh, it was a cursed day for me when I left the place
and home I loved so well.
“The brig ‘Alexanovitch’ was 300 tons register and carried a crew
of eight all told, the captain, mate, cook, four seamen and one boy.
“The following week saw me on board with my kit, I was to receive
20 drachmas per month. I was delighted, I seemed a rich man all at
once, my word but I did.
“We sailed at last for Alexandria, and my poor old father
accompanied me in his boat as far as Khios. Little he or I thought we
should never meet again. We had a pleasant twenty days voyage to
Egypt, the ‘Alexanovitch’ was anything but a fast sailor, in fact, the
greatest speed we could get out of her was seven knots an hour.
“On our arrival we went direct to the wharf, and discharged the
cargo with the crew. We were three weeks at Alexandria and every
night Captain Petri would take me with him and show me all the
wonderful places in that famous ancient city, that was built by
Alexander the Great. We visited the palaces of the Pashas, the
Mosques, Arsenal, etc., I could not now remember one half of the
places we went to. It would take many months, and much money to
explore and see all the sights of Alexandria. It is said that in the year
640 A.D., when the Saracenic General Amer conquered the city, in his
report to his royal master, the Caliph, he said he had found four
thousand palaces, four thousand baths, forty thousand Jews paying
tribute, four hundred royal circuses, and twelve thousand gardeners
who supplied the city with herbs and vegetables. To my young mind
it was all so wonderful and never having been out of Smyrna, I was a
little bewildered with all I saw.
“By this time our cargo was discharged, and we had loaded again
for Constantinople, and on leaving Alexandria we had a succession
of gales of wind, in which the old brig got terribly knocked about, and
this was the beginning of our troubles. When we were off the Island
of Rhodes, our boats were washed away by a heavy sea, and a
considerable amount of damage was done about the deck. Then off
the Island of Patmos, the mate was washed overboard and drowned,
and every man on board was bruised and sore with the buffeting. To
make matters still worse, when we were off Cape Sagri, poor old
Captain Petri was knocked down by a heavy sea and injured, and all
through the Dardanelles the bad weather continued.
“When we arrived at Constantinople our crew was completely worn
out, Captain Petri was taken seriously ill, and had to leave the ship. I
was very sorry to part from him, but was getting more confidence in
myself, and so resolved to stop by the vessel.
“The agent appointed another captain. He was a Turk, a native of
Havac on the Bosphorus. He was a tall strong looking young man,
with a long pointed moustache, and a villainous look on his face, and
as was afterwards proved, his face was a true index to his character.
“We lay four weeks at Constantinople. The men asked me to go on
shore with them, and I was unable to refuse, as they said they would
show me round, and they did, but may Heaven’s curse fall upon
them. They took me into all the dens of infamy, among the lowest of
the low in that terrible city of corruption and vice. They taught me to
forget all the good my dear old mother had taught me at her knee,
and made me laugh at words that the dear old Padre had spoken so
reverently.”
Again the old man broke down with the agony of remembrance.
“Oh, Jesu Christi,” he murmured, “why did I leave the dear home,
and the mother who was so proud of me, and who loved me so.
Never again have I looked on her sweet face, or heard her voice,
never again have I sat in the little church and heard the dear Padre’s
blessing. For forty long years have I roamed around the world, but
never again have I looked on those dear faces that I loved so well.
But God is good, and some say that I may see them in that land
where all these things are forgotten and forgiven.”
For a few minutes he was silent, lost in memories of the past, then
he continued:
“We finished loading at last, and then hauled out to the anchorage
off Scutari, and that evening while at anchor, at about nine-thirty
p.m., a small boat came off from the shore, containing an old Turkish
gentleman and a boy. He climbed on board very smartly for his
apparent age, and asked for the captain. I called the captain, who at
once came, and after a few remarks were passed at the gangway, he
asked him into the cabin. They were there about half an hour, when,
going in suddenly, I saw the visitor paying over some money to the
captain, they came out shortly afterwards, and the gentleman was
pulled back to the shore.
“We were bound for Algiers and Morocco, and were to heave up
the anchor at daylight. About 2 a.m. a boat pulled off from the
‘Golden Horn,’ and came alongside, in it was the same old
gentleman who had visited us earlier in the evening. He had with him
two large portmanteaux and one small handbag. The portmanteaux
were handed up, but he would not part with the handbag. As soon as
he was on board, orders were given to heave up the anchor, and
setting all sail, we stood out of the Bosphorus, and shaped our
course for the Sea of Marmora.
“When breakfast time came, the passenger told me to bring his
breakfast to his room, I did so, and he never left his room or came on
deck for one moment all that day. This caused a lot of talk amongst
the crew. Like most small coasters, we all had our food together, and
during the meals the talk was generally about the passenger and his
luggage. It was suggested by the captain that the passenger had
robbed a bank or something else, and that his luggage contained the
proceeds of the robbery, and he added, ‘as we are helping him to
escape, we ought to have a share of the plunder.’ All hands heartily
agreed to this suggestion.
“We had a fresh breeze across the Sea of Marmora, and entered
the Dardanelles with a moderate gale after us. The following day we
cleared the Dardanelles, and with a brisk gale from the north we
stood towards Tenedos Island. That morning, while we were at
breakfast, the cook said he had peeped through the keyhole during
the night, and had seen the Turkish passenger putting a lot of jewels
into a body belt out of his small bag. From that moment he was a
marked man, his fate was sealed. When off Tenedos it was blowing
hard with a big sea running, and the old brig laboured heavily, the
passenger came out of his room, and asked the captain to land him
at Mitylene, as he felt very ill. While he was talking to the captain, the
brig gave a heavy lurch, pitching him head first against the bulkhead,
stunning him for a moment. As soon as he fell the captain sprang
into the room, and began looking for the small handbag. Whilst he
was searching for it, the passenger revived, and seeing the captain
in his room, he drew his revolver and fired at him, wounding him in
the leg. The captain closed with him at once, and in a moment,
hearing the shot, all hands rushed into the cabin, and seeing the
captain and passenger struggling together they sprang to the
assistance of the captain, and drove their knives into the
passenger’s body.
“It was all done in a moment, and the old man lay dead at the feet
of his murderers. They looked at one another for a moment, then,
after a consultation, it was decided to throw the body overboard. But
before doing so, the mate sent one of the men, who had taken part in
the murder, to relieve the man at the wheel, when this man came into
the cabin, the mate told him to stick his knife into the body, so that all
should share alike. This the man did without a moment’s hesitation.
The captain turned to me, his eyes glaring fiercely and said:—‘Here,
boy, come and do your part.’ I drew back and refused, but he seized
me by the throat, and threatened to serve me the same as the
passenger, if I did not do so. I knew too well he would put his threat
into execution if I either hesitated or refused, so I took my sheath
knife and drove it into the poor body, but thank God he never felt my
blow.
“The body was then thrown overboard, and the blood mopped up
off the cabin floor. During this time the old brig had been racing along
before a gale of wind under the full topsail and foresail, and yawing
about very badly, it was quite impossible to steer her straight. The
weather, too, was becoming hazy. The passenger’s luggage was
then brought on deck and examined. The small bag was nearly full of
jewellery, mostly diamonds, the portmanteaux contained some
clothing, a lot of gold and silver coins, and several rolls of parchment
and notes. Just at this time the brig broached to, and shipped a very
heavy sea. All hands now rushed on deck and set to to shorten sail.
The weather got worse and worse and the sea was getting
dangerous, so the captain decided to run to leeward off Mitylene and
shelter.
“After the sail had been reduced and the brig made snug, the crew
all gathered together in the little cabin. I was sent to the wheel. The
night was pitch dark, and the vessel had no light hung out, the only
one on deck was the small light on the binnacle.
“The money and valuables were then spread out on the table in
the cabin, and divided amongst them. But for some reason or other
they fell out over the division. The captain to quieten them brought
out some bottles of spirits, but no sooner had the spirits begun to
take effect than they charged the captain with taking part of the
diamonds while they’ were aloft at the sails. This he denied, although
at the time he had the body belt full of the diamonds and jewellery on
his person, which he had taken off the dead body while they were
aloft. In an instant knives were drawn and the captain was stabbed to
death. Then pandemonium reigned supreme.
“The night was dark as Erebus, the brig was rushing along wildly, I
could not keep her on her course. I called and called to be relieved,
but no one heeded me. They were by this time all mad drunk,
gloating over the spoils. The body of the dead captain still lay on the
deck. The mate gave it a kick, and in doing so heard something clink.
In an instant he was on his knees and found the body belt and the
jewels.
“‘Share! Share!’ cried all, but half crazed with drink, the mate
refused. Then the others rushed at him with their knives. He sprang
on one side, and rushed on deck by the wheel. Here they closed with
him and a terrible scuffle took place. In a few minutes the cook and
one man got up, leaving the mate and three seamen dead on the
deck. I was terrified, and could scarcely hold on to the wheel.
“There were only the two men and myself left on board. They went
back into the cabin, taking no notice of me, and just as they left the
deck I saw broken water on the bow. I called out to them, but before
the words were out of my mouth the ship crashed on to the rocks of
Cape Segre, Mitylene Island. As she struck end on, a tremendous
sea came over the stern and washed me clean over the side among
the rocks. I managed to swim to the back of one large rock, and
found myself in smooth water, and was able to climb up out of the
water. The old brig had gone to pieces, at once. I never saw a
vestige of the two men or heard a single cry. I think they were killed
as she struck. They had died in their sins—died drunk, with the awful
crime of murder on their souls. Judgment had come swiftly. God’s
vengeance had been sharp and sure.
“I lay on the lee side of the large rock where I had landed, until
daylight. I had escaped without a scratch. God had taken care of me.
“At daylight I swam to the mainland of Mitylene, and made my way
to the town of Gavatha on the north side of the island, and reported
the loss of the vessel. I was at once put into some dry clothes and a
good meal put before me, and a party was despatched to the scene
of the wreck to see if any more of the crew had escaped. But there
were none left to tell the tale but me. I did not mention the
passenger, or what had taken place before the wreck. I was too
afraid, I did not know what to do, for they might not believe my story.
I felt I could never go home again, never look into my dear mother’s
face again, or hear the dear old Padre’s blessing, or feel his hand
upon my head. The next day I was very ill, and one of the fishermen
put me to bed in his cottage and bade me sleep and rest.
“In a few days I was better, and the good folk asked me where I
lived and the name of the lost vessel, and offered to keep me there
until my people were communicated with. I agreed to that and
thanked them heartily, but made up my mind not to go home.
“I found a vessel loading there for Liverpool, and went on board
with the labourers the day before she sailed, and when an
opportunity offered I stowed away in the hold. The vessel sailed next
day, and a few hours after leaving port I was discovered, but the
officers did not touch me, they seemed sorry for me. So I worked my
way round to Liverpool, and got a ship there bound for California.
The day before we sailed from Liverpool I saw a Greek sailor that I
had known in Smyrna, but I hid myself and got clear away.
“For forty-five years I have roamed about the world, but from that
day to this I have never heard one word from home or parents.”
CHAPTER X
Rounding Cape Horn
Just as George the Greek had finished his story we heard the mate
calling to shorten sail. All hands sprang up in a minute. For us
Christmas was over—the wind had increased rapidly and the sky
had assumed a very threatening appearance. The sea soon rises off
Cape Horn, and in a very short time it was rolling mountains high,
and breaking on board with terrific effect. The barque was at once
reduced to lower topsails and foresail. The captain had been steering
to pass through the Straits of Le Maire, but the wind chopping into
the south-west, made him alter his mind and pass to the eastward of
Staten Island.
So far we had been sheltered while to leeward of the island, but as
soon as we opened out into the Pacific we got a most terrible
dressing down. The sea rolled down like mountains. In no part of the
world do you meet with such gigantic rollers as off Cape Horn, and it
looked as though every sea that came along must engulf the “Stormy
Petrel.” The crew were kept employed re-fastening and re-lashing
things about the deck, everything moveable was put into a place of
safety and thoroughly secured. The sea was making clean sweeps
over her. Then the wind backed into the west-northwest and blew a
perfect hurricane. There was no comfort for anyone on board, the
sky was clear as a bell, and the immense rollers were a sight to see.
The gale continued with unabated fury, the water falling on the deck
in huge green seas, sometimes it seemed as if she had settled
down, then she rolled and rose gradually; the water washing from
side to side like cataracts until about a foot of water was on the deck.
Day after day and week after week were we striving to get round that
terrible Cape, but like “Vanderdecken,” in the old legend of the flying
Dutchman, who swore that no power in heaven or hell should hinder
him from entering Table Bay off the Cape of Good Hope, and for this
oath was condemned for ever to beat about the entrance, but was
never able to enter, so for six long weary weeks we were plodding at
it, heartsore and limbsore with not a ray to comfort or cheer us.
One morning, just as we were about to wear ship, a gigantic sea
struck her on the side between the for and main mast, the top of it
going clean over the ship and the spray actually going over the upper
topsail yard.
On Sunday, the first day of the seventh week since we passed
Staten Island, the wind suddenly shifted into the south, and began to
blow just as hard as ever. This caused a terrible cross sea, which
was very nearly fatal to the “Stormy Petrel” as well as to some of our
crew. We had just wore ship, and were about to set the upper
topsails, when I saw a terrific sea rolling up on the weather quarter. I
sang out for all I was worth to everybody on deck to hold tight—the
words were hardly out of my lips when the sea broke over the stern. I
just managed to spring into the rigging out of the way. First the sea
engulfed the man at the wheel, tearing him from it, and washing him
overboard, then it swept the cabin skylight off in pieces, smashed the
raised part of the cabin flat on the deck and flooded the deck fore
and aft. When the helmsman was killed and washed overboard, the
ship’s head swung round to the westward and brought the terrible
cross sea abeam, and almost before we realized our position
another sea broke on board, just abaft the fore rigging, striking the
cookhouse fairly on the side, smashing it up like so much
matchwood and crushing to death two men who had taken shelter
there. In the meantime the captain had sprung to the wheel, I
dropped from the rigging and went to his assistance. By God’s mercy
there was a lull for a minute, and the gallant little vessel swung off to
her course, but for a few moments it looked doubtful if she could
clear herself of the water on her deck, but a great headless sea
came rolling along under the weather quarter almost throwing her on
her beam ends and emptying the water off her. I looked along the
deck and everything forward of the mainmast was swept clean. The
cookhouse, the pigstye, the hencoop, a sheep-pen that had been
built on the fore-hatch, all were gone, leaving not a stick to show
even where they had stood. The forecastle also had been gutted by
the sea and most of the sailors’ effects washed overboard.
“Loose the foresail,” sang out the captain at the wheel.
“Aye, aye, sir,” answered George the Greek, and the big
Frenchman together, springing up and casting off the lashing. The
sail was set, and the storm-battered “Stormy Petrel” bounded on her
way.
“All hands lay aft!” called out the mate.
When the men got aft to the poop the roll was called, and it was
found that three of the men were missing. The Manilla man, Antonio
Lopez, was washed overboard from the wheel, two of the Turks,
Enrico Hermos and Suleman Sulemore were killed and washed
overboard with the cookhouse. We were indeed in a sad plight, but
we did not stand long idle, the boats were gone, the cookhouse had
gone, and we had lost nearly all our clothes, but we all set to with a
will and made the best of it.
The weather moderated a bit, and we turned to unbending the old
sails, and getting up the new ones, for a ship, unlike people on shore
puts on her best clothes in bad weather, and we were soon on our
way before a favourable wind. Captain Glasson had also given us a
stock of clothes out of the slop chest onboard.
Next the carpenter put up a temporary cookhouse, and we made
some cooking utensils out of some empty paint and oil drums. It is
said that necessity is the mother of invention, that was so, for in this
case we made some wonderful and useful cooking pots.
We had a good spell of fine weather that carried us up to abreast
of Valparaiso, and on the Sunday, there being no work done, all
hands turned to and cleared up the forecastle. The wet and soiled
clothes were brought out on deck, the chests moved, brooms,
buckets of water, swabs, scrubbing brushes and scrapers were
carried down and used with a right good will until the floor was once
more as white as chalk, and everything neat and in order. The
bedding from the berths was spread on deck to dry and air, the deck
tub filled with water, and a grand washing began of all the clothes
brought out. Shirts, drawers, trousers, jackets, stockings of every
shape and colour, wet, dirty, and many of them mouldy from having
been left in a wet foul corner since the storm, all were well scrubbed
and washed and then made fast to the rigging to dry. Wet boots and
shoes were put in sunny places on deck to dry and the ship looked
like a floating laundry. Then we had what sailors call a freshwater
wash, which means each one gives a little of his allowance of fresh
water, this is all put into buckets and one after the other uses the
same water to loosen the grime and dirt off the skin, and finishes off
with buckets of salt water being thrown over each other, then, having
shaved and combed and put on clean dry shirts and trousers, we sat
down in the clean forecastle, which, with us, looked several degrees
lighter for its clean up. We spent the rest of the day reading, talking
and sewing at our ease. At sunset all the clothes, boots, bedding,
etc., were taken in, and we felt we had got back to the pleasant part
of a sailor’s life and hoped it would continue. But, alas for these
hopes—the very next day we got a nasty set back, the wind
suddenly died away, and after a few hours calm, it sprang up from
the north-west, and in a couple of hours was blowing a perfect
hurricane. The sea rose just as quickly, and the “Stormy Petrel” was
soon reaching on the starboard tack, and burying herself in the sea.
When midnight came the sea was running mountains high again,
threatening all that came in its path with destruction.
Just as the watch was being relieved, the lookout reported a ship
on the weather beam, and directly afterwards another on the
starboard or weather bow. Both ships seemed to be running before
the gale, the one on the bow was under topsails and foresails, the
ship abeam had her topgallant sail set and seemed to be coming
straight for us. All hands stood watching to see them pass.
When the weather ship, which appeared to be light, got within a
couple of miles of us she appeared to haul to the eastward to pass
astern of us, but when she came within a mile of us, those on board
seemed to change their minds and she shewed us her red light only.
The next moment, to the surprise and horror of all on board, the ship
broached to and as the enormous pressure of wind and sea was
brought to bear on her side, she capsized and sank at once with all
on board. There was not a moment to get a boat out; they were all
launched into eternity without a moment’s warning. We were
powerless to help, having lost our boats, and if we had had the best
boats in the world, they could not have lived in such a sea. What
caused that terrible accident will never be known, there are so many
causes to bring about such a disaster—bad and careless steering,
broken steering gear, the helmsman may have been thrown over the
wheel and hurt, as so very often happens, but whatever the cause, it
was a terrible sight to see, and at the same time to be unable to
render any assistance. It cast a gloom over our crew, and brought
back to our memory the very narrow escape we had had, when in
just such a storm we had lost three of our shipmates off Cape Horn.
The following day the wind veered into the south-west, and again
we stood on our course. Soon we had all sail set, and were making a
good ten knots per hour. We passed close to the island of Juan
Fernandez, made famous by Defoe as the island home of Robinson
Crusoe, or, as his real name was, Alexander Selkirk, and his man
Friday. The island is so situated as to make a splendid setting to that
most interesting story, standing as it does in the South Pacific, about
400 miles from the coast of Chili, and about twenty-five miles long
and about four in breadth. The land is very high, rising in rugged
peaks. One of them, called Yunque, being 3,500 feet above the level
of the sea. The peaks are generally overhung with clouds, and the
valleys are very fertile, the grass growing to a height of six and eight
feet. The most delicious fruits grow in abundance, and in their
season the trees are loaded with figs, peaches, and cherries, the
valleys and hillside being crowded with trees. An immense number of
goats run wild on the island, and an abundance of fish is taken on
every coast, while the water is obtained from the never failing rivulets
that trickle down the rugged rocks like threads of silver from the
cloud-capped mountains. All things considered, Robinson Crusoe
must have had a good time during his stay there.
All hands were now employed getting the cargo gear ready for
use; there were strops to make, pennants to overhaul, purchase
blocks to examine, and scores of other jobs to do before we reached
Callao, but, as most of our deck stores had been washed overboard,
and lost off the Horn, we could only wash her down, having no paint
to put on her. Many think a ship is in her finest condition when she
leaves port for a long voyage, not so, far from that, for unless a ship
meets with a bad accident, or comes upon the coast in the dead of
winter, when it is impossible to do work upon the rigging or, like us,
loses her deck stores, she is generally in her finest order at the end
of the voyage, and captains and mates alike stake their reputation for
seamanship upon the appearance of their ship when they haul into
dock. Everything from the rigging to the forecastle is scraped and
scrubbed, painted or varnished, the rust is pounded off the chains,
bolts, and fastenings, everything that is useless is thrown overboard,
then, add to this all the neat work about the rigging that only a sailor
can understand—the knots, flemish-eyes, splices, seizings,
coverings, pointings, and graffings—which shew a ship in the best of
order, and then that which looked still more like coming into port, the
getting the anchor over the bows, bending the cables, rousing the
hawsers up from between decks, and overhauling the deep-sea lead
line.
Then another thing, the voyage being nearly over, everybody is in
the best of spirits, the strictness of discipline is relaxed, for
everything is done with a cheery goodwill, the little differences and
quarrels that crop up during a voyage are forgotten, everybody
seems friendly, even Mr. Ross, the second mate, who had been like
a bear with a sore head since we left Liverpool, unbent and smiled at
the little jokes that passed round amongst the men. From each and
all the strain was lifted as we dropped anchor in the Bay of Callao,
after a passage of one hundred and thirty-five days.
CHAPTER XI
Callao and San Lorenzo
My first sight of Callao was not one to endear it to my memory, for it

is a dirty, unwholesome-looking town, and, as is well known, one of
the most immoral places under the sun. Formerly it stood on the
open coastline, six miles from the city of Lima, and is the port of call
for this, the Peruvian capital. It had then no harbour, but is now a
fortified seaport, situated on a river of the same name. In 1871 there
was a population of 20,000, mostly seafaring. A railway links the port
and capital together, passing at first through the centre of the streets
of Callao, the station being merely a house in the street, opposite to
which the train stops either to take up or set down passengers. The
houses are built of adobe, and other light material, and as there is
never any rain in this country, they do not need stone buildings. The
valley of the Rimac, in which Lima lies, is not without a certain
vegetation, dusty brown and burnt up it is true, and only obtained by
constant care and irrigation. The fields, too, are surrounded by walls
of adobe, made into blocks and the road following the line lies inches
deep in dust.
When we dropped our anchor, we found over one hundred sailing
ships here of all nationalities, but principally English and American.
They were all anchored in tiers north and south, according to the
nature of their cargo. Our anchor was no sooner down, and the sails
furled than our deck was swarming with the most villainous looking
touts, crimps, and boarding-house masters that ever cheated the
gallows. They defied the master and mates, and walked into the
forecastle, and hauling out some rot-gut they called whiskey, soon
had every sailor on board in a state of stupidity, and actually took
them out of the ship by force, even against the men’s own free will.
Every one of the touts and crimps carried a six chambered revolver
and would not have hesitated to use it if interfered with. There was
no law to appeal to, might was right for the time being, and so before
the anchor had been down an hour every man forrard was cleared
out of the ship. The captain went on shore to complain, and to enter
the ship, but he got no redress. The shipping master told him he
ought to consider himself lucky that the crimps did not steal and
shanghai him too. When he returned on board he brought with him
an English boy about the same age as myself, Alec Taylor by name,
who had been left ill in the hospital from an English ship, and as he
was now quite recovered, the English Consul sent him aboard our
ship for which I was glad.
One of the first things I learnt was that earthquakes were frequent
here, and that much loss of He was caused by them. In the year
1746 what is known as the great earthquake took place, which
demolished three-fourths of the city of Lima, and the town of Callao
sank twenty-five fathoms below the sea. Three thousand seven
hundred people are said to have perished, and the coast line was
entirely changed. On the night of that awful catastrophe, an aged
fisherman, San Lorenzo by name, went out in his boat with his nets
and lines to follow his usual vocation. Never had he felt so loth to
leave his home, a premonition of some coming evil hung over him,
and would not be shaken off, so he more earnestly even than usual
committed his wife and home to the care of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
For days and days there had been a kind of scum over the blue
sky, and the face of the sun was veiled, for all the world as though
you were looking through a smoked glass, and frequent internal
rumblings had been heard in the mountain districts. He did not want
to go out this night, he felt he should like to stay at home, but he was
poor, and there was neither food nor money in the home, and he
must needs go and catch fish. So out he went to the usual fishing
ground—about seven or eight miles south-west of the town. The sea
was calm and peaceful, not a breath of wind stirred the mirror-like
surface of the ocean, all around was calm and still. He had been out
some time, but not a sign of fish was to be seen or felt. The lines lay
slack in the water. The old man grew drowsy, and fearful of some
impending disaster. In the distance he could see faintly the lights of
Callao, and beyond them, in the sky, the reflection of the lights of
Lima City, gay, sparkling Lima, the city of gold and silver. He could
not understand why, but an awful weight seemed to be pressing him
down. His breathing seemed to choke him, what ailed him? Down on
his knees he dropped and with hot, choking, gasping breath he
poured forth his “Ave Maria.” An unnatural, unearthly stillness
gathered all around him. Was he going mad? What was it? Dear
God, what was it? He began frantically to haul in his lines, he would
return to port and home.
“Jesu Christi, help me,” he muttered, a terrible fear clutching at his
heart. Hark, what was that he heard? Was it the surf on the beach?
No, it could not be, there was no swell in the bay, what was that
rumbling noise, like distant thunder? He looked above, but now no
sign of sky or stars could be seen—all was blackness. A choking,
gripping feeling came in his throat. He looked towards the port, but
no sign of lights could be seen. All was thick, black, impenetrable
darkness. Then he thought of his wife and children, and breathing his
“Ave Maria” once more he tugged again at the net and lines, and
began to haul them in. Another loud rumbling sounded in his ears
like peals of thunder, but nearer than when he last heard it. The sea
around him began to bubble like a boiling pot. He sat down choking,
then, to his horror, he found the water beginning to rush away from
his boat on all sides. Suddenly the boat grounded on some hard
substance, the water all vanished from around her, then he found
himself and the boat rising up like a flash, higher and still higher, he
ascended nine hundred and fifty feet above the level of the ocean,
his lines and net still out, but the old fisherman did not mind—his
fishing days were ended, his soul had left the regions of strife.
That night Callao, with its three thousand odd inhabitants, with
barely a moment’s warning, sank beneath the sea, and that same
night a gigantic island arose out of the sea just off the coast, and five
miles from the site of the old town of Callao. The island is nine miles
long, one mile wide and nine hundred and fifty feet high.
Many years after this terrible calamity, some men were surveying
this great island that had been thrown up by the earthquake, and on
the top they found an old fishing boat, and the name still
decipherable upon her, and in the boat were the nets and lines and
the bleached bones of their owner.
The island was called after the old Spanish fisherman, San
Lorenzo, whose end was so sad and lonely, and it now forms the bay
and harbour of the present town of Callao, which is built about three
miles from the position of the old town.
Callao is a typical Spanish American town, and in the native
quarters the houses are, with few exceptions, low and flat-roofed,
built of adobe, but in the business portion, European and American
enterprise is quite apparent in the large banks and public buildings.
Of all places on the earth, Callao, in 1871, was the most immoral
and degraded. It reeked with vice and infamy. As I said before there
were about a hundred sailing ships in the bay, with over two
thousand seamen on board—all long voyagers, and about two-thirds
of these men were on shore every night. The police force was simply
a farce, they winked at crime and immorality in the most open
fashion. Every third house in the place was a drinking den, and the
majority of the men about the town were runners, crimps, and vile
cast offs from other lands. All the human derelicts of the Pacific
seemed to have joined that gathering of beachcombers who infested
the place, and nearly every class of outcast, from an absconding
bank official to a runaway sailor, was to be met with in those streets.
Robbery and murder were the order of the day, seamen were
drugged, stolen from their ships, and shanghaied aboard outward-
bound ships, minus clothes and money. So-called blood money was
paid to the crimps by the shipmasters to secure them a crew when
they were ready to sail. Say, for instance, a shipmaster wanted a
crew of twenty men to work the ship from Callao to Liverpool—a four
months passage. He would be compelled to engage the services of
one of the boarding-house crimps, or runners, to supply him with the
men. Also he would have to advance three months’ wages to each
man. This was paid over to the crimps. The men would be taken
from the boarding-house to the Consul’s to sign the ship’s articles,
they being in such a drugged, drunken condition as to be utterly
unconscious of what agreement they were signing. The men were
put on board the same night in a dead stupor, often without any
clothes but what they had on, and nothing whatever to protect them

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Kazantzakis Philosophical and Theological Thought 1St Ed Edition Jerry H Gill Full Chapter

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Kazantzakis’ Philosophical and

Theological Thought 1st ed. Edition

ISBN 978-3-319-93832-5 ISBN 978-3-319-93833-2 (eBook)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018944597

Cover image: © Matthew Taylor/Alamy Stock Photo

Printed on acid-free paper

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer

I initially encountered the thought of Nikos Kazantzakis in the early

At the beginning of his Prologue to Report to Greco Kazantzakis

Albany, USA Jerry H. Gill

Part I The Patterns of Nature

2 Zorba the Greek 7

3 The Greek Passion 15

Part II Human Dynamics

8 The Greek Passion 63

9 Zorba the Greek 73

Part III The Shape of Divinity

11 The Greek Passion 105

12 The Last Temptation of Christ 119

13 Saviors of God 131

14 Conclusion: The Cretan Glance 143

© The Author(s) 2018 1

lifelong friends. Eventually, he decided against a law career, opting

many of his stories concocted to alleviate their impoverished life at that

At the outset, I should mention that I shall be using Peter Bien’s

The Patterns of Nature

The framework of the novel is entirely naturalistic: animal imagery is

Further on Levitt says that in Freedom or Death “The relationship

Zorba the Greek

The rain continued. Mountaintops were covered over. No wind. Stones

© The Author(s) 2018 7

In Kazantzakis’s eyes the person of Zorba encapsulated and projected

In addition, more than once Kazantzakis images the natural elements

greater detail in Part Three when we consider the “shape of Divinity” in

perspective is in a sense correct, in my own view the sort of writing

The Greek Passion

In England, this novel is titled Christ Recrucified. In addition, a film was

© The Author(s) 2018 15

Thanasis Maskaleris, formerly Professor of Comparative Literature at

Unsurprisingly, Kazantzakis begins yet another story with a descrip-

© The Author(s) 2018 21

At that moment, a butterfly appeared. In the sunlight; it swept earthward

A parallel, yet alternative image is introduced by Kazantzakis when a

Yet, another bird image is introduced by Kazantzakis as Father Yanaros

Kazantzakis’s use of the term “Pancreator” when referring to God

and rich understanding of reality. This sensitivity will be heightened in

My earliest memory of my life is this: still unable to stand, I crept on all

Second, there is the account of his pilgrimage through Greece. He

Third, there is his description of the landscape on his journey to Mount

As rare as such naturalistic passages are in this important volume, they

My dear… yesterday I finished the Spiritual Exercises. Is it good? I don’t

© The Author(s) 2018 27

The “Fourth Step” in Kazantzakis’s call for us to march forward

In addition, as is well known, Kazantzakis went through a period when

All of Kazantzakis’s works contain a plethora of passages about rocks, soil,

Maskaleris’s analysis of Kazantzakis’s works reveals a dimension of the

Although the three themes of Kazantzakis’s philosophy around which I

© The Author(s) 2018 35