2 See P. Bien, Kazantzakis: Politics of the Spirit (Princeton, NJ 1989) 23-53; D. Dombrowski, Kazantzakis and God (Albany, NY 1997) 145-53; B.T. McDonough, Nietzsche and Kazantzakis (Washington, DC 1978); L. Owens, Creative Destruction: Nikos Kazantzakis and the Literature of Responsibility (Macon, GA 2002) 57-8, 69-75, 79-87, 98-100; A. Poulakidis, ‘Kazantzakis's Zorba the Greek and Nietzsche's Thus Spake Zarathustra', Philological Quarterly, XLIX (April 1970) 234-44; and P. Prevelakis, Nikos Kazantzakis and His Odyssey, tr. P. Sherrard, preface K. Friar (New York 1961) 21-62. See also N. Kazantzakis, Report to Greco, tr. P. Bien (New York 1965) 317-39. In addition, see N. Kazantzakis, England: A Travel Journal (New York 1965), 186-99.

3 J. Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge (Minneapolis, MN 1984; French edn., 1979) xxiv; cited in C. Koelb, ‘Introduction: So What's The Story'? in C. Koelb, ed., Nietzsche as Postmodernist: Essays Pro and Contra (Albany, NY 1990) 3.

4 See Koelb, (ed.), Nietzsche as Postmodernist, 5.Google Scholar See also J. Derrida, Spurs, Nietzsche's Styles, tr. B. Harlow (Chicago 1979).

5 See F. Nietzsche, The Gay Science, tr. W. Kaufmann (New York 1974), 181; Kazantzakis, Report to Greco, 327—8.

6 See M. Antonakes, ‘Christ, Kazantzakis, and Controversy in Greece', Modern Greek Studies Yearbook 6 (1990) 331-43; repr. in God's Struggler: Religion in the Writings of Nikos Kazantzakis, eds D. Middleton and P. Bien (Macon, GA 1996) 23-35. For criticism of the film version of Kazantzakis's novel, see J. Ankerberg and J. Weldon, The Facts on ‘The Last Temptation of Christ': The True Story Behind the Controversial Film (Eugene, OR 1988).

7 The four texts I plan to use are J. Caputo, On Religion (London and New York 2001); D. Cupitt, Emptiness and Brightness (Santa Rosa, CA 2001); L. Geering, Christianity Without God (Santa Rosa, CA 2002); and, lastly, G. Vattimo, After Christianity, tr. L. D'Isanto (New York 2002).

8 V. Karalis, ‘Editorial Note', Modern Greek Studies (Australia and New Zealand): A Journal for Greek Letters 8-9 (2000-01) 7.

9 For a useful introduction to Cupitt's life and career to date, see D. Cupitt, ‘The Wandering Philosopher', The Fourth R: An Advocate for Religious Literacy 14.1 (January-February 2001) 3-7. In 1996 Cupitt retired from Cambridge University in order to write full-time. These days he has aligned himself with the work of the Jesus Seminar and the Westar Institute in the USA. In fact, he dedicates Emptiness and Brightness to the Fellows and Associates of the Jesus Seminar. For more information, see www.JesusSeminar.org and www.westarinstitute.org.

10 Cupitt, The Fourth R: An Advocate for Religious Literacy 25. This passage reflects Cupitt's awareness of Mahayana sutras (Prajna-paramita) concerning the idea of sunyata, which means voidness or emptiness, made popular by the Indian philosopher Nagarjuna around the second or third century AD. Interestingly, Kazantzakis was deeply impressed with Indian philosophy, which finds its way into the form and content of his work. See N. Kazantzakis, Buddha, tr. K. Friar and A. Dallas-Damis (San Diego, CA 1983); N. Kazantzakis, Japan/China: A Journal of Two Voyages in the Far East, tr. G.C. Pappageotes, with an epilogue by H. Kazantzakis (Berkeley 1982); N. Kazantzakis, The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel, tr. into English verse, introduction, synopsis, and notes by K. Friar (New York 1958), XVIII; Kazantzakis, Report to Greco, 346—52; N. Kazantzakis, The Rock Garden, tr. R. Howard (New York 1963); and, finally, Ishould add that the Boss is preoccupied with Buddhism in N. Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek, tr. C. Wildman (New York 1952). Studying at the Kazantzakis library, based at the Historical Museum of Iraklion, Crete, in 1999, I discovered that Kazantzakis read and admired many books on Indian philosophy.

11 N. Kazantzakis, ‘H. Bergson', in : 310-34 (October 1912); cited in Bien, Kazantzakis: Politics of the Spirit, 45. See also H. Bergson, L'Evolution creatrice (Paris 1907) 293; H. Bergson, Creative Evolution, tr. A. Mitchell (London 1911), 285. For details on Kazantzakis's philosophical studies with Bergson, see Bien, Kazantzakis: Politics of the Spirit, 36-53; Dombrowski, Kazantzakis and God, 9-26; and, finally, Owens, Creative Destruction, 29—64. Also, compare with Cupitt's understanding of — as well as attention to — Be-ing as ‘a chora or womb from which pours a constant stream of pure contingency, perhaps like a waterfall'. See Cupitt, Emptiness and Brightness, 48. Kazantzakis also favours womb imagery. See N. Kazantzakis, The Saviors of God: Spiritual Exercises, tr. and intro. K. Friar (New York 1960), 54.

12 Kazantzakis, , The Saviors of God, 43.Google Scholar

13 Compare to F. Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra: A Book for Everyone and No One, tr. and intro. R.J. Hollingdale (Harmondsworth, Middlesex 1969), 218-19. See also D. Middleton, Novel Theology: Nikos Kazantzakis's Encounter with Whiteheadian Process Theism (Macon, GA 2000), 176-81. 12

14 Kazantzakis, , The Saviors of God, 94-5.Google Scholar

15 Ibid., 100-01. Of course, this is an English adaptation; Greeks have twenty-four letters in their alphabet. See also N. Kazantzakis, Journeying: Travels in Italy, Egypt, Sinai, Jerusalem and Cyprus, tr. T. Vasils and T. Vasils (Boston and Toronto 1975), 6. See also Kazantzakis, Report to Greco, 88, 146, 352, 364, 482.

16 Cupitt, , Emptiness and Brightness, 26.Google Scholar

17 Ibid., 44. See also 42-55, 66, 72. For Kazantzakis's theatrical view of the self, see The Saviors of God, 53.

18 Kazantzakis, , Report to Greco, 450.Google Scholar See also Kazantzakis, , The Saviors of God, 72.Google Scholar Finally, see Cupitt, , Emptiness and Brightness, 44.Google Scholar

19 Kazantzakis, , The Saviors of God, 48-9.Google Scholar

20 Ibid., 58. Compare this to Cupitt's definition of ‘true religion'. See Cupitt, Emptiness and Brightness, 30-1. It is worth noting that Cupitt believes this ‘new religion of Life’ expresses itself 'in the idioms of ordinary language’ (31). I suspect Kazantzakis, with his zeal for demotic Greek, the coppersmith's and the fisherman's Greek, not the Athenian intellectual's Greek, would warm to Cupitt's celebration of religion in everyday speech. Cupitt explores this in a recent trilogy. See D. Cupitt, The New Religion of Life in Everyday Speech (London 1999); D. Cupitt, The Meaning of It All in Everyday Speech (London 1999); and, finally, D. Cupitt, Kingdom Come in Everyday Speech (London 2000). See also D. Cupitt, Life, Life (Santa Rosa 2003). For additional information on Kazantzakis and demotic Greek, see P. Bien, Kazantzakis and the Linguistic Revolution in Greek Literature (Princeton, NJ 1972).

21 Panentheism is the theory, especially associated with contemporary theologians, that all created life is included within God's life.

22 See Kazantzakis, England, 8. See also Kazantzakis, Report to Greco, 412; Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek, X7S. Finally, see Cupitt, Emptiness and Brightness, 28.

23 See Bien, Kazantzakis: Politics of the Spirit, 106-07. Here Bien translates the ‘substance’ of Kazantzakis's 1926 essay. For the Greek text, see Kazantzakis, (November 1926) 136-37.

24 Kazantzakis, , The Saviors of God, 101.Google Scholar See also Middleton, Novel Theology, 35-51, 98-106, 151-62, 192-217.

25 See F. Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy and The Genealogy of Morals, tr. and intro. F. Golffing (Garden City, NY 1956), 10-11, 15, 93-5, 131-2. See also Vattimo, After Christianity, 49-51, 77-82, 91.

26 Vattimo, G., After Christianity, 3, 6, 11-24Google Scholar, 26, 51, 86-7, 89, 103-12. Vattimo is also an Italian member of the European Parliament. Some of his more recent books include Belief, tr. L. D'Isanto and D. Webb (Cambridge 1999) and The Transparent Society, tr. D. Webb (Baltimore 1992).

27 Vatimo, , After Christianity, 14, 133.Google Scholar See also 20, 44, 49-51, 77-9, 82, 91, 123-37.

28 See Kazantzakis, England, 8. Here Kazantzakis laments theoretical thought's insolvency. Later in the same text, he suggests 'abstract conceptions are…base consolations' (189). See also H. Kazantzakis, Nikos Kazantzakis: A Biography Based on His Letters, tr. A. Mims (New York 1968) 32, 444, 549. Here Kazantzakis describes his soul as ‘antirationalistic', maintains that theoretical truth does not make good on its promise to provide us with an understanding of our world, and admits that the solutions to many life problems lie ‘outside the realm of intellect and analysis’.

29 Dombrowski, , Kazantzakis and God, 25.Google Scholar

30 Kazantzakis, N., Journey to the Morea: Travels in Greece, tr. F.A. Reed (New York 1965), 30–31.Google Scholar

31 Vattimo, , After Christianity, 57–68.Google Scholar Also see Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy, 10. Finally, see Middleton, Novel Theology, 176—85. To my mind, Kazantzakis's Zorba seems the most obvious symbol for this idea.

32 Kazantzakis, , The Saviors of God, 47—9.Google Scholar See aslo Kazantzakis, Report to Greco, 322, 391. Finally, see H. Kazantzakis, Nikos Kazantzakis: A Biography Based On His Letters, 128. Our religious, cultural, and philosophical understanding is anthropologically conditioned. See Kazantzakis, Journey to the Morea, 121.

33 See Kazantzakis, , Report to Greco, 416.Google Scholar See also Kazantzakis, , The Saviors of God, 94-5.Google Scholar 24 Compare with Vattimo, After Christianity, 50-1, 77—80, 82, 86—7. See also Cupitt, , Emptiness and Brightness, 71-6, 99-101.Google Scholar

34 Kazantzakis, , Report to Greco, 402.Google Scholar See also Middleton, Novel Theology, 1—33.

35 Kazantzakis, , The Saviors of God, 103.Google Scholar Kazantzakis seldom speaks of Being; for 'primordial reasons’ he prefers to use ‘God'. See also Kazantzakis, England, 151. Finally, see Kazantzakis, Report to Greco, 421. Here Being, understood as outpouring elan, fructifies every one of life's molecules.

36 Vattimo, , After Christianity, 6–7, 22, 43-4, 80.Google Scholar

37 Geering, , Christianity without God, 16.Google Scholar Geering is Emeritus Professor of Religious Studies at Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand. A Fellow of the Jesus Seminar, like Cupitt, Geering was honoured as a Principal Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2001. Some of his recent books include Tomorrow's God (Santa Rosa, CA 2000) and Christian Faith at the Crossroads (Santa Rosa, CA 2001).

38 Geering, , Christianity without God, 19—33, 47—8.Google Scholar

39 Ibid., 60. Geering has two doctrinal targets. First, he attacks divine trinitarianism, part of Christianity's cumulative tradition, ‘invented’ by Christians from the fifth century onwards (61—71). And second, he attacks the doctrine of Incarnation for equating Jesus with God (73—98). He recovers the idea at the heart of these doctrines — namely, the notion that ‘the divine reality was being enfleshed in the human condition', using this idea to suggest that Christianity's overall talk of enfleshment ‘indirectly led to the modern secular world', with its high emphasis on all things human and humane (71).

40 Ecclesiastes is part of the Hebrew Bible's wisdom literature. Penned by someone calling himself ‘the Teacher’ (Qoheleth), this text poses questions about the possibility of meaning in the midst of life's transience. Many scholars and preachers see the Teacher as a believing sceptic, because he thinks through his faith.

41 Geering, , Christianity without God, 124.Google Scholar See also 59, 97, 117-130, 143.

42 Kazantzakis, , Report to Greco, 115Google Scholar; P. Bien, 'Kazantzakis's Long Apprenticeship to Christian Themes', 119.

43 K. Friar, ‘Introduction: The Spiritual Exercises of Nikos Kazantzakis', in Kazantzakis, The Saviors of God, 16.

44 Ibid., 27.

45 Kazantzakis intends us to practise what I see as a form of ‘spiritual intertextuality’ — reading our own story, even humanity's story, through the lens of the Christ-story (128). To my mind, this would be yet another illustration of Kazantzakis's mythopoetic method.

46 N. Kazantzakis, The Last Temptation of Christ, translated by P. Bien (New York 1960) 2-3.

47 Kazantzakis, , Report to Greco, 289.Google Scholar See also Middleton, Novel Theology, 89-98, and Geering, After Christianity, 126, 130.

48 Geering, , Christianity without God, 126.Google Scholar

49 Caputo is the David R. Cook Professor of Philosophy at Villanova University, Villanova, Pennsylvania, USA. He has published on a range of figures and topics, including Heidegger, Derrida, Aquinas, and ethics. His publications include Demythologizing Heidegger (Bloomington, IN 1993); Heidegger and Aquinas: An Essay on Overcoming Metaphysics (New York 1982); The Mystical Element in Heidegger's Thought (New York 1986); and, finally, The Prayers and Tears of Jacques Derrida: Religion without Religion (Bloomington, IN 1997).

50 Caputo, , On Religion, 109.Google Scholar Intriguingly, Caputo links talk of the impossible to 1 Cor. 2: 9. See On Religion, 10.

51 Kazantzakis, , Saviors of God, 100-01.Google Scholar

52 Caputo, , On Religion, 1–36, 49-66.Google Scholar

53 Kazantzakis, Report to Greco, 222-3. As L. Owens argues, Plotinus influences Kazantzakis's notion of ‘ascent'. See L. Owens, Creative Destruction, 29-66. Platonists like Plotinus always felt they had a vision of God (or the Good) that could be attained by the unaided, rational ‘ascent’ of the mind to the world of Ideas or Forms. Interestingly, Plotinus’ thought influences Saint Augustine's writing, and Caputo's On Religion makes extensive use of Book X of Augustine's Confessions.

54 Caputo, , On Religion, 132.Google Scholar

55 Ibid., 132-33. Also see Kazantzakis, The Saviors of God, 54, 68.

56 Caputo, , On Religion, 133.Google Scholar

57 Kazantzakis, , Report to Greco, 494.Google Scholar

58 Kazantzakis, , The Saviors of God, 101.Google Scholar

59 Caputo, , On Religion, 133.Google Scholar

60 Ibid., 134.

61 Ibid., 134-5.

62 Kazantzakis, , The Saviors of God, 100.Google Scholar

63 See Kazantzakis, , England, 8Google Scholar; Kazantzakis, , Report to Greco, 412Google Scholar; and, finally, Kazantzakis, , Zorba the Greek, 275.Google Scholar