In the Bible, Satan tempts Judas to betray Jesus and thereby send him to execution. But in The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) Satan tempts Jesus to escape execution and thereby betray Judas because it is Jesus himself who ordered Judas to betray him. It is elegant that the film entrusts Judas with the job to carry out Jesus’ amor fati.

Jesus’ amor fati consists of being victimized on the Cross and thereby ending all blood feuds. When Satan lets Jesus escape in the movie, victimization becomes ordinary and blood feuds continue. Judas’ betrayal is for isolating victimization on the Cross and thereby neutralizing it. But when Jesus betrays and escapes the Cross, he propagates victimization back to the whole humanity.

By escaping the Cross –tempted by Satan– Jesus turns into an undead curse. Satan immediately marries Jesus to Mary Magdalene but Satan’s saying “There is a single woman” also insinuates that Jesus is being married to Mary of Nazareth. According to Satan all women are the same and they all come from the dilemma “your mother/not your mother”.

Appearing in the guise of a snake or girl, Satan turns Jesus into a carrier of the undead curse. In a Freudian summary: By escaping the task of death, Jesus is smitten by the curse of sexuality. By the end of the movie, Judas, with blood in his hands and eyes, reminds Jesus his task of death. Satan –who says “There is a single woman”– actually represents the blood feuds that can never be ended.

In the last scene, Jesus rewinds time to carry out his task of death on the Cross. If this finale didn’t come to pass, Judas could have turned into a woman-hating Islamist. Remember: Jesus was making Crosses in the beginning of the film, so he was already his own executioner. So “The Last Temptation of Christ” actually refers to the mediatic civilization of the present Christianity.

The Jesus who makes his own Cross and Judas as a film character are proto-Islamic figures. Since the film itself belongs to the mediatic civilization, its finale is settled well. But if you can read it from a realistic perspective, the ressentiment Judas feels against Jesus’ temptation somewhat looks like the excuse Hamas terrorists used in order to turn the Supernova festival into a massacre.

(Turkish)

Işık Barış Fidaner is a computer scientist with a PhD from Boğaziçi University, İstanbul. Admin of Yersiz Şeyler, Editor of Žižekian Analysis, Curator of Görce Writings. Twitter: @BarisFidaner

See “Festival Baskınında Kontr-Ödipal Dürtü”, “Amor fati: Sevfelek aşkım olsun bundan böyle!” Friedrich Nietzsche, “Niçe hakikatle varoluşu Dayanısoslamak, Sevfelek budur işte!” Friedrich Nietzsche, “René Girard: Simetrik Kırma ve Simetriyi Kırma”, “Nasıralı Meryem ve Mecdelli Meryem: Nasıloralı Mücelladonna’dan Nahsıralayan Mücellat’a”

Thanks to Fatoş İrem for reviewing the text.