Graves retells story of Jesus

Press, 24 September 1983, Page 18

Graves retells story of Jesus

King Jesus. By Robert Graves. 2 Hutchinson, 1983. 424 pp. $17.50. (Reviewed by Colin Brown) 'To understand this erratic and fascinating book it is best to begin by reading the “historical commentary” which appears as an appendix. There Graves refers to two techniques which he claims to have employed in writing this account. The tale is told through the person of Agabus the Decapolitan who is represented as having written in 93 A.D. This convention is an expression of what Graves terms the “analeptic method” of writing a historical novel — “the intuitive recovery of forgotten events by a deliberate suspension of time.”

~In the second place Graves makes much of what he terms “iconotropy,” the “deliberate misinterpretation” of the “icons” of one religion or outlook in the interests of another. This, he believes, is what happened when the ancient Hebrews replaced “motherright” myths with their own, heavily patriarchal versions. In “King Jesus” there is little interest in the analysis of human behaviour for its own sake; what interests Graves with an almost obsessive concern is that such behaviour conforms, he believes, to certain archetypal patterns. ?As Graves tells the story, Jesus is the son of Miriam (Mary), a member of of holy virgins associated with the Jewish temple in Jerusalem. Because she was secretly married to Herod Antipater her son was heir to the throne and, in his early manhood, after their return from exile in Egypt, Mary reveals this kingly destiny to her son.

■ Jesus begins preparation for this task by a sojourn with the Essenes Orn the edge of the Dead Sea. Increasingly he becomes a resolute devotee of the patriarchal god, Jehovah; insists on celibacy for himself and, especially in confrontation with “Mary the Hairdresser” (Mary Magdalene),

declares his opposition to the “feminine element” in religion and life generally. John the Baptist anoints Jesus as king and subsequently baptises him.

The goals which Jesus sets himself are not, however, acceptable to all but, guided by prophecy, he decides to have himself killed by one of his disciples as a way of underlining his teaching and its aims. Jesus is, however, foiled, first by Judas who, in league with Nicodemus, has Jesus arrested in an attempt to forestall these plans. The disciples, armed by Jesus with swords to turn against himself, use them against the captors of Jesus. In a final piece of irony, Jesus dies, significantly, at the Passover, in a ritual manner, and attended by his mother, his would-be lover (Mary of Cleopas), and Mary Magdalene. The last of these remarks at the foot of the cross: “His fault was this: that he tried to force the hour of doom by declaring war upon the Female. But the Female abides and cannot be hastened.”

“King Jesus” displays, too, the imaginative skills so evident in “I, Claudius” to create a wonderfully convincing background for a historical novel. Then, too, underlying “King Jesus” are the notions which Graves expressed so powerfully in “The White Goddess,” first published in 1948. In that work Graves envisaged the eventual triumph of the “mother principle” and the ending of the baneful dominance of “patriarchy.”

As an addition to books about “the historical Jesus” it is difficult to take “King Jesus” seriously, and it is not mere Christian perversity to say so. The process by which Graves reached his conclusion are as idiosyncratic as his results; nor has research concerning Jesus and his times stood still since 1946. But, for all this, “King Jesus” is still worth reading as an

extraordinary feat of imagination; for its flashes of insight, its surprisingly modern polemic against the consequences of heavily patriarchal religion, and its salutary reminder of the way in which scraps of apparently unrelated evidence can be woven into a convincing tale by those with the necessary skills. On the basis of present historical knowledge the resulting picture of Jesus must be pronounced historically unconvincing, even fanciful, both in general and in many of its details. Graves might not be dismayed by such a conclusion. At least on some occasions he claimed to have written an historical account; others have suggested, with, I think, good cause, that Graves was seeking to create a new mythology to replace one that he despised. “King Jesus” is best seen, then, as mythology dressed up to look like history.