In the preceding article we said that the justice of a cause is not a sufficient condition for its victory, for without correct language and tools the truth turns into an elegy, and victimhood turns into an eternal defeat. In the midst of our discussion of how to defend causes, we must look at Christ and how He won His cause, and how He dealt with it, and through that we can understand how to win, or how to turn our cause — whatever it may be (on the level of the neighborhood or on the level of the world) — into a victorious cause.
But when discussing the cause of Christ we are faced with several problems arising from our way of understanding His work. I do not mean here what He did, that is, salvation, but rather how He achieved what He came for. This erroneous understanding forms a solid barrier that prevents us from seeing the mechanism of His work precisely, and prevents us from embodying His manner in our work and our lives. This is what created a great chasm between us and Jesus, a chasm He came in the first place to fill. This chasm arose from an erroneous understanding of many aspects.
The first aspect: our understanding that Christ came to carry out a plan drawn in advance, as though it were a scenario (a film), and all the characters in this scenario play a defined role, so that even Judas himself is part of a text prepared in advance. Thereby the result of Christ’s work becomes settled from the beginning, and the defeat was accomplished beforehand. But the idea of the scenario or the pre-drawn plan abolishes human and historical efficacy, and even makes it lose its divine meaning, turning the struggle into a play, emptying the confrontation of its real dimensions, and also making Christ’s sacrifice a sacrifice without meaning.
The second aspect: the belief that Christ’s victory is derived from His divinity and His inevitable ability to win because He is God; in other words, He cannot be defeated because He is God. This distorted belief about His victory strips it of its value as a model to be imitated, by making it a miraculous victory beyond the reach of humans, and turns everything Christ did into a model confined to the gods. Therefore we often hear people say in the face of temptations ” I am not Christ,” and this is a justification that does not mean that man apologizes for a human weakness, but rather that he gives up his humanity and his freedom entirely in exchange for remaining in the comfort zone and the easier use of tools.
The writer of this article knows the many questions these words generate, and the great need for detailed explanation of the meaning of the salvific plan of Christ, and the liberation of Christ from the illusion of the pre-prepared scenario. For His knowledge of what will happen never means His drawing it in advance, and His being God does not mean His inevitable victory. As Metropolitan Paul Yazigi says ” there was a possibility that Christ would accept the temptation,” meaning that He truly entered a real struggle and was susceptible to defeat, but did not succumb. This speech does not diminish Christ at all; rather it strengthens the understanding of Him and His standing. For if there were no real possibility of falling into temptation, then why the temptation? The real value of uprightness lies in the possibility of deviation, but in choosing virtue with full awareness and absolute freedom. Metropolitan Paul Yazigi says Christ had the absolute freedom to accept the will of the devil or reject it[1]. From here stems this great importance: that Jesus is a model that can be imitated, and that the way of Christ is the only way capable of turning a defeated cause into an eternal cause that does not die.
We see from the temptation on the mountain that Jesus did not drown in the tools of this world; He did not accept authority, influence, and prestige, but wanted to exalt freedom above everything, and to purify the way and the tools of victory. In His first temptation, the question of the devil to Christ was: will you go to the people empty-handed? Turn the stones into bread and the people will come to you and make you king. But Christ refused bread in exchange for freedom; He refused to use hunger as a tool by which to control the people. This is what He did after the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves, when the people ran to Him because He fed them, and He fled. Whereas in many political and social movements, the defenders of just causes fall into the trap of buying loyalties or exploiting people’s poverty and basic needs to achieve gains for the cause, or to gather followers.
The Lord realized that a just cause is not managed by turning humans into slaves who barter their morsel of bread for their positions, but by respecting their awareness and their freedom. Where people’s hunger is exploited for the sake of the cause, the cause falls, even if it is just. In the context of the cause, people must be fed with no aim except the aim of preserving their dignity.
In the second temptation Christ faced the temptation of prestige; therefore we hear the devil say to Him “if You are the Son of God,” as in the first, reminding Him of His status, so that He relies on divine immunity. He refused imaginary heroics and the media display, and the boasting of status. The cause is not protected by a person’s status, as though he were infallible, but by his ability to preserve it, and by his ability to adhere to its principles. For one cannot fight for justice by tyranny.
This temptation shows the personalization of causes for the benefit of the leader or the defender and the search for imaginary heroics, where the defender of the truth presents himself as infallible or as the chosen one whom falsehood does not reach, and as the sole savior of the cause, believing that the principle or the truth grants automatic immunity against error or criticism. The defense of the cause turns into the sanctification of the person, and every work he does is a revolutionary and upright work, and his works become the measure of the truth.
In the third scene, where there is the temptation of dominion over the kingdoms of the world, the devil did not say “if You are the Son of God,” lest he remind Jesus of His status. But Christ refused the devil’s easy tool of using authority and influence as a means of control and dominion. He refused the principle that the end justifies the means, and He refused to control people’s consciences and enslave them. Christ, in this temptation, was able to carve out a way to defend His cause, a defense based on His freedom: that He does not want dominion for the sake of dominion. Christ refused to turn authority into a tool that enslaves people rather than liberates them. This is what the Apostle Paul repeated when he rebuked the demon that called the people to follow Paul: “these men are servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to you the way of salvation.” Paul refused the principle that the end justifies the means, the demonic means to achieve his end.
This is the greatest trap in every age. How many just and righteous causes fell and were defeated because their holders said “let us win by any means,” and so used authority as a tool of repression, systematic lying, alliance with corruption, or counter-violence, and used crooked means to secure financial resources, or used their enemies’ means to defeat them. Whoever submits to the tools of corruption (injustice, tyranny, and deceit) to reach victory becomes a monster that devours his own cause.
Conclusion:
The temptation of Jesus on the mountain forms a model theater among the theaters of struggle for causes, whatever they may be — human rights, women’s rights, children’s rights, justice, equality, or citizenship — and it tells us one principle: the purity of the means and its uprightness alone is the guarantee of the cause’s immortality and victory. For causes are not measured by the number of those who win them, but by the extent of the uprightness of their defenders, the uprightness of their methods, and the cleanliness of their tools. When the defender of a cause refuses to use the correct tools in his cause, or uses the tools crookedly, he is not hastening his victory but killing his cause and committing suicide.
References
[1] Metropolitan Paul Yazigi, Explanation of the Temptation on the Mountain – Episode 4 of 6 – The Second Temptation “worship me,” the Antiochian Orthodox Media Center.
[1] Dostoevsky, the novel The Brothers Karamazov, Part One, translated by Sami al-Droubi, The Dialogue of the Grand Inquisitor and Christ, Arab Cultural Center, Beirut and Casablanca, first edition, 2001.