88 Ancient Ideals
the dictum to encompass everyone who lives; he seems to be both
respecting and radically revising the Hebrew Bible.
Through his example and his teachings Jesus cultivates a new
way to live, one based not on justice but on loving- kindness. (“Use
every man after his desert,” says Hamlet “and who shall scape whip-
ping?”) But he does something else almost as signifi cant. He works
to change the established conception of God. He works to bring his
followers’ idea of God the Father progressively further into line with
the new teachings. For between Jesus and the God of the Hebrew
Bible there is a gap. Writing in his notebooks, André Gide says: “I
should note down at once the main lines that I see becoming clear,
with greater sharpness and vigor than ever—of the antagonism be-
tween Christ and God—of Christ’s error... of claiming that he was
closely associated with God” (440). This is extreme: there are po-
tent continuities between Christ and the faith of Yahweh. But there
are major disjunctions as well.
When Jesus begins his ministry, the Jewish conception of God
is well in place. The God of the Old Testament is a war god yes,
but preeminently he is the God of justice. Justice is the central virtue
of the Hebrew Bible— those mortals who are just are fi rst among men
and women. The Old Testament God is also the God of retribution.
When you disobey his commandments he takes revenge, as the Jews
learn many times to their sorrow. He drowns the world when it be-
comes sinful; he destroys the cities on the plain when they sink
into depravity. He can be protective and supremely loving. But you
must follow his plan, keep the covenant, obey the commandments.
Jesus is occasionally responsive to the image of the retributive
God. Kindly as he can be, Jesus sometimes seems to revel in his
sense of God’s capacity to repay sin with dire punishment. Jesus tells
with seeming relish the story of the rich man who was sent to Hell
to burn in everlasting torment, while the beggar Lazarus who lived
outside his gate was carried away by angels to the bosom of Abraham.