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Judas As Hero. In his perfervid way, Kazantzakis returns to the pagan and Greek credo that "man is the measure of all things." This notion got him into trouble with the Greek Orthodox hierarchy as far back as 1939, when it publicly accused him of atheism. In 1954 the Vatican put Kazantzakis' The Last Temptation of Christ on the Index of forbidden books. In that novel, due for fall publication in the U.S., Judas emerges as a hero since he helps Christ to fulfill his mission of redeeming mankind. At the time of the Vatican edict, Kazantzakis fired off a telegram to the Committee of the Index containing a sentence from Tertullian: "Ad tuum, Domine, tribunal, appello" ("At your tribunal, Lord, I make my appeal").
If Theologian Paul Tillich is right in holding that faith is not belief in God, but "ultimate concern," then, in his own special way, Nikos Kazantzakis was also a believer.