The Saviors of God: Spiritual Exercises [Paperback]

Nikos Kazantzakis (Author), Kimon Friar (Translator, Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 15, 1960

The Saviors of God is the spiritual testament of Nikos Kazantzakis, author of The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel, Zorba the Greek, The Last Temptation of Christ, and Report to Greco. Containing the core of his philosophy, it is, in the legacy of his work, the equivalent of Nietzsche's Thus Spake Zarathustra. The Saviors of God provides a key to all of Kazantzakis' work even as it stands on its own as a passionate and systematic view of the relationship between Man and God.

Product Details

• Paperback: 143 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster (March 15, 1960)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671202324
• ISBN-13: 978-0671202323
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.2 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #461,200 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars God's surging, dramatic tide of maelstrom possibility, January 3, 2002

By 

Adam (Los Angeles, United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Saviors of God: Spiritual Exercises (Paperback)

The name Nikos Kazantzakis is anathema to so many; countless Americans probably only know him as the man who authored the book "The Last Temptation of Christ" on which the controversial (and widely demonized) movie was based. There was much more to this man than met the eye, however. Such Americans don't know the reader of Nietzsche and Bergson, the man who idolized both Christ and Lenin as saviors of humanity, the brooding genius whose incisive glacial intellect was perpetually at war with the hot blood of his idealism and passion. A fascinating and fragmented character who ascended the peaks and explored the dark valleys of human experience more than most, Kazantzakis commits pen to paper here with a spirituality that will haunt the reader; it is more alive and explosive than any camp-meeting revival. Writing with a distinctly modernist tone of world-smashing and revolution akin to Marx and with a racy, frenetic, hot-blooded pace which D.H. Lawrence would've admired, Kazantzakis introduces us to HIS idea of God: not the friendly father figure of Christian lore, but the turbulent, primordial drive for life and change within the universe, striving (successfully, through sometimes violent fits and starts) to ascend, to create, to thrive, to "transubstantiate matter into spirit". More akin to Bergson's idea of "elan vital", this is a series of spell-binding meditations that most mainline believers of any stripe probably wouldn't like; precisely because it scares the living daylights out of you with its frightening possibilities and its sirens' call of seemingly chaotic life-affirming zest. The late Kazantzakis beckons to us across the void, urging us to take the plunge and gaze into that vortex without fear, even though we will lose all we are in the process.

21 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Diamond Amidst the Trash, November 4, 1997

By 

Padma Thornlyre - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Saviors of God: Spiritual Exercises (Paperback)

In this bewildering time of new-age quasi-sophistication or reactionary conservative histrionics regarding spiritual matters, Nikos Kazantzakis's "The Saviors of God" sparkles as a diamond amidst an overwhelming sea of trash. Ours is an age of excess, spiritually and materially (and all too often this line is blurred by televangelists and the like), and we, as a people, properly crave a spiritual instruction that lifts us gratefully above the banality surrounding us: a recent bumper-sticker shows the Christian fish symbol (the Greek letter alpha) "eating" a Darwin-fish (a fish with legs), and Bob Dylan once wrote of "flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark." Kazantzakis's "The Saviors of God" is a truly illuminating underground masterpiece (comparable to the American poet H.D.'s startling "Notes on Thought and Vision"), employing Kazantzakis's usual muscular language and profoundly penetrating insight into what being human really means. Although written as prose, it reads as poetry; and spirituality is not, for this Greek giant, sickly (goofily) sweet or insultingly strident, but, rather, careful, intense, intelligent, and passionate. It is this "passion" that drives every word Kazantzakis wrote, and in "Saviors" his passion is carefully distilled into a short and readable text that will, quite simply, never be forgotten by any who has licked its honey. For this is the "mad honey" consumed by the priestesses of Delphi, and when Kazantzakis writes of thought being a "bird of flame" hopping from branch to branch, one knows that one's own head is equally ablaze. So, lay aside your Bibles, your Korans, your Torahs...and prepare yourself to tremble, for "The Saviors of God" is a spiritual earthquake composed not of stern admonitions (yawn) or threats, but of humility before the gift of divinely-composed flesh. Lust, herein, is not a sin, but is instead the holy of holies.

14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The bible of non-absolute faith (a reply to my friend below), December 3, 2001

By 

babis woodpecker (Mesolongi, Greece) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Saviors of God: Spiritual Exercises (Paperback)

"Nonsense" is a very draft and cruel word to characterize an attempt to describe the CHAOS. For that's what this book is. How can one describe the Chaos, the human agony for the purpose of life? Every time you visualize yourself as a tiny dot (equals to nothing compared to the universe) and you ask the all-time-big-questions, you fill the fear. If you want to ease your heart, read the bible, or whatever the holy book of your religion (we all do in times of despair). You will be reassured for the absolute truth for all your questions and fears. But if you want to keep your eyes open and dare to look at the chaos this book will be a good companion. It is not perfect, but is the best attempt I know. Using Kazantzakis' words from "Report to Greco", the author is "facing the chaos and says I like it!"