You would not expect that this unusual hue – wheat-complexioned – describes a young and uncertain Jesus. Kazantzakis’ surprising version of Christ’s life was intended as a universal story of a man’s struggle and triumph, to lend encouragement to our own strivings.
‘Terror suddenly poured over the sleeper’s dark wheat-complexioned face.’
Source: Nikos Kazantzakis, The Last Temptation, trans. P.A. Bien (London: Faber and Faber, 1983), p. 14
