Christ, although a powerful influence in the spiritual world of Glastonbury, is ambiguous in character and means different things to different people. Christ is associated mainly with three of the novels major characters: Own Evans, John Geard, and Sam Dekker. A more minor role is played by Sam's father, Matt, vicar of Glastonbury, who is based on Powys's father and represents traditional Anglican beliefs. A central episode in the novel involves Owen Evans's highly realistic portrayal of Christ's suffering on the cross in the pageant scene. Earlier Evans had hoped that he could free himself from his sadism by discovering the "ancient Cauldron of Celtic myth", one form that the grail takes, however, because this quest fails, he decides to "seek" to expiate "his would-be crimes" by emulating Christ's suffering on the cross. But, "he exults in his agony" and "[i]t not only failed to purge him of his vice" but "[h]is sado-maschochistic orgy" "aids in its gratification". Sam Dekker believes "that Christ is a God" who opposes " 'the cruelty of the great Creator-God' " – is "the enemy of God", "like Lucifer". This leads him to renounce "the world, the devil and the flesh", to give up his adulterous love affair with Nell Zoyland and endeavour to live the life of a saint. Such a "puritanical and neurotic attitude is condemned in the novel" and Evans sees this as form of auto sadism. However, "[it] is the existence of pain which has caused Sam, in his hypersensitive sympathy, to reject the whole life force". Subsequently Sam's sensitivity to nature" is "greatly intensified". The "growth of sensitive awareness suddenly [becomes a] mystical vision", with Sam's Grail experience. Following this–and Sam giving Mr Twig an enema–"he no longer has scruples about making love to Nell". She, however, has gone back to her husband. John Geard's "intention is to inaugurate a new religion", a "Fifth Gospel", by showing "'the world ... that the real Grail still existed in Glastonbury' ". For Geard the Grail and Christ's Blood have made Glastonbury a focus of spiritual force. Geard's "passive reciprocity" to "the psychic power" of the Grail "gives him powers he can use positively". However, in the "Preface" to the 1955 edition of the novel, Powys notes that "the Holy Grail" is "much older than Christianity" and it is on the night of Christ's Resurrection that he has his encounter with the spirit