An 11th-century Syrian Christian, Abdallah ibn al-Fadl, called Jesus’ injunction to love others as we love ourselves “the philosophical commandment” (al-waṣiyya al-falsafiyya). Roughly 800 years later, Immanuel Kant said the same. And I am honoured to be writing a political life of Jesus this year, for C. Hurst in London.

Lodewijk Schelfhout, Christus aan het kruis, 1919