The Grand Inquisitor is a chapter in Dostoevsky's longest novel. On the one hand, The Brothers Karamazov belongs among Middlemarch, Moby Dick and Anna Karenina: it is one of the Great Novels of the 19th Century. On the other hand, it's 800 pages long, very Russian, and slow in parts. If you haven't read any Dostoevsky, and are wondering whether you really want to, I recommend pico's Dostoevsky essay. It covers a lot of ground in a few pages, and will give you a good idea of what Dostoevsky's about.
The Brothers Karamazov is powerful and profound, overflowing with ambition, humanity and mother Russia. It's also a vast and shaggy beast, a woolly mammoth among novels. Two things save it for me, bringing its explorations of the sublime back to a human, accessible story. First, Dostoevsky is dealing with eternal issues of good, evil, freedom and faith - but he captures them in a gripping family drama. Second, he doesn't nail his questions down. If Ayn Rand wrote this book, she'd have bludgeoned you with her own answers. Dostoevsky brings contrasting views to life, and leaves you wrestling with his questions long after you've closed the book.
My main aim here is to show you The Grand Inquisitor, and open up the issues it raises, which extend into politics, philosophy, religion, morality and human nature. I'll begin with a digression into my own small quest for Jesus. If all you want is Dostoevsky, just skip from this orange doodle down to the next one . . .
My Search for Jesus
Pilate said unto him, What is truth?
And when he had said this, he went out again unto the Jews, and said unto them, I find in him no fault at all. John 18:38
What is Truth? said jesting Pilate; and would not stay for an answer
Francis Bacon, Of Truth
I was Jesus once. It was long ago, in another country. I had gone there, returned there, looking for a Truth so large and basic, that it could join together all my shards of truth. The chance to play Jesus just happened along the way.
The group putting on the passion play was large, kind and committed to the work. We were all true believers. Except me. I never told them, I just did all I could to find the truth in the part.
I'd say I'm approximately a deist: I fall somewhere between humanist, agnostic, christian and buddhist. As I said, I have all these shards of truth: Religion is precisely what I lack. Religion, etymologically, means the binding together of something that's been broken. That something is the Self. You might find religion in your bible, or quest, or work, or love. I was trying to write my own, in a golden notebook. Still, meeting Jesus on my way, I looked for wholeness there.
If I went onstage, and filled Jesus with all my own competing views and questions, I was hardly going to carry a passion play. So I dug down, for the truth and solid faith in the character. Besides rehearsals, I worked on my lines, did acting exercises, and prayed every day. I dove enough into the character that, one day out of three, I felt God listening to my prayers.
If I look at the Bible as literally true, word for word - well, I can't believe that. But reading all the gospels, and especially the red words (the ones Jesus says), it's a powerful and uplifting story. It may not be factual, but it's full of burning human truth.
I'm mostly a humanist. God is, to me, a distillation of the best parts of human nature. At least, the god in us is. On good days, God is also a vast and subtle energy, permeating the cosmos, facilitating order, progress, and love. And god in us resonates and connects with God out there. On good days.
The clearest faith I found in the gospels was a poetic truth: Jesus was the son of God, because we all have some god in us, and Jesus had the most. He lived as honestly, bravely and unselfishly as anyone. He was a progressive, almost two millennia before there were even people calling themselves liberals.
The best things in Christianity are the words and example of Jesus. For hundreds of years, Christ lived mostly in Europe, and was doled out in bite-sized wafers to the people. If you wanted more, if you wanted the words and deeds of Jesus, they were written in a dead tongue and chained to a lectern. You could only get them in dribs and drabs, through the mouth of a priest.
The Story's World and Characters
The Grand Inquisitor is a tale Ivan Karamazov tells his brother Alyosha, after dinner in a tavern. Ivan spins this fable, immense with insight and implication, but undercuts it at the same time:
"You know, Alyosha - don't laugh! - I composed a poem once, about a year ago. If you can waste ten more minutes on me, I'll tell it to you."
"You wrote a poem?"
"Oh, no, I didn't write it," Ivan laughed, "I've never composed two lines of verse in my whole life. But I made up this poem and memorized it. I made it up in great fervor. You'll be my first reader - I mean, listener. Why, indeed, should an author lose even one listener?" Ivan grinned. "Shall I tell it or not?"
"I'm listening carefully," said Alyosha.
"My poem is called The Grand Inquisitor - an absurd thing, but I want you to hear it."
Christ was crucified, rose from death, and ascended into Heaven. Now fifteen centuries have passed, here below, without Jesus. Faith has survived on wafers and miracles. Luther came, nailing doubt to the doors of the church, and heretics across Europe are now denying the miracles. Even the faithful are pleading to Jesus, "God our Lord, reveal thyself to us." And Jesus hears their prayers.
I'll quote at length from the first two pages of the story, for a few reasons. Dostoevsky's very ambitious in the ideas he tackles, but I enjoy him most when he's bringing a scene vividly to life with telling details. He spends the first pages of this chapter bringing you into a dusty square in Seville in the 16th Century, and the rest of the chapter is an exploration of ideas, a dialog where one character never speaks. So I'm sharing Dostoevsky's descriptions here both for pleasure, and to ground the battle of ideas that is the main story.
Jesus is never mentioned by name - he is a mysterious figure, balanced between human and divine. But Jesus and the Grand Inquisitor are opposing principles, each of them full of power and meaning, of different colors of life. So you should get a close look at the principals, before you hear the principles they embody.
He desired to visit his children if only for a moment, and precisely where the fires of the heretics had begun to crackle. In his infinite mercy he walked once again among men, in the same human image in which he had walked for three years among men fifteen centuries earlier. He came down to the 'scorched squares' of a southern town where just the day before, in a 'splendid auto-da-fé,' in the presence of the king, the court, knights, cardinals, and the loveliest court ladies, before the teeming populace of all Seville, the Cardinal Grand Inquisitor had burned almost a hundred heretics at once ad majorem gloriam Dei (for the greater glory of God). He appeared quietly, inconspicuously, but, strange to say, everyone recognized him. This could be one of the best passages in the poem. I mean, why it is exactly that they recognize him. People are drawn to him by an invincible force, they flock to him, surround him, follow him. He passes silently among them with a quiet smile of infinite compassion. The sun of love shines in his heart, rays of Light, Enlightenment, and Power stream from his eyes and, pouring over the people, shake their hearts with responding love.
This shining vision is passing through the main square. The people surround him, and life and love flow out through his face, his fingertips, his garments. The sick grow well and the blind can see again. Children throw flowers before him and sing 'Hosanna!"
He comes to the porch of the cathedral just as a noble's only child, a seven-year-old girl, emerges in a white coffin, surrounded by weeping. The mother throws herself at his feet, and begs for a miracle. He gives the child back her life.
There is a commotion among the people, cries, weeping, and at this very moment the Cardinal Grand Inquisitor himself crosses the square in front of the cathedral. He is an old man, almost ninety, tall and straight, with a gaunt face and sunken eyes, from which a glitter still shines like a fiery spark. Oh, he is not wearing his magnificent cardinal's robes in which he had displayed himself to the people the day before, when the enemies of the Roman faith were burned - no, at the moment he is wearing only his old, coarse, monastic cassock. He is followed at a certain distance by his grim assistants and slaves, and by the 'holy' guard. At the sight of the crowd he stops and watches from afar. He has seen everything, seen the coffin set down at his feet, seen the girl rise, and his face darkens. He scowls with his thick, gray eyebrows, and his eyes shine with a sinister fire. He stretches forth his finger and orders the guard to take him. And such is his power, so tamed submissive, and tremblingly obedient to his will are the people, that the crowd immediately parts before the guard, and they, amidst the deathly silence that has suddenly fallen, lay their hands on him and lead him away. As one man the crowd immediately bows to the ground before the aged Inquisitor, who silently blesses the people, and moves on. The guard lead their prisoner to the small, gloomy, vaulted prison in the old building of the holy court, and lock him there. The day is over, the Seville night comes, dark, hot, and 'breathless.' The air is 'fragrant with laurel and lemon.' In the deep darkness, the iron door of the prison suddenly opens, and the old Grand Inquisitor himself slowly enters carrying a lamp. He is alone, the door is immediately locked behind him. He stands in the entrance and for a long time, for a minute or two, gazes into his face. At last he quietly approaches, sets the lamp on the table, and says to him: "Is it you? You?" But receiving no answer, he quickly adds: "Do not answer, be silent. After all, what could you say? I know too well what you would say. And you have no right to add anything to what you already said once. Why, then, have you come to interfere with us? For you have come to interfere with us and you know it yourself. But do you know what will happen tomorrow? I do not know who you are, and I do not want to know: whether it is you, or only his likeness; but tomorrow I shall condemn you and burn you at the stake as the most evil of heretics, and the very people who today kissed your feet, tomorrow, at a nod from me, will rush to heap up the coals around your stake, do you know that? Yes, perhaps you do know it," he added, pondering deeply, never for a moment taking his eyes from his prisoner.
The adoring crowd recognize Jesus, yet they stand aside silently, and let the Inquisitor take him. The Inquisitor rules this world. Jesus is overflowing with life, but the Inquisitor is drawn with more detail, we feel his grim solidity. This is the Inquisitor's story: he orders Jesus to be silent, and goes on to tell us both sides of his own faith. Like the ignorant church-going peasants of that age, we only get the story of Jesus from the priest's mouth, in his words. He will tell us what he believes, and we will feel the weight of all he wishes for, and all that he secretly fears. Dostoevsky, and Ivan Karamazov, will leave us searching for the truth behind the fable.
"I don't quite understand what this is, Ivan," Alyosha, who all the while had been listening silently, smiled. "Is it boundless fantasy, or some mistake on the old man's part, some impossible qui pro quo?"
"Assume it's the latter, if you like," Ivan laughed, "if you're so spoiled by modern realism and can't stand anything fantastic - if you want it to be qui pro quo, let it be. Of course," he laughed again, "the man is ninety years old, and might have lost his mind long ago over his idea. He might have been struck by the prisoner's appearance. It might, finally, have been simple delirium, the vision of a ninety-year-old man nearing death, and who is excited, besides, by the auto-da-fé of a hundred burnt heretics the day before. But isn't it all the same to you and me whether it's qui pro quo or boundless fantasy? The only thing is that the old man needs to speak out, that finally after all his ninety years, he speaks out, and says aloud all that he has been silent about for ninety years."
There are 14 pages left in the chapter, and I won't quote them all. I'll look at some of the big ideas, but Dostoevsky gives them with more subtle arguments and better writing. If you haven't read any Dostoevsky yet,
The Grand Inquisitor is a fine place to start. I'm enjoying the clarity of Pevear and Volokhonsky's award-winning translation.
Here's the Inquisitor, getting to the heart of his question for Jesus, and his own answer:
'Was it not you who so often said then: "I want to make you free"? But now you have seen these "free" men,' the old man suddenly adds with a pensive smile. 'Yes, this work has cost us dearly,' he goes on, looking sternly at him, 'but we have finally finished this work in your name. For fifteen hundred years we have been at pains over this freedom, but now it is finished, and well finished. You do not believe that it is well finished? You look at me meekly and do not deign even to be indignant with me. Know, then, that now, precisely now, these people are more certain than ever before that they are completely free, and at the same time they themselves have brought us their freedom and obediently laid it at our feet. It is our doing, but is it what you wanted? This sort of freedom?'
Here comes another digression, applying the ideas of this story to the people running the US. If you just want the Dostoevsky, skip to the next orange doodle.
Power, Authority and the US Government
The Grand Inquisitor can be seen as the face of the Catholic Church, especially at the height of the Inquisition - but he also brings to mind all those in power, who would save us from our own freedom. Everyone who knows better than the people that they serve. Everyone who looks at their flock, decides these sheep can never learn to think, choose, and build themselves better lives, so they'd better be taught to keep silent and stay in their pens.
It's difficult and disturbing work, trying to judge others who think differently from us. Looking too far into the workings of our government (all the power structures of our corporatocracy, actually) can give you ulcers, or leave you feeling jaded and more cynical. Looking at right-wing ideologues is even harder on the stomach. It's not just the ugliness, it's the uncertainty.
The Republicans, as a party, appear to be a gang of thieves and liars. But which of them are arrogant fools (like W.); which of them are downright psychopaths (like Cheney); and which of them are twisted enough to believe their lies are true (like Ron Paul)?
I can't even wrap my head around Obama. Which policies and acts are some kind of 11th dimensional chess, which spring from utter naivety, and which rely on an arrogant certainty that he knows what's best for us (e.g. promising transparency in government, then making it worse)? I'm not against Obama - I think he's done much more good than harm, and I believe he cares far more for Americans than any Republican candidate in recent decades. But I don't think Obama's as wise as he thinks he is.
There's something reassuring about the obvious villains, like Cheney, Rove, Limbaugh and Lieberman: these are clearly despicable people, who are utterly selfish and do great damage to our country. We can judge and hate them whole-heartedly.
W., on the other hand - well, you can still judge and hate him, but his evil is more accidental. I'm not excusing him - you don't go steal the presidency and lead your country into a war on false premises, you have absolutely no right to wield that kind of power just to slake your own ego: with great power comes great responsibility. But it is quite possible that, most days, W. thinks he did the best he could for America. He just didn't think nearly hard enough about it.
The self-righteousness of power is a very dangerous thing. An easy trap to fall into, when you're surrounded by toadies and still have a frat-boy personality. And the whole right-wing lives in this nightmare bubble of lies. Half the Republican party - even the senators - get all their news from Fox.
There are three overlapping problems here. First, you have a right-wing who prefer their lies to facts, and listen only to each other. Plus that Palinesque, exuberant resentment thing: when W. came into power, he threw out a lot of good policies (e.g. our treaty with North Korea) precisely because Clinton had followed them. Secondly, you have a pervasive inside-the-beltway mentality, where David Brooks can talk to one person at Applebee's, and then claim he's speaking for Middle America. Thirdly, you have many capable leaders who grow so comfortable in the halls of power, that they believe democracy works best when they make a window-dressing out of it, and make all the hard decisions behind closed doors. (All of this is just looking at the power and arrogance. If you consider the money, the way half of our politicians leave government for lobbying jobs at 15 times their previous salary, it gets much uglier.)
I'll bet you that many of the people who are doing all they can to make it harder for poor people, for minorities, for democrats to vote, are pretty sure that they're protecting the true essence of our democracy. How on earth do you get to the point where someone as smart as Scalia believes that he needs to wage a crusade against "perpetuating racial entitlements" (i.e. Voting Rights), and that it's his job to protect 98 senators who voted for them from their own weakness and folly? I guess you start with three overlapping problems, and then give them a couple of decades to become thoroughly ingrown in the Washington DC culture.
The Grand Inquisitor opens up into these universal questions, in one direction about power structures, government, authority and democracy; in the other direction about psychology, human nature, free choice, empowerment, and development of the individual. How much freedom do people really want? How much can they handle? How can you educate and support the development of a culture of strong, independent individuals? If you do that, how can you get all those loud voices to work in harmony?
Let's return now to the Grand Inquisitor's story.
Correcting Jesus' Work
The Grand Inquisitor reminds Jesus of the three temptations the Devil offered him in the wilderness. Satan offered Jesus enough food to feed the people, or a miracle to prove his divinity to them, or the power to rule the world. Jesus, of course, rejected all three temptations.
The Inquisitor says that Jesus made three mistakes, and that each of Satan's temptations was better than what Jesus finally gave his followers, and what he asked of them. Jesus denied his flock the easy and comforting answers, which were all most of them could bear. He left them with freedom, with all the pain and uncertainty of striving to be good by their own lights. He asked too much.
The Inquisitor believes - as so many in power have, through the ages - that only a tiny fraction of humanity are brave and wise enough to handle the knowledge of good and evil responsibly. Most of humanity is a shapeless mass, waiting to be told what to do. Those who can handle the truth, who can face up to the hard decisions, have become the leaders of the Catholic Church. They are continuing Jesus' work, taking the sins of the masses upon themselves. They know they are lying to their flock, but by pretending they have perfect faith and understanding, they allow the masses to sleep easy at night. So the leaders of the Church carry the moral burden of all humanity.
The Grand Inquisitor says that Jesus made a great mistake, and the Catholic Church has corrected his work. I love the irony here. Jesus has been away for fifteen centuries, and only returned because the Church is cracking apart, and his flock are crying out for him to return.
The chapter makes these arguments with more substance and subtlety, and shows us the mind of this old, wise man, hiding from his own doubts. He concludes:
I will stand up and point out to you the thousands of millions of happy babes who do not know sin. And we, who took their sins upon ourselves for their happiness, we will stand before you and say: "Judge us if you can and dare." Know that I am not afraid of you. Know that I, too, was in the wilderness, and I, too, ate locusts and roots; that I, too, blessed freedom, with which you have blessed mankind, and I, too, was preparing to enter the number of your chosen ones, the number of the strong and mighty, with a thirst "that the number be complete." But I awoke and did not want to serve madness. I returned and joined the host of those who have corrected your deed. I left the proud and returned to the humble, for the happiness of the humble. What I am telling you will come true, and our kingdom will be established. Tomorrow, I repeat, you will see this obedient flock, which at my first gesture will rush to heap hot coals around your stake, at which I shall burn you for having come to interfere with us. For if anyone has ever deserved our stake, it is you. Tomorrow I shall burn you. Dixi (I have spoken).
The brothers argue for awhile, Ivan exhilarated with levity and Alyosha full of distress.
"You don't believe in God," Alyosha added, this time with great sorrow. Besides, it seemed to him that his brother was looking at him mockingly. "And how does your poem end," he asked suddenly, staring at the ground, "or was that the end?"
"I was going to end it like this: when the Inquisitor fell silent, he waited some time for his prisoner to reply. His silence weighed on him. He had seen how the captive listened to him all the while intently and calmly, looking him in the eye, and apparently not wishing to contradict anything. The old man would have liked him to say something, even something bitter, terrible. But suddenly he approaches the old man in silence and gently kisses him on his bloodless, ninety-year-old lips. That is the whole answer. The old man shudders. Something stirs at the corners of his mouth; he walks to the door, opens it, and says to him: 'Go and do not come again . . . do not come at all . . . never, never!' And he lets him out into the 'dark squares of the city.' The prisoner goes away."
"And the old man?"
"The kiss burns his heart, but the old man holds to his former idea."