As a young man,
novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky (1812-1881) was sentenced to death for activities
as a utopian socialist in Tsarist Russia. With the hangman's rope around
his neck, Dostoevsky received a reprieve at the last second and experienced
an epiphany which reversed his political views. Although he turned against
socialism as being incompatible with human nature, he saw equal danger
in a government led by the religious right of his day -- demagogues
who pay lip service to Christian ideals in order to rule like "benevolent"
slave owners.
Dostoevsky survived several years
of imprisonment at hard labor in Siberia.
Later he wrote: “You must
first love life before loving the ‘meaning’ of life.”
In one
section of his novel "The Brothers Karamazov"(1880) Dostoevsky
imagines Jesus Christ returning to earth during the Spanish Inquisition.
Immediately he is arrested and sentenced to death by the Christian church.
A church elder known as the Grand Inquisitor visits Christ in his prison
cell the night before the execution and speaks in a rambling monlogue:
"I want You to know … men are convinced that they are freer
than they have ever been, although they themselves brought us their
freedom and put it meekly at our feet. Man is a rebel by nature and
how can a rebel be happy? You spurned the only way that could have brought
happiness to men. Fortunately, though, You allowed us to take over from
You when You left. You gave us the right to loosen and to bind their
shackles … there has never been anything more difficult for man and
for human society to bear than freedom!
Do You know that more
centuries will pass and men of wisdom and learning will proclaim that
there is no such thing as crime, that there is therefore no sin either,
that there are only hungry people. "Feed us first, then ask for
virtue” -- that will be the motto on the banner of those who will
oppose You, of those who will raze Your temple and build in its place
a new terrifying tower of Babel. We shall finish building their tower
for them, for the one who feeds them will be the one who finishes building
it, and we will be the only ones capable of feeding them. They will
marvel at us and worship us like gods, because, by becoming their masters,
we have accepted the burden of freedom that they were too frightened
to face … We shall tell them we rule over them in Your name. We shall
be lying, because we do not intend to allow You to come back.
There is nothing a free man is so anxious to do as to find something
to worship. But it must be something unquestionable, that all men can
agree to worship communally. For the great concern of these miserable
creatures is not that every individual should find something to worship
that he personally considers worthy of worship, but that they should
find something in which they can all believe and which they can all
worship in common. And it is precisely that requirement of shared worship
that has been the principal source of suffering for individual man and
the human race since the beginning of history. In their efforts to impose
universal worship, men have unsheathed their swords and killed one another.
For the mystery of human existence lies not in just staying alive,
but in finding something to live for. Without a concrete idea of what
he is living for, man would refuse to live…And yet, instead of giving
them something tangible, You offered them something that was quite beyond
them…You increased their freedom and You imposed everlasting torment
on man’s soul … In the end they will shout that You did not bring them
the truth, because it is impossible to have left them in greater confusion
and misery than You did, leaving them so many anxieties and unsolved
problems …
There are three forces on this earth that can overcome
and capture once and for all the conscience of these feeble, undisciplined
creatures, so as to give them happiness. These forces are miracle, mystery, and authority. But You rejected these forces and set
up your rejection as an example to men. Did you really expect that man
would follow Your example and remain with God without recourse to miracles?
And since man cannot live without miracles, he will provide himself
with miracles of his own making. He will believe in witchcraft and sorcery,
even though he may otherwise be a heretic, an atheist, and a rebel.
You did not come down from the cross when they shouted, taunting
and challengingly You, “Come down from the cross and we will believe
that You are He.” You did not come down, again because You did not want
to bring man to You by miracles, because You wanted their freely given
love rather than the servile rapture of slaves subdued forever by a
display of power. And, here again, You overestimated men, for they are
certainly nothing but slaves, although they were created rebels by nature
… By paying man such respect, You acted as if You lacked compassion
for him…Had You respected him less, You would have demanded less of
him and that would have been more like love, for the burden You placed
on him would not have been so heavy.
Why should the rest of
mankind, the weak ones, suffer because they are unable to stand what
the strong ones can? Why is it the fault of a weak soul if he cannot
live up to such terrifying gifts? Can it really be true that You came
only for the chosen few? If that is so, it is a mystery that we cannot
understand; and if it is a mystery, we have the right to preach to man
that what matters is not freedom of choice or love, but a mystery that
he must worship blindly, even at the expense of his conscience. And
that is exactly what we have done. We have corrected Your work and have
now founded it on miracle, mystery, and authority.
Our work is only beginning, but
at least it has begun. And, although its completion is still a long
way off and the earth will have to face much suffering until then, in
the end we shall prevail, we will be Caesars, and then we shall devise
a plan for universal happiness. But You, You could have taken Caesar’s
sword when you came the first time. Why did you reject that last gift?
Had you accepted the third offering of the mighty spirit, You would
have fulfilled man’s greatest need on earth. That is, the need to find
someone to worship, someone who can relieve him of the burden of conscience,
thus enabling him finally to unite into the harmonious ant-hill where
there are no dissenting voices, for the unquenchable thirst for universal
unity is the third and last ordeal of man.
Under us they will
all be happy and they will not rise in rebellion and kill one another
all the world over, as they are doing now with the freedom You gave
them. Oh, we shall convince them that they will only be free when they
have surrendered their freedom and submitted to us…for they will remember
the horrors of chaos and enslavement that Your freedom brought them…Ah,
they will value all too highly the advantages to be derived from submitting
to us once and for all. The herd will be gathered together and tamed
again … and this time for good.
And everyone will be happy,
all the millions of beings, with the exception of the hundred thousand
men who are called upon to rule over them. For only we, the keepers
of the secret, will be unhappy. There will be millions upon millions
of happy babes and one hundred thousand sufferers who have accepted
the burden of the knowledge of good and evil. They will die peacefully
with Your name upon their lips, but beyond the grave they will find
nothing but death. But we shall keep the secret and, for their own happiness,
we shall dangle before them the reward of eternal, heavenly bliss.
Know that I am not afraid of you; know that I, too, lived in the
wilderness, fed upon roots and locusts, that I, too, blessed the freedom
which You bestowed upon men, and that I, too, was prepared to take my
place among the strong chosen ones, aspiring to be counted among them.
But I came to my senses and refused to serve a mad cause. I turned away
and joined those who were endeavoring to correct
your work. I left the proud and turned to the meek, for the happiness
of the meek. What I have told You will happen and our kingdom will come.
I repeat, tomorrow You will see the obedient herds, at the first sign
from me, hurry to heap coals on the fire beneath the stake at which
I shall have You burned, because by coming here, You have made our task
more difficult. For if anyone has ever deserved our fire, it is You,
and I shall have you burned tomorrow!"
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