Theos-Talk Archives (April 2003 Message tt00064)

THE GRAND INQUISITOR

translator H. P. Blavatsky  

from Dostoevsky: THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV



[Dedicated by the Translator [H P B] to those sceptics who clamour so
loudly, both in print and private letters—"Show us the wonder-working
‘Brothers,’ let them come out publicly and—we will believe in them!"]
[THE following is an extract from M. Dostoevsky’s celebrated novel,
The Brothers Karamazof, the last publication from the pen of the great
Russian novelist, who died a few months ago, just as the concluding
chapters appeared in print. 

Dostoevsky is beginning to be recognized as one of the ablest and
profoundest among Russian writers. His characters are invariably
typical portraits drawn from various classes of Russian society,
strikingly life-like and realistic to the highest degree. The
following extract is a cutting satire on modern theology generally and
the Roman Catholic religion in particular. 

The idea is that Christ revisits earth, coming to Spain at the period
of the Inquisition, and is at once arrested as a heretic by the Grand
Inquisitor. One of the three brothers of the story, Ivan, a rank
materialist and an atheist of the new school, is supposed to throw
this conception into the form of a poem, which he describes to
Alyosha—the youngest of the brothers a young Christian mystic brought
up by a "saint" in a monastery—as follows:]


"Quite impossible, as you see, to start without an introduction,"
laughed Ivan. "Well, then, I mean to place the event described in the
poem in the sixteenth century, an age—as you must have been told at
school—when it was the great fashion among poets to make the denizens
and powers of higher worlds descend on earth and mix freely with
mortals. 

. . . In France all the notaries’ clerks, and the monks in their
cloisters as well, used to give grand performances, dramatic plays in
which long scenes were enacted by the Madonna, the angels, the saints,
Christ, and even by God Himself. In those days, everything was very
artless and primitive. An instance of it may be found in Victor Hugo’s
drama, Notre Dame de Paris, where, at the Municipal Hall, a play
called Le Bon Jugement de la Très-sainte et Gracieuse Vierge Marie, is
enacted in honour of Louis XI, in which the Virgin appears personally
to pronounce her ‘good judgment.’ In Moscow, during the prepetrean
period, performances of nearly the same character, chosen especially
from the Old Testament, were also in great favour. Apart from such
plays, the world was overflooded with mystical writings, ‘verses’—the
heroes of which were always selected from the ranks of angels, saints
and other heavenly citizens answering to the devotional purposes of
the age. The recluses of our monasteries, like the Roman Catholic
monks, passed their time in translating, copying, and even producing
original compositions upon such subjects, and that, remember, during
the Tartar period! . . . In this connection, I am reminded of a poem
compiled in a convent—a translation from the Greek, of course—called
‘The Travels of the Mother of God among the Damned,’ with fitting
illustrations and a boldness of conception inferior nowise to that of
Dante. The ‘Mother of God’ visits hell, in company with the Archangel
Michael as her cicerone to guide her through the legions of the
‘damned.’ She sees them all, and is witness to their multifarious
tortures. Among the many other exceedingly remarkable varieties of
torments—every category of sinners having its own—there is one
especially worthy of notice, namely, a class of the ‘damned’ sentenced
to gradually sink in a burning lake of brimstone and fire. Those whose
sins cause them to sink so low that they no longer can rise to the
surface are for ever forgotten by God, i.e., they fade out from the
omniscient memory, says the poem—an expression, by the way, of an
extraordinary profundity of thought, when closely analyzed. The Virgin
is terribly shocked, and falling down upon her knees in tears before
the throne of God, begs that all she has seen in hell—all, all without
exception, should have their sentences remitted to them. Her dialogue
with God is colossally interesting. She supplicates, she will not
leave Him. And when God, pointing to the pierced hands and feet of her
Son, cries, ‘How can I forgive His executioners?’ she then commands
that all the saints, martyrs, angels and archangels, should prostrate
themselves with her before the Immutable and the Changeless One and
implore Him to change His wrath into mercy and—forgive them all. The
poem closes upon her obtaining from God a compromise, a kind of yearly
respite of tortures between Good Friday and Trinity, a chorus of the
‘damned’ singing loud praises to God from their ‘bottomless pit,’
thanking and telling Him:

Thou art right, O Lord, very right, 
Thou hast condemned us justly.


"My poem is of the same character.

"In it, it is Christ who appears on the scene. True, He says nothing,
but only appears and passes out of sight. Fifteen centuries have
elapsed since He left the world with the distinct promise to return
‘with power and great glory’; fifteen long centuries since His prophet
cried, "Prepare ye the way of the Lord!’ since He Himself had
foretold, while yet on earth, ‘Of that day and hour knoweth no man,
no, not the angels of heaven but my Father only.’ But Christendom
expects Him still. . . .

"It waits for Him with the same old faith and the same emotion; aye,
with a far greater faith, for fifteen centuries have rolled away since
the last sign from heaven was sent to man,

And blind faith remained alone 
To lull the trusting heart, 
As heav’n would send a sign no more.

"True, again, we have all heard of miracles being wrought ever since
the ‘age of miracles’ passed away to return no more. We had, and still
have, our saints credited with performing the most miraculous cures;
and, if we can believe their biographers, there have been those among
them who have been personally visited by the Queen of Heaven. But
Satan sleepeth not, and the first germs of doubt, an ever-increasing
unbelief in such wonders, already had begun to sprout in Christendom
as early as the sixteenth century. It was just at that time that a new
and terrible heresy first made its appearance in the north of
Germany.* <http://www.blavatsky.net/blavatsky/arts/> A great star
‘shining as it were a lamp . . . fell upon the fountains of waters’ .
. . and ‘they were made bitter.’ This ‘heresy’ blasphemously denied
‘miracles.’ But those who had remained faithful believed all the more
ardently. The tears of mankind ascended to Him as heretofore, and the
Christian world was expecting Him as confidently as ever; they loved
Him and hoped in Him, thirsted and hungered to suffer and die for Him
just as many of them had done before. . . . So many centuries had
weak, trusting humanity implored Him, crying with ardent faith and
fervour: ‘How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost Thou not come!’ So
many long centuries hath it vainly appealed to Him, that at last, in
His inexhaustible compassion, He consenteth to answer the prayer. . .
. 

He decideth that once more, if it were but for one short hour, the
people—His long-suffering, tortured, fatally sinful, yet loving and
child-like, trusting people—shall behold Him again. The scene of
action is placed by me in Spain, at Seville, during that terrible
period of the Inquisition, when, for the greater glory of God, stakes
were flaming all over the country,

Burning wicked heretics,
In grand auto-da-fés.


"This particular visit has, of course, nothing to do with the promised
Advent, when, according to the programme, ‘after the tribulation of
those days,’ He will appear ‘coming in the clouds of heaven.’ For,
that ‘coming of the Son of Man,’ as we are informed, will take place
as suddenly ‘as the lightning cometh out of the east and shineth even
unto the west.’ No; this once, He desired to come unknown, and appear
among His children, just when the bones of the heretics, sentenced to
be burnt alive, had commenced crackling at the flaming stakes. 

Owing to His limitless mercy, He mixes once more with mortals and in
the same form in which He was wont to appear fifteen centuries ago. He
descends, just at the very moment when before king, courtiers,
knights, cardinals, and the fairest dames of court, before the whole
population of Seville, upwards of a hundred wicked heretics are being
roasted, in a magnificent auto-da-fé ad majorem Dei gloriam, by the
order of the powerful Cardinal Grand Inquisitor. . . . 

He comes silently and unannounced; yet all—how strange—yea, all
recognize Him, at once! The population rushes towards Him as if
propelled by some irresistible force; it surrounds, throngs, and
presses around, it follows Him. . . . 

Silently, and with a smile of boundless compassion upon His lips, He
crosses the dense crowd, and moves softly on. The Sun of Love burns in
His heart, and warm rays of Light, Wisdom and Power beam forth from
His eyes, and pour down their waves upon the swarming multitudes of
the rabble assembled around, making their hearts vibrate with
returning love. He extends His hands over their heads, blesses them,
and from mere contact with Him, aye, even with His garments, a healing
power goes forth. 

An old man, blind from his birth, cries, ‘Lord, heal me, that I may
see Thee!’ and the scales falling off the closed eyes, the blind man
beholds Him. . . . The crowd weeps for joy, and kisses the ground upon
which He treads. Children strew flowers along His path and sing to
Him, ‘Hosanna!’ It is He, it is Himself, they say to each other, it
must be He, it can be none other but He! 

He pauses at the portal of the old cathedral, just as a wee white
coffin is carried in, with tears and great lamentations. The lid is
off, and in the coffin lies the body of a fair girl-child, seven years
old, the only child of an eminent citizen of the city. The little
corpse lies buried in flowers. ‘He will raise thy child to life!’
confidently shouts the crowd to the weeping mother. The officiating
priest who had come to meet the funeral procession, looks perplexed,
and frowns. A loud cry is suddenly heard, and the bereaved mother
prostrates herself at His feet. ‘If it be Thou, then bring back my
child to life!’ she cries beseechingly. The procession halts, and the
little coffin is gently lowered at His feet. Divine compassion beams
forth from His eyes, and as He looks at the child, His lips are heard
to whisper once more, ‘Talitha Cumi’—and ‘straightway the damsel
arose.’ The child rises in her coffin. Her little hands still hold the
nosegay of white roses which after death was placed in them, and,
looking round with large astonished eyes she smiles sweetly. . . . The
crowd is violently excited. 

A terrible commotion rages among them, the populace shouts and loudly
weeps, when suddenly, before the cathedral door, appears the Cardinal
Grand Inquisitor himself. . . . He is a tall, gaunt-looking old man of
nearly fourscore years and ten, with a stern, withered face, and
deeply sunken eyes, from the cavity of which glitter two fiery sparks.
He has laid aside his gorgeous cardinal’s robes in which he had
appeared before the people at the auto-da-fé of the enemies of the
Romish Church, and is now clad in his old, rough, monkish cassock. His
sullen assistants and slaves of the ‘holy guard’ are following at a
distance. He pauses before the crowd and observes. He has seen all. He
has witnessed the placing of the little coffin at His feet, the
calling back to life. And now, his dark, grim face has grown still
darker; his bushy grey eyebrows nearly meet, and his sunken eye
flashes with sinister light. Slowly raising his finger, he commands
his minions to arrest Him. . . .

"Such is his power over the well-disciplined, submissive and now
trembling people, that the thick crowds immediately give way, and
scattering before the guard, amid dead silence and without one breath
of protest, allow them to lay their sacrilegious hands upon the
stranger and lead Him away. . . . That same populace, like one man,
now bows its head to the ground before the old Inquisitor, who blesses
it and slowly moves onward. The guards conduct their prisoner to the
ancient building of the Holy Tribunal; pushing Him into a narrow,
gloomy, vaulted prison-cell, they lock Him in and retire.

"The day wanes, and night—a dark, hot, breathless Spanish night—creeps
on and settles upon the city of Seville. The air smells of laurels and
orange blossoms. In the Cimmerian darkness of the old Tribunal Hall
the iron door of the cell is suddenly thrown open, and the Grand
Inquisitor, holding a dark lantern, slowly stalks into the dungeon. He
is alone, and, as the heavy door closes behind him, he pauses at the
threshold, and, for a minute or two, silently and gloomily scrutinizes
the Face before him. At last, approaching with measured steps, he sets
his lantern down upon the table and addresses Him in these words:

" ‘It is Thou! . . . Thou!’ . . . Receiving no reply, he rapidly
continues: ‘Nay, answer not; be silent! . . . And what couldst Thou
say? . . . I know but too well Thy answer. . . . Besides, Thou hast no
right to add one syllable to that which was already uttered by Thee
before. . . . Why shouldst Thou now return, to impede us in our work?
For Thou hast come but for that only, and Thou knowest it well. But
art Thou as well aware of what awaits Thee in the morning? I do not
know, nor do I care to know who Thou mayest be: be it Thou or only
Thine image, to-morrow I will condemn and burn Thee on the stake, as
the most wicked of all the heretics; and that same people, who to-day
were kissing Thy feet, tomorrow at one bend of my finger, will rush to
add fuel to Thy funeral pile. . . Wert Thou aware of this?’ he adds,
speaking as if in solemn thought, and never for one instant taking his
piercing glance off the meek Face before him."

"I can hardly realize the situation described—what is all this, Ivan?"
suddenly interrupted Alyosha, who had remained silently listening to
his brother. "Is this an extravagant fancy, or some mistake of the old
man, an impossible quid pro quo?"

"Let it be the latter, if you like," laughed Ivan, "since modern
realism has so perverted your taste that you feel unable to realize
anything from the world of fancy. . . . Let it be a quid pro quo. if
you so choose it. Again, the Inquisitor is ninety years old, and he
might have easily gone mad with his one idée fixe of power; or, it
might have as well been a delirious vision, called forth by dying
fancy, overheated by the auto-da-fé of the hundred heretics in that
forenoon. . . . But what matters for the poem, whether it was a quid
pro quo or an uncontrollable fancy? The question is, that the old man
has to open his heart; that he must give out his thought at last; and
that the hour has come when he does speak it out, and says loudly that
which for ninety years he has kept secret within his own breast."

"And his prisoner, does He never reply? Does He keep silent, looking
at him, without saying a word?"

"Of course; and it could not well be otherwise," again retorted Ivan.
"The Grand Inquisitor begins from his very first words by telling Him
that He has no right to add one syllable to that which He had said
before. To make the situation clear at once, the above preliminary
monologue is intended to convey to the reader the very fundamental
idea which underlies Roman Catholicism—as well as I can convey it, his
words mean, in short: ‘Everything was given over by Thee to the Pope,
and everything now rests with him alone; Thou hast no business to
return and thus hinder us in our work.’ In this sense the Jesuits not
only talk but write likewise.

"Hast thou the right to divulge to us a single one of the mysteries of
that world whence Thou comest?’ enquires of Him my old Inquisitor, and
forthwith answers for Him, ‘Nay, Thou hast no such right. For, that
would be adding to that which was already said by Thee before; hence
depriving people of that freedom for which Thou hast so stoutly stood
up while yet on earth. . . Anything new that Thou wouldst now proclaim
would have to be regarded as an attempt to interfere with that freedom
of choice, as it would come as a new and a miraculous revelation
superseding the old revelation of fifteen hundred years ago, when Thou
didst so repeatedly tell the people: "The truth shall make you free."
Behold then, Thy "free" people now!’ adds the old man with sombre
irony. ‘Yea! . . . it has cost us dearly,’ he continues, sternly
looking at his victim. ‘But we have at last accomplished our task,
and—in Thy name. . . . For fifteen long centuries we had to toil and
suffer owing to that "freedom"; but now we have prevailed and our work
is done, and well and strongly it is done. . . . Believest not Thou it
is so very strong? . . . And why shouldst Thou look at me so meekly as
if I were not worthy even of Thy indignation?. . . Know then, that
now, and only now, Thy people feel fully sure and satisfied of their
freedom; and that only since they have themselves and of their own
free will delivered that freedom unto our hands by placing it
submissively at our feet. But then, that is what we have done. Is it
that which Thou hast striven for? Is this the kind of "freedom" Thou
hast promised them?’". . .

"Now again, I do not understand," interrupted Alyosha. "Does the old
man mock and laugh?"

"Not in the least. He seriously regards it as a great service done by
himself, his brother monks and Jesuits, to humanity, to have conquered
and subjected unto their authority that freedom, and boasts that it
was done but for the good of the world. ‘For only now,’ he says
(speaking of the Inquisition) ‘has it become possible to us, for the
first time, to give a serious thought to human happiness. Man is born
a rebel, and can rebels be ever happy? . . . Thou hast been fairly
warned of it, but evidently to no use, since Thou hast rejected the
only means which could make mankind happy; fortunately at Thy
departure Thou hast delivered the task to us. . . . Thou hast
promised, ratifying the pledge by Thy own words, in words giving us
the right to bind and unbind . . . and surely, Thou couldst not think
of depriving us of it now!"’

"But what can he mean by the words, ‘ Thou hast been fairly warned’?"
asked Alexis.

"These words give the key to what the old man has to say for his
justification. . . But listen—"‘The terrible and wise spirit, the
spirit of self-annihilation and non-being,’ goes on the Inquisitor,
‘the great spirit of negation conversed with Thee in the wilderness,
and we are told that he "tempted" Thee. . . 

Was it so? And if it were so, then it is impossible to utter anything
more truthful that what is contained in his three offers, which Thou
didst reject, and which are usually called "temptations." Yea; if ever
there was on earth a genuine, striking wonder produced, it was on that
day of Thy three temptations, and it is precisely in these three short
sentences that the marvellous miracle is contained. If it were
possible that they should vanish and disappear for ever, without
leaving any trace, from the record and from the memory of man, and
that it should become necessary again to devise, invent, and make them
re appear in Thy history once more, thinkest Thou that all the world’s
sages, all the legislators, initiates, philosophers and thinkers, if
called upon to frame three questions which should, like these, besides
answering the magnitude of the event, express in three short sentences
the whole future history of this our world and of mankind—dost Thou
believe, I ask Thee, that all their combined efforts could ever create
anything equal in power and depth of thought to the three propositions
offered Thee by the powerful and all-wise spirit in the wilderness?
Judging of them by their marvellous aptness alone, one can at once
perceive that they emanated not from a finite, terrestrial intellect,
but indeed, from the Eternal and the Absolute. In these three offers
we find, blended into one and foretold to us, the complete subsequent
history of man; we are shown three images, so to say, uniting in them
all the future axiomatic, insoluble problems and contradictions of
human nature, the world over. In those days, the wondrous wisdom
contained in them was not made so apparent as it is now, for futurity
remained still veiled; but now, when fifteen centuries have elapsed,
we see that everything in these three questions is so marvelously
foreseen and foretold, that to add to, or to take away from, the
prophecy one jot, would be absolutely impossible!

"Decide then Thyself,’ sternly proceeded the Inquisitor, ‘which of ye
twain was right: Thou who didst reject, or he who offered ? Remember
the subtle meaning of question the first, which runs thus: Wouldst
Thou go into the world empty-handed? Wouldst Thou venture thither with
Thy vague and undefined promise of freedom, which men, dull and unruly
as they are by nature, are unable so much as to understand, which they
avoid and fear?—for never was there anything more unbearable to the
human race than personal freedom! 

Dost Thou see these stones in the desolate and glaring wilderness?
Command that these stones be made bread—and mankind will run after
Thee, obedient and grateful like a herd of cattle. But even then it
will be ever diffident and trembling, lest Thou shouldst take away Thy
hand, and they lose thereby their bread! Thou didst refuse to accept
the offer for fear of depriving men of their free choice; for where is
there freedom of choice where men are bribed with bread? Man shall not
live by! bread alone—was Thine answer. Thou knewest not, it seems,
that it was precisely in the name of that earthly bread that the
terrestrial spirit would one day rise against, struggle with, and
finally conquer Thee, followed by the hungry multitudes shouting: "Who
is like unto that Beast, who maketh fire come down from heaven upon
the earth!" 

Knowest Thou not that, but a few centuries hence, and the whole of
mankind will have proclaimed in its wisdom and through its mouthpiece,
Science, that there is no more crime, hence no more sin on earth, but
only hungry people? "Feed us first and then command us to be
virtuous!" will be the words written upon the banner lifted against
Thee—a banner which shall destroy Thy Church to its very foundations,
and in the place of Thy Temple shall raise once more the terrible
Tower of Babel; and though its building be left unfinished, as was
that of the first one, yet the fact will remain recorded that Thou
couldst, but wouldst not, prevent the attempt to build that new tower
by accepting the offer, and thus saving mankind a millennium of
useless suffering on earth. 

And it is to us that the people will return again. They will search
for us everywhere; and they will find us under ground in the
catacombs, as we shall once more be persecuted and martyred—and they
will begin crying unto us: "Feed us, for they who promised us the fire
from heaven have deceived us! " 

It is then that we will finish building their tower for them. For they
alone who feed them shall finish it, and we shall feed them in Thy
name, and lying to them that it is in that name. Oh, never, never,
will they learn to feed themselves without our help! No science will
ever give them bread so long as they remain free, so long as they
refuse to lay that freedom at our feet, and say. "Enslave, but feed
us!" That day must come when men will understand that freedom and
daily bread enough to satisfy all are unthinkable and can never be had
together, as men will never be able to fairly divide the two among
themselves. And they will also learn that they can never be free, for
they are weak, vicious, miserable nonentities born wicked and
rebellious. 

Thou hast promised to them the bread of life, the bread of heaven; but
I ask Thee again, can that bread ever equal in the sight of the weak
and the vicious, the ever-ungrateful human race, their daily bread on
earth? And even supposing that thousands and tens of thousands follow
Thee in the name of, and for the sake of, Thy heavenly bread, what
will become of the millions and hundreds of millions of human beings
too weak to scorn the earthly for the sake of Thy heavenly bread? 

Or is it but those tens of thousands chosen among the great and the
mighty, that are so dear to Thee, while the remaining millions,
innumerable as the grains of sand in the seas, the weak and the
loving, have to be used as material for the former? No, no! In our
sight and for our purpose the weak and the lowly are the more dear to
us. True, they are vicious and rebellious, but we will force them into
obedience, and it is they who will admire us the most. They will
regard us as gods, and feel grateful to those who have consented to
lead the masses and bear their burden of freedom by ruling over
them—so terrible will that freedom at last appear to men! 

Then we will tell them that it is in obedience to Thy will and in Thy
name that we rule over them. We will deceive them once more and lie to
them once again—for never, never more will we allow Thee to come among
us. In this deception we will find our suffering, for we must needs
lie eternally, and never cease to lie!


"‘Such is the secret meaning of "temptation" the first, and that is
what Thou didst reject in the wilderness for the sake of that freedom
which Thou didst prize above all. Meanwhile Thy tempter’s offer
contained another great world-mystery. By accepting the "bread," Thou
wouldst have satisfied and answered a universal craving, a ceaseless
longing alive in the heart of every individual human being, lurking in
the breast of collective mankind, that most perplexing problem—"whom
or what shall we worship?" 

There exists no greater or more painful anxiety for a man who has
freed himself from all religious bias, than how he shall soonest find
a new object or idea to worship. But man seeks to bow before that only
which is recognized by the greater majority, if not by all his
fellow-men, as having a right to be worshipped; whose rights are so
unquestionable that men agree unanimously to bow down to it. 

For the chief concern of these miserable creatures is not to find and
worship the idol of their own choice, but to discover that which all
others will believe in, and consent to bow down to in a mass. It is
that instinctive need of having a worship in common that is the chief
suffering of every man, the chief concern of mankind from the
beginning of times. 

It is for that universality of religious worship that people destroyed
each other by sword. Creating gods unto themselves, they forthwith
began appealing to each other: "Abandon your deities, come and bow
down to ours, or death to ye and your idols!" 

And so will they do till the end of this world; they will do so even
then, when all the gods themselves have disappeared, for then men will
prostrate themselves before and worship some idea. Thou didst know,
Thou couldst not be ignorant of, that mysterious fundamental principle
in human nature, and still Thou hast rejected the only absolute banner
offered Thee, to which all the nations would remain true, and before
which all would have bowed—the banner of earthly bread, rejected in
the name of freedom and of "bread in the kingdom of God"! 

Behold, then, what Thou hast done furthermore for that "freedom’s"
sake! I repeat to Thee, man has no greater anxiety in life than to
find some one to whom he can make over that gift of freedom with which
the unfortunate creature is born. 

But he alone will prove capable of silencing and quieting their
consciences, that shall succeed in possessing himself of the freedom
of men. With "daily bread" an irresistible power was offered Thee:
show a man "bread" and he will follow Thee, for what can he resist
less than the attraction of bread? but if, at the same time, another
succeed in possessing himself of his conscience—oh! then even Thy
bread will be forgotten, and man will follow him who seduced his
conscience. 

So far Thou wert right. For the mystery of human being does not solely
rest in the desire to live, but in the problem—for what should one
live at all? Without a clear perception of his reasons for living, man
will never consent to live, and will rather destroy himself than tarry
on earth, though he be surrounded with bread. This is the truth. But
what has happened? Instead of getting hold of man’s freedom, Thou hast
enlarged it still more! 

Hast Thou again forgotten that to man rest and even death are
preferable to a free choice between the knowledge of Good and Evil?
Nothing seems more seductive in his eyes than freedom of conscience,
and nothing proves more painful. And behold! instead of laying a firm
foundation whereon to rest once for all man’s conscience, Thou hast
chosen to stir up in him all that is abnormal, mysterious, and
indefinite, all that is beyond human strength, and hast acted as if
Thou never hadst any love for him, and yet Thou wert He who came to
"lay down His life for His friends"!

Thou hast burdened man’s soul with anxieties hitherto unknown to him.
Thirsting for human love freely given, seeking to enable man, seduced
and charmed by Thee, to follow Thy path of his own free-will, instead
of the old and wise law which held him in subjection, Thou hast given
him the right henceforth to choose and freely decide what is good and
bad for him, guided but by Thine image in his heart. 

But hast Thou never dreamt of the probability, nay, of the certainty,
of that same man one day rejecting finally, and controverting even
Thine image and Thy truth, once he would find himself laden with such
a terrible burden as freedom of choice? That a time would surely come
when men would exclaim that Truth and Light cannot be in Thee, for no
one could have left them in a greater perplexity and mental suffering
than Thou hast done, lading them with so many cares and insoluble
problems. Thus, it is Thyself who hast laid the foundation for the
destruction of Thine own kingdom and no one but Thou is to be blamed
for it.

"‘Meantime, every chance of success was offered Thee. There are three
Powers, three unique Forces upon earth, capable of conquering for ever
by charming the conscience of these weak rebels—men—for their own
good; and these Forces are: Miracle, Mystery and Authority. Thou hast
rejected all the three, and thus wert the first to set them an
example. 

When the terrible and all-wise spirit placed Thee on a pinnacle of the
temple and said unto Thee, "If Thou be the son of God, cast Thyself
down, for it is written, He shall give His angels charge concerning
Thee: and in their hands they shall bear Thee up, lest at any time
Thou dash Thy foot against a stone!"—for thus Thy faith in Thy father
should have been made evident, Thou didst refuse to accept his
suggestion and didst not follow it. Oh, undoubtedly, Thou didst act in
this with all the magnificent pride of a god, but then men—that weak
and rebel race—are they also gods, to understand Thy refusal? Of
course, Thou didst well know that by taking one single step forward,
by making the slightest motion to throw Thyself down, Thou wouldst
have tempted "the Lord Thy God," lost suddenly all faith in Him, and
dashed Thyself to atoms against that same earth which Thou camest to
save, and thus wouldst have allowed the wise spirit which tempted Thee
to triumph and rejoice. 

But, then, how many such as Thee are to be found on this globe, I ask
Thee? Couldst Thou ever for a moment imagine that men would have the
same strength to resist such a temptation? Is human nature calculated
to reject miracle, and trust, during the most terrible moments in
life, when the most momentous, painful and perplexing problems
struggle within man’s soul, to the free decisions of his heart for the
true solution? Oh, Thou knewest well that that action of Thine would
remain recorded in books for ages to come, reaching to the confines of
the globe, and Thy hope was, that following Thy example, man would
remain true to his God, without needing any miracle to keep his faith
alive! But Thou knewest not, it seems, that no sooner would man reject
miracle than he would reject God likewise, for he seeketh less God
than "a sign" from Him. And thus, as it is beyond the power of man to
remain without miracles, so, rather than live without, he will create
for himself new wonders of his own making; and he will bow to and
worship the soothsayer’s miracles, the old witch’s sorcery, were he a
rebel, a heretic, and an atheist a hundred times over. Thy refusal to
come down from the cross when people, mocking and wagging their heads
were saying to Thee—"Save Thyself if Thou be the son of God, and we
will believe in Thee," was due to the same determination—not to
enslave man through miracle, but to obtain faith in Thee freely and
apart from any miraculous influence. 

Thou thirstest for free and uninfluenced love, and refusest the
passionate adoration of the slave before a Potency which would have
subjected his will once for ever. Thou judgest of men too highly here,
again, for, though rebels they be, they are born slaves and nothing.
more. 

Behold, and judge of them once more, now that fifteen centuries have
elapsed since that moment. Look at them, whom Thou didst try to
elevate unto Thee! I swear man is weaker and lower than Thou hast ever
imagined him to be! Can he ever do that which Thou art said to have
accomplished? By valuing him so highly Thou hast acted as if there
were no love for him in Thine heart, for Thou hast demanded of him
more than he could ever give—Thou, who lovest him more than Thyself!
Hadst Thou esteemed him less, less wouldst Thou have demanded of him,
and that would have been more like love, for his burden would have
been made thereby lighter. 

Man is weak and cowardly. What matters it, if he now riots and rebels
throughout the world against our will and power, and prides himself
upon that rebellion ? It is but the petty pride and vanity of a
school-boy. It is the rioting of little children, getting up a mutiny
in the class-room and driving their schoolmaster out of it. But it
will not last long, and when the day of their triumph is over, they
will have to pay dearly for it. They will destroy the temples and raze
them to the ground, flooding the earth with blood. But the foolish
children will have to learn some day that, rebels though they be and
riotous from nature, they are too weak to maintain the spirit of
mutiny for any length of time. Suffused with idiotic tears, they will
confess that He who created them rebellious undoubtedly did so but to
mock them. They will pronounce these words in despair, and such
blasphemous utterances will but add to their misery—for human nature
cannot endure blasphemy, and takes her own revenge in the end.

"‘And thus, after all Thou hast suffered for mankind and its freedom,
the present fate of men may be summed up in three words: Unrest,
Confusion, Misery! Thy great prophet John records in his vision, that
he saw, during the first resurrection of the chosen servants of
"God—"the number of them which were sealed" in their foreheads,
"twelve thousand" of every tribe. But were they, indeed, as many? Then
they must have been gods, not men. They had shared Thy Cross for long
years, suffered scores of years’ hunger and thirst in dreary
wildernesses and deserts, feeding upon locusts and roots—and of these
children of free love for Thee, and self-sacrifice in Thy name, Thou
mayest well feel proud. But remember that these are but a few
thousands—of gods, not men; and how about all others? 

And why should the weakest be held guilty for not being able to endure
what the strongest have endured? Why should a soul incapable of
containing such terrible gifts be punished for its weakness? Didst
Thou really come to, and for, the "elect" alone? If so, then the
mystery will remain for ever mysterious to our finite minds. And if a
mystery, then were we right to proclaim it as one, and preach it,
teaching them that neither their freely given love to Thee nor freedom
of conscience were essential, but only that incomprehensible mystery
which they must blindly obey even against the dictates of their
conscience. 

Thus did we. We corrected and improved Thy teaching and based it upon
"Miracle, Mystery, and Authority." And men rejoiced at finding
themselves led once more like a herd of cattle, and at finding their
hearts at last delivered of the terrible burden laid upon them by
Thee, which caused them so much suffering. Tell me, were we right in
doing as we did? Did not we show our great love for humanity, by
realizing in such a humble spirit its helplessness, by so mercifully
lightening its great burden, and by permitting and remitting for its
weak nature every sin, provided it be committed with our
authorization? 

For what, then, hast Thou come again to trouble us in our work? And
why lookest Thou at me so penetratingly with Thy meek eyes, and in
such a silence? Rather shouldst Thou feel wroth, for I need not Thy
love, I reject it, and love Thee not, myself. Why should I conceal the
truth from Thee? I know but too well with whom I am now talking! What
I had to say was known to Thee before, I read it in Thine eye. How
should I conceal from Thee our secret? If perchance Thou wouldst hear
it from my own lips, then listen: We are not with Thee, but with him,
and that is our secret! For centuries have we abandoned Thee to follow
him, yes—eight centuries. Eight hundred years now since we accepted
from him the gift rejected by Thee with indignation; that last gift
which he offered Thee from the high mountain when, showing all the
kingdoms of the world and the glory of them, he saith unto Thee: "All
these things will I give Thee, if Thou wilt fall down and worship me!"


We took Rome from him and the glaive of Cæsar, and declared ourselves
alone the kings of this earth, its sole kings, though our work is not
yet fully accomplished. But who is to blame for it? Our work is but in
its incipient stage, but it is nevertheless started. We may have long
to wait until its culmination, and mankind have to suffer much, but we
shall reach the goal some day, and become sole Cæsars, and then will
be the time to think of universal happiness for men.


"‘Thou couldst accept the glaive of Cæsar Thyself; why didst Thou
reject the offer? By accepting from the powerful spirit his third
offer Thou wouldst have realized every aspiration man seeketh for
himself on earth; man would have found a constant object for worship;
one to deliver his conscience up to, and one that should unite all
together into one common and harmonious ant-hill; for an innate
necessity for universal union constitutes the third and final
affliction of mankind. Humanity as a whole has ever aspired to unite
itself universally. Many were the great nations with great histories,
but the greater they were, the more unhappy they felt, as they felt
the stronger necessity of a universal union among men. 

Great conquerors, like Timoor and Tchengis-Khan, passed like a cyclone
upon the face of the earth in their efforts to conquer the universe,
but even they, albeit unconsciously, expressed the same aspiration
towards universal and common union. In accepting the kingdom of the
world and Cæsar’s purple, one would found a universal kingdom and
secure to mankind eternal peace. And who can rule mankind better than
those who have possessed themselves of man’s conscience, and hold in
their hand man’s daily bread? Having accepted Cæsar’s glaive and
purple, we had, of course, but to deny Thee, to henceforth follow him
alone. 

Oh, centuries of intellectual riot and rebellious free-thought are yet
before us, and their science will end by anthropophagy, for having
begun to build their Babylonian tower without our help they will have
to end by anthropophagy. But it is precisely at that time that the
Beast will crawl up to us in full submission, and lick the soles of
our feet, and sprinkle them with tears of blood. And we shall sit upon
the scarlet-coloured Beast, and lifting up high the golden cup "full
of abomination and filthiness," shall show written upon it the word
"Mystery"! But it is only then that men will see the beginning of a
kingdom of peace and happiness. Thou art proud of Thine own elect, but
Thou hast none other but these elect, and we—we will give rest to all.


But that is not the end. Many are those among Thine elect and the
labourers of Thy vineyard, who, tired of waiting for Thy coming,
already have carried and will yet carry, the great fervour of their
hearts and their spiritual strength into another field, and will end
by lifting up against Thee Thine own banner of freedom. But it is
Thyself Thou hast to thank. Under our rule and sway all will be happy,
and will neither rebel nor destroy each other as they did while under
Thy free banner. 

Oh, we will take good care to prove to them that they will become
absolutely free only when they have abjured their freedom in our
favour and submit to us absolutely. Thinkest Thou we shall be right or
still lying? They will convince themselves of our rightness, for they
will see what a depth of degrading slavery and strife that liberty of
Thine has led them into. Liberty, Freedom of Thought and Conscience,
and Science will lead them into such impassable chasms, place them
face to face before such wonders and insoluble mysteries, that some of
them—more rebellious and ferocious than the rest—will destroy
themselves; others—rebellious but weak—will destroy each other; while
the remainder, weak, helpless and miserable, will crawl back to our
feet and cry: "Yes; right were ye, oh Fathers of Jesus; ye alone are
in possession of His mystery, and we return to you, praying that ye
save us from ourselves!" 

Receiving their bread from us, they will clearly see that we take the
bread from them, the bread made by their own. hands, but to give it
back to them in equal shares and that without any miracle; and having
ascertained that, though we have not changed stones into bread, yet
bread they have, while every other bread turned verily in their own
hands into stones, they will be only too glad to have it so Until that
day, they will never be happy. 

And who is it that helped the most to blind them, tell me? Who
separated the flock and scattered it over ways unknown if it be not
Thee? But we will gather the sheep once more and subject them to our
will for ever. We will prove to them their own weakness and make them
humble again, whilst with Thee they have learnt but pride, for Thou
hast made more of them than they ever were worth. We will give them
that quiet, humble happiness, which alone benefits such weak, foolish
creatures as they are, and having once had proved to them their
weakness, they will become timid and obedient, and gather around us as
chickens around their hen. 

They will wonder at and feel a superstitious admiration for us, and
feel proud to be led by men so powerful and wise that a handful of
them can subject a flock a thousand millions strong. Gradually men
will begin to fear us. They will nervously dread our slightest anger,
their intellects will weaken, their eyes become as easily accessible
to tears as those of children and women; but we will teach them an
easy transition from grief and tears to laughter, childish joy and
mirthful song. Yes; we will make them work like slaves, but during
their recreation hours they shall have an innocent child-like life,
full of play and merry laughter. 

We will even permit them sin, for, weak and helpless, they will feel
the more love for us for permitting them to indulge in it. We will
tell them that every kind of sin will be remitted to them, so long as
it is done with our permission; that we take all these sins upon
ourselves, for we so love the world, that we are even willing to
sacrifice our souls for its satisfaction. And, appearing before them
in the light of their scapegoats and redeemers, we shall be adored the
more for it. They will have no secrets from us. 

It will rest with us to permit them to live with their wives and
concubines, or to forbid them, to have children or remain childless,
either way depending on the degree of their obedience to us; and they
will submit most joyfully to us. The most agonizing secrets of their
souls—all, all will they lay down at our feet, and we will authorize
and remit them all in Thy name, and they will believe us and accept
our mediation with rapture, as it will deliver them from their
greatest anxiety and torture—that of having to decide freely for
themselves. 

And all will be happy, all except the one or two hundred thousands of
their rulers. For it is but we, we the keepers of the great Mystery
who will be miserable. There will be thousands of millions of happy
infants, and one hundred thousand martyrs who have taken upon
themselves the curse of knowledge of good and evil. Peaceable will be
their end, and peacefully will they die, in Thy name, to find behind
the portals of the grave—but death. But we will keep the secret
inviolate, and deceive them for their own good with the mirage of life
eternal in Thy kingdom. For, were there really anything like life
beyond the grave, surely it would never fall to the lot of such as
they! 

People tell us and prophesy of Thy coming and triumphing once more on
earth; of Thy appearing with the army of Thy elect, with Thy proud and
mighty ones; but we will answer Thee that they have saved but
themselves while we have saved all. We are also threatened with the
great disgrace which awaits the whore, "Babylon the great, the mother
of harlots"—who sits upon the Beast, holding in her hands the Mystery,
the word written upon her forehead; and we are told that the weak
ones, the lambs shall rebel against her and shall make her desolate
and naked. 

But then will I arise, and point out to Thee the thousands of millions
of happy infants free from any sin. And we who have taken their sins
upon us, for their own good, shall stand before Thee and say: "Judge
us if Thou canst and darest!" 

Know then that I fear Thee not. Know that I too have lived in the
dreary wilderness, where I fed upon locusts and roots, that I too have
blessed the freedom with which Thou hast blessed men, and that I too
have once prepared to join the ranks of Thy elect, the proud and the
mighty. But I awoke from my delusion and refused since then to serve
insanity. I returned to join the legion of those who corrected Thy
mistakes. I left the proud and returned to the really humble, and for
their own happiness. What I now tell Thee will come to pass, and our
kingdom shall be built, I tell Thee, not later than to-morrow. Thou
shalt see that obedient flock which at one simple motion of my hand
will rush to add burning coals to Thy stake, on which I will burn Thee
for having dared to come and trouble us in our work. For, if there
ever was one who deserved more than any of the others our
inquisitorial fires—it is Thee! Tomorrow I will burn Thee. Dixi."’

Ivan paused. He had entered into the situation and had spoken with
great animation, but now he suddenly burst out laughing.

"But all that is absurd!" suddenly exclaimed Alyosha, who had hitherto
listened perplexed and agitated but in profound silence. "Your poem is
a glorification of Christ, not an accusation, as you, perhaps, meant
it to be. And who will believe you when you speak of ‘freedom’? Is it
thus that we Christians must understand it? It is Rome (not all Rome,
for that would be unjust), but the worst of the Roman Catholics, the
Inquisitors and the Jesuits, that you have been exposing’ 

Your Inquisitor is an impossible character. What are these sins they
are taking upon themselves? Who are those keepers of mystery who took
upon themselves a curse for the good of mankind? Who ever met them? We
all know the Jesuits, and no one has a good word to say in their
favour; but when were they as you depict them? Never, never! The
Jesuits are merely a Romish army making ready for their future
temporal kingdom, with a mitred emperor—a Roman high priest at their
head. That is their ideal and object, without any mystery or elevated
suffering. The most prosaic thirsting for power, for the sake of the
mean and earthly pleasures of life, a desire to enslave their
fellow-men, something like our late system of serfs, with themselves
at the head as landed proprietors—that is all that they can be accused
of. They may not believe in God, that is also possible, but your
suffering Inquisitor is simply—a fancy!"


"Hold, hold!" interrupted Ivan, smiling. "Do not be so excited. A
fancy, you say; be it so! Of course, it is a fancy. But stop. Do you
really imagine that all this Catholic movement during the last
centuries is naught but a desire for power for the mere purpose of
‘mean pleasures’? Is this what your Father Païssiy taught you?"

"No, no, quite the reverse, for Father Païssiy once told me something
very similar to what you yourself say, though, of course, not that.
Something quite different," suddenly added Alexis, blushing.

"A precious piece of information, notwithstanding your ‘not that.’ I
ask you, why should the Inquisitors and the Jesuits of your
imagination live but for the attainment of ‘mean material pleasures’?
Why should there not be found among them one single genuine martyr,
suffering under a great and holy idea and loving humanity with all his
heart? Now let us suppose that among all these Jesuits thirsting and
hungering but after ‘mean material pleasures’ there may be one, just
one like my old Inquisitor, who had himself fed upon roots in the
wilderness, suffered the tortures of damnation while trying to conquer
flesh, in order to become free and perfect, but who had never ceased
to love humanity, and who one day prophetically beheld the truth; who
saw as plain as he could see that the bulk of humanity could never be
happy under the old system, that it was not for them that the great
Idealist had come and died and dreamt of His Universal Harmony. Having
realized that truth, he returned into the world and joined—intelligent
and practical people. Is this so impossible?"

"Joined whom? What intelligent and practical people?" exclaimed
Alyosha quite excited. "Why should they be more intelligent than other
men, and what secrets and mysteries can they have? They have neither.
Atheism and infidelity is all the secret they have. Your Inquisitor
does not believe in God, and that is all the Mystery there is in it!"

"It may be so. You have guessed rightly there. And it is so, and that
is his whole secret; but is this not the acutest of sufferings for
such a man as he, who killed all his young life in asceticism in the
desert, and yet could not cure himself of his love toward his
fellow-men? Toward the end of his life he becomes convinced that it is
only by following the advice of the great and terrible spirit that the
fate of these millions of weak rebels, these ‘half-finished samples of
humanity created in mockery’ can be made tolerable. 

And once convinced of it, he sees as clearly that to achieve that
object, one must follow blindly the guidance of the wise spirit, the
fearful spirit of death and destruction, hence accept a system of lies
and deception and lead humanity consciously this time toward death and
destruction, and moreover, be deceiving them all the while in order to
prevent them from realizing where they are being led, and so force the
miserable blind men to feel happy, at least while here on earth. And
note this: a wholesale deception in the name of Him, in whose ideal
the old man had so passionately, so fervently, believed during nearly
his whole life! 

Is this no suffering? And were such a solitary exception found amidst,
and at the head of, that army ‘that thirsts for power but for the sake
of the mean pleasures of life,’ think you one such man would not
suffice to bring on a tragedy? Moreover, one single man like my
Inquisitor as a principal leader, would prove sufficient to discover
the real guiding idea of the Romish system with all its armies of
Jesuits, the greatest and chiefest agents of that system. 

And I tell you that it is my firm conviction that the solitary type
described in my poem has at no time ever disappeared from among the
chief leaders of that movement. Who knows but that terrible old man,
loving humanity so stubbornly and in such an original way, exists even
in our days in the shape of a whole host of such solitary exceptions,
whose existence is not due to mere chance, but to a well-defined
association born of mutual consent, to a secret league, organized
several centuries back, in order to guard the Mystery from the
indiscreet eyes of the miserable and weak people, and only in view of
their own happiness? 

And so it is; it cannot be otherwise. I suspect that even Masons have
some such Mystery underlying the basis of their organization, and that
it is just the reason why the Roman Catholic clergy hate them so,
dreading to find in them rivals, competition, the dismemberment of the
unity of the idea, for the realization of which one flock and one
Shepherd are needed. However, in defending my idea, I look like an
author whose production is unable to stand criticism. Enough of this."

"You are, perhaps, a Mason yourself!" exclaimed Alyosha. "You do not
believe in God," he added, with a note of profound sadness in his
voice. But suddenly remarking that his brother was looking at him with
mockery, "How do you mean then to bring your poem to a close?" he
unexpectedly enquired, casting his eyes downward, "or does it break
off here?"

"My intention is to end it with the following scene: 

Having disburdened his heart, the Inquisitor waits for some time to
hear his prisoner speak in His turn. His silence weighs upon him. He
has seen that his captive has been attentively listening to him all
the time, with His eyes fixed penetratingly and softly on the face of
his jailer, and evidently bent upon not replying to him. The old man
longs to hear His voice, to hear Him reply; better words of bitterness
and scorn than His silence. 

Suddenly He rises; slowly and silently approaching the Inquisitor, He
bends towards him and softly kisses the bloodless,
four-score-and-ten-year-old lips. That is all the answer. 

The Grand Inquisitor shudders. There is a convulsive twitch at the
corner of his mouth. 

He goes to the door, opens it, and addressing Him, ‘Go,’ he says, ‘go,
and return no more . . . do not come again . . . never, never!’
and—lets Him out into the dark night. The prisoner vanishes."

"And the old man?"

"The kiss burns his heart, but the old man remains firm in his own
ideas and unbelief."

"And you, together with him? You tool" despairingly exclaimed Alyosha,
while Ivan burst into a still louder fit of laughter.


* Luther’s reform.
 
[ THEOSOPHIST, Vol. III. Nos. 2 and 3, November and December, 1881.]




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