Books - The Grand Inquisitor

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	Books - The Grand Inquisitor

The Grand Inquisitor is a parable told by Ivan to Alyosha in Fyodor Dostoevsky's philosophical novel, The Brothers Karamazov (1879-1880).

The Grand Inquisitor is an important part of the novel and one of the best-known passages in modern literature because of its ideas about human nature and freedom, and because of its fundamental ambiguity. It was recently published as an independent text by Continuum Books.

The parable

In the tale, Christ comes back to earth in Seville at the time of the Inquisition. The people recognize him, and he is arrested by Inquisition leaders. The Grand Inquisitor visits him to tell him that the Church no longer needs Him, and that he has not understood human nature. He has burdened humanity with too much freedom.

The Grand Inquisitor poses a hypothetical question: What would happen if Jesus were to return to Earth during the Inquisition? As Dostoevsky tells it, Christ returns and performs a number of miracles, the Grand Inquisitor of the Court of Law places him under arrest, and declares that he will be burned at a stake the next day. The main portion of the text is the Inquisitor explaining why Jesus must not return to work his miracles.

The Inquisitor states that Jesus, in giving men freedom to choose, doomed humanity to fight amongst each other and to suffer. This is because Jesus resisted the three temptations of Satan in the wilderness. By giving men freedom to choose the "bread of heaven", to worship him, or to war, Christ fortold the whole of human history.

The Inquisitor implies that the Church and Inquisition now follow the Other, the Devil, Satan, for he, through compulsion, provided the tools to end all human suffering and unite under the banner of the Church, which is guided by the few who are strong enough to take on the burden of freedom. He says that under him, all humankind will live and die happily in ignorance, and so access Heaven. The Inquisitor will be a self-martyr, spending his life to keep choice from humanity. He states that "Anyone who can appease a man's conscience can take his freedom away from him."

The segment ends when Christ, who has been silent throughout, kisses the Inquisitor on his lips instead of answering him. On this, the Inquisitor releases Christ but tells him never to return. Christ, still silent, leaves into "the dark alleys of the city".

Origins

Dostoevsky's notebooks show that he was inspired to use the figure of the Grand Inquisitor after he encountered it in a play by Friedrich Schiller, Don Carlos (1785-1787).

Literary interpretations

George Steiner's Tolstoy or Dostoevsky: An Essay in Contrast (London: Faber and Faber, 1960) interprets the parable of the Grand Inquisitor as "an allegory of an encounter between Tolstoy and Dostoevsky" (pp. 342-43).

Influence on other literary works

The scene is the basis of the play Only We Who Guard The Mystery Shall Be Unhappy by Tony Kushner.

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