in the splendid auto da fe, the wicked heretics were burnt

Yesterday, a friend of mine commented, via Instant Messenger: "I am a sick man. I think my liver is diseased."

"Was that a Dostoevsky reference?!" I asked, knowing my friend would be very unlikely to have read Notes from Underground, thus making the near-direct quote from one of my favorite novels a mere sort of creepy coincidence.

"Huh?" he replied.

So, I brought my copy of Notes, which also contains "The Grand Inquisitor", to lend to my friend. However, on the train ride there, I started reading "The Grand Inquisitor", which has been called "the greatest short story ever written," and which I'd never quite gotten around to reading.

"Inquisitor" is, of course, not properly a short story at all, but rather an excerpt from The Brothers Karamazov, in which Ivan tells Alyosha of a "poem" he had composed in his head many years ago, and which, it turns out, tortures him still.


In this "poem," Christ returns to earth during the Spanish Inquisition, is immediately recognized by the people -- and immediately taken into custody by the Inquisitor. As it turns out, the Inquisitor thinks Christ made a tremendous mistake by giving man free will and expecting to receive man's love freely; because of man's base nature, such an expectation is reasonable only of the elect, so what of everyone else: those weak, vile, helpless children that make up the bulk of our species?

According to the Inquisitor, such men need their freedom taken from them in order to be happy; so, under the guise of religion, the Inquisitor himself rules men under a sort of paternalistic utilitarianism. And, because he is the only one to know the truth, ironically, the Inquisitor becomes the one to take man's suffering on himself.

And so the Inquisitor continues; Christ never answers, except with a kiss. Probably the choicest passage for me occurs before the Inquisitor goes on to talk about how mystery and miracles are needed to properly rule man, an assertion which I think is perhaps more peculiarly Russian than universal. This passage is:

Nothing is more seductive for man than his freedom of conscience, but at the same time nothing is a greater torture. And yet, instead of providing a firm foundation for setting the conscience of man at rest forever, You chose all that is exceptional, vague, and enigmatic; You chose what is utterly beyond the strength of men, acting as though You did not love them at all...."

Also, I didn't finish "The Grand Inquisitor" until today, which means I didn't end up lending it to my friend. I just failed to mention it entirely; after all, one can hardly stop reading a story right in the middle of Christ getting harshed on by the head of the Spanish Inquisition.