Chapter V. The Grand Inquisitor

"Even this must have a preface--that is, a literary preface," laughed Ivan,
"and I am a poor hand at making one. You see, my action takes place in the
sixteenth century, and at that time, as you probably learnt at school, it
was customary in poetry to bring down heavenly powers on earth. Not to
speak of Dante, in France, clerks, as well as the monks in the
monasteries, used to give regular performances in which the Madonna, the
saints, the angels, Christ, and God himself were brought on the stage. In
those days it was done in all simplicity. In Victor Hugo's _Notre Dame de
Paris_ an edifying and gratuitous spectacle was provided for the people in
the Hotel de Ville of Paris in the reign of Louis XI. in honor of the
birth of the dauphin. It was called _Le bon jugement de la tres sainte et
gracieuse Vierge Marie_, and she appears herself on the stage and
pronounces her _bon jugement_. Similar plays, chiefly from the Old
Testament, were occasionally performed in Moscow too, up to the times of
Peter the Great. But besides plays there were all sorts of legends and
ballads scattered about the world, in which the saints and angels and all
the powers of Heaven took part when required. In our monasteries the monks
busied themselves in translating, copying, and even composing such
poems--and even under the Tatars. There is, for instance, one such poem (of
course, from the Greek), _The Wanderings of Our Lady through Hell_, with
descriptions as bold as Dante's. Our Lady visits hell, and the Archangel
Michael leads her through the torments. She sees the sinners and their
punishment. There she sees among others one noteworthy set of sinners in a
burning lake; some of them sink to the bottom of the lake so that they
can't swim out, and 'these God forgets'--an expression of extraordinary
depth and force. And so Our Lady, shocked and weeping, falls before the
throne of God and begs for mercy for all in hell--for all she has seen
there, indiscriminately. Her conversation with God is immensely
interesting. She beseeches Him, she will not desist, and when God points
to the hands and feet of her Son, nailed to the Cross, and asks, 'How can
I forgive His tormentors?' she bids all the saints, all the martyrs, all
the angels and archangels to fall down with her and pray for mercy on all
without distinction. It ends by her winning from God a respite of
suffering every year from Good Friday till Trinity Day, and the sinners at
once raise a cry of thankfulness from hell, chanting, 'Thou art just, O
Lord, in this judgment.' Well, my poem would have been of that kind if it
had appeared at that time. He comes on the scene in my poem, but He says
nothing, only appears and passes on. Fifteen centuries have passed since
He promised to come in His glory, fifteen centuries since His prophet
wrote, 'Behold, I come quickly'; 'Of that day and that hour knoweth no
man, neither the Son, but the Father,' as He Himself predicted on earth.
But humanity awaits him with the same faith and with the same love. Oh,
with greater faith, for it is fifteen centuries since man has ceased to
see signs from heaven.

    No signs from heaven come to-day
    To add to what the heart doth say.

There was nothing left but faith in what the heart doth say. It is true
there were many miracles in those days. There were saints who performed
miraculous cures; some holy people, according to their biographies, were
visited by the Queen of Heaven herself. But the devil did not slumber, and
doubts were already arising among men of the truth of these miracles. And
just then there appeared in the north of Germany a terrible new heresy. "A
huge star like to a torch" (that is, to a church) "fell on the sources of
the waters and they became bitter." These heretics began blasphemously
denying miracles. But those who remained faithful were all the more ardent
in their faith. The tears of humanity rose up to Him as before, awaited
His coming, loved Him, hoped for Him, yearned to suffer and die for Him as
before. And so many ages mankind had prayed with faith and fervor, "O Lord
our God, hasten Thy coming," so many ages called upon Him, that in His
infinite mercy He deigned to come down to His servants. Before that day He
had come down, He had visited some holy men, martyrs and hermits, as is
written in their lives. Among us, Tyutchev, with absolute faith in the
truth of his words, bore witness that

    Bearing the Cross, in slavish dress,
    Weary and worn, the Heavenly King
    Our mother, Russia, came to bless,
    And through our land went wandering.

And that certainly was so, I assure you.

"And behold, He deigned to appear for a moment to the people, to the
tortured, suffering people, sunk in iniquity, but loving Him like
children. My story is laid in Spain, in Seville, in the most terrible time
of the Inquisition, when fires were lighted every day to the glory of God,
and 'in the splendid _auto da fe_ the wicked heretics were burnt.' Oh, of
course, this was not the coming in which He will appear according to His
promise at the end of time in all His heavenly glory, and which will be
sudden 'as lightning flashing from east to west.' No, He visited His
children only for a moment, and there where the flames were crackling
round the heretics. In His infinite mercy He came once more among men in
that human shape in which He walked among men for three years fifteen
centuries ago. He came down to the 'hot pavements' of the southern town in
which on the day before almost a hundred heretics had, _ad majorem gloriam
Dei_, been burnt by the cardinal, the Grand Inquisitor, in a magnificent
_auto da fe_, in the presence of the king, the court, the knights, the
cardinals, the most charming ladies of the court, and the whole population
of Seville.

"He came softly, unobserved, and yet, strange to say, every one recognized
Him. That might be one of the best passages in the poem. I mean, why they
recognized Him. The people are irresistibly drawn to Him, they surround
Him, they flock about Him, follow Him. He moves silently in their midst
with a gentle smile of infinite compassion. The sun of love burns in His
heart, light and power shine from His eyes, and their radiance, shed on
the people, stirs their hearts with responsive love. He holds out His
hands to them, blesses them, and a healing virtue comes from contact with
Him, even with His garments. An old man in the crowd, blind from
childhood, cries out, 'O Lord, heal me and I shall see Thee!' and, as it
were, scales fall from his eyes and the blind man sees Him. The crowd
weeps and kisses the earth under His feet. Children throw flowers before
Him, sing, and cry hosannah. 'It is He--it is He!' all repeat. 'It must be
He, it can be no one but Him!' He stops at the steps of the Seville
cathedral at the moment when the weeping mourners are bringing in a little
open white coffin. In it lies a child of seven, the only daughter of a
prominent citizen. The dead child lies hidden in flowers. 'He will raise
your child,' the crowd shouts to the weeping mother. The priest, coming to
meet the coffin, looks perplexed, and frowns, but the mother of the dead
child throws herself at His feet with a wail. 'If it is Thou, raise my
child!' she cries, holding out her hands to Him. The procession halts, the
coffin is laid on the steps at His feet. He looks with compassion, and His
lips once more softly pronounce, 'Maiden, arise!' and the maiden arises.
The little girl sits up in the coffin and looks round, smiling with wide-
open wondering eyes, holding a bunch of white roses they had put in her
hand.

"There are cries, sobs, confusion among the people, and at that moment the
cardinal himself, the Grand Inquisitor, passes by the cathedral. He is an
old man, almost ninety, tall and erect, with a withered face and sunken
eyes, in which there is still a gleam of light. He is not dressed in his
gorgeous cardinal's robes, as he was the day before, when he was burning
the enemies of the Roman Church--at this moment he is wearing his coarse,
old, monk's cassock. At a distance behind him come his gloomy assistants
and slaves and the 'holy guard.' He stops at the sight of the crowd and
watches it from a distance. He sees everything; he sees them set the
coffin down at His feet, sees the child rise up, and his face darkens. He
knits his thick gray brows and his eyes gleam with a sinister fire. He
holds out his finger and bids the guards take Him. And such is his power,
so completely are the people cowed into submission and trembling obedience
to him, that the crowd immediately makes way for the guards, and in the
midst of deathlike silence they lay hands on Him and lead Him away. The
crowd instantly bows down to the earth, like one man, before the old
Inquisitor. He blesses the people in silence and passes on. The guards
lead their prisoner to the close, gloomy vaulted prison in the ancient
palace of the Holy Inquisition and shut Him in it. The day passes and is
followed by the dark, burning, 'breathless' night of Seville. The air is
'fragrant with laurel and lemon.' In the pitch darkness the iron door of
the prison is suddenly opened and the Grand Inquisitor himself comes in
with a light in his hand. He is alone; the door is closed at once behind
him. He stands in the doorway and for a minute or two gazes into His face.
At last he goes up slowly, sets the light on the table and speaks.

" 'Is it Thou? Thou?' but receiving no answer, he adds at once, 'Don't
answer, be silent. What canst Thou say, indeed? I know too well what Thou
wouldst say. And Thou hast no right to add anything to what Thou hadst
said of old. Why, then, art Thou come to hinder us? For Thou hast come to
hinder us, and Thou knowest that. But dost Thou know what will be to-
morrow? I know not who Thou art and care not to know whether it is Thou or
only a semblance of Him, but to-morrow I shall condemn Thee and burn Thee
at the stake as the worst of heretics. And the very people who have to-day
kissed Thy feet, to-morrow at the faintest sign from me will rush to heap
up the embers of Thy fire. Knowest Thou that? Yes, maybe Thou knowest it,'
he added with thoughtful penetration, never for a moment taking his eyes
off the Prisoner."

"I don't quite understand, Ivan. What does it mean?" Alyosha, who had been
listening in silence, said with a smile. "Is it simply a wild fantasy, or
a mistake on the part of the old man--some impossible _quiproquo_?"

"Take it as the last," said Ivan, laughing, "if you are so corrupted by
modern realism and can't stand anything fantastic. If you like it to be a
case of mistaken identity, let it be so. It is true," he went on,
laughing, "the old man was ninety, and he might well be crazy over his set
idea. He might have been struck by the appearance of the Prisoner. It
might, in fact, be simply his ravings, the delusion of an old man of
ninety, over-excited by the _auto da fe_ of a hundred heretics the day
before. But does it matter to us after all whether it was a mistake of
identity or a wild fantasy? All that matters is that the old man should
speak out, should speak openly of what he has thought in silence for
ninety years."

"And the Prisoner too is silent? Does He look at him and not say a word?"

"That's inevitable in any case," Ivan laughed again. "The old man has told
Him He hasn't the right to add anything to what He has said of old. One
may say it is the most fundamental feature of Roman Catholicism, in my
opinion at least. 'All has been given by Thee to the Pope,' they say, 'and
all, therefore, is still in the Pope's hands, and there is no need for
Thee to come now at all. Thou must not meddle for the time, at least.'
That's how they speak and write too--the Jesuits, at any rate. I have read
it myself in the works of their theologians. 'Hast Thou the right to
reveal to us one of the mysteries of that world from which Thou hast
come?' my old man asks Him, and answers the question for Him. 'No, Thou
hast not; that Thou mayest not add to what has been said of old, and
mayest not take from men the freedom which Thou didst exalt when Thou wast
on earth. Whatsoever Thou revealest anew will encroach on men's freedom of
faith; for it will be manifest as a miracle, and the freedom of their
faith was dearer to Thee than anything in those days fifteen hundred years
ago. Didst Thou not often say then, "I will make you free"? But now Thou
hast seen these "free" men,' the old man adds suddenly, with a pensive
smile. 'Yes, we've paid dearly for it,' he goes on, looking sternly at
Him, 'but at last we have completed that work in Thy name. For fifteen
centuries we have been wrestling with Thy freedom, but now it is ended and
over for good. Dost Thou not believe that it's over for good? Thou lookest
meekly at me and deignest not even to be wroth with me. But let me tell
Thee that now, to-day, people are more persuaded than ever that they have
perfect freedom, yet they have brought their freedom to us and laid it
humbly at our feet. But that has been our doing. Was this what Thou didst?
Was this Thy freedom?' "

"I don't understand again," Alyosha broke in. "Is he ironical, is he
jesting?"

"Not a bit of it! He claims it as a merit for himself and his Church that
at last they have vanquished freedom and have done so to make men happy.
'For now' (he is speaking of the Inquisition, of course) 'for the first
time it has become possible to think of the happiness of men. Man was
created a rebel; and how can rebels be happy? Thou wast warned,' he says
to Him. 'Thou hast had no lack of admonitions and warnings, but Thou didst
not listen to those warnings; Thou didst reject the only way by which men
might be made happy. But, fortunately, departing Thou didst hand on the
work to us. Thou hast promised, Thou hast established by Thy word, Thou
hast given to us the right to bind and to unbind, and now, of course, Thou
canst not think of taking it away. Why, then, hast Thou come to hinder
us?' "

"And what's the meaning of 'no lack of admonitions and warnings'?" asked
Alyosha.

"Why, that's the chief part of what the old man must say.

" 'The wise and dread spirit, the spirit of self-destruction and non-
existence,' the old man goes on, 'the great spirit talked with Thee in the
wilderness, and we are told in the books that he "tempted" Thee. Is that
so? And could anything truer be said than what he revealed to Thee in
three questions and what Thou didst reject, and what in the books is
called "the temptation"? And yet if there has ever been on earth a real
stupendous miracle, it took place on that day, on the day of the three
temptations. The statement of those three questions was itself the
miracle. If it were possible to imagine simply for the sake of argument
that those three questions of the dread spirit had perished utterly from
the books, and that we had to restore them and to invent them anew, and to
do so had gathered together all the wise men of the earth--rulers, chief
priests, learned men, philosophers, poets--and had set them the task to
invent three questions, such as would not only fit the occasion, but
express in three words, three human phrases, the whole future history of
the world and of humanity--dost Thou believe that all the wisdom of the
earth united could have invented anything in depth and force equal to the
three questions which were actually put to Thee then by the wise and
mighty spirit in the wilderness? From those questions alone, from the
miracle of their statement, we can see that we have here to do not with
the fleeting human intelligence, but with the absolute and eternal. For in
those three questions the whole subsequent history of mankind is, as it
were, brought together into one whole, and foretold, and in them are
united all the unsolved historical contradictions of human nature. At the
time it could not be so clear, since the future was unknown; but now that
fifteen hundred years have passed, we see that everything in those three
questions was so justly divined and foretold, and has been so truly
fulfilled, that nothing can be added to them or taken from them.

" 'Judge Thyself who was right--Thou or he who questioned Thee then?
Remember the first question; its meaning, in other words, was this: "Thou
wouldst go into the world, and art going with empty hands, with some
promise of freedom which men in their simplicity and their natural
unruliness cannot even understand, which they fear and dread--for nothing
has ever been more insupportable for a man and a human society than
freedom. But seest Thou these stones in this parched and barren
wilderness? Turn them into bread, and mankind will run after Thee like a
flock of sheep, grateful and obedient, though for ever trembling, lest
Thou withdraw Thy hand and deny them Thy bread." But Thou wouldst not
deprive man of freedom and didst reject the offer, thinking, what is that
freedom worth, if obedience is bought with bread? Thou didst reply that
man lives not by bread alone. But dost Thou know that for the sake of that
earthly bread the spirit of the earth will rise up against Thee and will
strive with Thee and overcome Thee, and all will follow him, crying, "Who
can compare with this beast? He has given us fire from heaven!" Dost Thou
know that the ages will pass, and humanity will proclaim by the lips of
their sages that there is no crime, and therefore no sin; there is only
hunger? "Feed men, and then ask of them virtue!" that's what they'll write
on the banner, which they will raise against Thee, and with which they
will destroy Thy temple. Where Thy temple stood will rise a new building;
the terrible tower of Babel will be built again, and though, like the one
of old, it will not be finished, yet Thou mightest have prevented that new
tower and have cut short the sufferings of men for a thousand years; for
they will come back to us after a thousand years of agony with their
tower. They will seek us again, hidden underground in the catacombs, for
we shall be again persecuted and tortured. They will find us and cry to
us, "Feed us, for those who have promised us fire from heaven haven't
given it!" And then we shall finish building their tower, for he finishes
the building who feeds them. And we alone shall feed them in Thy name,
declaring falsely that it is in Thy name. Oh, never, never can they feed
themselves without us! No science will give them bread so long as they
remain free. In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet, and say
to us, "Make us your slaves, but feed us." They will understand
themselves, at last, that freedom and bread enough for all are
inconceivable together, for never, never will they be able to share
between them! They will be convinced, too, that they can never be free,
for they are weak, vicious, worthless and rebellious. Thou didst promise
them the bread of Heaven, but, I repeat again, can it compare with earthly
bread in the eyes of the weak, ever sinful and ignoble race of man? And if
for the sake of the bread of Heaven thousands shall follow Thee, what is
to become of the millions and tens of thousands of millions of creatures
who will not have the strength to forego the earthly bread for the sake of
the heavenly? Or dost Thou care only for the tens of thousands of the
great and strong, while the millions, numerous as the sands of the sea,
who are weak but love Thee, must exist only for the sake of the great and
strong? No, we care for the weak too. They are sinful and rebellious, but
in the end they too will become obedient. They will marvel at us and look
on us as gods, because we are ready to endure the freedom which they have
found so dreadful and to rule over them--so awful it will seem to them to
be free. But we shall tell them that we are Thy servants and rule them in
Thy name. We shall deceive them again, for we will not let Thee come to us
again. That deception will be our suffering, for we shall be forced to
lie.

" 'This is the significance of the first question in the wilderness, and
this is what Thou hast rejected for the sake of that freedom which Thou
hast exalted above everything. Yet in this question lies hid the great
secret of this world. Choosing "bread," Thou wouldst have satisfied the
universal and everlasting craving of humanity--to find some one to worship.
So long as man remains free he strives for nothing so incessantly and so
painfully as to find some one to worship. But man seeks to worship what is
established beyond dispute, so that all men would agree at once to worship
it. For these pitiful creatures are concerned not only to find what one or
the other can worship, but to find something that all would believe in and
worship; what is essential is that all may be _together_ in it. This
craving for _community_ of worship is the chief misery of every man
individually and of all humanity from the beginning of time. For the sake
of common worship they've slain each other with the sword. They have set
up gods and challenged one another, "Put away your gods and come and
worship ours, or we will kill you and your gods!" And so it will be to the
end of the world, even when gods disappear from the earth; they will fall
down before idols just the same. Thou didst know, Thou couldst not but
have known, this fundamental secret of human nature, but Thou didst reject
the one infallible banner which was offered Thee to make all men bow down
to Thee alone--the banner of earthly bread; and Thou hast rejected it for
the sake of freedom and the bread of Heaven. Behold what Thou didst
further. And all again in the name of freedom! I tell Thee that man is
tormented by no greater anxiety than to find some one quickly to whom he
can hand over that gift of freedom with which the ill-fated creature is
born. But only one who can appease their conscience can take over their
freedom. In bread there was offered Thee an invincible banner; give bread,
and man will worship thee, for nothing is more certain than bread. But if
some one else gains possession of his conscience--oh! then he will cast
away Thy bread and follow after him who has ensnared his conscience. In
that Thou wast right. For the secret of man's being is not only to live
but to have something to live for. Without a stable conception of the
object of life, man would not consent to go on living, and would rather
destroy himself than remain on earth, though he had bread in abundance.
That is true. But what happened? Instead of taking men's freedom from
them, Thou didst make it greater than ever! Didst Thou forget that man
prefers peace, and even death, to freedom of choice in the knowledge of
good and evil? Nothing is more seductive for man than his freedom of
conscience, but nothing is a greater cause of suffering. And behold,
instead of giving a firm foundation for setting the conscience of man at
rest for ever, Thou didst choose all that is exceptional, vague and
enigmatic; Thou didst choose what was utterly beyond the strength of men,
acting as though Thou didst not love them at all--Thou who didst come to
give Thy life for them! Instead of taking possession of men's freedom,
Thou didst increase it, and burdened the spiritual kingdom of mankind with
its sufferings for ever. Thou didst desire man's free love, that he should
follow Thee freely, enticed and taken captive by Thee. In place of the
rigid ancient law, man must hereafter with free heart decide for himself
what is good and what is evil, having only Thy image before him as his
guide. But didst Thou not know that he would at last reject even Thy image
and Thy truth, if he is weighed down with the fearful burden of free
choice? They will cry aloud at last that the truth is not in Thee, for
they could not have been left in greater confusion and suffering than Thou
hast caused, laying upon them so many cares and unanswerable problems.

" 'So that, in truth, Thou didst Thyself lay the foundation for the
destruction of Thy kingdom, and no one is more to blame for it. Yet what
was offered Thee? There are three powers, three powers alone, able to
conquer and to hold captive for ever the conscience of these impotent
rebels for their happiness--those forces are miracle, mystery and
authority. Thou hast rejected all three and hast set the example for doing
so. When the wise and dread spirit set Thee on the pinnacle of the temple
and said to Thee, "If Thou wouldst know whether Thou art the Son of God
then cast Thyself down, for it is written: the angels shall hold him up
lest he fall and bruise himself, and Thou shalt know then whether Thou art
the Son of God and shalt prove then how great is Thy faith in Thy Father."
But Thou didst refuse and wouldst not cast Thyself down. Oh, of course,
Thou didst proudly and well, like God; but the weak, unruly race of men,
are they gods? Oh, Thou didst know then that in taking one step, in making
one movement to cast Thyself down, Thou wouldst be tempting God and have
lost all Thy faith in Him, and wouldst have been dashed to pieces against
that earth which Thou didst come to save. And the wise spirit that tempted
Thee would have rejoiced. But I ask again, are there many like Thee? And
couldst Thou believe for one moment that men, too, could face such a
temptation? Is the nature of men such, that they can reject miracle, and
at the great moments of their life, the moments of their deepest, most
agonizing spiritual difficulties, cling only to the free verdict of the
heart? Oh, Thou didst know that Thy deed would be recorded in books, would
be handed down to remote times and the utmost ends of the earth, and Thou
didst hope that man, following Thee, would cling to God and not ask for a
miracle. But Thou didst not know that when man rejects miracle he rejects
God too; for man seeks not so much God as the miraculous. And as man
cannot bear to be without the miraculous, he will create new miracles of
his own for himself, and will worship deeds of sorcery and witchcraft,
though he might be a hundred times over a rebel, heretic and infidel. Thou
didst not come down from the Cross when they shouted to Thee, mocking and
reviling Thee, "Come down from the cross and we will believe that Thou art
He." Thou didst not come down, for again Thou wouldst not enslave man by a
miracle, and didst crave faith given freely, not based on miracle. Thou
didst crave for free love and not the base raptures of the slave before
the might that has overawed him for ever. But Thou didst think too highly
of men therein, for they are slaves, of course, though rebellious by
nature. Look round and judge; fifteen centuries have passed, look upon
them. Whom hast Thou raised up to Thyself? I swear, man is weaker and
baser by nature than Thou hast believed him! Can he, can he do what Thou
didst? By showing him so much respect, Thou didst, as it were, cease to
feel for him, for Thou didst ask far too much from him--Thou who hast loved
him more than Thyself! Respecting him less, Thou wouldst have asked less
of him. That would have been more like love, for his burden would have
been lighter. He is weak and vile. What though he is everywhere now
rebelling against our power, and proud of his rebellion? It is the pride
of a child and a schoolboy. They are little children rioting and barring
out the teacher at school. But their childish delight will end; it will
cost them dear. They will cast down temples and drench the earth with
blood. But they will see at last, the foolish children, that, though they
are rebels, they are impotent rebels, unable to keep up their own
rebellion. Bathed in their foolish tears, they will recognize at last that
He who created them rebels must have meant to mock at them. They will say
this in despair, and their utterance will be a blasphemy which will make
them more unhappy still, for man's nature cannot bear blasphemy, and in
the end always avenges it on itself. And so unrest, confusion and
unhappiness--that is the present lot of man after Thou didst bear so much
for their freedom! The great prophet tells in vision and in image, that he
saw all those who took part in the first resurrection and that there were
of each tribe twelve thousand. But if there were so many of them, they
must have been not men but gods. They had borne Thy cross, they had
endured scores of years in the barren, hungry wilderness, living upon
locusts and roots--and Thou mayest indeed point with pride at those
children of freedom, of free love, of free and splendid sacrifice for Thy
name. But remember that they were only some thousands; and what of the
rest? And how are the other weak ones to blame, because they could not
endure what the strong have endured? How is the weak soul to blame that it
is unable to receive such terrible gifts? Canst Thou have simply come to
the elect and for the elect? But if so, it is a mystery and we cannot
understand it. And if it is a mystery, we too have a right to preach a
mystery, and to teach them that it's not the free judgment of their
hearts, not love that matters, but a mystery which they must follow
blindly, even against their conscience. So we have done. We have corrected
Thy work and have founded it upon _miracle_, _mystery_ and _authority_.
And men rejoiced that they were again led like sheep, and that the
terrible gift that had brought them such suffering was, at last, lifted
from their hearts. Were we right teaching them this? Speak! Did we not
love mankind, so meekly acknowledging their feebleness, lovingly
lightening their burden, and permitting their weak nature even sin with
our sanction? Why hast Thou come now to hinder us? And why dost Thou look
silently and searchingly at me with Thy mild eyes? Be angry. I don't want
Thy love, for I love Thee not. And what use is it for me to hide anything
from Thee? Don't I know to Whom I am speaking? All that I can say is known
to Thee already. And is it for me to conceal from Thee our mystery?
Perhaps it is Thy will to hear it from my lips. Listen, then. We are not
working with Thee, but with _him_--that is our mystery. It's long--eight
centuries--since we have been on _his_ side and not on Thine. Just eight
centuries ago, we took from him what Thou didst reject with scorn, that
last gift he offered Thee, showing Thee all the kingdoms of the earth. We
took from him Rome and the sword of Caesar, and proclaimed ourselves sole
rulers of the earth, though hitherto we have not been able to complete our
work. But whose fault is that? Oh, the work is only beginning, but it has
begun. It has long to await completion and the earth has yet much to
suffer, but we shall triumph and shall be Caesars, and then we shall plan
the universal happiness of man. But Thou mightest have taken even then the
sword of Caesar. Why didst Thou reject that last gift? Hadst Thou accepted
that last counsel of the mighty spirit, Thou wouldst have accomplished all
that man seeks on earth--that is, some one to worship, some one to keep his
conscience, and some means of uniting all in one unanimous and harmonious
ant-heap, for the craving for universal unity is the third and last
anguish of men. Mankind as a whole has always striven to organize a
universal state. There have been many great nations with great histories,
but the more highly they were developed the more unhappy they were, for
they felt more acutely than other people the craving for world-wide union.
The great conquerors, Timours and Ghenghis-Khans, whirled like hurricanes
over the face of the earth striving to subdue its people, and they too
were but the unconscious expression of the same craving for universal
unity. Hadst Thou taken the world and Caesar's purple, Thou wouldst have
founded the universal state and have given universal peace. For who can
rule men if not he who holds their conscience and their bread in his
hands? We have taken the sword of Caesar, and in taking it, of course, have
rejected Thee and followed _him_. Oh, ages are yet to come of the
confusion of free thought, of their science and cannibalism. For having
begun to build their tower of Babel without us, they will end, of course,
with cannibalism. But then the beast will crawl to us and lick our feet
and spatter them with tears of blood. And we shall sit upon the beast and
raise the cup, and on it will be written, "Mystery." But then, and only
then, the reign of peace and happiness will come for men. Thou art proud
of Thine elect, but Thou hast only the elect, while we give rest to all.
And besides, how many of those elect, those mighty ones who could become
elect, have grown weary waiting for Thee, and have transferred and will
transfer the powers of their spirit and the warmth of their heart to the
other camp, and end by raising their _free_ banner against Thee. Thou
didst Thyself lift up that banner. But with us all will be happy and will
no more rebel nor destroy one another as under Thy freedom. Oh, we shall
persuade them that they will only become free when they renounce their
freedom to us and submit to us. And shall we be right or shall we be
lying? They will be convinced that we are right, for they will remember
the horrors of slavery and confusion to which Thy freedom brought them.
Freedom, free thought and science, will lead them into such straits and
will bring them face to face with such marvels and insoluble mysteries,
that some of them, the fierce and rebellious, will destroy themselves,
others, rebellious but weak, will destroy one another, while the rest,
weak and unhappy, will crawl fawning to our feet and whine to us: "Yes,
you were right, you alone possess His mystery, and we come back to you,
save us from ourselves!"

" 'Receiving bread from us, they will see clearly that we take the bread
made by their hands from them, to give it to them, without any miracle.
They will see that we do not change the stones to bread, but in truth they
will be more thankful for taking it from our hands than for the bread
itself! For they will remember only too well that in old days, without our
help, even the bread they made turned to stones in their hands, while
since they have come back to us, the very stones have turned to bread in
their hands. Too, too well will they know the value of complete
submission! And until men know that, they will be unhappy. Who is most to
blame for their not knowing it?--speak! Who scattered the flock and sent it
astray on unknown paths? But the flock will come together again and will
submit once more, and then it will be once for all. Then we shall give
them the quiet humble happiness of weak creatures such as they are by
nature. Oh, we shall persuade them at last not to be proud, for Thou didst
lift them up and thereby taught them to be proud. We shall show them that
they are weak, that they are only pitiful children, but that childlike
happiness is the sweetest of all. They will become timid and will look to
us and huddle close to us in fear, as chicks to the hen. They will marvel
at us and will be awe-stricken before us, and will be proud at our being
so powerful and clever, that we have been able to subdue such a turbulent
flock of thousands of millions. They will tremble impotently before our
wrath, their minds will grow fearful, they will be quick to shed tears
like women and children, but they will be just as ready at a sign from us
to pass to laughter and rejoicing, to happy mirth and childish song. Yes,
we shall set them to work, but in their leisure hours we shall make their
life like a child's game, with children's songs and innocent dance. Oh, we
shall allow them even sin, they are weak and helpless, and they will love
us like children because we allow them to sin. We shall tell them that
every sin will be expiated, if it is done with our permission, that we
allow them to sin because we love them, and the punishment for these sins
we take upon ourselves. And we shall take it upon ourselves, and they will
adore us as their saviors who have taken on themselves their sins before
God. And they will have no secrets from us. We shall allow or forbid them
to live with their wives and mistresses, to have or not to have
children--according to whether they have been obedient or disobedient--and
they will submit to us gladly and cheerfully. The most painful secrets of
their conscience, all, all they will bring to us, and we shall have an
answer for all. And they will be glad to believe our answer, for it will
save them from the great anxiety and terrible agony they endure at present
in making a free decision for themselves. And all will be happy, all the
millions of creatures except the hundred thousand who rule over them. For
only we, we who guard the mystery, shall be unhappy. There will be
thousands of millions of happy babes, and a hundred thousand sufferers who
have taken upon themselves the curse of the knowledge of good and evil.
Peacefully they will die, peacefully they will expire in Thy name, and
beyond the grave they will find nothing but death. But we shall keep the
secret, and for their happiness we shall allure them with the reward of
heaven and eternity. Though if there were anything in the other world, it
certainly would not be for such as they. It is prophesied that Thou wilt
come again in victory, Thou wilt come with Thy chosen, the proud and
strong, but we will say that they have only saved themselves, but we have
saved all. We are told that the harlot who sits upon the beast, and holds
in her hands the _mystery_, shall be put to shame, that the weak will rise
up again, and will rend her royal purple and will strip naked her
loathsome body. But then I will stand up and point out to Thee the
thousand millions of happy children who have known no sin. And we who have
taken their sins upon us for their happiness will stand up before Thee and
say: "Judge us if Thou canst and darest." Know that I fear Thee not. Know
that I too have been in the wilderness, I too have lived on roots and
locusts, I too prized the freedom with which Thou hast blessed men, and I
too was striving to stand among Thy elect, among the strong and powerful,
thirsting "to make up the number." But I awakened and would not serve
madness. I turned back and joined the ranks of those _who have corrected
Thy work_. I left the proud and went back to the humble, for the happiness
of the humble. What I say to Thee will come to pass, and our dominion will
be built up. I repeat, to-morrow Thou shalt see that obedient flock who at
a sign from me will hasten to heap up the hot cinders about the pile on
which I shall burn Thee for coming to hinder us. For if any one has ever
deserved our fires, it is Thou. To-morrow I shall burn Thee. _Dixi._' "

Ivan stopped. He was carried away as he talked, and spoke with excitement;
when he had finished, he suddenly smiled.

Alyosha had listened in silence; towards the end he was greatly moved and
seemed several times on the point of interrupting, but restrained himself.
Now his words came with a rush.

"But ... that's absurd!" he cried, flushing. "Your poem is in praise of
Jesus, not in blame of Him--as you meant it to be. And who will believe you
about freedom? Is that the way to understand it? That's not the idea of it
in the Orthodox Church.... That's Rome, and not even the whole of Rome,
it's false--those are the worst of the Catholics, the Inquisitors, the
Jesuits!... And there could not be such a fantastic creature as your
Inquisitor. What are these sins of mankind they take on themselves? Who
are these keepers of the mystery who have taken some curse upon themselves
for the happiness of mankind? When have they been seen? We know the
Jesuits, they are spoken ill of, but surely they are not what you
describe? They are not that at all, not at all.... They are simply the
Romish army for the earthly sovereignty of the world in the future, with
the Pontiff of Rome for Emperor ... that's their ideal, but there's no
sort of mystery or lofty melancholy about it.... It's simple lust of
power, of filthy earthly gain, of domination--something like a universal
serfdom with them as masters--that's all they stand for. They don't even
believe in God perhaps. Your suffering Inquisitor is a mere fantasy."

"Stay, stay," laughed Ivan, "how hot you are! A fantasy you say, let it be
so! Of course it's a fantasy. But allow me to say: do you really think
that the Roman Catholic movement of the last centuries is actually nothing
but the lust of power, of filthy earthly gain? Is that Father Paissy's
teaching?"

"No, no, on the contrary, Father Paissy did once say something rather the
same as you ... but of course it's not the same, not a bit the same,"
Alyosha hastily corrected himself.

"A precious admission, in spite of your 'not a bit the same.' I ask you
why your Jesuits and Inquisitors have united simply for vile material
gain? Why can there not be among them one martyr oppressed by great sorrow
and loving humanity? You see, only suppose that there was one such man
among all those who desire nothing but filthy material gain--if there's
only one like my old Inquisitor, who had himself eaten roots in the desert
and made frenzied efforts to subdue his flesh to make himself free and
perfect. But yet all his life he loved humanity, and suddenly his eyes
were opened, and he saw that it is no great moral blessedness to attain
perfection and freedom, if at the same time one gains the conviction that
millions of God's creatures have been created as a mockery, that they will
never be capable of using their freedom, that these poor rebels can never
turn into giants to complete the tower, that it was not for such geese
that the great idealist dreamt his dream of harmony. Seeing all that he
turned back and joined--the clever people. Surely that could have
happened?"

"Joined whom, what clever people?" cried Alyosha, completely carried away.
"They have no such great cleverness and no mysteries and secrets....
Perhaps nothing but Atheism, that's all their secret. Your Inquisitor does
not believe in God, that's his secret!"

"What if it is so! At last you have guessed it. It's perfectly true, it's
true that that's the whole secret, but isn't that suffering, at least for
a man like that, who has wasted his whole life in the desert and yet could
not shake off his incurable love of humanity? In his old age he reached
the clear conviction that nothing but the advice of the great dread spirit
could build up any tolerable sort of life for the feeble, unruly,
'incomplete, empirical creatures created in jest.' And so, convinced of
this, he sees that he must follow the counsel of the wise spirit, the
dread spirit of death and destruction, and therefore accept lying and
deception, and lead men consciously to death and destruction, and yet
deceive them all the way so that they may not notice where they are being
led, that the poor blind creatures may at least on the way think
themselves happy. And note, the deception is in the name of Him in Whose
ideal the old man had so fervently believed all his life long. Is not that
tragic? And if only one such stood at the head of the whole army 'filled
with the lust of power only for the sake of filthy gain'--would not one
such be enough to make a tragedy? More than that, one such standing at the
head is enough to create the actual leading idea of the Roman Church with
all its armies and Jesuits, its highest idea. I tell you frankly that I
firmly believe that there has always been such a man among those who stood
at the head of the movement. Who knows, there may have been some such even
among the Roman Popes. Who knows, perhaps the spirit of that accursed old
man who loves mankind so obstinately in his own way, is to be found even
now in a whole multitude of such old men, existing not by chance but by
agreement, as a secret league formed long ago for the guarding of the
mystery, to guard it from the weak and the unhappy, so as to make them
happy. No doubt it is so, and so it must be indeed. I fancy that even
among the Masons there's something of the same mystery at the bottom, and
that that's why the Catholics so detest the Masons as their rivals
breaking up the unity of the idea, while it is so essential that there
should be one flock and one shepherd.... But from the way I defend my idea
I might be an author impatient of your criticism. Enough of it."

"You are perhaps a Mason yourself!" broke suddenly from Alyosha. "You
don't believe in God," he added, speaking this time very sorrowfully. He
fancied besides that his brother was looking at him ironically. "How does
your poem end?" he asked, suddenly looking down. "Or was it the end?"

"I meant to end it like this. When the Inquisitor ceased speaking he
waited some time for his Prisoner to answer him. His silence weighed down
upon him. He saw that the Prisoner had listened intently all the time,
looking gently in his face and evidently not wishing to reply. The old man
longed for Him to say something, however bitter and terrible. But He
suddenly approached the old man in silence and softly kissed him on his
bloodless aged lips. That was all His answer. The old man shuddered. His
lips moved. He went to the door, opened it, and said to Him: 'Go, and come
no more ... come not at all, never, never!' And he let Him out into the
dark alleys of the town. The Prisoner went away."

"And the old man?"

"The kiss glows in his heart, but the old man adheres to his idea."

"And you with him, you too?" cried Alyosha, mournfully.

Ivan laughed.

"Why, it's all nonsense, Alyosha. It's only a senseless poem of a
senseless student, who could never write two lines of verse. Why do you
take it so seriously? Surely you don't suppose I am going straight off to
the Jesuits, to join the men who are correcting His work? Good Lord, it's
no business of mine. I told you, all I want is to live on to thirty, and
then ... dash the cup to the ground!"

"But the little sticky leaves, and the precious tombs, and the blue sky,
and the woman you love! How will you live, how will you love them?"
Alyosha cried sorrowfully. "With such a hell in your heart and your head,
how can you? No, that's just what you are going away for, to join them ...
if not, you will kill yourself, you can't endure it!"

"There is a strength to endure everything," Ivan said with a cold smile.

"What strength?"

"The strength of the Karamazovs--the strength of the Karamazov baseness."

"To sink into debauchery, to stifle your soul with corruption, yes?"

"Possibly even that ... only perhaps till I am thirty I shall escape it,
and then--"

"How will you escape it? By what will you escape it? That's impossible
with your ideas."

"In the Karamazov way, again."

" 'Everything is lawful,' you mean? Everything is lawful, is that it?"

Ivan scowled, and all at once turned strangely pale.

"Ah, you've caught up yesterday's phrase, which so offended Miuesov--and
which Dmitri pounced upon so naively, and paraphrased!" he smiled queerly.
"Yes, if you like, 'everything is lawful' since the word has been said. I
won't deny it. And Mitya's version isn't bad."

Alyosha looked at him in silence.

"I thought that going away from here I have you at least," Ivan said
suddenly, with unexpected feeling; "but now I see that there is no place
for me even in your heart, my dear hermit. The formula, 'all is lawful,' I
won't renounce--will you renounce me for that, yes?"

Alyosha got up, went to him and softly kissed him on the lips.

"That's plagiarism," cried Ivan, highly delighted. "You stole that from my
poem. Thank you though. Get up, Alyosha, it's time we were going, both of
us."

They went out, but stopped when they reached the entrance of the
restaurant.

"Listen, Alyosha," Ivan began in a resolute voice, "if I am really able to
care for the sticky little leaves I shall only love them, remembering you.
It's enough for me that you are somewhere here, and I shan't lose my
desire for life yet. Is that enough for you? Take it as a declaration of
love if you like. And now you go to the right and I to the left. And it's
enough, do you hear, enough. I mean even if I don't go away to-morrow (I
think I certainly shall go) and we meet again, don't say a word more on
these subjects. I beg that particularly. And about Dmitri too, I ask you
specially, never speak to me again," he added, with sudden irritation;
"it's all exhausted, it has all been said over and over again, hasn't it?
And I'll make you one promise in return for it. When at thirty, I want to
'dash the cup to the ground,' wherever I may be I'll come to have one more
talk with you, even though it were from America, you may be sure of that.
I'll come on purpose. It will be very interesting to have a look at you,
to see what you'll be by that time. It's rather a solemn promise, you see.
And we really may be parting for seven years or ten. Come, go now to your
Pater Seraphicus, he is dying. If he dies without you, you will be angry
with me for having kept you. Good-by, kiss me once more; that's right, now
go."

Ivan turned suddenly and went his way without looking back. It was just as
Dmitri had left Alyosha the day before, though the parting had been very
different. The strange resemblance flashed like an arrow through Alyosha's
mind in the distress and dejection of that moment. He waited a little,
looking after his brother. He suddenly noticed that Ivan swayed as he
walked and that his right shoulder looked lower than his left. He had
never noticed it before. But all at once he turned too, and almost ran to
the monastery. It was nearly dark, and he felt almost frightened;
something new was growing up in him for which he could not account. The
wind had risen again as on the previous evening, and the ancient pines
murmured gloomily about him when he entered the hermitage copse. He almost
ran. "Pater Seraphicus--he got that name from somewhere--where from?"
Alyosha wondered. "Ivan, poor Ivan, and when shall I see you again?...
Here is the hermitage. Yes, yes, that he is, Pater Seraphicus, he will
save me--from him and for ever!"

Several times afterwards he wondered how he could on leaving Ivan so
completely forget his brother Dmitri, though he had that morning, only a
few hours before, so firmly resolved to find him and not to give up doing
so, even should he be unable to return to the monastery that night.

Before Ivan dives into his poem, he gives Alyosha a little lecture on literary history. Ivan explains that in the 16th century - which is when the actions of his poem take place - poems and plays were written about holy figures - the Virgin Mary, Christ, angels, even god - coming down to earth and conversing with ordinary people. Ivan's own poem is set in 16th century Seville , at the height of the Spanish Inquisition. It's the day after a particularly bloody massacre where hundreds of heretics were burned at the stake. Christ decides to appear, but instead of making a grand entrance, he comes quietly and inconspicuously. He doesn't say anything, but he quietly performs miracles - raising a child from the dead, healing the blind - which pretty much gives him away. As Christ goes around wowing everyone with his miracles, the Grand Inquisitor, the guy in charge of all the heretic-burning, appears. He demands that Christ be arrested by the guard, and everyone is so frightened by him that they readily comply. Later that night, the Grand Inquisitor visits Christ in prison. He recognizes his prisoner as Christ, but, paradoxically for a self-described Catholic, refuses to listen to anything He has to say. At this point, Alyosha is extremely puzzled. Alyosha wonders whether the whole poem is supposed to be some kind of joke. Ivan says it's not, and continues on. The Grand Inquisitor, according to Ivan, berates Christ for rejecting Satan's three temptations back in the day when Christ was wandering the wilderness. Those three temptations, for those of you fuzzy on the New Testament, were: 1) offer everybody bread and they will follow you; 2) jump off a cliff to prove that you're the Son of God, and people will believe you; and 3) set yourself up as the ruler of the entire earth and use your power to compel people to obey you. According to Ivan's Grand Inquisitor, Christ rejected all of these temptations because he wanted man to freely follow him . But the Grand Inquisitor claims Christ got it all wrong, because man does not want to be free. Or rather, only a chosen few can endure the terrible gift of freedom; the majority prefer to be led around, told what to do, and essentially be treated like children. Some even choose to accept the gift of freedom, but because they are not strong or clever enough to know what to do with it, they end up setting up reason and science as gods instead. Here the Grand Inquisitor lets Christ in on his secret: he is on Satan's side. Out of his concern for mankind, he has deprived them of their freedom by accepting Satan's temptations, the temptations of miracle, mystery, and authority that Christ had rejected in the wilderness. But just because the Grand Inquisitor has all the power doesn't mean he's a happy man. He views his power as a horrible burden, which he has to endure because he happens to be one of the chosen few who accept the terrible gift of freedom. He has to lie to the majority in order to deprive them of their horrifying freedom, and this lie, this sin, makes him suffer. Alyosha finds Ivan's poem absurd, although he has trouble spelling out his objections coherently. He asks Ivan how the poem ends, and Ivan imagines that at the end of the scene, Christ gets up and kisses the Grand Inquisitor on his wrinkly old lips. The Grand Inquisitor then frees Christ and tells him never to return again. Alyosha doesn't understand how Ivan could possibly live with such a dismal view of the world. Ivan says he'll rely on the good old "Karamazov baseness." Ivan then reproaches Alyosha for judging him so severely, and Alyosha bends over and kisses his brother. Ivan is immensely pleased by this gesture and takes his leave of Alyosha. Alyosha notices that Ivan is walking with a slight sway and that his right shoulder is lower than his left. He then rushes back to Zosima, who is still on his deathbed. Much later, Alyosha will wonder how he forgot about his brother Dmitri so quickly.

During the sixteenth century in Spain, at the height of the Inquisition, someone resembling Christ appears unannounced in the streets. The people recognize Him immediately and begin to flock about Him. But, as He is healing several of the sick and lame, an old cardinal also recognizes Him and orders the guards to arrest Him. Once again Christ is abducted. That night, He receives a visitor. The Grand Inquisitor enters the darkened cell and begins a severe reprimand of Christ for appearing again and hindering the work of the church. The Grand Inquisitor explains to Christ that, because of His rejection of the three temptations, He placed an intolerable burden of freedom upon man. The church, however, is now correcting His errors and aiding man by removing their awful burden of freedom. He explains that Christ erred when He expected man to voluntarily choose to follow Him. The basic nature of man, says the Inquisitor, does not allow him to reject either earthly bread or security or happiness in exchange for something so indefinite as what Christ expects. If Christ had accepted the proffered bread, man would have been given security instead of a freedom of choice, and if Christ had performed a miracle and had cast himself down from the pinnacle, man would have been given something miraculous to worship. The nature of man, insists the Inquisitor, is to seek the miraculous. Finally, Christ should have accepted the power offered Him by the devil. Because He did not, the church has now had to assume such power for the benefit of man. And since Christ's death, the church has been forced to correct the errors made by Him. Now, at last mankind willingly submits its freedom to the church in exchange for happiness and security. This balance, says the Inquisitor, must not be upset. At the end of the monologue, the Grand Inquisitor admits that of necessity he is on the side of the devil, but the challenge that Christ placed on mankind allows only a few strong people to be saved; the rest must be sacrificed to the strong. The Grand Inquisitor's scheme, at least, provides an earthly happiness for the mass of mankind even though it will not lead to eternal salvation. On the other hand, Christ's method would not have saved these same weak and puny men either. When he finishes, the Grand Inquisitor looks at Christ, who has remained silent the entire time. Now He approaches the old churchman and kisses him on his dry, withered lips. The Grand Inquisitor frees Him suddenly, saying that He is never to come again. Ivan finishes his story and wonders now if Alyosha will reject him or will try to accept him as a brother. As an answer, Alyosha leans forward and kisses his brother. "You are plagiarizing my poem," Ivan cries in delight. The brothers leave the restaurant together, but then they part, each going his separate way.

In the chapter preceding "The Grand Inquisitor," Ivan struggles with the problem of suffering humanity and the injustice of this world. Now he turns to one of the major philosophical questions -- one that has worried the Western world for centuries: the awesome burden placed upon man by his having complete freedom instead of church-directed happiness and security. Dostoevsky achieves his dramatic impact in this chapter by having the two antagonists embody the two ideas in question -- the Grand Inquisitor pleading for security and happiness for man; Christ offering complete freedom. Furthermore, the advocate for freedom -- the reincarnate Christ -- remains silent throughout the Inquisitor's monologue; his opponent does all the talking. Yet the old Inquisitor is no mere egotist. His character is one that evokes our respect. We consider his position in the church, his intellect, his certainty, and, above all, his professed love for mankind. All this he does in spite of the fact that, as he finally admits, he has aligned himself with Satan. The complexity of the Grand Inquisitor increases when we realize that he, like his divine opponent, has been in the wilderness and could have stood among the elect but deliberately chose to take his stand with the weak and puny mass of mankind. And just as Ivan, in the preceding chapter, declared that even if God could justify innocent suffering, he would refuse to accept the explanation, so the Grand Inquisitor also affirms this stand. The two -- Ivan and the Grand Inquisitor -- are in close accord, and much of the Grand Inquisitor is also seen in Ivan's questioning and perplexity. The two are also kissed by their opponents, Christ and Alyosha. In the tale, when Christ reappears, the Grand Inquisitor has begun to build a world on the concepts of authority, miracle, and mystery. As a cardinal, he speaks and commands with unquestionable authority. When he sees Christ performing miracles among the people, he has merely to hold out his finger and bid the guards take Him. The townspeople are cowed by him; they tremblingly obey him. The church-conceived way to salvation and its strong-arm authority are targets for Dostoevsky. Through Ivan, he builds up a case of condemnation against the Roman Catholic Church. The Grand Inquisitor, for example, visiting Christ in the night says to Him, "Thou hast no right to add anything to what Thou hadst said of old." That is, Christ has said all that was necessary. Since then the church has taken over with its great authority and established what should -- and should not -- be believed. The church, not Christ, is the supreme authority in matters of faith and conduct. "Why hast Thou come to hinder us," he asks Christ. To make sure that He does not overthrow the centuries of authority of the church, he says that he will "condemn Thee and burn Thee at the stake as the worst of heretics." The argument between the Grand Inquisitor and Christ is made especially effective because Dostoevsky arranges their meeting on ancient terms: Christ is once again the prisoner, the accused, yet He does not defend Himself. Ironically, it is the executioner who must defend himself. The prisoner never utters a word. But it is wrong to see them as hero and villain. Both men -- one silently, the other verbosely -- argue for the best way in which man can achieve happiness. Both have humanistic motives and love for the mass of mankind. Their end result -- happiness for man -- is identical; only by definition and method do the men vary. The Grand Inquisitor criticizes Christ for wishing to set man free, asking "Thou hast seen these 'free' men?" For fifteen centuries the problem of freedom has weighed heavily on both the church and mankind, but now, says the Inquisitor, the church has "vanquished freedom and has done so to make men happy." His pity for the weakness of man has made him realize that man cannot handle such a burdensome problem as freedom. To prove this point, he reminds Christ of the temptations He was tested by. The source for the Grand Inquisitor's view is found in St. Luke, 4:1-13: And Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost returned from Jordan, and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, Being forty days tempted of the devil. And in those days he did eat nothing: and when they were ended, he afterward hungered. And the devil said unto him, If thou be the Son of God, command this stone that it be made bread. And Jesus answered him, saying, It is written, That man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God. And the devil, taking him up into a high mountain, showed unto him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the devil said unto him, All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will, I give it. If thou therefore wilt worship me, all shall be thine. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Get thee behind me, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. And he brought him to Jerusalem, and set him on a pinnacle of the temple, and said unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down from hence: For it is written, He shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee: And in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone. And Jesus answering said unto him, It is said, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. And when the devil had ended all the temptation, he departed from him for a season. An important question evoked by this passage is whether or not Christ was refusing the temptations -- security through bread, authority, and miracle -- for Himself alone, or whether by refusing He was doing so for all mankind and placing a burden too tremendous upon such a frail creature as man. If Christ refused solely for Himself, His refusal does not carry such heavy implications because He was divine and could easily afford to resist such temptations. But if He was refusing for all mankind, then it follows that He expects man to believe in something intangible even while He does not have enough to eat. To complicate the matter, the Grand Inquisitor places his questions in the terms of being asked by "the wise and dread spirit," who offers Christ three things. Christ is clearly the rejector, but not for Himself alone -- for all mankind. And when the Grand Inquisitor states, "The statement of those three questions was itself the miracle," he means that Satan is so wording his questions that the future fate of all mankind will be determined. He asks Christ to "Judge Thyself who was right -- Thou or he who questioned Thee." The first question is viewed in terms of freedom versus security. By refusing the bread, Christ is insisting that man must have freedom to choose to follow Him without being lulled into a sense of security by being provided with bread. If bread is provided, then man loses his freedom to choose Christ voluntarily: "Thou wouldst not deprive men of freedom and didst reject the offer, thinking what is that freedom worth, if obedience is bought with bread." The Grand Inquisitor feels that what Christ wants for man is impossible. "Nothing," he says, "has ever been more insupportable for a man and a human society than freedom." By denying bread or security for man and by giving man in its stead the freedom to follow Him of his own volition, Christ failed to understand the human nature of men who are "weak, vicious, worthless, and rebellious." To promise the bread of heaven to a man starving for earthly bread, and to expect him to choose the former of his own volition, puts an insufferable weight upon mankind who must, by nature, reject Christ in favor of whoever offers earthly bread. The Grand Inquisitor cries, "Feed men and then ask of them virtue." Instead of freeing all mankind, Christ  succeeded only in freeing the strong. The tens of thousands who have the strength to voluntarily accept heavenly bread follow Him, but what, asks the Inquisitor, is to become of the tens of millions who are too weak to accept, responsibly, the dreadful freedom of choice? Are the weak to be condemned for the sake of the elect who have the strength to follow after the heavenly bread? The Grand Inquisitor says that he has corrected Christ's errors. He has done so because he loves the weak who hunger after earthly bread. Man is now fed by the church and, in return, has willingly relinquished his former freedom for security. "Man seeks to worship what is established beyond dispute" so that he will not have to face the dreadful "freedom of choice." If Christ had only chosen the bread, He then would "have satisfied the universal and ever-lasting craving for humanity -- to find someone to worship." Christ erred in rejecting earthly bread for the sake of freedom. "Instead of taking men's freedom from them, Thou didst make it greater than ever! Didst Thou forget that man prefers peace and even death to freedom of choice in the knowledge of good and evil?" Also, by His rejection of earthly bread, Christ forced man to choose between security and something that is "exceptional, vague, and enigmatic. Thou didst choose what was utterly beyond the strength of men. Instead of taking possession of man's freedom, Thou didst increase it and burdened the spiritual kingdom of mankind with its suffering forever." Now each individual must decide for himself "what is good and what is evil, having only Thy Image before him." Had Christ truly loved mankind, He should have had more compassion and should have understood man's inherent weaknesses. The Grand Inquisitor explains then that he  has compassion and understanding for man and has given him "miracle, mystery, and authority." The church tells man what to believe and what to choose and thereby relieves him of choosing for himself. At last man has a sense of security, which Christ denied him. By miracle, the Grand Inquisitor explains that when Christ rejected the second temptation -- the refusal to cast Himself down -- he was rejecting one of the essential characteristics man expects from religion: the truly miraculous. Of course, Christ, as divine, could reject the miraculous, but He should have understood that the nature of man desires a miracle. "But Thou didst not know that when man rejects miracles he rejects God also; for man seeks not so much God as the miraculous. And as man cannot bear to be without the miraculous, he will create new miracles of his own for himself and will worship deeds of sorcery and witchcraft." In other words, man's basic nature is to seek that which transcends human existence; he worships that which is superhuman, that which has a sense of the miraculous. "We are not working with Thee," the Inquisitor says, "but with him -- that is our mystery. It's long -- eight centuries -- since we have been on his side and not on Thine. Just eight centuries ago, we took from him what Thou didst reject with scorn, that last gift he offered Thee, showing Thee all the kingdoms of the earth. We took from him Rome and the sword of Caesar." The church has taken the kingdom of earth -- that which Christ rejected. Here the church has established its plan for the universal happiness of man. "Freedom, free thought, and science" will create such insoluble riddles and chaotic disunity that soon, all men will gladly surrender their freedom, saying, "You alone possess His mystery . . . save us from ourselves." The future world of happiness will be based on a totalitarian state, organized on the principle of total obedience and submission, and "they will submit to us gladly and cheerfully . . . because it will save them from the great anxiety and terrible agony they endure at present in making a free decision for themselves." The church will even allow certain people to sin so long as they are obedient and submissive. Man's happiness will be the happiness of children who have no responsibilities and no choices; all questions will be answered by the church. The only person unhappy will be, ironically, those few who will "guard the mystery." That is, only the members of the church who understand the above concepts will suffer because they will be the "sufferers who have taken upon themselves the curse of the knowledge of good and evil." Like Ivan, the Grand Inquisitor is unwilling to become one of the few elect when it means that "millions of creatures have been created as a mockery." Only a few people in the world can prize or understand the freedom given them by Christ; these are the strong and the powerful. Out of pity for all mankind, the Grand Inquisitor, who could have been on the side of the elect, repudiates the system that would doom millions of the weak. Such a system is unjust, and thus he chooses to accept a system designed for the multitudes of the weak rather than for the few of the strong. At one point, the Grand Inquisitor says that he must burn Christ so that "man will not have to be plagued with that horrible burden of inner freedom." He is a martyr in a special sense because he reserves the privilege of suffering for the few strong people; in this way, the mass of mankind will not have to undergo the terrible suffering associated with absolute freedom. Christ consequently has no right to interfere in the church's organized happiness; He must be punished as an enemy of the people. At the end of the discussion, Christ responds to the Grand Inquisitor by giving him a kiss on his withered lips. This paradoxical ending undercuts the soliloquy, leaving us to wonder what is right. The reader, however, should remember that Dostoevsky has created two opposite poles of response; man is seldom faced with such clear-cut opposition. When Alyosha re-enacts the poem and kisses Ivan, it is partly because he recognizes that a man cannot come to such opinions as he has just heard unless he has given them considerable thought; they are obviously the most important questions of mankind. Furthermore, Ivan, like Alyosha, does have a deep love for humanity, a quality that makes anyone worthy of redemption.

Ivan explains his prose poem, "The Grand Inquisitor." In a town in Spain, in the sixteenth century, Christ arrives, apparently reborn on Earth. As he walks through the streets, the people gather about him, staring. He begins to heal the sick, but his ministrations are interrupted by the arrival of a powerful cardinal who orders his guards to arrest Christ. Late that night, this cardinal, the Grand Inquisitor, visits Christ's cell and explains why he has taken him prisoner and why he cannot allow Christ to perform his works. Throughout the Grand Inquisitor's lecture, Christ listens silently. The Grand Inquisitor tells Christ that he cannot allow him to do his work on Earth, because his work is at odds with the work of the Church. The Inquisitor reminds Christ of the time, recorded in the Bible, when the Devil presented him with three temptations, each of which he rejected. The Grand Inquisitor says that by rejecting these three temptations, he guaranteed that human beings would have free will. Free will, he says, is a devastating, impossible burden for mankind. Christ gave humanity the freedom to choose whether or not to follow him, but almost no one is strong enough to be faithful, and those who are not will be damned forever. The Grand Inquisitor says that Christ should have given people no choice, and instead taken power and given people security instead of freedom. That way, the same people who were too weak to follow Christ to begin with would still be damned, but at least they could have happiness and security on Earth, rather than the impossible burden of moral freedom. The Grand Inquisitor says that the Church has now undertaken to correct Christ's mistake. The Church is taking away freedom of choice and replacing it with security. Thus, the Grand Inquisitor must keep Christ in prison, because if Christ were allowed to go free, he might undermine the Church's work to lift the burden of free will from mankind. The first temptation Christ rejected was bread. Hungry after his forty days of fasting, Christ was confronted by Satan, who told him that if he were really the son of God, he could turn a stone to bread and satisfy his hunger. Christ refused, replying that man should not live by bread, but by the word of God. The Grand Inquisitor says that most people are too weak to live by the word of God when they are hungry. Christ should have taken the bread and offered mankind freedom from hunger instead of freedom of choice. The second temptation was to perform a miracle. Satan placed Christ upon a pinnacle in Jerusalem and told him to prove that he was the messiah by throwing himself off it. If Christ were really God's son, the angels would bear him up and not allow him to die. Christ refused, telling Satan that he could not tempt God. Beaten, Satan departed. But the Grand Inquisitor says that Christ should have given people a miracle, for most people need to see the miraculous in order to be content in their religious faith. Man needs a supernatural being to worship, and Christ refused to appear as one. The third temptation was power. Satan showed Christ all the kingdoms in the world, and offered him control of them all. Christ refused. The Grand Inquisitor says that Christ should have taken the power, but since he did not, the Church has now has to take it in his name, in order to convince men to give up their free will in favor of their security. The Grand Inquisitor tells Christ that it was Satan, and not Christ, who was in the right during this exchange. He says that ever since the Church took over the Roman Empire, it has been secretly performing the work of Satan, not because it is evil, but because it seeks the best and most secure order for mankind. As the Grand Inquisitor finishes his indictment of Christ, Christ walks up to the old man and kisses him gently on the lips. The Grand Inquisitor suddenly sets Christ free, but tells him never to return again. As Ivan finishes his story, he worries that Alyosha will be disturbed by the idea that if there is no God, there are no moral limitations on man's behavior. But Alyosha leans forward and kisses Ivan on the lips. Ivan, moved, replies that Alyosha has stolen that action from his poem. Ivan and Alyosha leave the restaurant and split up. Ivan begins walking home and Alyosha walks to the monastery where Zosima is dying.

The story of the Grand Inquisitor strongly resembles a biblical parable, the kind of story that Christ tells in the New Testament to illustrate a philosophical point. Both Ivan's story and Christ's stories use a fictional narrative to address a deep philosophical concern and are open to various interpretations. The similarity between Ivan's story and Christ's stories illustrates the uneasy relationship between Ivan and religion. At the same time that Ivan rejects religion's ability to effectively guide human life, he relies on many of its principles in forming his own philosophical system. Like Christ, Ivan is deeply concerned with understanding the way we define what is right and what is wrong, and with understanding how morality guides human actions. However, Ivan ultimately rejects both Christ's and God's existence, as he cannot accept a supreme being with absolute power who would nonetheless allow the suffering that occurs on Earth. The story also implicitly brings up a new point with regard to Ivan's argument about expanding the power of ecclesiastical courts. By setting his story in sixteenth-century Spain, where ecclesiastical courts were at the height of their power to try and punish criminals, Ivan asks what verdict such a court would have reached in judging Christ's life. Since Christian religions teach that Christ lived a sinless life, presumably an ecclesiastical court would have been unable to find Christ guilty of any sin. However, the fact that Ivan's court finds Christ guilty of sins against mankind illustrates the difference between Ivan's religious beliefs and his beliefs in the efficacy of ecclesiastical courts. He sees the courts as an effective way to guide human action, but not necessarily as a way to induce men to believe more strongly in God or religion. The conflict between free will and security further illustrates the reasons for Ivan's dissent from Christianity. The fundamental difference between Christ's point of view and that of the Grand Inquisitor is the value that each of them places on freedom and comfort. Christ's responses to the three temptations emphasize the importance of man's ability to choose between right and wrong, while the Inquisitor's interpretation of Christ's actions emphasizes the greater value of living a comfortable life in which the right path has already been chosen by someone else. The assumption at the heart of the Inquisitor's case is that Christ's resistance of Satan's temptations is meant to provide a symbolic example for the rest of mankind. The Inquisitor interprets the rejection of the temptations as Christ's argument that humanity must reject certain securities: comfort, represented by bread; power and the safety that power brings, represented by the kingdoms; and superstition, represented by the miracle. The Inquisitor believes that Christ's example places an impossible burden on mankind, which is inherently too weak to use its free will to find salvation. Effectively, the Inquisitor argues, the only option is for people to lead sinful lives ending in damnation. The Inquisitor's Church, which is allied with Satan, seeks to provide people with stability and security in their lives, even if by doing so it ensures that they will be damned in the afterlife. Ivan's story presents the Inquisitor, a man who considers himself an ally of Satan, as an admirable human being, acting against God but with humanity's best interest at heart. Ivan does not believe that God acts in the best interest of mankind, but the implication that human nature is so weak that people are better off succumbing to the power of Satan is a radical response to the problem of free will. Ivan's attitude stems from the psychology of doubt. Ivan's over-riding skepticism makes it impossible for him to see anything but the bad side of human nature. As a result, he believes that people would be better off under the thumb of even a fraudulent religious authority rather than making their own decisions. Even though his argument is pessimistic, his reasoning is compelling. Just as Alyosha is unable to offer a satisfactory response to Ivan's critique of God, Christ says nothing during the Inquisitor's critique of him, one of several parallels between Alyosha and Christ during this chapter. But Christ's enigmatic kiss on the Inquisitor's lips after his indictment completely changes the tenor of the scene. Recalling Zosima's bow before Dmitri at the monastery in Book I, the kiss represents an overriding act of love and forgiveness so innate that it can only be expressed wordlessly. On its deepest level, it defies explanation. The power of faith and love, Dostoevsky implies, is rooted in mystery--not simply in the empty and easily digestible idea that God's will is too complex for people to understand, but in a resonant, active, unanswerable profundity. The kiss cannot overcome a logical argument, but at the same time there is no logical argument that can overcome the kiss. It represents the triumph of love and faith, on their own terms, over rational skepticism. In having Ivan end his poem on a note of such deep and moving ambiguity, Dostoevsky has his major opponent of religion acknowledge the power of faith, just as Dostoevsky himself, a proponent of faith, has used Ivan to acknowledge the power of doubt. Alyosha's kiss for Ivan indicates how well the young Alyosha understands the problems of faith and doubt in a world characterized by free will, and just how committed his own will is to the positive goodness of faith.