Large Inquisiteur

Large Inquisiteur is an account, told by Ivan (atheistic convinced) with his/her brother Alexeï (monk beginner), in the novel The Brothers Karamazov of the Russian author Fiodor Mikhaïlovitch Dostoïevski (1821-1881). He reports a meeting in Spain, with the Renaissance, between a high figure of the Spanish enquiry and Jesus, the first reproaching the second his return, which comes “to disturb” the Church.

Large Inquisiteur is an important part of the novel and one of the most known passages of the modern literature thanks to its ideas on the Human nature and the Liberté.

The account

The account articulates goshawks of the dialog between Ivan, the narrator, and his Alexeï brother. It is a question for Ivan of outlining the features of a poem in the liveliness as of these Muscovite monastic poems in which one dramatizes the virgin and the angels and where it is not a question less than to inflect the divine decisions. These mythological stories leave with the author a certain freedom of imagination with regard to the divine one, allowing the setting in scene of situation absurd ( i.e. which do not take place to be). This fictitious prose thus puts forward the limits of the interpretation of the texts in what she denounces the use of the religion against itself.

After this preamble on the reasons for its company, Ivan starts its account by its situation in time. Thus, the history proceeds with Seville, at the time of the Inquisition, and puts in scene the return of the Messiah (with the Christian direction) in this dark period of the History when " in superb Autodafés one burned dreadful hérétiques".

Jesus, mixed with crowd, produces some miracles (in reference to the miracles in the Évangiles); people recognize It immediately and adore It. However, It is stopped by the henchmen of Large Inquisiteur and is condemned to die the following day with roughing-hew. Large Inquisiteur visits It in Its cell and says to Him that the Église does not need more Him. The continuation of the account reports the remarks of the explaining inquisitor with Jesus why Its return is not welcome and will interfere with the mission of the Church.

The inquisitor formulates his judgment around the three questions raised by Satan with Jesus during the Tentation of Christ in the desert. These three temptations are: temptation to change the rocks into breads, temptation to jump of the Temple and to let themselves catch by angels and temptation to proclaim King of the World. The inquisitor wire-drawer that Jesus rejected these three temptations in the name of freedom and that Jesus badly considered to be the human nature. He thinks that the large majority of humanity cannot support this freedom that Jesus their gave. Thus, the inquisitor suggests that Jesus, in their giving this freedom, excluded this majority from the humanity of the Rédemption, and condemned it to suffer.

Ivan stresses that the inquisitor is atheistic. After having sought God all his life, it gives up, frustrated. It preserves nevertheless its love of humanity and her desire not to see it suffering. In this direction, it yielded to the one temptations, that of the capacity. From there the philosophical interest of the passage around the concept of freedom: Jésuis had offered it to the men, and those returned it in Inquisiteurs: " their freedom, they humbly deposited it with our pieds". The primary reason of this abandonment is the weight which it represents for the fragile shoulders of the men. Thus, with the dires of the inquisitor, it is irreconcilable with their nature's needs: " they will be able to never distribute bread between them! " The renouncement is explained by the need for alienation to the inquisiteurs so that those nourish them. The image of the bread symbolizes all the responsibility which the idea of freedom underlies. It makes fear with the man because it is the synonym of the painful choice between the good and the evil, of decision making and also of the taking into account of the consequences of the action. However the man is a too weak creature not to fear this load; consequently, to those which propose to reign on the men, to assume for them all these choices, their freedom is offered. One finds here the idea of Boétie, which in the Discours of the voluntary constraint affirms in substance which if the man is private of his freedom, it is that it agrees to it.

The inquisitor assures Jesus that the human race will live and die happy, in ignorance. Even if it carries out them towards death and the destruction, they are happy. The inquisitor will be thus a martyr, passing his life to be chosen for humanity.

External bond

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