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... f those holidays held most dear by humanity today, Christmas was made to correspond to the pagan celebration of the winter solstice. What we call Easter as Christians had virtually the same meaning as the pagan holidays Attis. " (Ellerbe 148). 8. The Prisoner uses the performance of miracles to influence the people and have them worship Him. Whenever the words He, Him, Thee, and Thou are capitalized in all grammatical cases, we have become accustomed to referring to God and / or Jesus Christ.
In The Great Inquisitor this remains the case. The Grand Inquisitor refers to the talk in the wilderness and says to the Prisoner, "the great spirit talked with Thee in the wilderness, and we are told in the books that he "tempted" Thee." (Dostoevsky 1081). This statement was in reference to Satan's temptation of Christ in the wilderness. 9. Simply touch the Prisoner or His garments performed miracles: "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. ." (Dostoevsky 1079). 10.
He raises the daughter of a prominent citizen from the dead: "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. ." (Dostoevsky 1079). 11. These are miracles that Christians relate to Jesus Christ. Yet the orthodox Christians believed that death was a passing from an earth that was possessed by the devil to deliverance to God in heaven.
Orthodox Christians, in their effort to conquer it, often ended up glorifying death. Jesus's most valuable act was understood to be not his miracles of healing or his message of love and peace, but rather his act of dying. The Bible states that "the day of death [is better] than the day of one's birth." (Ellerbe 162). 12. HE is silent because talking would give support to the Church's Inquisition. His appearance and aura alone shows understanding and love. It also shows that Jesus will not answer to the Grand Inquisitor.
He will not admit that the Church is correct, but it puts him in a catch 22. If he does answer, the Church is justified in their Inquisition of Humanity. At points where He should be wrought with anger the Prisoner continues to look upon the Grand Inquisitor with consideration. His appearance and aura alone shows understanding and love. This is understood by the inquisitor and is firmly rejected, "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. " (Dostoevsky 1086). The Grand Inquisitor receives his answer to all his questions and accusations at the end of the story. The Prisoner, still silent, places a kiss on the lips of the inquisitor. 13. The Grand Inquisitor joins the clever people. The inquisitor now understands that the Christians will never achieve their goals to bring people into harmony with themselves. As Ivan says in the story: 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. (Dostoevsky 1089). 14. The Grand Inquisitor was an atheist but could not break away from orthodox Christianity. This was the Inquisitor's secret in the entire story. The Grand Inquisitor could not deny Him as could the clever people that he joined. "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. " (Dostoevsky 1089). 15. The Inquisition was the vehicle by which the Church could cover-up its lies to humanity. This has been shown by Ivan Karamozov, in an excerpt from The Grand Inquisitor: "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, ... " (Dostoevsky 1078). In the The dark side of Christian history it is stated that, "the Church turned its force against European society itself, launching a brutal assault upon southern France and instituting the Inquiry-tion. " (Ellerbe 3). Therefore when people in the 15 th century spoke of freedom, it was only the freedom that the Church allowed them to have. 16.
The Grand Inquisitor proves the thesis of this paper. Ivan says: ... he sees that he (the Inquisitor) must follow the counsel of the wise spirit, the dread spirit of death and destruction, and therefor 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. (Dostoevsky 1089). 17. Also, Ellerbe states: "The perception that the Universe operates like a machine or a Clock corroborated St. Augustine's contention that human beings have no free will. " (Ellerbe 173). And "Atheism simply extended the Christian idea that God is distant and removed from the physical world.
Once people accepted that, it was not difficult to believe that God did not exist at all" (Ellerbe 171). 18. All the historical evidence of the Inquisition and the writings of Dostoevsky and Ellerbe show substantial evidence that the orthodox Christians did in fact steal from humanity the divine freedom it was promised by Jesus Christ. Works Cited Ellerbe, Helen. The dark side of Christian history.
San Rafael, CA: Morningstar Books, 1995. Dostoevsky, Fyodor; The Grand Inquisitor from The Brothers Karamozov. Taken from Literature of the Western World by Wilke, Brian, and Hurt, James Microsoft Encarta 99, Microsoft Corporation, 1993 - 1998.
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Research essay sample on Grand Inquisitor Jesus Christ
