Wisdom IN Literature: The Brothers Karamazov on Two Spiritual Paths

[This series explores the way some of my favourite novels engage with spiritual things. As much as I will try to avoid discussing major plot points, I will be using quotes from the novels and be discussing how they fit generally into the story. So please take this as a spoiler warning.]

A motif I return to often in my writing is the idea of approaching life with an open hand versus a clenched fist. It works on many levels: from how we orient ourselves to our possessions, to our relationships, to our hopes and dreams, our stories, joys and pains, and to those who are different from us. But it’s also an apt metaphor for our approach to spirituality itself. This is beautifully demonstrated in Fyodor Dostoevsky’s classic novel The Brothers Karamazov, in the juxtaposition of two monks, Father Ferapont and the Elder Zosima (spelled ‘Zossima’ in the public domain translation I’ll be quoting below.) It’s a minor theme in this eminently wise novel, but it’s worth considering nonetheless.

Father Ferapont has a tight grip on the world. He is famed for the strictures of his discipline in prayer and, especially, fasting. Any relaxation of this discipline he understands to be an opening for devils, which he sees lurking in every corner. About him, Doestoevsky writes:

This Father Ferapont was that aged monk so devout in fasting and observing silence who has been mentioned already, as antagonistic to Father Zossima and the whole institution of “elders,” which he regarded as a pernicious and frivolous innovation. He was a very formidable opponent, although from his practice of silence he scarcely spoke a word to any one. What made him formidable was that a number of monks fully shared his feeling, and many of the visitors looked upon him as a great saint and ascetic, although they had no doubt that he was crazy. But it was just his craziness attracted them.

Here is a man who has defined sanctity essentially as removing himself from anything that makes us human. He eats only the smallest possible amounts to keep him going, he has committed himself to silence, and he lives alone with only limited contact with others. And more importantly, he takes this tight-fisted approach into his attitudes towards others: Anyone who doesn’t think or live as he does, who doesn’t define their life by abstinence from anything pleasurable, joyous, or human, he views with deep suspicion. His hatred comes out fully upon Elder Zosima’s death; when the body starts to decay quickly (against a local tradition that holds that the bodies of holy figures will not decay), Father Ferapont is triumphant, saying:

“He did not keep the fasts according to the rule and therefore the sign has come. That is clear and it’s a sin to hide it,” the fanatic, carried away by a zeal that outstripped his reason, would not be quieted. “He was seduced by sweetmeats, ladies brought them to him in their pockets, he sipped tea, he worshiped his belly, filling it with sweet things and his mind with haughty thoughts…. And for this he is put to shame…. My God has conquered! Christ has conquered the setting sun!” he shouted frantically, stretching up his hands to the sun, and falling face downwards on the ground, he sobbed like a little child, shaken by his tears and spreading out his arms on the ground.

This approach to spirituality and faith could not be more different from that of Elder Zosima. He is by no means indulgent in his own life — he is a monk after all and lives, generally, according to the monastic rule of fasting, prayer, poverty, celibacy and so on, even if he allows himself the pleasures of good food when offered to him. But His attitude towards those disciplines, including towards those who don’t follow them, could not be more different:

“Love one another, Fathers …. Love God’s people. Because we have come here and shut ourselves within these walls, we are no holier than those that are outside….For monks are not a special sort of men, but only what all men ought to be. Only through that knowledge, our heart grows soft with infinite, universal, inexhaustible love. Then every one of you will have the power to win over the whole world by love and to wash away the sins of the world with your tears…. Each of you keep watch over your heart and confess your sins to yourself unceasingly. Be not afraid of your sins, even when perceiving them, if only there be penitence, but make no conditions with God. Again I say, Be not proud. Be proud neither to the little nor to the great. Hate not those who reject you, who insult you, who abuse and slander you. Hate not the atheists, the teachers of evil, the materialists—and I mean not only the good ones—for there are many good ones among them, especially in our day—hate not even the wicked ones. Remember them in your prayers thus.”

A few other passages are worth quoting here:

• • • “Brothers, have no fear of men’s sin. Love a man even in his sin, for that is the semblance of Divine Love and is the highest love on earth. Love all God’s creation, the whole and every grain of sand in it. Love every leaf, every ray of God’s light. Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things. Once you perceive it, you will begin to comprehend it better every day. And you will come at last to love the whole world with an all‐embracing love. Love the animals: God has given them the rudiments of thought and joy untroubled. Do not trouble it, don’t harass them, don’t deprive them of their happiness, don’t work against God’s intent. Man, do not pride yourself on superiority to the animals; they are without sin, and you, with your greatness, defile the earth by your appearance on it, and leave the traces of your foulness after you—alas, it is true of almost every one of us! Love children especially, for they too are sinless like the angels; they live to soften and purify our hearts and as it were to guide us. Woe to him who offends a child!”
    • “At some thoughts one stands perplexed, especially at the sight of men’s sin, and wonders whether one should use force or humble love. Always decide to use humble love. If you resolve on that once for all, you may subdue the whole world. Loving humility is marvelously strong, the strongest of all things, and there is nothing else like it.”
    • “Remember particularly that you cannot be a judge of any one. For no one can judge a criminal, until he recognizes that he is just such a criminal as the man standing before him, and that he perhaps is more than all men to blame for that crime. When he understands that, he will be able to be a judge.”
    • “Fear not the great nor the mighty, but be wise and ever serene. Know the measure, know the times, study that. When you are left alone, pray. Love to throw yourself on the earth and kiss it. Kiss the earth and love it with an unceasing, consuming love. Love all men, love everything. Seek that rapture and ecstasy. Water the earth with the tears of your joy and love those tears. Don’t be ashamed of that ecstasy, prize it, for it is a gift of God and a great one; it is not given to many but only to the elect.”

All I can say to this is, ‘Wow!’ Father Ferapont might accuse Elder Zosima for arrogance, pride, and presumption for not following a strict a path has his own, but we can see from his teaching here that it is Zosima who shows true humility. Ferapont’s whole approach to the world is one of smug superiority and hatred, whereas Zosima receives children, animals, and even the very ground itself as his instructors in joy and love. He refuses to cast judgment upon anyone, firm in the knowledge that ‘there but by the grace of God goes he’. This colours his response to those who come to him for confession, and his grace is misconstrued by his opponents as an “abuse” of the sacrament. He is even ‘accused’ of preferring the ‘worst’ sinners, an affront to the sensibilities of those like Ferapont. But of course, in his focus on love, compassion, grace, and welcome, Elder Zosima is shown to be quite a bit like Jesus himself.

In this way, The Brothers Karamazov, presents to us two approaches to the life of faith. While, apart from a few ancient Christian traditions, Ferapont’s particular proclivities towards extreme asceticism are not common today, the tendency towards a ‘clenched-fist’ faith is still alive and well. There are still Christians who see their faith primarily in terms of what they don’t do, and by their opposition to those who differ from their beliefs and standards. And, sadly, these Christians are always those who scream with the loudest voices. But their way is by no means representative of Christianity writ large, and it bears little resemblance at all to the way of Jesus. The good news is that this means that there is another way, one that has just as deep — and, really, even deeper — roots within Christian tradition and history. This is the open-handed, welcoming, and gracious approach of Jesus, demonstrated in living colour in the character of the Elder Zosima.