In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

157 Chapter Eleven “You Can Buy the Whole World”: Zosima’s Christian Faith and the Jewish Idea in the Diary of a Writer B Y T H E T I M E D O S T O E V S K Y composes The Brothers Karamazov, the conception of God as a merchant and of redemption as something purchased with innocent suffering has become so well established in his fictional universe that it is simply assumed by figures as different as Ivan Karamazov and Father Zosima. Ivan and Zosima both believe that redemption is an economic transaction between the merchant God and his adult customers. The choice between these two characters is not between different conceptions of God and redemption but between acceptance or rejection of God as a merchant and redemption as an item for sale for the right price in innocent suffering in general and dead children specifically. Zosima accepts a relationship between humanity and the divine founded on the exchange of children; Ivan rejects it. The stances adopted by Zosima and Ivan become more complex when we read the novel the way Dostoevsky’s original Russian readers did, in light of the ideas put forth in the Diary of a Writer. The sixteen installments of the novel that appeared in the Russian Messenger from January 1879 through November 1880 were sandwiched between issues of the Diary, which Dostoevsky suspended in December 1877 and resumed in January 1881 (with one special issue appearing in August 1880). Failing to take the Diary into account when assessing the central concerns of both works—suffering children and theodicy—denies the significant organic connections that link them. The essence of Ivan’s rebellion, as he expounds it to Alyosha in the tavern, is a rejection of the use of child sacrifice as currency for the purchase of redemption.1 He perceives the Crucifixion as a kind of foundational transaction at the basis of Christianity, an exchange of innocent suffering for the benefit of others. He barrages Alyosha with excruciating examples of child abuse and implies that the suffering experienced by children pays for redemption—“eternal harmony”—for others. After reciting this litany of traffic in the suffering of contemporary children, he slips into language Chapter Eleven 158 that suggests a parallel between their many torments and the paradigmatic, singular torment of the Passion. “Is there in the whole world a being who would have the right to forgive and could forgive?” Ivan asks (BK, 226), and stridently asserts: “A blameless one must not suffer for another, and such a blameless one! [Nel'zia stradat' nepovinnomu za drugogo, da eshche takomu nepovinnomu!]” he protests to Alyosha (Pss, 14:217). Ivan doesn’t bother explaining his perception that a salvational economy is at work but simply assumes its existence and states his response to it. The role children play in the salvation economy is a stumbling block for him. “But then there are the children, and what am I to do about them? That’s a question I can’t answer,” he tells Alyosha (BK, 225). “Listen!” Ivan commands Alyosha. “If all must suffer to pay for the eternal harmony, what have children to do with it, tell me, please? It’s beyond all comprehension why they should suffer, and why they should pay for the harmony” (BK, 225). “Too high a price is asked for harmony; it’s beyond our means to pay so much to enter on it” [Da i slishkom dorogo otsenili garmoniiu, ne po karmanu nashemu vovse stol'ko platit' za vkhod] (BK, 226; Pss, 15:223). Much of the conversation between the two brothers in the tavern consists of Ivan expressing horror at the use of children’s suffering to buy salvation for others.2 “And if the sufferings of children go to swell the sum of sufferings which was necessary to pay for truth, then I protest that the truth is not worth such a price,” he asserts (BK, 226). “I renounce the higher harmony altogether. It’s not worth the tears of that one tortured child who beat itself on the breast with its little fist and prayed in its stinking outhouse, with its unexpiated tears to ‘dear, kind god’!” (BK, 225). The crimes against innocents graphically described by Ivan and Dostoevsky in the Diary contribute to a sum of suffering with which redemption is purchased from God; they concretize the Crucifixion as an exchange transaction in real time and history. By assaulting Alyosha with real examples...

Share