Subject: Re: Dostoevski's Quote
From: Paul Miller (phm@midsouth.rr.com)
Date: Sat Jan 29 2000 - 18:47:20 EST
Sonny wrote:
I don't have my copy handy, but it's part of the biographical notes on
Father Zossima, just before Karamazov's manuscript
ends------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------
Here is the section from Brothers K.
Of Hell and Hell Fire, a Mystic Reflection.
Fathers and teachers, I ponder, "What is hell?" I maintain that it
is the suffering of being unable to love. Once in infinite
existence, immeasurable in time and space, a spiritual creature was
given on his coming to earth the power of saying, "I am and I love."
Once, only once, there was given him a moment of active lifting
love, and for that was earthly life given him, and with it times and
seasons. And that happy creature rejected the priceless gift, prized
it and loved it not, scorned it and remained callous. Such a one,
having left the earth, sees Abraham's bosom and talks with Abraham
as we are told in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, and beholds
heaven and can go up to the Lord. But that is just his torment, to
rise up to the Lord without ever having loved, to be brought close
to those who have loved when he has despised their love. For he sees
clearly and says to himself, "Now I have understanding, and though I
now thirst to love, there will be nothing great, no sacrifice in my
love, for my earthly life is over, and Abraham will not come even with
a drop of living water (that is the gift of earthly active life) to
cool the fiery thirst of spiritual love which burns in me now,
though I despised it on earth; there is no more life for me and will
be no more time! Even though I would gladly give my life for others,
it can never be, for that life is passed which can be sacrificed for
love, and now there is a gulf fixed between that life and thisexistence."
They talk of hell fire in the material sense. I don't go into that
mystery and I shun it. But I think if there were fire in material
sense, they would be glad of it, for I imagine that in material agony,
their still greater spiritual agony would be forgotten for a moment.
Moreover, that spiritual agony cannot be taken from them, for that
suffering is not external but within them. And if it could be taken
from them, I think it would be bitterer still for the unhappy
creatures. For even if the righteous in Paradise forgave them,
beholding their torments, and called them up to heaven in their
infinite love, they would only multiply their torments, for they would
arouse in them still more keenly a flaming thirst for responsive,
active and grateful love which is now impossible. In the timidity of
my heart I imagine, however, that the very recognition of this
impossibility would serve at last to console them. For accepting the
love of the righteous together with the impossibility of repaying
it, by this submissiveness and the effect of this humility, they
will attain at last, as it were, to a certain semblance of that active
love which they scorned in life, to something like its outward
expression... I am sorry, friends and brothers, that I cannot
express this clearly. But woe to those who have slain themselves on
earth, woe to the suicides! I believe that there can be none more
miserable than they. They tell us that it is a sin to pray for them
and outwardly the Church, as it were, renounces them, but in my secret
heart I believe that we may pray even for them. Love can never be an
offence to Christ. For such as those I have prayed inwardly all my
life, I confess it, fathers and teachers, and even now I pray for themevery
day.
Oh, there are some who remain proud and fierce even in hell, in
spite of their certain knowledge and contemplation of the absolute
truth; there are some fearful ones who have given themselves over to
Satan and his proud spirit entirely. For such, hell is voluntary and
ever consuming; they are tortured by their own choice. For they have
cursed themselves, cursing God and life. They live upon their
vindictive pride like a starving man in the desert sucking blood out
of his own body. But they are never satisfied, and they refuse
forgiveness, they curse God Who calls them. They cannot behold the
living God without hatred, and they cry out that the God of life
should be annihilated, that God should destroy Himself and His own
creation. And they will burn in the fire of their own wrath for ever
and yearn for death and annihilation. But they will not attain todeath....
Here Alexey Fyodorovitch Karamazov's manuscript ends
Paul M
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