Newsgroups: bit.listserv.literary
Date:         Tue, 28 Jul 1992 20:21:01 EDT
From:         Tim Johnson <PH408014@BROWNVM.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: Father Zossima

>I would like to respond to the person who said that the premature decay of
>Father Zossima's body was Dosteovsky's attempt to portray the monk as the
>antithesis of what he was actually supposed to be: pious, holy and pure. I
>disagree: I think Dosteovsky was trying to show God's lack of respect for
>mankind's conventional beliefs, one of them being the belief that a holy man's
>body will not quickly decay. Of course he left the situation very ambiguous
>and up the reader to decipher.

  I agree with the person who suggested that it was to
demonstrate spin doctors and politics.

  But, I think there is another point.  Dostoevsky wanted
to portray in Zossima, a truly *good* man.  And I think
that at least part of Dostoevsky's point was to establish
the split between *his* view of "good" and that of the
church.  To establish, if you would, that Father Zossima
was "good" in an essentially secular way.  That he was
not a saint in God's eyes, but only in man's.  It was part
of Dostoevsky's growing dissatisfaction with the disparity
between the nature of God as revealed by doctrine and
the nature of God as revealed in creation.
  Thus, Father Zossima decayed in a normal fashion, where
he would have stayed pure as a saint.  I don't believe that
the decay was unusual, or in any particular way a sign of
corruption.  That it was taken as such, or rather, that
advantage was taken of the situation is Dostoevsky's
commentary on the pettiness of mankind, as the previous
poster (hang on, let me look him up:  Tim Bowden, I
believe) noted.  Father Zossima was not a threat to
good, either from a secular or sacred perspective.  But
he was a threat to those who use the church for their
own power or advancement.  (This was why Dostoevsky had such
a great distaste for the Roman Catholic church - he believed
that it had corrupted itself by taking a role in secular
political activity.)

                           -Tim

the other Tim's post quoted below:
========================================================================

GE> What really puzzled me is the part where the elder's body
GE> begins to reek prematurely.  I don't understand what Dosteovsky
GE> is trying to show -

Well, it shows why there is a tremendous effort by spin doctors
today to lower expectations about mere mortal (and lesser)
politicians.  I think it was not premature, but perfectly
normal, that decomposure should proceed as it did in the cell
on a warm day.  The political enemies of the deceased jumped
on the occasion of normalcy to discredit him, as a miracle
was to be expected if indeed he were holy.  Perhaps the
crucifixion proceeded under like circumstances, with Judas
expecting the leader to be able to free himself from hordes
of Romans if indeed he was the Messiah.  If not, well -
--- eecp 1.45 LM2
 * Origin: Fort Knox  (1:216/509)
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