feat_summary_path: finished_summaries/sparknotes/The Brothers Karamazov/section_0_part_6.txt
feat_book_id: The Brothers Karamazov.book 1.chapter 5
feat_summary_id: book 1, chapter 5
feat_summary: {"name": "book 1, Chapter 5", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210305110438/https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/brothersk/section1/", "summary": "Elders Alyosha is greatly moved by the arrival of his brothers. He quickly becomes close to Dmitri, but he feels that Ivan's cold intellectualism keeps him distant from others. Alyosha senses that Ivan is struggling toward an inner goal that makes him indifferent to the outside world. Dmitri and Ivan are as unlike as two people can be, but Alyosha notices that Dmitri speaks of Ivan with warmth and admiration. Dmitri has become embroiled with their father in a conflict over the inheritance, and it is finally arranged that the two parties will have a discussion in Zosima's cell, where the presence of the influential monk might help them resolve their differences. The prospect of this meeting makes Alyosha nervous--he knows that his father would only agree to such a thing sarcastically, and that Ivan himself is an atheist. He worries that his family's behavior will offend Zosima, whom he esteems very highly and who acts as his spiritual leader within the monastery.", "analysis": "Author's Note and Book I: A Nice Little Family, Chapters 1-5 Book I provides a history of the major characters and their relationships, so the narrator can jump right into the main story in Book II without stopping to explain things as he goes. The narrator presents all of the incidents described in these chapters as though they take place before the real beginning of his story, describing the events as information that is generally well-known, repeated only for the convenience of a reader who somehow may not have heard it before. The narrator, as a result, is a strong presence in these chapters. The narrator signals that the story he tells is widely known by interjecting phrases such as \"only later did we learn\" and \"well known in his own day. The Brothers Karamazov is a cross between a realistic novel and a philosophical novel. The characters have extremely complicated and intricate psychologies, and yet they also each represent certain ideas and concepts. This combination of realism and philosophical symbolism is evident in these chapters, as each meticulously drawn character comes to embody a more abstract set of concepts and beliefs. Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov, the father, with his orgies and his abhorrent treatment of his wives and children, embodies amoral, obnoxious Epicureanism--that is, a commitment to seeking pleasure rather than living responsibly or virtuously. Ivan Karamazov's brilliant mind and burgeoning literary reputation embody the struggle to reconcile intellect with religious belief. Dmitri Karamazov's violent hatred of his father and uncritical love of his brothers stand in opposition to Ivan's critical faculties. Dmitri's character illustrates the effects of action based on emotion rather than on intellect. Finally, Alyosha, whom Dostoevsky describes as the hero of the novel, is nearly the opposite of Fyodor Pavlovich. His love of mankind shows that he is innocent, pious, and virtuous without being mystical or fanatical. Each character in Dostoevsky's quartet of personalities works as a foil, or contrast, for each of the others. Because the novel's philosophical themes are immediately connected to the personalities of its characters, the conflicts and contrasts between the main characters come to symbolize some of the most fundamental problems of human existence. The difference between Ivan and Alyosha, for instance, represents the conflict between faith and doubt. Though none of these philosophical issues are given extensive treatment in this section, each of them, along with many others, is expanded and developed as the novel progresses. In the end, the story of the Karamazov brothers enacts a part of the drama of ideas on which civilization itself is based. There are several religious concepts in these chapters that may be unfamiliar to modern readers who are not members of the Russian Orthodox church, to which the Karamazovs belong. First, the article for which Ivan has gained notoriety before the story begins deals with the question of ecclesiastical courts. These are simply courts of law, which decide cases based not on the political laws that govern nations, but on religious law and the strictures of the church. Ecclesiastical courts in Russia at the time of the novel do not have the power to try or punish criminals. Ivan's article argues that ecclesiastical courts should be given authority over criminal prosecution and punishment because if criminals knew they were defying God when they committed their crimes, many of them would choose to obey the law. Given Ivan's reputation for religious doubt, many of the people who know him suspect that he does not entirely believe his own argument. Ivan's argument is motivated not by a desire to punish, but, paradoxically, by compassion for mankind. He believes that without religious authority, people will descend into lawlessness and chaos. At the same time, because he does not believe in the church, Ivan rejects the notion of a binding morality. His article is sincere in that he believes his recommendations would improve the human condition, but insincere in that he does not believe in the ideas and institutions under which his recommendations would be carried out. The article, and the larger debate about ecclesiastical courts, thus serves to offer a preliminary insight into the nature of Ivan's anguished mind: he is so committed to intellectual logic that he is led to advocate ideas he does not believe in his heart"}
text: Chapter V. Elders
  
  
  Some of my readers may imagine that my young man was a sickly, ecstatic,
  poorly developed creature, a pale, consumptive dreamer. On the contrary,
  Alyosha was at this time a well-grown, red-cheeked, clear-eyed lad of
  nineteen, radiant with health. He was very handsome, too, graceful,
  moderately tall, with hair of a dark brown, with a regular, rather long,
  oval-shaped face, and wide-set dark gray, shining eyes; he was very
  thoughtful, and apparently very serene. I shall be told, perhaps, that red
  cheeks are not incompatible with fanaticism and mysticism; but I fancy
  that Alyosha was more of a realist than any one. Oh! no doubt, in the
  monastery he fully believed in miracles, but, to my thinking, miracles are
  never a stumbling-block to the realist. It is not miracles that dispose
  realists to belief. The genuine realist, if he is an unbeliever, will
  always find strength and ability to disbelieve in the miraculous, and if
  he is confronted with a miracle as an irrefutable fact he would rather
  disbelieve his own senses than admit the fact. Even if he admits it, he
  admits it as a fact of nature till then unrecognized by him. Faith does
  not, in the realist, spring from the miracle but the miracle from faith.
  If the realist once believes, then he is bound by his very realism to
  admit the miraculous also. The Apostle Thomas said that he would not
  believe till he saw, but when he did see he said, "My Lord and my God!"
  Was it the miracle forced him to believe? Most likely not, but he believed
  solely because he desired to believe and possibly he fully believed in his
  secret heart even when he said, "I do not believe till I see."
  
  I shall be told, perhaps, that Alyosha was stupid, undeveloped, had not
  finished his studies, and so on. That he did not finish his studies is
  true, but to say that he was stupid or dull would be a great injustice.
  I'll simply repeat what I have said above. He entered upon this path only
  because, at that time, it alone struck his imagination and presented
  itself to him as offering an ideal means of escape for his soul from
  darkness to light. Add to that that he was to some extent a youth of our
  last epoch--that is, honest in nature, desiring the truth, seeking for it
  and believing in it, and seeking to serve it at once with all the strength
  of his soul, seeking for immediate action, and ready to sacrifice
  everything, life itself, for it. Though these young men unhappily fail to
  understand that the sacrifice of life is, in many cases, the easiest of
  all sacrifices, and that to sacrifice, for instance, five or six years of
  their seething youth to hard and tedious study, if only to multiply
  tenfold their powers of serving the truth and the cause they have set
  before them as their goal--such a sacrifice is utterly beyond the strength
  of many of them. The path Alyosha chose was a path going in the opposite
  direction, but he chose it with the same thirst for swift achievement. As
  soon as he reflected seriously he was convinced of the existence of God
  and immortality, and at once he instinctively said to himself: "I want to
  live for immortality, and I will accept no compromise." In the same way,
  if he had decided that God and immortality did not exist, he would at once
  have become an atheist and a socialist. For socialism is not merely the
  labor question, it is before all things the atheistic question, the
  question of the form taken by atheism to-day, the question of the tower of
  Babel built without God, not to mount to heaven from earth but to set up
  heaven on earth. Alyosha would have found it strange and impossible to go
  on living as before. It is written: "Give all that thou hast to the poor
  and follow Me, if thou wouldst be perfect."
  
  Alyosha said to himself: "I can't give two roubles instead of 'all,' and
  only go to mass instead of 'following Him.' " Perhaps his memories of
  childhood brought back our monastery, to which his mother may have taken
  him to mass. Perhaps the slanting sunlight and the holy image to which his
  poor "crazy" mother had held him up still acted upon his imagination.
  Brooding on these things he may have come to us perhaps only to see
  whether here he could sacrifice all or only "two roubles," and in the
  monastery he met this elder. I must digress to explain what an "elder" is
  in Russian monasteries, and I am sorry that I do not feel very competent
  to do so. I will try, however, to give a superficial account of it in a
  few words. Authorities on the subject assert that the institution of
  "elders" is of recent date, not more than a hundred years old in our
  monasteries, though in the orthodox East, especially in Sinai and Athos,
  it has existed over a thousand years. It is maintained that it existed in
  ancient times in Russia also, but through the calamities which overtook
  Russia--the Tartars, civil war, the interruption of relations with the East
  after the destruction of Constantinople--this institution fell into
  oblivion. It was revived among us towards the end of last century by one
  of the great "ascetics," as they called him, Paissy Velitchkovsky, and his
  disciples. But to this day it exists in few monasteries only, and has
  sometimes been almost persecuted as an innovation in Russia. It flourished
  especially in the celebrated Kozelski Optin Monastery. When and how it was
  introduced into our monastery I cannot say. There had already been three
  such elders and Zossima was the last of them. But he was almost dying of
  weakness and disease, and they had no one to take his place. The question
  for our monastery was an important one, for it had not been distinguished
  by anything in particular till then: they had neither relics of saints,
  nor wonder-working ikons, nor glorious traditions, nor historical
  exploits. It had flourished and been glorious all over Russia through its
  elders, to see and hear whom pilgrims had flocked for thousands of miles
  from all parts.
  
  What was such an elder? An elder was one who took your soul, your will,
  into his soul and his will. When you choose an elder, you renounce your
  own will and yield it to him in complete submission, complete self-
  abnegation. This novitiate, this terrible school of abnegation, is
  undertaken voluntarily, in the hope of self-conquest, of self-mastery, in
  order, after a life of obedience, to attain perfect freedom, that is, from
  self; to escape the lot of those who have lived their whole life without
  finding their true selves in themselves. This institution of elders is not
  founded on theory, but was established in the East from the practice of a
  thousand years. The obligations due to an elder are not the ordinary
  "obedience" which has always existed in our Russian monasteries. The
  obligation involves confession to the elder by all who have submitted
  themselves to him, and to the indissoluble bond between him and them.
  
  The story is told, for instance, that in the early days of Christianity
  one such novice, failing to fulfill some command laid upon him by his
  elder, left his monastery in Syria and went to Egypt. There, after great
  exploits, he was found worthy at last to suffer torture and a martyr's
  death for the faith. When the Church, regarding him as a saint, was
  burying him, suddenly, at the deacon's exhortation, "Depart all ye
  unbaptized," the coffin containing the martyr's body left its place and
  was cast forth from the church, and this took place three times. And only
  at last they learnt that this holy man had broken his vow of obedience and
  left his elder, and, therefore, could not be forgiven without the elder's
  absolution in spite of his great deeds. Only after this could the funeral
  take place. This, of course, is only an old legend. But here is a recent
  instance.
  
  A monk was suddenly commanded by his elder to quit Athos, which he loved
  as a sacred place and a haven of refuge, and to go first to Jerusalem to
  do homage to the Holy Places and then to go to the north to Siberia:
  "There is the place for thee and not here." The monk, overwhelmed with
  sorrow, went to the OEcumenical Patriarch at Constantinople and besought
  him to release him from his obedience. But the Patriarch replied that not
  only was he unable to release him, but there was not and could not be on
  earth a power which could release him except the elder who had himself
  laid that duty upon him. In this way the elders are endowed in certain
  cases with unbounded and inexplicable authority. That is why in many of
  our monasteries the institution was at first resisted almost to
  persecution. Meantime the elders immediately began to be highly esteemed
  among the people. Masses of the ignorant people as well as men of
  distinction flocked, for instance, to the elders of our monastery to
  confess their doubts, their sins, and their sufferings, and ask for
  counsel and admonition. Seeing this, the opponents of the elders declared
  that the sacrament of confession was being arbitrarily and frivolously
  degraded, though the continual opening of the heart to the elder by the
  monk or the layman had nothing of the character of the sacrament. In the
  end, however, the institution of elders has been retained and is becoming
  established in Russian monasteries. It is true, perhaps, that this
  instrument which had stood the test of a thousand years for the moral
  regeneration of a man from slavery to freedom and to moral perfectibility
  may be a two-edged weapon and it may lead some not to humility and
  complete self-control but to the most Satanic pride, that is, to bondage
  and not to freedom.
  
  The elder Zossima was sixty-five. He came of a family of landowners, had
  been in the army in early youth, and served in the Caucasus as an officer.
  He had, no doubt, impressed Alyosha by some peculiar quality of his soul.
  Alyosha lived in the cell of the elder, who was very fond of him and let
  him wait upon him. It must be noted that Alyosha was bound by no
  obligation and could go where he pleased and be absent for whole days.
  Though he wore the monastic dress it was voluntarily, not to be different
  from others. No doubt he liked to do so. Possibly his youthful imagination
  was deeply stirred by the power and fame of his elder. It was said that so
  many people had for years past come to confess their sins to Father
  Zossima and to entreat him for words of advice and healing, that he had
  acquired the keenest intuition and could tell from an unknown face what a
  new-comer wanted, and what was the suffering on his conscience. He
  sometimes astounded and almost alarmed his visitors by his knowledge of
  their secrets before they had spoken a word.
  
  Alyosha noticed that many, almost all, went in to the elder for the first
  time with apprehension and uneasiness, but came out with bright and happy
  faces. Alyosha was particularly struck by the fact that Father Zossima was
  not at all stern. On the contrary, he was always almost gay. The monks
  used to say that he was more drawn to those who were more sinful, and the
  greater the sinner the more he loved him. There were, no doubt, up to the
  end of his life, among the monks some who hated and envied him, but they
  were few in number and they were silent, though among them were some of
  great dignity in the monastery, one, for instance, of the older monks
  distinguished for his strict keeping of fasts and vows of silence. But the
  majority were on Father Zossima's side and very many of them loved him
  with all their hearts, warmly and sincerely. Some were almost fanatically
  devoted to him, and declared, though not quite aloud, that he was a saint,
  that there could be no doubt of it, and, seeing that his end was near,
  they anticipated miracles and great glory to the monastery in the
  immediate future from his relics. Alyosha had unquestioning faith in the
  miraculous power of the elder, just as he had unquestioning faith in the
  story of the coffin that flew out of the church. He saw many who came with
  sick children or relatives and besought the elder to lay hands on them and
  to pray over them, return shortly after--some the next day--and, falling in
  tears at the elder's feet, thank him for healing their sick.
  
  Whether they had really been healed or were simply better in the natural
  course of the disease was a question which did not exist for Alyosha, for
  he fully believed in the spiritual power of his teacher and rejoiced in
  his fame, in his glory, as though it were his own triumph. His heart
  throbbed, and he beamed, as it were, all over when the elder came out to
  the gates of the hermitage into the waiting crowd of pilgrims of the
  humbler class who had flocked from all parts of Russia on purpose to see
  the elder and obtain his blessing. They fell down before him, wept, kissed
  his feet, kissed the earth on which he stood, and wailed, while the women
  held up their children to him and brought him the sick "possessed with
  devils." The elder spoke to them, read a brief prayer over them, blessed
  them, and dismissed them. Of late he had become so weak through attacks of
  illness that he was sometimes unable to leave his cell, and the pilgrims
  waited for him to come out for several days. Alyosha did not wonder why
  they loved him so, why they fell down before him and wept with emotion
  merely at seeing his face. Oh! he understood that for the humble soul of
  the Russian peasant, worn out by grief and toil, and still more by the
  everlasting injustice and everlasting sin, his own and the world's, it was
  the greatest need and comfort to find some one or something holy to fall
  down before and worship.
  
  "Among us there is sin, injustice, and temptation, but yet, somewhere on
  earth there is some one holy and exalted. He has the truth; he knows the
  truth; so it is not dead upon the earth; so it will come one day to us,
  too, and rule over all the earth according to the promise."
  
  Alyosha knew that this was just how the people felt and even reasoned. He
  understood it, but that the elder Zossima was this saint and custodian of
  God's truth--of that he had no more doubt than the weeping peasants and the
  sick women who held out their children to the elder. The conviction that
  after his death the elder would bring extraordinary glory to the monastery
  was even stronger in Alyosha than in any one there, and, of late, a kind
  of deep flame of inner ecstasy burnt more and more strongly in his heart.
  He was not at all troubled at this elder's standing as a solitary example
  before him.
  
  "No matter. He is holy. He carries in his heart the secret of renewal for
  all: that power which will, at last, establish truth on the earth, and all
  men will be holy and love one another, and there will be no more rich nor
  poor, no exalted nor humbled, but all will be as the children of God, and
  the true Kingdom of Christ will come." That was the dream in Alyosha's
  heart.
  
  The arrival of his two brothers, whom he had not known till then, seemed
  to make a great impression on Alyosha. He more quickly made friends with
  his half-brother Dmitri (though he arrived later) than with his own
  brother Ivan. He was extremely interested in his brother Ivan, but when
  the latter had been two months in the town, though they had met fairly
  often, they were still not intimate. Alyosha was naturally silent, and he
  seemed to be expecting something, ashamed about something, while his
  brother Ivan, though Alyosha noticed at first that he looked long and
  curiously at him, seemed soon to have left off thinking of him. Alyosha
  noticed it with some embarrassment. He ascribed his brother's indifference
  at first to the disparity of their age and education. But he also wondered
  whether the absence of curiosity and sympathy in Ivan might be due to some
  other cause entirely unknown to him. He kept fancying that Ivan was
  absorbed in something--something inward and important--that he was striving
  towards some goal, perhaps very hard to attain, and that that was why he
  had no thought for him. Alyosha wondered, too, whether there was not some
  contempt on the part of the learned atheist for him--a foolish novice. He
  knew for certain that his brother was an atheist. He could not take
  offense at this contempt, if it existed; yet, with an uneasy embarrassment
  which he did not himself understand, he waited for his brother to come
  nearer to him. Dmitri used to speak of Ivan with the deepest respect and
  with a peculiar earnestness. From him Alyosha learnt all the details of
  the important affair which had of late formed such a close and remarkable
  bond between the two elder brothers. Dmitri's enthusiastic references to
  Ivan were the more striking in Alyosha's eyes since Dmitri was, compared
  with Ivan, almost uneducated, and the two brothers were such a contrast in
  personality and character that it would be difficult to find two men more
  unlike.
  
  It was at this time that the meeting, or, rather gathering of the members
  of this inharmonious family took place in the cell of the elder who had
  such an extraordinary influence on Alyosha. The pretext for this gathering
  was a false one. It was at this time that the discord between Dmitri and
  his father seemed at its acutest stage and their relations had become
  insufferably strained. Fyodor Pavlovitch seems to have been the first to
  suggest, apparently in joke, that they should all meet in Father Zossima's
  cell, and that, without appealing to his direct intervention, they might
  more decently come to an understanding under the conciliating influence of
  the elder's presence. Dmitri, who had never seen the elder, naturally
  supposed that his father was trying to intimidate him, but, as he secretly
  blamed himself for his outbursts of temper with his father on several
  recent occasions, he accepted the challenge. It must be noted that he was
  not, like Ivan, staying with his father, but living apart at the other end
  of the town. It happened that Pyotr Alexandrovitch Miuesov, who was staying
  in the district at the time, caught eagerly at the idea. A Liberal of the
  forties and fifties, a freethinker and atheist, he may have been led on by
  boredom or the hope of frivolous diversion. He was suddenly seized with
  the desire to see the monastery and the holy man. As his lawsuit with the
  monastery still dragged on, he made it the pretext for seeing the
  Superior, in order to attempt to settle it amicably. A visitor coming with
  such laudable intentions might be received with more attention and
  consideration than if he came from simple curiosity. Influences from
  within the monastery were brought to bear on the elder, who of late had
  scarcely left his cell, and had been forced by illness to deny even his
  ordinary visitors. In the end he consented to see them, and the day was
  fixed.
  
  "Who has made me a judge over them?" was all he said, smilingly, to
  Alyosha.
  
  Alyosha was much perturbed when he heard of the proposed visit. Of all the
  wrangling, quarrelsome party, Dmitri was the only one who could regard the
  interview seriously. All the others would come from frivolous motives,
  perhaps insulting to the elder. Alyosha was well aware of that. Ivan and
  Miuesov would come from curiosity, perhaps of the coarsest kind, while his
  father might be contemplating some piece of buffoonery. Though he said
  nothing, Alyosha thoroughly understood his father. The boy, I repeat, was
  far from being so simple as every one thought him. He awaited the day with
  a heavy heart. No doubt he was always pondering in his mind how the family
  discord could be ended. But his chief anxiety concerned the elder. He
  trembled for him, for his glory, and dreaded any affront to him,
  especially the refined, courteous irony of Miuesov and the supercilious
  half-utterances of the highly educated Ivan. He even wanted to venture on
  warning the elder, telling him something about them, but, on second
  thoughts, said nothing. He only sent word the day before, through a
  friend, to his brother Dmitri, that he loved him and expected him to keep
  his promise. Dmitri wondered, for he could not remember what he had
  promised, but he answered by letter that he would do his utmost not to let
  himself be provoked "by vileness," but that, although he had a deep
  respect for the elder and for his brother Ivan, he was convinced that the
  meeting was either a trap for him or an unworthy farce.
  
  "Nevertheless I would rather bite out my tongue than be lacking in respect
  to the sainted man whom you reverence so highly," he wrote in conclusion.
  Alyosha was not greatly cheered by the letter.
  
  
  
  
  
  
feat_summary_name: book 1, Chapter 5
target: Elders Alyosha is greatly moved by the arrival of his brothers. He quickly becomes close to Dmitri, but he feels that Ivan's cold intellectualism keeps him distant from others. Alyosha senses that Ivan is struggling toward an inner goal that makes him indifferent to the outside world. Dmitri and Ivan are as unlike as two people can be, but Alyosha notices that Dmitri speaks of Ivan with warmth and admiration. Dmitri has become embroiled with their father in a conflict over the inheritance, and it is finally arranged that the two parties will have a discussion in Zosima's cell, where the presence of the influential monk might help them resolve their differences. The prospect of this meeting makes Alyosha nervous--he knows that his father would only agree to such a thing sarcastically, and that Ivan himself is an atheist. He worries that his family's behavior will offend Zosima, whom he esteems very highly and who acts as his spiritual leader within the monastery.
feat_summary_analysis: Author's Note and Book I: A Nice Little Family, Chapters 1-5 Book I provides a history of the major characters and their relationships, so the narrator can jump right into the main story in Book II without stopping to explain things as he goes. The narrator presents all of the incidents described in these chapters as though they take place before the real beginning of his story, describing the events as information that is generally well-known, repeated only for the convenience of a reader who somehow may not have heard it before. The narrator, as a result, is a strong presence in these chapters. The narrator signals that the story he tells is widely known by interjecting phrases such as "only later did we learn" and "well known in his own day. The Brothers Karamazov is a cross between a realistic novel and a philosophical novel. The characters have extremely complicated and intricate psychologies, and yet they also each represent certain ideas and concepts. This combination of realism and philosophical symbolism is evident in these chapters, as each meticulously drawn character comes to embody a more abstract set of concepts and beliefs. Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov, the father, with his orgies and his abhorrent treatment of his wives and children, embodies amoral, obnoxious Epicureanism--that is, a commitment to seeking pleasure rather than living responsibly or virtuously. Ivan Karamazov's brilliant mind and burgeoning literary reputation embody the struggle to reconcile intellect with religious belief. Dmitri Karamazov's violent hatred of his father and uncritical love of his brothers stand in opposition to Ivan's critical faculties. Dmitri's character illustrates the effects of action based on emotion rather than on intellect. Finally, Alyosha, whom Dostoevsky describes as the hero of the novel, is nearly the opposite of Fyodor Pavlovich. His love of mankind shows that he is innocent, pious, and virtuous without being mystical or fanatical. Each character in Dostoevsky's quartet of personalities works as a foil, or contrast, for each of the others. Because the novel's philosophical themes are immediately connected to the personalities of its characters, the conflicts and contrasts between the main characters come to symbolize some of the most fundamental problems of human existence. The difference between Ivan and Alyosha, for instance, represents the conflict between faith and doubt. Though none of these philosophical issues are given extensive treatment in this section, each of them, along with many others, is expanded and developed as the novel progresses. In the end, the story of the Karamazov brothers enacts a part of the drama of ideas on which civilization itself is based. There are several religious concepts in these chapters that may be unfamiliar to modern readers who are not members of the Russian Orthodox church, to which the Karamazovs belong. First, the article for which Ivan has gained notoriety before the story begins deals with the question of ecclesiastical courts. These are simply courts of law, which decide cases based not on the political laws that govern nations, but on religious law and the strictures of the church. Ecclesiastical courts in Russia at the time of the novel do not have the power to try or punish criminals. Ivan's article argues that ecclesiastical courts should be given authority over criminal prosecution and punishment because if criminals knew they were defying God when they committed their crimes, many of them would choose to obey the law. Given Ivan's reputation for religious doubt, many of the people who know him suspect that he does not entirely believe his own argument. Ivan's argument is motivated not by a desire to punish, but, paradoxically, by compassion for mankind. He believes that without religious authority, people will descend into lawlessness and chaos. At the same time, because he does not believe in the church, Ivan rejects the notion of a binding morality. His article is sincere in that he believes his recommendations would improve the human condition, but insincere in that he does not believe in the ideas and institutions under which his recommendations would be carried out. The article, and the larger debate about ecclesiastical courts, thus serves to offer a preliminary insight into the nature of Ivan's anguished mind: he is so committed to intellectual logic that he is led to advocate ideas he does not believe in his heart