Further Glance

chapter 4 Secular Grace: Further Glance

Now it is possible to gather up all the parts, ideas and characteristics discussed so far, to combine them into one picture, rich and complex, and to present a developed version of secular grace. But its meaning still requires further clarification and illustration. First, the question arises of how a concept of secular grace may be given a real manifestation in the life of a concrete person. One possible answer to that will be given here with a literary character: Prince Myshkin, the hero of Dostoevsky’s The Idiot. Another illustration, in a com- pletely different way, is presented by examining two borderline cases, which stretch that concept to its limits and raise two intricate questions: Can there be a secular grace-relation with the dead, and can there be a secular grace- relation with oneself. This chapter will suggest answers to that.

A Secular Grace in Prose

In what follows, I shall argue that the issue of grace is the main subject of Dostoevsky’s novel The Idiot,1 and the hero of that novel – which describes a kind of Russian Jesus – is a quintessential example (with one important reservation) of a man who chose the way of secular grace and maintains grace- relations with many characters.

(a) The Grace-Path of Prince Myshkin The Idiot provides quite a few examples of characters that are charitable towards others. One example is Pavlishchev, who raised the prince after his parent’s death, and acted generously towards others as well; another example is an old man who used to help criminals and bestow them with warmth, money and non-judgmental listening. Yet the fullest and richest manifestation of generosity is found in the hero, Prince Myshkin, an epileptic young orphan raised in Switzerland who returns to Russia at the beginning of the novel after having received a large inheritance. The main drama entails two love-triangles in which the prince is involved, one between Parfyon Rogozhin, Nastasya

1 I quote from: Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Idiot: A Novel in Four Parts, trans. Constance Garnett, revised and ed. with an introduction by Avrahm Yarmolinsky, New York: The Heritage Press, 1956. In the following quotations, my own emphases are in bold.

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Filippovna and Myshkin, and the other: between Myshkin, Nastasya Filip- povna and Agalaia Yepanchin. Parfyon Rogozhin is a rich young merchant, the prince’s good friend and bitter rival. Nastasya Filippovna is a desperate, eccentric beauty, whose self-destructive misery finds expression in her con- stant vacillation between Rogozhin, who is madly in love with her, other men enamoured of her, and the prince, who wishes to save her and whom she loves. Agalaia Yepanchin, a noble young pure-hearted woman, is in love with the prince – who loves her in return – but cannot cope with his relationship with Nastasya Filippovna. Alongside these four main characters there are many more: Ag alaia’s parents and her two sisters, to whom the prince becomes close; Ganya, General Yepanchin’s secretary, who is in love with Agalaia but wants to marry Nastasya for her money (and looses both of them); Kolya, Ganya’s brother, who deeply loves the prince; Kolya’s young, dying friend Ippolit; Burdovsky, who presents himself as the true heir of the prince’s benefactor, Pavlishchev, in order to claim money from the prince (and publishes a slan- derous article about the latter in this context); and Agalaia’s suitor, Yevgeny Pavlovich, a cynic who becomes a close friend of the prince. At center stage stands prince Myshkin, whose character and deeds are rich- ly and profoundly portrayed: a kind, warm man, who is endowed with rare generosity and willingness to trust. Alongside those traits, other ones are be- ing presented: nobility, gentleness, courtesy and tact, modesty, courage, and a combination of innocence with sobriety, on the personal level (e.g. regarding the hatred of Rogozhin and Ippolit towards him) as well as of the human na- ture (thus, for example, he comments: “I think it often happens that people marry for money and the money remains with the wife” [113]). The prince is also endowed with a sensitive eye and a penetrating ability of observation, which enable him a profound understanding of others. Yet what char acterizes him most is the way he relates to his fellowmen: although the prince does prefer some people to others, he has a unique attitude towards each and every person he encounters. First and foremost, the prince seeks the company of others not for some profitable reason, but for the sake of the encounter itself; as he declares when he first meets the Yepanchins: “I assure you I have no personal object except the pleasure of making your acquaintance” [26]. When such encounters occur – either one-time encounters or continuous relationship with other characters in the novel – Myshkin’s attitude towards others is characterized by extreme warmth, kindness and generosity, which are expressed multi-dimensionally: in words, attitude, financial aid, and various deeds. Thus, for example, he treats a banished, poor girl in his village – he sells his only ring in order to give her money, visits her, kisses her, tries (and succeeds) to persuade the village’s children