Russain Theology :: essays research papers

Chapter 5 The Grand Inquisitor"EVEN this moldiness have a preface -- that is, a literary preface," laughed Ivan, "and I am a poor hand at making one. You see, my action takes status in the sixteenth century, and at that time, as you probably learnt at school, it was conventional in poetry to bring down heavenly powers on earth. non to speak of Dante, in France, clerks, as well as the monks in the monasteries, utilise to give regular performances in which the Madonna, the saints, the angels, Christ, and God Himself were brought on the stage. In those geezerhood it was done in wholly in every last(predicate) simplicity. In Victor Hugos Notre Dame de genus Paris an edifying and gratuitous spectacle was provided for the people in the Hotel de Ville of Paris in the run of Louis XI in honour of the birth of the dauphin. It was c altogethered Le bon jugement de la tres sainte et gracieuse Vierge Marie, and she appears herself on the stage and pronounces her bon jugemen t. Similar plays, chiefly from the Old Testament, were occasionally performed in capital of the Russian Federation too, up to the times of Peter the Great. But besides plays there were all sorts of legends and ballads scattered about the world, in which the saints and angels and all the powers of Heaven took part when required. In our monasteries the monks busied themselves in translating, copying, and even composing such poems- and even under the Tatars. on that point is, for instance, one such poem (of course, from the Greek), The Wanderings of Our Lady through Hell, with descriptions as temerarious as Dantes. Our Lady visits hell, and the Archangel Michael leads her through the torments. She sees the sinners and their punishment. There she sees among others one worthy set of sinners in a burning lake some of them sink to the dawn of the lake so that they cant swim out, and these God forgets- an expression of extraordinary depth and force. And so Our Lady, shocked and weeping, falls before the throne of God and begs for mercy for all in hell- for all she has seen there, indiscriminately. Her conversation with God is immensely interesting. She beseeches Him, she will non desist, and when God points to the hands and feet of her Son, nailed to the Cross, and asks, How can I forgive His tormentors? she bids all the saints, all the martyrs, all the angels and archangels to fall down with her and pray for mercy on all without distinction.