If it were mathematically proved to you that the truth excludes Christ, you'd prefer to stick to Christ rather than to the truth.

— Fyodor Dostoevsky, spoken by Ivan Shatov

Genuine Found word for word in the work, in the original and in a public-domain translation.Draft entry, not yet reviewed

Original

Но не вы ли говорили мне, что если бы математически доказали вам, что истина вне Христа, то вы бы согласились лучше остаться со Христом, нежели с истиной? Говорили вы это? Говорили?

Translated by Constance Garnett (1916)

But didn't you tell me that if it were mathematically proved to you that the truth excludes Christ, you'd prefer to stick to Christ rather than to the truth? Did you say that? Did you?

Work: Demons, 1872
Where: Part 2, chapter 1 ("Night"), section 7
Speaker: Ivan Shatov
To: Nikolay Stavrogin

The scene

On the same night of visits, Stavrogin comes to Shatov, his former disciple, who has broken with the revolutionaries and lives in fear of them. Shatov reminds him, line by line, of the ideas Stavrogin once taught him about Russia, Orthodoxy and Christ, while Stavrogin admits that he is an atheist now as he was then. Shatov then recites Stavrogin's 'leading idea' that every nation lives by its search for its own God, and, asked whether he himself believes in God, can only answer 'I... I will believe in God.'

Read it in the text

Часть вторая · VII

- Нет; нынешние славянофилы от нее откажутся. Нынче народ поумнел. Но вы еще дальше шли: вы веровали, что римский католицизм уже не есть христианство; вы утверждали, что Рим провозгласил Христа, поддавшегося на третье дьяволово искушение, и что, возвестив всему свету, что Христос без царства земного на земле устоять не может, католичество тем самым провозгласило антихриста и тем погубило весь западный мир. Вы именно указывали, что если мучается Франция, то единственно по вине католичества, ибо отвергла смрадного бога римского, а нового не сыскала. Вот что вы тогда могли говорить! Я помню наши разговоры.

- Если б я веровал, то, без сомнения, повторил бы это и теперь; я не лгал, говоря как верующий, -- очень серьезно произнес Николай Всеволодович. - Но уверяю вас, что на меня производит слишком неприятное впечатление это повторение прошлых мыслей моих. Не можете ли вы перестать?

- Если бы веровали? - вскричал Шатов, не обратив ни малейшего внимания на просьбу. - Но не вы ли говорили мне, что если бы математически доказали вам, что истина вне Христа, то вы бы согласились лучше остаться со Христом, нежели с истиной?* Говорили вы это? Говорили?

- Но позвольте же и мне наконец спросить, -- возвысил голос Ставрогин, -- к чему ведет весь этот нетерпеливый и... злобный экзамен?

- Этот экзамен пройдет навеки и никогда больше не напомнится вам.

PART II · VII · Constance Garnett

"The Slavophils of to-day disown it. Nowadays, people have grown cleverer. But you went further: you believed that Roman Catholicism was not Christianity; you asserted that Rome proclaimed Christ subject to the third temptation of the devil. Announcing to all the world that Christ without an earthly kingdom cannot hold his ground upon earth, Catholicism by so doing proclaimed Antichrist and ruined the whole Western world. You pointed out that if France is in agonies now it's simply the fault of Catholicism, for she has rejected the iniquitous God of Rome and has not found a new one. That's what you could say then! I remember our conversations."

"If I believed, no doubt I should repeat it even now. I wasn't lying when I spoke as though I had faith," Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch pronounced very earnestly. "But I must tell you, this repetition of my ideas in the past makes a very disagreeable impression on me. Can't you leave off?"

"If you believe it?" repeated Shatov, paying not the slightest attention to this request. "But didn't you tell me that if it were mathematically proved to you that the truth excludes Christ, you'd prefer to stick to Christ rather than to the truth? Did you say that? Did you?"

"But allow me too at last to ask a question," said Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch, raising his voice. "What is the object of this irritable and... malicious cross-examination?"

"This examination will be over for all eternity, and you will never hear it mentioned again."

What it says

Faith in Christ can be held even against proof: if truth and Christ came apart, one would choose Christ.

How it is misread

Quoted as the novel's or Shatov's own creed. In the scene it is a creed Shatov says Stavrogin once professed, thrown back at a man who no longer believes it, by a man who cannot yet believe it himself. The thought is Dostoevsky's own in a letter of 1854 (see echoes), but the novel gives it to Stavrogin, who has lost every belief he once held.

Descent

Draws onDostoevsky, letter to Natalya Fonvizina, 1854Written after his release from the Omsk prison, it sets out his 'symbol of faith': if someone proved to him that Christ is outside the truth, and it really were so, he would rather remain with Christ than with the truth. The Russian edition's notes point to this letter as the source of Shatov's words.

What it is made of

ChristTruth & lyingReason & its limitsGod & faith

If–thenProfession of faithAccusation

AntithesisRhetorical questionArithmetic

ReportedIn dialogueYou

Left openIronic

UrgentSolemn

A few sentencesShifts out of context

Sermon & faithArgument & debateTeaching & discussion

Nearby

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