Is Prince Myshkin a Christian?

[johniker]

It's a profound question that's simple but not so simple.  Is Myshkin, the Christ figure of "The Idiot" a Christian?  Whenever approached he dodges the question or relates an anecdote.  Yet so many of his actions reflect a reverent attitude toward the Gospels.  This should be an invigorating discussion. 

[Slovenly Old Man]

This sounds like an interesting topic.... I'll need to re-read the book to give a substantial answer.

I think that the most important thing about Prince Myshkin, is that he behaves the way a true Christian ought to.  He follows that ethic instinctively.

Like Kierkegaard, I think that Dostoevsky was trying to show the hypocrisy of most modern Christians.  They purport to be Christians, but fail to live up to the demands of such a notion.  An activity such as devotion to Christ, is, by it's very nature, something which should engage every moment of one's life, but it's been reduced to a ritual display of 1 hour per week.

Myself, I'm not a Christian, but I do use Myshkin as a role model for right action, so I guess if he's a Christian, in a convoluted way, I am too.  I guess it's a sort of virtue ethic.  Perhaps it would be accurate to call it Myshkinism. 

[Slovenly Old Man]

johniker ,

What do you think of this question?  Can you provide some quotes from the book to illustrate?

[johniker]

I know what you mean.  I am not "Christian" because I do not believe the Bible to be this inerrant word of God/history of the earth,etc.  I have to be heading to an internship, but I may later post up some quotes for discussion if I find the time. Last semester of college, pretty hectic.   

[Slovenly Old Man]

Here's an excerpt from Ippolit's "Necessary Explanation" towards the end of the book... the scene where he botches his suicide... it seems to support the thesis that Myshkin wasn't a Christian.... Ippolit is referring to Myshkin here:

"I remarked to him, with a smile, that he spoke like a materialist, and he answered that he had always been one. As he never tells a lie, there must be something in his words"

[Slovenly Old Man]

Just to clarify that quote a bit... by 'materialist,' Ippolit doesn't mean somebody obsessed with accumulating material, like we think in our modern materialistic, consumer-driven world.

What he means is philosophical materialism.  As opposed to a dualistic metaphysical outlook, in which one would believe that there is a body and a soul, or a body and a mind, a materialist believes that there is only a body... there is only material... no spiritual dimension.

So, if Prince Myshkin is a materialist, he certainly can't be a Christian, in the traditional sense anyway.

[johniker]

I don't have quotations on me, but one good place to look for discussion of Myshkin's beliefs would be the end his conversation with Rogozhin upon his return to St. Petersburg (before Rogozhin attempts to stab him and Myshkin suffers a seizure), the numerous discussions of Hans Holbein's painting "Christ in the Tomb." 

Perhaps he espouses a sort of Christian existentialism a la Soren Kierkegaard?  Or perhaps they are just normal, inherent qualities in a naive innocent like Prince Myshkin?

[Slovenly Old Man]

Dostoevsky's definitely got an outlook similar to Kierkegaard.  From what I understand though, the two men never read each other's works.

They were both disgusted with the hypocritical Christians they saw around them.  An idea like Christianity is something that, by it's very nature, should pervade every moment of one's existence.  For most of the Christians around these two figures (Kierkegaard and Dostoevsky), Christianity had been reduced to a weekly ritual for one hour per week.  Unlike Myshkin, they didn't necessarily behave much in Christ's example at all.  Perhaps I'm taking Kierkegaards philosophy and applying it too much to Dostoevsky though.

[johniker]

Of course, there is that scene during the formal dinner party with the Epanchins where Myshkin goes on a tirade about the Russian church, knocks over a vase, and collapses into a seizure. He did not seem to be quite himself, however, though what he was saying would seem to imply he puts a lot of stock into Russian Orthodoxy.  Would it be right to see this as part of his descent into an epileptic seizure?  In every instance where one of Myshkin's fits is outlined, he seems to become heated, obsessive, and almost monomaniacal. 

Thoughts?