Overcoming the Violence of the Cross?

Marko Zlomisli

He who speaks of the twentieth century as the century of wolves still thinks too innocently.

Peter Sloterdijk, Rage and Time

Introduction

There is a contradiction within the heart of Christianity that beats with violence. By adopting the
crucifix as its central symbol, the Christian tradition perpetuates and upholds the very violence it
seeks to overcome. I am suggesting that a wholly new theology is needed; one that is not
grounded upon the crucifix.

The crucifix is a device of capital punishment. It is not a launching pad into divine mysteries. To
make sense of Jesuss crucifixion, Anselm put forth the substitutionary sacrifice model of
atonement. Anselm argues that human sin necessitates the atonement. His model asks us to
submit to abuse; to accept the claim that violence is an act of love and that God desires the
suffering of his son who willingly submits to violence. If the UFC is an indication, submission is
not pleasant and has nothing to do with goodness and love.

Instead of eliminating violence and erasing any vectors that stream from it, the theology of the
crucifix, especially as formulated by Luther makes suffering necessary and sufficient. Suffering
becomes necessary for the noble end of salvation. In addition to being necessary suffering is
sufficient. The theology of the crucifix claims that suffering is enough; if one suffers well they
will be rewarded. The theology of suffering is marketed like chicken soup for the souls until one
has the Nietzschean realization that the broth being consumed has little value or comfort.

If one samples the vast literature on the theology of the crucifix, it quickly become apparent that
the crucifix is lauded as a device of liberation. How liberation occurs within a lineage of abuse is
a question that theologians do not answer.

Creative interpretations have been put forth to justify its devotional embrace. Examining a few of
these interpretations will suffice to show that what is being put forth can no longer be accepted.
Notice the extent to which philosophers like Marion and Caputo and theologians like Bonheoffer
and Moltmann will go to make sense of the crucifix. For these thinkers following in the mind-
scape of St. Paul, God is no longer omnipotent but weak; no long omniscient but foolish; no
longer omnipresent but withdrawn. These Hegelian reversals fail to see the Real of the crucifix
and end up constructing an imaginary response to the Roman torture device. God becomes that
than which no greater suffering can be conceived. Of course, we can think of many who have
suffered far greater than the theologians imaginary suffering God.
In Caputos hybrid Heideggerianism, only a Greek-Jew god that smells can save us. The
ideological message is clear. If God suffers then we should also embrace our suffering as
something that is good for us. Suffering is exalted. The priest or minister can tell the
congregation: What are you whining about under the yoke of late capitalism. Look at how Jesus
hangs on the cross for your sins!

Theologians who defend the crucifix have not paid enough attention to the implications of what
they are defending regardless of how complex their musing on the nature of God are. Here we
use Occams Franciscan razor on Anselms theology to see the crucifix for what it really is,
namely a Roman torture device inherited from the Carthaginians.

Gunnar Samuelsson in his Crucifixion in Antiquity (2011) shows that the New Testament offers
only a brief description of the punishment that has influenced a whole world. Samuelsson
argues that the word crux in the narrower sense refers to some kind of execution on wood
while in the wider sense refers to various kinds of anxiety and suffering (CA3). Samuelsson
spends many pain staking pages to conclude that the word crucifixion could mean, impaling or
fastened to a stake and not necessarily the image of the crucifix that adorns the walls of good
Catholic homes, churches and art galleries.

Since there is an ambivalent use of the verb, the theology of the cross takes on a different
meaning because it is an unspecified punishment. Samuelson argues that it is not certain
whether Jesus carried a cross-beam; whether he was impaled, fastened to a stake, suspended like
Stelarc or nailed to a board. Samuelssons conclusion that evoked much criticism from
evangelical strongholds is that Jesus was attached to something in such a way that he expired,
but it does not say which sway (CA251). He continues, if there was no fixed punishment called
crucifixion in the time of Jesus, a reading that Jesus died by the spear instead of a cross is more
plausible. (CA251) Samuelsson is lead to conclude that Jesus may not have died on the cross. If
Samuelssons textual evidence is correct, then the dominant symbol used by Christians is both
suspect and fraudulent. Why is it still being used as the dominant symbol of Christianity if not to
continue its violent effects?

Ellen M. Ross in the Grief of God shows how the crucifix, shaped the ethos of late medieval
England. (GG3) The waves of this ethos reverberated through the world in every place where
the cross was raised as a sign of victory and peace. Christianity became a crucifix centered
culture instead of a culture of peace. Ross writes that this culture was fixed on the broken body
of wounded and bloody Jesus surrounded by weeping bystanders. (GG3) The result concludes
Ross is that depictions of the suffering Christ began to outnumber representations of the
majestic Christ of the resurrection.(GG7) Notice how suffering was transformed for theological
ends. Ross writes, the suffering Christ embodies the offer of mercy to humanity by a loving
God who willingly permits and endures pain on behalf of humans.(GG16). Let us be clear here.
The suffering Jesus embodies the cruelty and terror of the Roman Empire. His suffering has
nothing to do with mercy, justice or the process by which (we) learn to perceive God as
love.(GG33) Jesuss suffering body according to Ross become the Christological bodywhere
believers experience the transformation of time into the meeting place of the divine and the
human.(GG45) If this were the case; if torture could engender such dramatic theological results,
one would think that all the places where humans have been tortured, sometimes in the very
name of God are sites where the Divine presence is made visible. They are not.

The claims made on behalf of the cross are astounding. Here is what John W. Stott in his The
Cross of Christ claims. He writes, the community of Christ is a community of the cross and
will therefore by marked by sacrifice, service and suffering. CC289). According to Stott, the
cross demonstrates, Gods holy love and loving justice.(CC289) Notice that the Roman Empire
is not critiqued for the cross since it is our sins that put Jesus there.(CC12) Here I must side
with Cicero who described the crucifix as a most cruel and disgusting punishment. Stott goes
so far to claim that no theology is genuinely Christian which does not arise from and focus on
the cross. (CC216) This view of the atonement argues that violence accomplishes Gods will. It
goes without saying that such a belief is mistaken, dangerous and abusive. Rather than openly
state the obvious, theologians like Balthazar seek to construct an aesthetics around the cross.
The cross becomes an object of beauty. Such beauty as Rilke writes in his first Duino Elegy, is
nothing but the beginning of terror.

If phenomenology claims to see the thing itself why do phenomenologists like Marion claim that
the centurion who viewed the cross, recognized there the visible trace of the invisible God.
(CV72). I fail to see how the corpse of Jesus can become a sign of God. The cross becomes both
an image and an idol. It needs to be said that Marions analysis in The Crossing of the Visible
remains as clouded as the centurions vision. Rather than bracket these preposterous claims,
Marion raises them to a heavenly level. He writes, it is a matter of crossing from this exhausted
corpse to the glory of the living God.(CV73) The issue of course is that no such crossing
occurs. The cross runs Christianity aground.

The question mark is casting doubt on overcoming. I do not doubt violence. There is really
nothing to doubt about violence. To put it sharply, I do not think that violence can be overcome
fully, and if it is to be overcome, I do not think that Kierkegaards philosophy or theology can
provide us with the necessary tools. In what follows I want to follow in the trajectory of where
this question mark may lead. I realize that I cannot do justice to all the complexities of this
topic.1 I offer the paper as a series of fractures to disrupt the lure of the cross, with each word
acting like a termite to hollow out a new space for reflection. I will argue that if violence is to be
overcome, then the Christian paradigm that raises the cross as a sign of salvation must be
dismantled. The violence within the Christian tradition cannot be overcome as long as the cross
stands in opposition to Jesuss message of radical love and light. I think that the conditions of
violence cannot be overcome if one of the ultimate symbols of violence is offered as a salvific
device. The cross fuels an infatuation with suffering while it intensifies the existential virtues of
guilt, anxiety, and despair.2

II

We visit the monuments chiselled from its steps. We inhabit the spaces carved from its
movements. It has provided us with the all the comforts we enjoy as it continues to amplify our
desires for more.

We walk through its museums, marvel at the idols it has erected. We even pay tribute to the
memories of death it has birthed in us.

It has etched us, affected us with its effects. It has become efficient in disguising the work it
does. Advancing, it effaces its own traces, only to repeat more of the same.

We are caught in the snare of its economy. It manufactures its own resistance just to display the
evidence that it is, of course, democratic.

It is the foundation of our world and its cultures. From its source we cultivate our values,
practices, customs, and meanings. It is the edifice upon which we grow our institutions and upon
whose walls we frame words and phrases such as Love your enemy, Blessed are the meek,
and Turn the other cheek.

It has established its settlements, safeguarded its power and profits, and now are we to believe
that what has been so firmly entrenched within our history and psyche can be overcome with two
or three pinches of Kierkegaard and a dash of the messianic?

What new sensibility will allow us to continue to live under its legacy, while claiming that we
are no longer its heirs? Do we continue to live within the home, within the oikos that Father and
Mother Violence have decorated with their exploits and campaigns, thinking that playing Give
Peace a Chance will absolve their crimes?

The word ethos can mean dwelling place. It is the place we are accustomed to. It is the place
where our customs are repeated. To put it sharply, once again, violence is our ethos. It is where
we dwell so comfortably. Not simply because we may engage in acts of violence, but because we
remain unaware of how the life we lead is the fruit of an ideology that has been persistent in its
impropriety. How will this lineage be overcome?

III

How does one intend to overcome violence other than through an injustice for the sake of
justice? How would we be able to measure the intent, act, and desire of such a move? To
overcome violence, must we not be, as Derrida argues in Archive Fever, unjust out of a concern
for justice.3 How can this overcoming of violence guard itself against yet another instituting
violence? In other words, how do you put to death the very thing you oppose without becoming
stained by it? What keeps the other from making itself violent? I do not think it is as simple as
saying, Love is all you need or Learn to reconcile your differences. These beautiful words
have reduced the singular and irreplaceable to ash, not given an archive, except as a distant
memory.

How can a return to the religious selfhood espoused by Kierkegaard overcome violence when
what is held as sacred is already tethered to the violent? How can the resources to combat
violence come from within religion when most religions at their origin are birthed from a
sanctified violence?

Animal and human sacrifice, the wrath of God, rituals of purification, consecration and
restoration all show how the shedding of blood was somehow an act of religious faith.

The relationship between the sacred and violence has been explored in detail by Ren Girard and
Georges Bataille.4 Walter Burkert expresses it nicely when he writes, Sacrificial killing is the
basic experience of the sacred.5 Faith and blood seem to go well together. Nigel Spivey is
insightful when he maintains that what the early Christian effected was to make a virtue out of
suffering. Christians did not foster its annulment.6 The attitude that suffering is virtuous is
given in the phrase the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.7

The best example of the link between faith and blood is given by Walter Benjamin in his
troubling 1921 essay, The Critique of Violence. There Benjamin embraces a divine violence to
bring about a new order to things. This divine violence accepts sacrifice. It brings about
expiation and is paradoxically lethal without shedding blood. Benjamin believes in the liberating
function of divine violence that would challenge everyday mythical violence. Again, how violent
means bring about positive and holy ends remains problematic.

When God spared Isaacs life from the hands of his father, an innocent ram was slaughtered in
his place. The price again was blood. St. Paul continues in this tradition when he claims that
without the shedding of blood, there is no redemption. The theory of substitutionary atonement
arose as a way to explain the mechanism of the cross. The murder of the evangel became a
remedy for sin, with the crucifix perversely becoming a gift from God. Along these lines we get
the utterly perplexing formulation of Hans Boersma, who argues that the cross is a historically
distilled expression of Gods hospitality.8 I fail to see how a device of torture can be a
cornerstone in a divine plan of salvation. I find no trace of celestial hospitality at work in the
Roman machine of execution. The cross is violence and not its overcoming.

IV

The fascination with violence as a method of salvation does not reside solely in the Lutheran
tradition. It exists, of course, within Catholic theology as well. The Franciscan theologian St.
Bonaventure carries on this fascination by mixing love and suffering. Bonaventure sees the
crucified as the site where love and suffering are united. I have difficulty accepting this theology
of the cross for the same reason I would have accepting a theology of the electric chair. It takes a
symbol of murder and transforms it into a call for martyrdom, such that those who are filled with
the spirit of the Lord should be willing to offer their life for the sake of Christ, because he
offered it for the world. In Bonaventures words, There is no other path than through the
burning love of the Crucified.9 I have difficulty with violence posing under the sign of ultimate
love.

With great insight Mark Heim has shown how Jesus saving death arose only as a late and
secondary development. Heim argues that it was Jonah and not the crucifix that was by far the
most popular image in early Christian art.10 The crosswhich was seen by the Romans as
summum supplicium, utmost punishmentbecame a logo and brand for salvation. The
theology of the cross, established largely by Paul, sets Christianity down a path not espoused by
Jesus. But this is old Nietzschean news.

The crucifix cannot be a symbol of love for the one who claimed to be the messiah, when it was
the embodiment of Roman punishment. I can find no doctrine of ecstasy here, even though
Bonaventure recommends the ecstasy of the crucifix to be the way to peace. He writes, Let us,
then die and enter into darkness. . . . [W]ith Christ crucified let us pass of out this world to the
Father, so that when the Father is to shown to us, we may say with Philip, It is enough for
us.11

Bonaventure claims that to pass beyond, to be in mystical transit, can be attained only through
Christ in his death on the cross. It seems that the only thing that cries out on the cross is not the
self-diffusive love of God, but the great brutality of humanity that delights in such lurid
spectacles. The crucifix as a symbol of violence becomes for Bonaventure the ultimate sign of
agapic love. The notion that the cross has the power to liberate us from all suffering runs counter
to the empirical evidence that the cross is not a device that enables our well-being to flourish,
spiritual or otherwise.

The Coen brothers film No Country for Old Men shows us what is wrong with such logical
reversals. The film illustrates the plight of Vietnam vet Llewelyn Moss who finds two million
dollars at the scene of a drug deal gone bad. Moss, a poor cowboy out hunting antelope in the
desert, finds himself acting against his morals as he takes the money and runs. He is pursued by a
Kantian-trained hit man, Anton Chigurh who, like the sweetness of his last name, does not waver
from his principles. Chigurh likes to kill his victims with a cattle gun attached to a tank of
compressed air. After viewing the film, one soon has the sickening realization that Chigurh is
perhaps the only ethical character in the film. He is the embodiment of all the ethical theories
that Western culture has articulated. Is he not an excellent Kantian who follows his duty without
exception, the ultimate egoist who pursues his desire without fail, the utilitarian who decides
who and what is useful to society, the virtuous man who does not break his promises and can act
mercifully when disposing of what is no longer necessary? Does he not act like Gods avenging
apocalyptic angel? Where does this conclusion lead us? If Chigurh is the embodiment of all the
ethical theories in the West, then what does this say about ethics and about Western culture? It
says that religion, culture, and ethics rest on a foundation of violence.

Chigurh shows us that violence is unstoppable, and when we compromise our principles we will
have become stained by the very thing we pretend to have overcome.

There is nothing wrong in claiming that love is the highest form of the good. What is
problematic, I think, is claiming that the created world is loved into being only through the
suffering and death of Jesus on the crossas if to say the others who were crucified that month
do not really count for much.

This becoming-cruciform in love elevates suffering and death while sidestepping the resurrection
and ascension. I do not see how an image of suffering can become a source of healing or how it
can bring about peace, which for Bonaventure means a perfect concordance between all things.

As the Franciscan scholar Ilia Delio argues, By exhorting Christians to imitate and conform
themselves to the crucified humanity of Christ, Bonaventure helps redirect human desire to its
proper end, to the God who is peace.12 This mystical peace is not a practical peace. It cannot, I
think, lead to perpetual peace. Delio writes, By becoming crucified with the Crucified, the
violence within us is overcome and we can be drawn by the mimetic desire into the silent
mystery of God where the fire of divine love envelops us in peace.13

As a first step toward overcoming violence, I think we need to eliminate this symbol of Roman
capital punishment, of ultimate submission and humiliation, precisely for the sake of a better
love. For many reasons, I cannot accept this mystical babble about crucifixions leading to peace.
To do so would be to adopt the totalitarian position that maintains, Yes of course, crucifixions
produce peace, just look at all the peaceful bodies that hang so beautifully.

I am in favour of an incarnational spirituality that promises, All flesh will be saved, but I am
opposed to flesh being saved through its reconciliation on the cross. Along these lines, I reject
Dietrich Bonhoeffers claim that only the suffering God can help.14 The obvious response
would be that a God who suffers cannot help anyone.

We find ourselves in a world of strange logic, where suffering is beneficial, where being
forsaken builds up faith, and where being weak is a really a blessing in disguise. Achieving
union with the crucified is not the necessary element that can transform our world, as Delio
claims.15 It is, rather, the very source that keeps violence so firmly entrenched. There is no
mystery to the cross. It does not communicate the mystery of Gods love for a humanity that
suffers. The cross is not a relational bond between giver and receiver that radiates a dialectic of
fullness and emptiness. It is simply a device of torture. It cannot be the vehicle of Gods
diffusive love. It is only a vehicle of brokenness that should have been discarded long before it
became a roadside attraction. Simply put, it is bad theology to keep talking about the virtues of
the crucifix and raise it to a mystical level if Christ did indeed resurrect. If he did resurrect, as the
empty tomb shows, then the crucifix needs to be dismantled. Yet we have theologians like Delio
arguing, Do we truly desire a world of peace, a world of love . . . a world where God can be at
home and we are at home in God? Then we must become crucified with the Crucified.16

I think we have failed to consider what we have inherited from the wood of this Roman cross.
We stand at its crossroads, much like Oedipus who has to enact the trauma that met him on the
road.

Why does Christianity cling so closely to the cross? One answer might be that if the cross does
not offer hope, then the evangel is nothing more than Rembrandts slaughtered ox, upside down
and close to the earth. To abandon the cross, to actually overcome violence would mean to
become un-grounded. This being un-grounded would bring a surge of freedom that many would
find more terrible than the actual cross. The cross is maintained and its ground cultivated by
establishing a link between death and resurrection through suffering. The cross as a gift from a
violent God is rationalized as a source of love, safety, and protection. This is a theology rooted in
fear. It perpetuates what Charles Scott calls a lineage of abuse. To exist at the foot of the cross is
to be baptized in a covenant of violence. Here its followers are staked to a landscape of anguish.
Golgothathe place of the skull, the site of Becketts heroes and Hamlets indecisioncan
never become a garden of joy.

To overcome violence, do we not require another kind of sovereignty or what Derrida in Rogues
calls, a force that is stronger than all the other forces in the worlds?17

How do we overcome violence without lapsing into the Heideggerian pathos of only a god can
save us?18 In what sense would we be saved, held safe and sound, assured securely of our
salvation? Would Kierkegaards version of Christianity allow for this being unscathed,
untouched, intact, and immune from all violence, as if we would have our own private angel to
stay the hand of God desiring blood?

Kierkegaard would argue that the root of violence is located in our turn away from God as we
attempt to control creation. Violence happens when we block Gods call to move toward a new
creation and when our desires are not consonant with Gods desires. Violence happens as the
result of a feeling of lack. We have not attained the goal of our existence. We do not have a
proper relationality that allows us to rest in the power that sustains us.

For Kierkegaard, violence is overcome through the works of love. This means to love the
neighbor, to love the whole human race, all people, even the enemy, and not to make exceptions,
neither of preference nor of aversion.19 Neighbor love, which is essentially love of the ugly,
replaces the preferential love of the friend. In friendship, Kierkegaard argues, the I is
intoxicated in the other I which unites two selves into a new selfish self.20
Through love of neighbor the self steps beyond itself to embrace the ugly. Kierkegaard asks,
And what is the ugly? It is the neighbor whom we shall love . . . [T]he neighbor is the unlovable
object, is not anything to offer to inclination and passion.21 A good counterpoint to
Kierkegaards view comes from Ivan in Dostoyevskys The Brothers Karamazov. Ivan says, I
could never understand how one can love ones neighbors . . . [O]ne can love ones neighbors in
the abstract, but at close quarters it is almost impossible.22

A recent film that highlights the difficulties involved in loving the neighbor is Clint Eastwoods
Gran Torino. The film tells the story of Walt Kowalski, a Korean War veteran, cheap-beer-
drinker, and racist. Walts life changes when his young neighbor Thao is forced to join a gang.
His initiation is to steal Walts 1972 mint-condition Gran Torino. Thao fails and is greeted by
Walts M-1 assault rifle. The attempted carjacking sets up the rest of the film. Walt saves Thao
and his sister Sue from the gangs by engaging in acts of violence. Walts Dirty Harry
interventions come with a price. Seeking redemption and a final showdown with the gang who
renew their assaults on Thao, Walt ventures into their territory, pretends to pull out a gun, and is
swiftly cut down in a hail of bullets. The gang members are arrested for murder, and Walt has
finally overcome violence by offering himself up as a sacrifice. In this very Christian film, the
solution to violence is a turn to the crucifixion.

To overcome means to render helpless, to surmount a difficulty or obstacle. To overcome means

to conquer and to prevail over. How exactly will violence be overcome? How will it be rendered
helpless? How can it be conquered when its seems that we are already reconciled with it? What
is there to overcome when we have become no longer opposed?

Overcoming violence? To be sure, once we stop travelling on these Greco-Roman roads. Can the
kingdom of this day come?

Marko Zlomisli is professor of Philosophy, Conestoga College, Kitchener, Canada.

Notes

1. I am writing a book that will offer an alternative to the theology of violence. A previous
version of this paper was presented at the Brock University Kierkegaard conference organized by
David Goicoechea. The aim of the conference was to explore whether Kierkegaards philosophy
of love could help deal with the violence of our time.

2. Philosophers such as Kierkegaard, Hegel, and Heidegger, among others, have made use of
these negative psychological states while raising them to the level of virtues.

3. Jacques Derrida, Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression, trans. Eric Prenowitz (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1998), 3.
4. See, for example, Ren Girard, Violence and the Sacred, trans. Patrick Gregory (Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977); and Georges Bataille, Inner Experience, trans. Leslie-
Anne Boldt-Irons (New York: Suny , 1988).

5. Walter Burkert, Homo Necans: The Anthropology of Ancient Greek Sacrificial Ritual and
Myth (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983).

6. Nigel Spivey, Christ and the Art of Agony, History Today (Aug. 1999): 1623.

7. See Tertullian, Apologeticus, chap. 50.

8. See his Violence, Hospitality and the Cross (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2006).
Boersma wants to reappropriate the atonement tradition, which would explain his embrace of
violence as a redemptive feature.

9. Bonaventure, Itinerarium Mentis in Deum [Journey of the Soul into God], trans. Philotheus
Boehner, OFM (St. Bonaventure, NY: Franciscan Institute Publications, 2002), V. 3, 295.

10. S. Mark Heim, Missing the Cross? Types of Passion in Early Christian Art, Contangion
1213 (2006): 183194.

11. Bonaventure, ITN, 7, 6 (V, 313).

12. Ilia Delio, Crucified Love (St. Bonaventure, NY: Fransciscan Media, 1999), 148.

13. Ibid., 150.

14. See, for example, A Testament to Freedom: The Essential Writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer,
ed. Geffrey B. Kelly and F. Burton Nelson (San Francisco: Harper, 1995). Bonhoeffers works
require a sustained analysis that will be carried out in a future work. The theology that rests on
the axioms of a suffering God contributes to the perpetuation of violence. Here I am reminded of
Miguel de Unamunos doctrine of the infinite sorrow of God, along with Nicolas Berdyaevs
doctrine of tragedy within the divine life. The Japanese Lutheran theologian Kazoh Kitamori
explored the issue in his famous book Theology of the Pain of God (1946). Jurgen Moltmann
upholds a theology of divine suffering in his The Crucified God, and in The Trinity and the
Kingdom of God. John Caputo carried on the tradition of Dietrich Bonhoeffer when writing
about the weakness of God. It is not that I refuse to attribute suffering to God. I do not see any
value in suffering. I do not find suffering to be redemptive. Apologists such as Walter F.
Kedjierski find the cross to be useful in evangelizing Buddhists. He writes, The symbol of the
crucifix, with the dogmatic foundation of Christs redemptive suffering, is therefore the most
plausible avenue to explore in the evangelization of the Buddhist people [sic]. See
Evangelizing Buddhists through the Cross, Logos 8, no. 2 (Spring 2005) 165177.

15. Ilia Delio, Crucified Love, 171.

16. Ibid., 172.

17. Jacques Derrida, Rogues: Two Essays on Reason, trans. Pascale-Anne Brault and Michael
Naas (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2005), 100.

18. This famous phrase comes from Heideggers interview with Der Spiegel, May 30, 1976.

19. Sren Kierkegaard, Works of Love, ed. and trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998), 19.

20. Ibid., 56.

21. Ibid., 373.

22. Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov, trans. Richard Pevear (New York: Farrar,
Straus and Giroux, 2002).