There
is a moving scene in the novel The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor
Dostoyevsky. In it Fr. Zosima, a holy hermit, is dying. He is imparting
his final advice to his fellow monks. His exhortation reaches a
crescendo when he urges the monks not to think of themselves as any
holier than those outside the monastery. On the contrary, he tells them
to think of themselves as worse than others. Fr. Zosima then makes this
striking statement: “When [a monk] realizes that he is not only worse
than others, but that he is responsible to all men, for all men and for
everything, for all human sins, national and individual, only then is
the aim of our seclusion attained. For know, dear ones, that every one
of us is undoubtedly responsible for all men and everything on earth,
not merely through the general sinfulness of creation, but each one
personally for all mankind and every individual man…”
We
are “responsible to all men, for all and everything, for all human
sins…” This idea might initially strike us not only as completely
wrong...
