The Grand Inquisitor

Fyodor Dostoevsky
(The Brothers Karamazov, Chapter 5)

"What would Jesus say and do, if he returned today?"

This question, frequently posed from Christian pulpits far and wide, is a recurring theme in world literature. The most profound and enduring literary treatment of the question is by Fyodor Dostoevsky, in his novel, The Brothers Karamazov. In the fifth chapter of the novel, Dostoevsky, through the narrator Ivan Karamazov. offers his answer to the question, "what if Jesus were to appear among us again?"

A Meditation upon a Broomstick (1711)

Jonathan Swift

A classic piece of parody from the great English satirist and author of Gulliver’s Travels, Jonathan Swift. The particular butt of Swift’s sharp pen in this instance was Robert Boyle and his Occasional Reflections upon Several Subjects (1665), in which various everyday subjects (mirrors, fruit-trees, fish) were likened to religious themes – man’s relationship to God, man’s relationship to his soul, etc. Swift came across the book during his stay in the household of William Temple, for whom he was employed as a secretary. The book was supposedly very popular in the Temple household and Swift would often read aloud from it to an audience of ladies. However, becoming bored with the predictability of Boyle’s points, Swift penned his own Meditation (“upon a broomstick”) and inserted it into the Temple’s copy. Legend has it that, when it came round to Swift’s next recital from