“Crime and Punishment”: A Mystical Novel about Saving the World through the Love of Jesus Christ and Sophia

Abstract

This article is a continuation of the interpretation of F.M. Dostoevsky’s novel “Crime and Punishment”. A detailed analysis of the central episode of the novel, Raskolnikov's visit to Sonya Marmeladova, Is here offered, and, as a result, many hidden allusions to the story of Jesus Christ are revealed. Attention is drawn to the dual meaning of Raskolnikov's statements about the need to gain power over the world: this is either material power, based on the laws of the evil world (in imitation of Napoleon), or spiritual power, canceling the laws of the world (in imitation of Christ), which includes serving people and accepting suffering for everyone. It is proved that all the mysterious and incomprehensible details of the narration receive a natural explanation when the Gnostic myth of the salvation of the world through the love union (sizigiya) of Jesus Christ and Sophia is put at the basis of the symbolic plan of the novel. This connection takes place in the epilogue of the novel, where the symbolic plan completely prevails over the realistic, which allows to explain the change in the style of the narrative, which was paid attention to by many researchers.