Michael Finkenthal Lev Shestov Existential Philosopher and Religious Thinker

Lev Shestov
PETER LANG
New York Washington, D.C./Baltimore Bern
Frankfurt Berlin Brussels Vienna Oxford

Michael Finkenthal

Lev Shestov

Existential Philosopher
and Religious Thinker

PETER LANG
New York Washington, D.C./Baltimore Bern
Frankfurt Berlin Brussels Vienna Oxford

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Finkenthal, Michael.
Lev Shestov: existential philosopher and
religious thinker / Michael Finkenthal.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Shestov, Lev, 18661938. 2. Existentialism.
3. Jewish philosophy. I. Title.
B4259.S54F56 197dc22 2009044584
ISBN 978-1-4331-0448-0

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Contents
Preface vii
Introduction 1
1. Te Portrait of the Philosopher as a Young Man 19
2. Beginnings Without Ends: Te Russian Background 29
3. Penultimate Words 47
4. Sola Fide 59
5. Before the Emigration: All Tings Are (Still) Possible 71
6. In Jobs Balances: Shestov in Paris 87
7. Shestov in Paris II: Out of the Bull of Phalaris 101
8. Encounters with Judaism 115
9. Te Last Writings: Between Athens and Jerusalem 129
10. Benjamin Fondane, the Disciple 143
11. Instead of a Conclusion: Scattered Toughts about Lev Shestov 157
Notes 175
Bibliography 193
Index 199
FinkenthalMichael.indd v 4/11/10 11:27:54 AM
FinkenthalMichael.indd vi 4/11/10 11:27:55 AM
Preface
If the occasional reader picks up from a bookshelf any of the books written
by Lev Shestov during a period of forty years, from his rst Shakespeare and
His Critic Brandesprinted in St Petersburg in 1898to the last one entitled
Athens and Jerusalem published in Paris shortly before his death in 1938, he
will nd in all of them statements about the wretched character of human life
and the impossibility to cope with the tragic human predicament by using only
the tools devised by our own minds. Te corollary of this thought is that hu-
man beings need to have faith, to believe in something radically dierent from
the mere products of their consciousness. In turn, such an a rmation begs
the question about the nature of the object of our belief: is this an absolute
Transcendental God or an immanent one, as it seems at times to be the case
in the Judeo-Christian monotheisms. What was Shestovs choice? Was he a
philosopher or a religious thinker? Was he a representative of modern Fideism
(his constant interest in Tertullian might hint to it) or a late follower of the
Latin Averroists who believed in the doctrine of the twofold truth? In turn,
these questions project themselves on the attempted answers and determine to
a large extent the nature of the hermeneutical enterprise. One is left to wonder
if while discussing these issues we are in the realm of philosophy or in that of
FinkenthalMichael.indd vii 4/11/10 11:27:55 AM
viii Lev Shestov: Existential Philosopher and Religious Tinker
religious thinking, theology or philosophy of religion.
What can bring somebody to the conclusion that the human life, while
manifesting itself in myriads of forms which often give birth to hope and at
times even to instances of happiness, is in reality merely a constant struggle
with the all pervasive adversity of evil? Readers of Shestovs works might sus-
pect the author was suering from a hidden a iction, and they may look for a
built-in predisposition toward chronic pessimism; however, the author under
discussion was not a sick man, and, according to all witnesses, he was not at
all a pessimist. Even so, if we are not born with an a iction we might acquire
it: a traumatic experience might set in much like darkness may fall suddenly
when during a hot summer day heavy clouds cover unexpectedly the sun. It is
a central thesis of this book that Lev Shestov had quite early in his life such a
formative experience that set him on a track he would follow his entire life.
However, if that were all, our author would be of interest only to psychologists
and perhaps psychiatrists and this is certainly not the case; Shestov was an
important existential philosopher and at the same time an original religious
thinker. His eorts in this domain represent an important contribution to the
attempt to rethink Judaism in terms acceptable to an increasing number of
Jews trapped between a secular modus vivendi and a longing for a new and
renewed self-denition in traditional terms. In this approach he is joining Bu-
ber, Rosenzweig, and Levinas, to mention only a few prominent names who
contributed to this domain during the last century.
Shestov is also an author relevant to the cultural history of modern Russia;
he was at times considered a (Russian) orthodox thinker, a literary critic, and
one of the major representatives of the Russian nihilistic literature of the twen-
tieth century. Everybody recognized the exceptional quality of his writing style,
to the point that he was often upset by this observation considered to consti-
tute rather a disadvantage as it menaced to eclipse the message of his writings.
Moreover, he was also part of a European existential philosophy anchored in
Pascal, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche, and as such, he inuenced many contempo-
rary philosophers and literary authors, from Gabriel Marcel to Albert Camus
and from Benjamin Fondane to Czeslaw Milosz. While I will not insist on the
Russian aspects of his activitiesin a recent work, Genevive Piron did that
very successfullyI will try to make clear in what respect Shestovs existential
philosophy is distinguished from what we call existentialism (be it the secular
branch represented by Sartre and Heidegger or the religious one exemplied
by Gabriel Marcel or Nikolai Berdyaev). In spite of the fact that Shestov did
not have followers, with the exception perhaps of Benjamin Fondane, his ideas
often resonated with those of various artists and thinkers (I shall often use this
concept of resonance borrowed from physics in order to avoid complicated psy-
FinkenthalMichael.indd viii 4/11/10 11:27:55 AM
Preface ix
chological and metaphysical explanations). After his death, he was forgotten
for a while probably because of his uncompromising rejection of a value central
to both modernity and postmodernity: the ability to dene by reason only the
most signicant problems human beings face. In fact, Shestov did not take issue
with the idea in itself; he challenged the validity of the only and of the most
signicant in the above statement.
It is very di cult to put all these together in one book: the details of
Shestovs biography, the circumstances of his life, his elective a nities in the
world of Russian literature and in that of the European philosophy and his
contacts during the exile years are all essential to the understanding of his intel-
lectual choices, and yet this book is not a biography of Lev Shestov. Moreover,
even if the discussion of the nature of his existential philosophy is necessary,
my work does not intend to become another contribution to the enormous
quantity of works about the existential and the existentialist philosophies of
the twentieth century (as many authors do, I make also a distinction between
the two; according to some the rst would represent a philosophy in which
existence precedes its essence while in the second group the relationship between
existence and essence is reversed. Another distinction is often made based on
the role ontology plays in the philosophy of these thinkers: according to this
classication, existentialists are the philosophers who oer an ontology, such
as Sartre or Heidegger did. Te truth is that Shestov, with his rejection of the
tyranny of reason, cannot be classied according to such criteria). Te presen-
tation of a new, sui generis religious thinking and the discussion of its implica-
tions in the process of re-thinking Judaism in our time are very complex issues,
which would, each in itself, require its own book. View all these caveats, the
work presented here is necessarily limited in its scope and should be viewed
solely as an attempt to pose a problem and to try to dene its scope, its extent,
and its implications rather than a thorough, closed and self-su cient explana-
tion of the human and intellectual phenomenon called Shestov. Tat is why,
while presenting extensively his views on philosophy and religious thought, I
very carefully avoided shaping my work into a critique of existential thinking
or into a comparative study of modern Jewish thinkers. Some remarks, obser-
vations, and conclusions concerning these subjects are oered, however, in the
form of scattered thoughts in the nal chapter of the book. Initially, I intended
to introduced the name of Benjamin Fondane in the title of the book, and thus
to discuss both authors in detail; soon, I realized that it would be too much for
the writer and for the reader as well. I included, though, a chapter on Fondane,
the disciple, and occasionally I mentioned him in other chapters of the book.
However, another separate work will have to be dedicated to him, for reasons
which are made clear even by the little I wrote about him in this book. Also, I
FinkenthalMichael.indd ix 4/11/10 11:27:55 AM
x Lev Shestov: Existential Philosopher and Religious Tinker
have to state explicitly that I did not attempt at all to discuss the implication
and the relevancy of Shestovs work to literary criticism and in particular to the
analysis of the works of the great Russian classics; others did it much better
than I could have done it (see for instance George Steiners book on Tolstoy
and Dostoevsky or the conversations between Milosz and Brodsky).
It has been said that Shestov often repeated himself and that he read the
authors he wrote about in a very biased way. As I mentioned already, Shestov
was considered by some a Russian writer while others tried hard to single
out his Jewishness. Some emphasized the aesthetic dimension of his works;
others tried to nd his revolutionary bent. For many critics he was a religious
thinker, but the number of those who considered him a philosopher was not
any smaller. Te fact is that all the above is true, and one can approach the
analysis of Shestovs writings in very dierent ways. From the very beginning,
I had to face a problem of method and methodology while considering a body
of work that often mixes literature, psychology, philosophy, and religion. Once
a decision in these areas was reachedand the process was a lengthy and dif-
cult onethe problem of the limits of the hermeneutical compass arises:
how far can/should one push the limits of interpretation? A daring argument
in the domain of philosophical thinking might seem quite banal and become
a limited or quite insignicant one when considered in the system of reference
of the authors religious thoughts. Last but not least, there is the down to earth
but very annoying di culty posed by the scatter of his works among various
journals, publications, languages, and so on. Sometimes it is hard to identify a
given book or an article because of the dierent dates of publication and the
dierent titles the same work may have in dierent languages. Without dis-
cussing these things in detail, others did it already in previous workssee in
particular the works of Kent Hill, Nathalie Barano-Chestov, Bernard Mar-
tin, Andrius Valevicius, Andr Desilets, Alexis Philonenko and more recently
Ramona Fotiade and Genevive PironI will occasionally mention these dif-
culties in various chapters of my work.
In recent years, the Lev Shestov Journal published by Ramona Fotiade at
the University of Glasgow brought forth important information; members of
the Shestov Society organized colloquia and edited proceedings of relevant
conferences. Many references to Shestov can be found in articles published by
various collaborators of the Societ dtudes Benjamin Fondane and I am indebt-
ed in particular among its members to Monique Jutrin and Margaret Teboul
for their interest and help with bibliographical materials at various stages of
this work. Special thanks are due to Genevive Piron with whom I exchanged
often ideas about Shestov and who made available to me her research prior to
its publication. I believe that when it will appear in print (at the Editions LAge
FinkenthalMichael.indd x 4/11/10 11:27:55 AM
Preface xi
dHomme), her book will turn out to be the most thorough presentation of the
genesis of the Shestovian oeuvre published so far. Discussions about Shestov
with Ricardo Nirenberg and Andrius Valevicius, as those on the subject of
Athens vs. Jerusalem with Piero Boitani, are kindly acknowledged. I must also
mention here the late Bill Kluback, with whom I discussed more than ten
years ago the possibility to write in collaboration a book on Shestov (as we did
about Ionesco and Cioran); the project was not followed through because of
his untimely death. Bill was a great admirer of Paul Valry, and his reading of
Shestov was aected by a strong bias toward the sharp rationality of the French
poet, but some of his insights about both the religious and the philosophical
message of the Shestovian texts were quite interesting. Hopefully, I will have
one day the opportunity to include the notes I made following these dialogues
in a future work dedicated to Shestovs religious thought considered in a realm
extending beyond the monotheistic beliefs and to the impact his philosophi-
cal deconstruction had on contemporary Japanese philosophy. I would like to
thank also James M. McLachlan for sending me his paper on Shestov and
Kierkegaard and the translation into English of Levinas review of Shestovs
book on Kierkegaard and David A. Patterson for pointing out to me the exten-
sion of his work on Shestov and Dostoevsky in his book on Bakhtin, Literature
and Spirit.
One nal note on some technical details: while most of the later works by
Shestov have been translated into English, some were not. Whenever I quoted
from books and/or articles I read in other languages, the translations, for bet-
ter or for worse are mine. Also, I assumed that in this age of the Internet, the
reader will look up in the cyberspace dates, names, biographical details and the
meanings of certain words or expression belonging to the philosophical lexicon
(or jargon). Tat way, I could ll the notes with references almost exclusively
dedicated to quotes from Shestovs works and those extracted from secondary
sources directly relevant to Shestov.
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FinkenthalMichael.indd xii 4/11/10 11:27:55 AM
Introduction
Introduction
Philosophers seek, with all the passion of which man are capable, universal and necessary
truthsthe only thing according to them, which is worthy of being called knowledge
For Shestov, the Biblical proclamation of an omnipotent Creator God for whom nothing is
impossible is central,
Bernard Martin
About Lev Shestovs work one should write perhaps only in aphoristic style.
First, because of the adequacy of the fragmentary writing to the subject matter;
second, because the mere notion of a systematic rendering of a thought that
departed from the conventional ways of philosophy not only by denying to
rational thinking the ability to unveil truth but also its claim to arrive at the
true philosophical discourse, would have probably oended him. One might
say, as in fact many did, that Shestov was involved in a life long quarrel with
the tyranny of the rational thinking; this point must be understood properly,
FinkenthalMichael.indd Sec1:1 4/11/10 11:27:55 AM
2 Lev Shestov: Existential Philosopher and Religious Tinker
however, as he never denied the legitimacy or the usefulness of rational think-
ing while claiming its limited status. Te knowledge based on rational thinking
originated from the need to adress practical and immediate goals, and as such
it represents a wisdom limited mainly to the nding of successful solutions for
such problems. Shestov recognized that one may develop a magnicent sci-
ence based on this knowledge; however, logical thinking cannot address all the
problems facing the human being and to an even lesser extent can it propose
solutions to those issues whichby their very naturecannot be settled on
purely rational grounds. Tis meant implicitely that in real life, one is con-
fronted with specically human problems of an aective nature, that a hu-
man predicament exists outside and beyond the natural world explained by
science. Te solutions to these problems, if they exist at all, cannot be found
within the connes of rational thinking. Tat does not mean that one should
cease for a moment even, to seek them; Shestov believed that one can nd a
way out from the existential traps some authors called abyss, others, goure. In
his works he proposed at dierent times dierent solutions; in the following
chapters we set out to identify some of these solutions and follow the dynamics
of their evolution in Lev Shestovs works.
Why should the so-called tyranny of reason be rejected? Because it is
useless and silly, would answer ironically Shestov. On a more serious note, his
disciple Benjamin Fondane added later that not doing it would signicantly
weaken the philosophical reasoning as rational thinking eliminates aectivity
and thus leaves us helpless in those situations in which these aective states
dominate our lives. Tere is no knowledge that can make us happy when we
are unhappy and in despair: nothing will satisfactorily explain love or hate, and
there is no method to eradicate evil and ugliness. Tese states exist and rational
knowledge is often (if not always) powerless when called to confront them.
Moreover, by eliminating the aective, an aective void, as Fondane called
it, comes into being. Tis void, in turn, creates the anguish that engenders
boredom (ennui). Fondane, through an elaborate intellectual construct tried
to substantiate in his book on Baudelaire, written after his masters death, this
evolution and the existential dangers it poses: lives based exclusively on ratio-
nal principles are menaced by a new fall into the nightmare of an existential
bottomless swamp.
However, let us return to Shestov: readers unfamiliar with his philosophi-
cal works may nd some of his pronouncements, at a rst glance at least, some-
what strange.
1
A statement such as it is not enough for truth to be constrain-
ing, necessary, it must also be persuasive would illustrate well this point: is
not truth by its very nature constraining and persuasive at the same time? For
the typical lover of wisdom,, as for any practitioner of critical thought for
Introduction 3
that matterand Shestov would have included here the entire modern and
contemporary philosophy, from Descartes to Kant and from Hegel to Hus-
serl and beyondthe a rmative answer to this question is an obvious, yes.
Not so for the existential philosopher of the Shestovian brand. In any event,
when the oeuvre of Lev Shestov is carefuly examined, it is di cult to avoid the
conclusionin spite of such odditiesthat the author was not only one of
the founders of the existential philosophy of the twentieth century but also a
very important contemporary religious thinker.
Te entire work of Lev Isaakovich Schwartzman (born in Russia in 1866),
is marked by questions about the relationship between truth and knowledge and,
perhaps even more importantly, by a ceaseless and sustained inquiry about the
relationship between truth and its seeker. In fact, the works of Shestov, written
during more than 40 years in Russia and in Western Europe (Germany, Swit-
zerland, and from the early twenties of the last century till his death in 1938,
in France), cover a very broad range of topics. At rst, he manifested himself
rather as a philosophical interpreter of such literary gures as Shakespeare,
Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, and Chekhov. Later, he moved closer to pure philosophy
and concentrated on Nietzsche; using some of the radical ideas of the German
philosopher, he reconsidered the main tenets of classical philosophy and sub-
mitted them to a thorough, critical reading. Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz
were re-interpreted in the light of other thinkers which Shestov found to be
in resonance with Nietzsche (sometimes in strange ways), such as Pascal or
Luther and later, Kierkegaard. I want to anticipate and note here already that
the Old and the New Testaments were often present in the background of the
shestovian analysis, though the degree and the intensity of this presence varied
in time.
Due to the very large thematic variety of Lev Shestovs writings, in any
attempt to study a specic issue, the readers will have to narrow the scope
and focus their analysis on only one or two works of the author. On the other
hand, certain subjects that became constants of his intellectual preoccupations
underwent signicant changes in time, and an evolution in the treatment of
their content is clearly discernable. Te problem of knowledge and truth for in-
stanceto remain for the moment within the connes of this topicappears
very early in Shestovs writings: in both All things Are Possible and Anton Chek-
hov and other essays,
2
published before the First World War, one nds already
a forceful critique of what the author perceived as the tyranny of the rational
knowledge and a strong statement concerning the need to focus on the indi-
vidual truths as opposed to the eorts of the positive sciences and the classical
philosophy oriented toward an objective knowledge based on general concepts
and universal principles. Te last two books published by Shestov, Kierkegaard
and Existential Philosophy (1936) and Athens and Jerusalem (1938),
3
often used
to present and discuss such essential ideas as those of existence, existential think-
ing contain as well extensive discussions regarding the question of the truth. But,
Potestas Clavium, In Jobs Balances,
4
published during the twenties in Paris, as
well as many scattered articles that precede these two works address also these
ideas in the context of a philosophical discourse that evolves from a decon-
struction of classical and contemporary philosophy toward a personal one.
In a brief article dedicated to the theme discussed here,
5
I pointed out
already that Shestov often talked about the need to restate philosophy and
rebuild it outside the connes of reason, to create a new philosophy destined
to guide man in his real, individual existence. Te whole art of philosophy
should be directed towards freeing us from the good and evil of cooks and
carpenters, to nding that frontier beyond which the might of general ideas
ceases,
6
Shestov wrote.
When it came to explaining to the great public his daring and somewhat
uncomfortable ideas, Shestov often trusted better his disciple, the poet and
philosopher Benjamin Fondane. (After the publication of the article, A propos
du livre de Lon Chestov: Kierkegaard et la pense existentielle, a very pleased
Shestov told Fondane that he succeeded exceptionally well in presenting his ideas
and added, a few days later, Schloezer [Shestovs translator into French] ma
dit que votre tude tait la meilleure introduction la philosophie existentielle
que lon a fait jusqu prsent
7
). Indeed, often Fondanes presentation of the
issues related to the nature of truth and truth seeking in the frame of an exis-
tential philosophy of the Shesovian kind, were more direct and sometimes he
expressed in a more straightforward and direct way the ideas of the master.
For instance, in the article mentioned above the subject of the battle waged
by Shestov against the domination of rational knowledge and its corollaries is
brought up from the very beginning by Fondane; Shestovs queries, he writes,
challenge rmly and insistently the fundamental questions concerning knowl-
edge, religion, existence . . . his works represent the most radical critique of the
theory of knowledge and of knowledge itself.
8
In spite of this fact, observes
sadly Fondane, his philosophical outlook is not valued by the representatives of
the established philosophy. To the question of why would it be so ? the pu-
pil answers bluntly: because he deared deny the legitimacy of the self-evident
truths.
9
Tese are not easy matters: the only way to sustain such a radical utter-
ing is by postulating that the genuine way of philosophizing is that based on
faith. Shestov, writes Fondane, soutient quil ny a quun seule mode vritable
de pense: la pense de la foi (Shestov believes that there is only one kind of
thinking, that of the faith, ibid.). Te real and the reality, are given to us in
a process in which we do not have to, or rather must not take into account the
Introduction 5
constraints of deterministic laws. As soon as we begin to interpret according to
the laws of reason the meaning of our primordial experiences of the real and
of reality, we become prisoners of the constraining character of these laws.
Freedom or necessity, order or chaos are created by our own thinking.
10
As mentioned, Athens and Jerusalem restates and discusses at length the
central themes of Shestovs quarrel with rational thinking, and since this is his
last published work, one might consider his pronouncements there as being the
last and denitive ones in this regard. However, I should caution the reader at
this introductory stage already that even this book published at the beginning
of the year of the authors death contains many fragments written at dier-
ent times during the previous fteen years (as was the case with many of the
works published by Shestov during the years of his exile). Tus, the rst part
of the book entitled Parmenides in Chains was completed already in 1930. In
the Bull of Phalaris, the second part, which contains also ve chapters dedicated
to Kierkegaard, was written in 1932, prior to the book dedicated to the Dan-
ish philosopher and his existential thought mentioned earlier. Te third part,
dealing with medieval philosophywhere Shestov takes issue, among other
things, with Etienne Gilsons claims regarding alleged existential aspects in St.
Tomas religious philosophyis followed by a fourth part, which comprises
aphorisms written between 1923 and 1929. Te preface, however, was written
in April 1937; and since Shestov states at its very beginning, a foreword is
basically always a post-word (and to a large extent this applies to my introduc-
tion as well!), one should read it carefully because it contains, indeed, many of
the key ideas of the late Shestovian existential philosophy.
Shestovs analysis of the facts taken from reality, of the techniques of
observation in general are surprisingly modern (I almost wrote postmod-
ern). He talks about a theory laden interpretation, very much in the vein of
the discours found in some of the contemporary discussions of the nature and
the limits of the hermeneutical endeavor. What is a fact? he asks and im-
mediately following the question he explains that we place ourselves before
every fact with certain ready-made norms, with a certain theory that is the
pre-condition of the possibility of seeking and nding truth.
11
Surprisingly,
perhaps at the rst view, many statements in Shestovs critique of the estab-
lished philosophy seem to resemble some of the basic tenets of Husserlian
phenomenology. One should not be surprised, however, since Shestov always
acknowledged Husserl as being his maitre penser, even though he submitted
his phenomenological method to a severe criticism in a long essay entitled
Memento Mori (published in Revue philosophique in 1926 and included later
in Potestas Clavium which appeared in French in 1928. Shestovs essay was
among the rst serious critical work on Husserl in post-WW I France). After
a brief survey of classical philosophy, from Plato to Kant, Shestov concludes
in the foreword to Athens and Jerusalem that all philosophers seek, with all the
passion of which men are capable, universal and necessary truthsthe only
thing according to them, which is worthy of being called knowledge.
12
For
him, this does not represent the problem of knowledge but rather the issue
of the knowledge as a problem. In what sense can one refer to knowledge as
being a problem? At a supercial glance, it seems that we notice a slip from
the epistemic to the ontic realm in the Shestovian argument: being submerged
by the problem of knowledge means making it into the essence of the human
being. If that would be the case it will followdo to the fact that knowledge
is always constrained by the general and the universalthat we will for ever be
held prisoners by these logical, rational, constrains. Te frequent critical refer-
ences to Socrates should, indeed, lead to such an inference: did not the Greek
philosopher believe that the supreme command for the human being was self-
knowledge? In addition, even the biblical symbolism hints sometimes in this
direction: was not the rst human being tempted by the Tree of Knowledge,
and did not this temptation trigger history itself?
Shestov, though, is not playing metaphysics in his writings; he is in this
sense, too, very modern, very inclined to submit any evidence to the thorough
examination of an as unbiased and rigorous philosophical approach as pos-
sible. He begins his last book by simply stating the evidence of the presence
in our world of the mystery and of the mysterious, of that which is not given to
rational interpretation; we are exposed to events, to facts of life that we do not
understand, and in spite of it, we still have to cope with them. Being unhappy,
miserable, and getting caught in extreme situations, in which, no matter what
degree of eort we display and regardless of the ruses we use, we are not led out
of the predicament we are trapped in, are undeniable facts. Te ght against
evil, the attempts to nd solace in defeat and to confront the absurd turns of
fate, represent all existential situations to which human beings are exposed ev-
erywhere and at all times. Clear and distinct ideas cannot make sense of our un-
happiness or account for the presence of evil in the world, of the absurd which
often seems to rule our lives, points out Shestov. Tey can explain them away
sometimes, and they may oer perhaps consolation, but they cannot dissipate
the uncomfortable feeling produced by their constant and mysterious presence
around us. More disturbing than the mere presence of the mystery is the fact
that its existence induces in us the feeling that we are somehow denitely and
forever cut o from the sources and beginnings of life.
13
Tat means that our
ways of reecting upon our own experiences are not bringing us closer to an
understanding of the mysterious nature of our lives and of our surroundings;
on the contrary, it seems that they rather push us away from this understand-
Introduction 7
ing. Worse even, our ways of attempting to reach knowledge only increase the
gap that separates us from the possibility of true understanding. What could
this true understanding possibly mean? For one, it would be an understand-
ing that addresses the problem of truth in a completely dierent way from
the usual one in philosophy: its criterion will not be based on the principles
of identity and of contradiction but on that of the possible. In the last part of
Athens and Jerusalem, a fragment entitled Te Possible reminds the reader
of the simple fact that truths have also a history; thus four hundreds years
before Christ the truth the Athenians poisoned Socrates still did not exist; it
was born in the year 399. And it still lives . . . does this mean that it will live
eternally?
14
asks Shestov. As observed above, at a rst glance such a question
might seem silly. However, in the context of a philosophy which claims faith as its
second dimension and in which the cry becomes the methodShestov borrowed this
latter metaphor from Pascalthe question is perfectly legitimate. Moreover,
the introduction of the absolute transcendental in the realm of this philosophy
requires a discontinuity, a rupture in the continuity of the rational truth and
in the requirement for self-consistency: for God everything is possible, as seen
in the histories of Abraham and Job, and, therefore, He could, if he so wished,
undo the truth of the poisoning of Socrates by the Athenians.
We tend to reject such a simple truth, says Shestov, because we are used
to think that the truths discovered by human reason are self-evident and con-
straining. Persuasion does not have any role to play in the realm of rational
knowledge. Te man who is regarding the realities of his own existence, not
those of the general (and generic) man or a universal mankind, will always be
tempted to ask however, as Job did, is that valid for me too? He will try to
plead his cause at the court of the almighty transcendental. Are we still, in this
case, in the domain of the philosophical thinking, or have we shifted already to
that of religious thought? To this question Shestov answers in the following,
somewhat indirect, way: One can of course, interest himself in metaphysical
problems and occupy himself with them, but on the condition of not con-
necting them with our own fate. . . .
15
Yes, one can separate the concrete and
individual lives from the reected upon realities of the concept and of the
constructs based on logical inferences, as one does in natural science. A meta-
physics useful for society can thus be obtained according to Shestov; but how
true are the truths thus uncovered, in other words, how relevant are they for
the real, lived-in-reality lives of the concrete individuals?
At this point in his argumentation, Shestov postulates that the truth that
is relevant for the individual living in the reality of his or her concrete life must
not only constrain through its logic but persuade as well. Tis is not a matter
of accepting the necessity of the reasonable and bending the knee in front of
the possible only. It is a matter of choice: man can choose to opt for the chal-
lenge posed by the implementation of what is allegedly impossible through
an act of will of God, a hidden partner endowed with unlimited powers.
Moreover, man must be ready and willing to confront this transcendental force
which sometimes, when challenged, might accept to become involved with his
life. Fondane, in the already mentioned article on Shestov, Kierkegaard and
the existential philosophy, pointed out that in each individual one may nd
a residual of the Kirkegaardian thought that at some moment, sooner or later,
one shall come into a direct confrontation with the general and the universal,
in order to be able to face the absurd element folded in our own, personal,
individual destiny: each of us must decide by himself whether he accepts the
general . . . , whether by following ethics he will transform God into a power-
less idea or if, on the contrary one will establish and absolute relationship with
the absolute in order to challenge God.
16
Facing a constraining reality, man is
convinced that he is nite and deemed to death. His only choice is the absurd
gesture of refusal through an act of faith; once this move through which he
denies his own nitude is accomplished, the individual nds himself in a realm
where the truth is not constraining any longer but persuasive. He willingly ac-
cepts the challenge of giving up the power of the logic and of the reasonable
and enters an absolute battle with the absolute.
Shestov was aware that such a discourse would hardly be acceptable not
only to the philosophers but to the general audience as well. Te world is under-
stood through the repetitive, the reproducible, the predictable; the singularity,
the points of rupture, the non-reproducible events do not lend themselves to
understanding. One cannot adopt truths that are not veried by experiment
and guaranteed by underlying theories. I irritate peoplewrote Shestov
because I am always repeating the same thing . . . No one would get angry if
the things that I repeated were those to which people were accustomed, which
have always been admitted and are therefore comprehensible and agreeable to
everyone, and he added ironically, we must believe that people become ir-
ritated for the same reason that a sleeper gets angry when one tries to awaken
him.
17
Jean Wahlone of the major gures of the inter-war philosophical land-
scape in Franceencouraged by Fondane to read Shestov replied, I cannot
read Shestov as I cannot read Voltaire today. To explain his refusal and in or-
der to clarify this somewhat surprising comparison, he added, that is because
I know all too well and for many years already the meaning of both irony and
despair.
18
Wahl, who was also considered at the time the main authority on
Kierkegaard in France, knew quite a few things about existential philosophy:
after rejecting a thought entirely based, in his opinion, on irony and despair, he
Introduction 9
qualied and tempered to some extent his statement by writing that he could
agree with a revolt against reason if this were undertaken in the manner Wil-
liam James or D. H. Lawrence understood it. Si vous tes avec James (qui veut
les choses dans leur plenitude) ou Lawrence (qui veut les hommes dans la pl-
nitude), je suis avec vous, he wrote in his letter to Fondane (ibid.). After WW
II, Jean Wahl wrote extensively about existential philosophy, mainly about Jas-
pers, Heidegger, Sartre, and the other French existentialist thinkers. Te above
observation about humans and things in their entirety/totality, les hommes et
les choses dans leur plnitude, is a hint to the fact that he was seeking the on-
tological aspect of the existential thinking. However, as I wrote already and as
we will see more in detail in the following chapters, the ontological preoccupa-
tion was lacking in Shestovs philosophy because he refused to seek the essence
of Being or even to consider the question regarding the evolution of a being,
be it authentic or not. For him, these were questions posed in the framework
of a philosophy which does not dare to rise above autonomous knowledge and
autonomous ethics, the philosophy that bows down will-lessly and helplessly
before the material and ideal data discovered by reason; such a philosophy
cannot lead man toward truth but forever turns him away from it.
19
An existential thinking that rejects ontology and connes itself to an epis-
temology that does reject the principle of non-contradiction can be hardly
considered philosophy in the accepted sense. Was not, therefore, Lev Shestov
a religious thinker rather than a philosopher? Many critics and interpreters of
his works thought that the answer to this question was without any doubt a r-
mative: thus in a book entitled Existence and the Existent published by Jacques
Maritain immediately after the war in France (1946; the rst English edition,
1947), the famous neo-Tomist philosopher pointed out that Shestovs existen-
tial thinking was an essentially religious irruption and claim, an agony of faith,
the cry of the subjectivity towards God.
20
In his introduction to an anthology
of texts published in the volume Great 20
th
Century Jewish Philosophers, Bernard
Martin wrote that for Shestov, the Biblical proclamation of an omnipotent
Creator God for whom nothing is impossible is central.
21
However, these
kinds of statements, while based on factual quotes from Shestovs works, fail
to take into account the fact that his attraction to the transcendental is deter-
mined to a large extent by the need to incorporate the aective into philosophy:
one may interpret Shestovs attitude toward reason and knowledge and their
role in the philosophical thinking as representing his sentiment of revolt and
his refusal to accept the exclusion of the aective from philosophy. Shestov was
convinced that rational thinking was only too happy and too quick to eliminate
the aective from reasoning in order to arrive at objective universally accept-
able and accepted truths. Tis interpretation left the concrete individual utterly
helpless in existential situations in which those very aective states dominate
our lives. His message, often spelled out explicitely and at times only in subtle
and implicit ways was that there is no knowledge that can make us happy when
we are unhappy and in despair. Te introduction of an absolute transcendental
as a point of reference may thus be interpreted as representing a philosophical
device rather than a religious one.
In the end, one might ask why did Shestov persist over the years in follow-
ing a philosophical enterprise destined to remain at the best incomprehensible
and at worst, unacceptable to those who came to know it? His answer to this
question sounds more like a prophetic utterance than a philosophical statement:
I certainly do not hope to succeed in waking sleepers, but . . . the hour will
come and someone else will wake them, not by discourses, but otherwise, quite
otherwise. Such an answer begs of course the question posed in the title of the
present book: was Lev Shestov an existential philosopher or a religious thinker?
And if he was a religious thinker, was Shestov relevant to the contemporary
eorts to re-dene Judaism, to Christian theology or rather to some sui generis
Judeo-Christian religious philosophy he hints at in his writings? It becomes
apparent that even an attempt to answer this partial question would require a
full book-length work. To dene even the subject matter might turn out to be
a very di cult enterprise: Bernard Martin considered Shestov a great 20
th
cen-
tury Jewish philosopher but when Hugo Bergman wrote about a book about
the modern Jewish thinkers,
22
he did not include Shestov among those who
tried to redene Judaism during the previous century. In the Russian realm, he
was compared with Solovyov, and at times with Semen Frank or Rozanov even
(who before him stated that God was the creator of the world not its intendent
in charge of moral behaviour and ethics); Nikolai Berdyaev did not believe that
Shestov could accept in earnest the basic tenets of Christianity while Serghei
Bulgakov was more nuanced concerning this matter. Perhaps for good reason:
in a letter addressed to him just a few days before his death, Shestov stated
explicitly that he did not see any dierence between the primeval Judaism
and the Christianity unaltered by the Greek philosophy which preceeded the
establishment of the Church and its Dogma.
Whether Shestov was a philosopher or a litterateur could also become an
issue in itself and that even before we consider the question about him being an
existential philosopher; I assume that he used literary works merely as illustra-
tions of philosophical ideas and will not dwell on this point here (although it is
an interesting one and merits a thorough discussion in the context of a certain,
postmodern way of approaching literary criticism). Insofar the discussion of
Shestov as a philosopher of existence is concerned, in order to meaningfully
engage in it, one should rst establish a clear distinction between existentialist
Introduction 11
and existential philosophy. To this idea, one has to add a further, second order
distinction: that between the religious and the secular existentialisms. In the
following chapters I will mention these issues, at times only briey and en pas-
sant, at other times I will consider them more in depth. However, I will remind
the reader that in writing this book my main purpose was to present Shestovs
thinking to a public who has forgotten him rather than to comment and/or to
position the author within a given, specic context. In a way, I will do some-
thing one rarely does nowadays, in a world permeated by theory and herme-
neutical musts, give the reader the opportunity to hear Shestovs denitions of
philosophy and see his own ways to compare it with religious thought.
In spite of his quarrels with the philosophy of the academic establish-
ments, that is with the followers of the Greek or the German idealist tradi-
tions, Shestov considered himself a philosopher and the same was true inso-
far as the philosophical establishment was concerned: neither Husserl nor his
disciple (up to a certain moment) Martin Heidegger seemed to have had, at
the time of their meeting in Germany in 1928, any doubt in this regard. It
might be even that Heidegger wrote his famous essay What Is Metaphysics?
as a result of his meeting and the discussions held with Shestov during their
encounter. Perhaps his friend Nikolai Berdyaev (himself a religious thinker
and philosopher) settled best this point when he wrote: Lev Shestov was a
philosopher who had philosophy engrained in his being; for him, philosophy
was not something which belonged to an academic specialty, but a matter of
life and death.
23
Even so, they disagreed all along: young Levinas, in his review
of Shestovs book on Kierkegaard dened him to be a philosopher of religion
while Unamuno agreed that Shestov was a philosopher but considered him. . .
a nihilist. In an article published less than twenty years after his death, Frank
Bowman considered him an irredentist existentialist.
24
In a lengthy overview
of Shestovs activities, John Bayley saw him as an interpreter in a philosophical
key of the literary works of the great Russian authors, and presented him as a
connoisseur of ideas: Everybody has read books about Nietzsche and Kierkeg-
aard, but comparatively few have come across the Russian critic and connois-
seur of ideas who was certainly their most lucid and interesting discipleLev
Shestov.
25
Finally, in a new introduction to the Penultimate Words and Other
Essays, published in 1966the introduction to the rst English edition was
written by D. H. LawrenceSidney Monas presented him as a mystic who
inuenced, to some extent, all the representatives of the French secular exis-
tentialism. However, if these dierent opinons were to be expected, one has to
notice the spread in scope and the multifarious character of Shestovs works.
Monas introduced at the end of his presentation a non-trivial and somewhat
surprising remark (perhaps because of its counter-intuitive character): for
all the nesse of his style, the wit, the humor, the conversational tone, the
aporistic clusters, (Shestovs work) remains fundamentally discursivethat is,
rational
26
! (Lawrence, too, seems to have interpreted in a very peculiar way
Shestov; in his Foreword to All Tings Are Possible, he concluded that the
authors positive central idea is that the human psyche, or soul, realy believes
in itself, and in nothing else).
Beyond these scattered references, Shestov was introduced to the Eng-
lish speaking public in a serious and systematic way through the translations
and the studies of Bernard Martin; by referring to him as to a Russian Jew-
ish existentialist, Martin draw upon him the attention of the practitioners of
three distinct disciplines, Russian studies,
27
existential philosophy
28
and Jewish
studies.
29
Later, Kent Hill and Andrius Valevicius wrote about Shestov (also
in English) and quite recently, a book by Ramona Fotiade considers Shestovs
existential philosophy (together with that of his disciple, Benjamin Fondane)
in the broader context of the role played by the concept of the absurd in the
French surrealism.
30
As mentioned above, rather than considering Shestov in the light of his
contemporaries or of that of his later interpreters, I will attempt here to evalu-
ate Shestovs philosophical works by analyzing and discussing his own oppin-
ions about the philosophers he referred to, that is, in his own frame of reference.
Sometimes in the course of this exercise, we will posit the discussion in an
external frame (of reference) and ask whether, assuming Shestovs own pos-
tulates concerning the role, the denitions, and the meaning of philosophy,
his analysis of Nietzsche, for instance, was accurate or reasonably complete
or transparent? In other words, how does his evaluation of Socrates and the
other Greek philosophers, of Spinoza, Kant, Nietzsche, or Husserl compare
with other modern and postmodern hermeneutical attempts? In spite of this
occasional intellectual excursions, I will not emphasize the contextual ap-
proach and that rst and foremost because Shestov himself never intended
to render an objective or exhaustive presentation of the philosophers he
wrote about. Even if he had tried, he could not have done it: Shestov did not
write philosophy from the vantage point of philosophy itself (and this was true
about Nietzsche, too; perhaps less when it comes to Pascal. Kierkegaard was
somewhat dierent from this point of view and I will relate to him later when
we discuss Shestovs interpretation of his work in the context of his religious
thought). Tis approach might be considered somewhat marginal, but did
not Derrida teach us recently the virtues of marginality?
Moreover, there is another aspect that must be taken in consideration:
Shestov never tried to be self-consistent in his intellectual constructs. He ac-
cepted the principle of paradoxical thinking, in the sense that as in real life
Introduction 13
and he always wrote about real lifethings can retain their contradictory
character in the frame of the philosophical discourse. Very often, one cannot
nd the way to simultaneously explain merely on logical grounds the multitude
of events, facts or individual reactions. Tese ideas are identied very early in
his (philosophical) writings: as an illustration, I could mention the fact that
in Te Philosophy of Tragedy, after having observed that a priori judgments and
the Kantian thing in itself are devices in the struggle against pessimism and
skepticism, Shestov claims on the next page that for a man for whom fate has
collided head-on with his real life,
31
a priori judgments become false and
meaningless. Pessimist and/or skeptical men have created tools to ght this
dire predicament but, goes on his argument, when they become pessimists or
skeptical, they claim that the tools they created are false, and so on. Shestov
works are lled with this kind of contradictory statements.
To document this (assumed) lack of consistency and to illustrate the
sinuous evolution of Shestovs thinking, the case of his reading of Spinoza is
a good example. At rst, Shestov manifested dobtlessly an elective a nity
toward him. He did not mention explicitely the philosopher from Amster-
dam in his rst two philosophical writings in which he presented basically
Nietzsche in contrast with Kant and the German classical philosophy. Hume,
John Stuart Mill, and other non-German philosophers (such as Descartes)
were mentioned in addition to Tolstoy, Doestoevsky, and the other Russian
representatives of the great classical literature and criticism of the nineteenth
century. Greek philosophers such as Socrates and Plato not mentioned yet,
surface later in the aphorisms of the Apotheosis of Groundlessness while Spinoza
still remains absent. In Sestovs fourth book, the Dutch philosopher makes
his rst appearance in the context of the argument concerning the (necessary)
incompleteness of the philosophical thoughtin philosophy there is not one
binding universal principle, acknowledged by all. As a result, logical failures
can occur in all philosophical system: not a single one of the mightiest phi-
losophers has hitherto succeeded in eliminating all contradictions from his
system.
32
At this point, Spinoza is considered with sympathy and understand-
ing and in Te Teory of Knowledge, an essay belonging in fact to his next
book the Great Vigils (the English translation was included in his previous
book, Beginnings and Endings), in the context of a discussion about truths
proven and unproven, Shestov introduces him as follows: One of the most
remarkable thinkers, Spinoza, thought that God himself was bound by neces-
sity.
33
We learn that together with Plato and Kant, Spinoza was one of the
philosophers who instilled the belief that authority is given to us mortals by
means of a knowledge acquired through our ability to think in rational ways.
Why should be this thing condemnable in Shestovs view? Because it implies
the acceptation of a God who cannot love, yet demands love for himself
34
; in
this statement we nd the beginning of Shestovs quarrel with Spinoza.
In a book written during the years which preceded WW I entitled Sola
Fide, Shestovs focus narrowed down further on Spinoza, this time in the light
of his reading of the Medieval philosophers and of young Luther. In the midst
of a discussion about St. Augustine and Luther, Shestov dedicates an entire
chapter to Spinoza. In spite of the fact that the new, scientic ways of phi-
losophizing, began with Spinoza (and not with Kant!)and in support of this
a rmation he quotes proposition 33 in Ethics I about God not being able to
create the things in any way dierent from that in which they were creat-
edSpinoza is not considered to be a soulless philosopher. True, he claimed
that the order and the connection between things and that between ideas we
have about things is the same
35
and considered two strange attributes of God
(reason and spatial extent) to be the most signicant ones. He did agree that
God was the perfect being. Moreover, in his works Spinoza hinted at a way of
thinking about the human being that would not make one into an eternal pris-
oner of logical knowledge. Indeed, referring to the famous paradox related to
Buridans ass, Shestov singled out the fact that Spinoza observed that if a man
would be put in the situation of the ass he would be the stupidest creature if he
dies of hunger. Spinoza was a man who lived on the edge; he was sick, and he
was trembling and fearful, and one should search the sources of his philosophy
in the depths of this troubled soul, wrote Shestov. His submission to logic was
an illusion; he needed rational thinking to build upon it the magnicent edice
he was working on, to implement his impossible attempt to explain human
action and motivations as if one would treat lines, surfaces and volumes.
36
But
one should not be fooled, Spinoza did not succeed in going beyond the wish
to be logical.
37
On the other hand, there was something in him that reminded
Shestov of the strength of the prophets, of those who speak a truth that origi-
nates from a realm beyond human authority: the source of his philosophy is
to be found in a mysterious and unutterable experience which belongs to him
only; that is what gives birth to his imperative statements which do not seek
neither justications nor proofs.
38
Very dierent would be the Spinoza described a decade later in the article
contained In Jobs Balances. Here Shestov begins with a few general consid-
erations about the principles of contemporary philosophy (the text was pub-
lished during the twenties), which sounded very much like a reaction to . . .
postmodern philosophy (if one replaces the word postulate with narrative or
worldview): Te postulate has been declared a deadly sin, and he who makes
one is the enemy of the truth. After introducing Descartes, Shestov states
that it is beyond doubt that Spinoza was a follower of the French philosopher.
Introduction 15
Pascal, too, enters the discussion, and, as we will see in a later chapter, from
the comparison with the two French philosophers, a new Spinoza emerged.
However, by then it would not be the philosopher who would decide upon the
fate of Spinoza but Shestov, the religious thinker.
A somewhat similar analysis could be performed insofar as the evolution
of Shestovs critique of Nietzsche is concerned; exept that in this case, under
the inuence of Dostoevskyone must remember that for Shestov Dosto-
evsky was as much of a philosopher as Nietzsche washe adopts a confessed
non-philosophical attitude (in the sense that the discussion is situated in a
frame of reference in which philosophy and religion have the same metrics,
that is, are measured from the very beginning by the same yardstick ). De-
parting from Nietzsches observation that a sick man has not the right to be
a pessimist, Shestov turns around its meaning and applies it to the man who
is continuously traumatized by adverse forces and who has thus the right to
become religious, that is to believe (as that makes him into an optimist). Ap-
plied now to Nietzsche, this leads Shestov to the conclusion that the German
philosopher employed all the power of his soul to nd a faith.
39
In his next
book, Shestov continued in this direction and arrived at the conclusion that
Nietzsche concluded that all metaphysical and moral ideas had ceased to ex-
ist for him whereas his greatly slandered ego had grown to unprecedented,
colossal proportions. . . .
40
Would a philosopher holding such views care about
making sure that he (and his reader) understand the exact meaning of the
cyclical character of the eternal return or the signicance of the concept of
overman (I prefer to adopt here and in the following this translation of the Ni-
etzschean concept of bermentsch proposed by Walter Kaufmann rather than
that of superman)? I should not anticipate in this introductory chapter mat-
ters to be discussed in the comming chapters; I only want to point out that it
would be superuous to enter into long discussions and elaborate arguments
concerning possible errors of interpretation insofar Nietzsche is concerned (or
Socrates, or Plato, or the relationship between Socrates and Nietzsche for that
matter), in order to understand Shestov as philosopher. On the other hand,
if one approaches Shestov with the idea that his writings contribute to ones
better understanding of these philosophers themselves, it would certainly be
important to follow up such comparisons and detailed analyses
41
; as already
stated, in this book we will concentrate on Shestov and not on Socrates, Plato,
Kant or Nietzsche.
Te same arguments hold insofar as the discussion about Shestovs pos-
sible misunderstanding and misrepresentations of Kierkegaard are concerned;
to some extent, I will touch upon these topics in one of the following chap-
ters. Levinas disagreed already in 1936, immediately after the publication of
Shestovs book on Kierkegaard, with his conclusion that the Danish philoso-
pher identied knowledge with evil. More recently, an article by James Mc
Lachlan for instance, points out Robert Perkins criticism of Shestovs mis-
reading of Kierkegaards attitude toward reason. Revisiting the point made by
Levinas, McLachlan shows that Shestovs inference that Kierkegaard hated
reason more than anything in the world is wrong.
42
Moreover, he observed
that Shestov misinterpreted Kierkegaards concept of repetition and had a
completely dierent view of the fall and of the concept of sin; again, as in the
discussion concerning Nietzsche, such observations are pertinent and very im-
portant for a better understanding of Kierkegaard, but they are, in my opinion,
less relevant in the context of the presentation of Lev Shestov as philosopher
and religious thinker. (I wrote less relevant and not irrelevant; certainly, dis-
cussing the dierences between the two thinkers and understand their mean-
ing, reects to some extent upon Shestov and has a backlighting eect when
it comes to judge his work). Unlike Kierkegaard, Shestov was not too worried
by such abstract questions as that regarding the relation between the nite
and the innite or the relationship, at a conceptual level, between the eternal
and the temporal. For him, eternal and innite are data that make clear the
absolute transcendental nature of God.
If a philosopher is dened by a system that comprises epistemology, ontol-
ogy, ethics, and aesthetics, Shestov is lacking severely; he denitely is a philoso-
pher insofar as he is taking issue with major epistemological problems posed by
other philosophers before him. For him, ethics had to be overcome, aesthetics
merely applied in ones writing (and not discussed theoretically) and ontol-
ogy is to be sought in God. However, from Pascal to Nietzsche and beyond,
there were other philosophers, who were lacking from these points of view.
If, however, another kind of philosophy, one that does not try to constrain, to
demonstrate but rather to persuade, a philosophy that is not acting only in the
name of the ratio and for its glory, a philosophy that accepts other dimensions
and uses tools dierent from the classical ones could be dened, a metasophia
rather than philosophia, Shestov is a philosopher.
Finally, to be able to argue his status of religious thinker, we would need
to set some order in our thoughts and try to establish distinctions between such
concepts as that of religious thinker, philosopher of religion,, theologian,
or that of a thinker who is religious. Since the notion of religion is involved,
the denitions of the concepts mentioned above will change as a function of
the meaning we chose for religion. To further complicate matters, religion
and the related notion of religiosity, are connected to personal faith and belief
at the level of the individual (again, two additional concepts di cult to pin
down) and to norms and practices at the level of the community. To discuss
Introduction 17
all these in abstract terms is a work in itself, beyond the scope of this book, a
non-productive labor for our purpose here. As we know, under given historical
circumstances, such denitions are specic to given religions; thus for example,
for the Judaism of the period of the Second Temple the concept of religion,
regardless of the denition of faith and belief, would be strongly tied in with
rituals around the Temple and norms of behavior of the people who lived, at
the time, in Judea. Te religiosity of the early Christians was very dierent
from that of those living in medieval times, exactly as a Sus understanding
of religion in twelfth century Persia would turn out to be very dierent from
that of a common Shiite practitioner of Islam in todays Iran. Matters become
even more complicated if we were to include in a theoretical discussion about
religion and religiosity non-monotheistic beliefs.
In order to exit this labyrinth, we must introduce some simplications into
our discussion. Shestov was born Jewish, and his rst contact with religion was
within the Jewish religious tradition. At the time he grew up, in assimilated
families (and his family was an assimilated one, however, not to the degree sec-
ular Jews were assimilated in Germany at the time), Judaism meant basically a
supercial observance of rituals and ceremonies devoid of any meaning to their
practitioners. Tere was just enough ritual and ceremonial to give them the
sentiment of belonging to a group that would thus not be dened exclusively in
terms of the hatred and exclusion of the surrounding ethnic groups. When he
looked around him, the assimilated or quasi-assimilated Jew saw everywhere
the signs, the symbols, and the values of a Christian world. He began looking
at them carefully; it is not a mere coincidence that Heine interested Shestov
from his earliest years. Te cultural magnetism of the Christian world around
him was enormous; from the little we learnt about Shestov so far (the next
chapter expands on this subject), we know that he lived intellectually under
the spell of the Russian and the Western European cultures. He had to cope
with a problem that by far was not unique to him; on the contrary, I contend
that it was quite a common one for the majority of the Jewish intellectuals
of his generation. Franz Rosenzweig, in a very dierent context and at a later
time, faced also the dilemmas Shestov was facing at the turn of the century:
what is the best way to enter the surrounding world, and would this act imply
a total abandonment of his own world or rather an adjustment to the new one?
Rosenzweig, as Shestov, wanted at rst to take the radical step of total rejection
of his Jewish roots and in the end he did not. He remained at home, but as
soon as he made his decision, he began to rebuild it so that he could live there.
Shestov was also tempted to step across the line, but his circumstances were
dierent, and his personal make up was unlike that of the the German Jews
mentioned. He did something similar as Rosenzweig, though, in the sense that
he also tried to redene the religious tenets of both Judaism and Christian-
ity, but unlike Rosenzweig who found a way to make the two religions coexist
instead of staying mutually exclusive, Shestov tried to integrate a certain form
of primeval Christianity into the realm of a Judaism redened by him in such
a manner that it could have made possible such a fusion.
I made this long detour hoping that I will be able to simplify the discussion
about the meaning of the concept of religious thinker. Lev Shestov certainly
considered religion a personal matter; moreover, for him religion was based on
a faith dened by a strong connection between man and God. Te God in this
binomial relationship is absolutely transcendental while man is submitted to-
tally to contingency. Immanence is absent in his weltanschauung. With all these
considerations in mind, it will be left, after all, to the readers of the Shestovian
oeuvre to decide whether he was a philosopher or a modern prophet in the
guise of a religious thinker.
ONE
The Portrait of the
Philosopher as a
Young Man
Generally biographies tell us everything except what it is important to know.
Let us go in together, And still your ngers on your lips, I pray. Te time is out of jointO
cursd spite, Tat ever I was born to set it right!
Hamlet
At the end of the only exhaustive biography of Lev Shestov, written by his
daughter Nathalie Barano-Chestov
1
one nds two photographs: one of the
young Shestov at the age of nineteen or twenty (that is during the second half
of the 1880s) and a family photograph, which includes the parents and his
brothers and sisters, dated 1910. It would not be usual perhaps to try to under-
stand a philosophers personality by carefully scrutinizing his photographs but
in the case of a thinker who refuses to make the distinction between vivere and
philosophare this temptation becomes overwhelming. Te young man seems
to say, with Pushkin, I want to live so that I might think and suer; twenty
and some years later the unhappy Shestov in the photograph looks like some-
one whowhile posing for the family albumcannot help brooding over the
meaning of a statement he made in one of his already published books: long
journeys should be undertaken only after family connections have become a
burden,
2
In fact, the forty-four-year-old man who stares at us with an absent
minded look and an utterly bored regard is indeed preparing a long trip from
Kiev to Coppet in Switzerland. Tere he lives the secret life of a married man,
father of two little daughters (at this time he is also the father of an illegitimate
son born from a romantic involvement with one of the maid servants in the
Schwartzman household). Between 1910 and the outbreak of the Great War,
Shestov spent most of his time in Switzerland.
During the years he lived abroaddue to his responsibilities toward the
family businessShestov was still forced to make occasional trips to Russia.
Against his will he carried this burden through his mature years till the Bol-
shevik revolution abolished private property in Ukraine. Te Schwartzman
3

business consisted mainly of a fairly large textile factory producing high qual-
ity English fabrics and other items based on supplies from the best producers
of Moscow.
4
From the very beginning, the family enterprise and the feeling
of duty and loyalty toward the parents and the family stood in the way of
young Shestov; as soon as he graduated from law school in 1889 in Kiev, he
tried to go to Moscow to practice law, but after a few months he had to re-
turn as his father got entangled in his aairs and he had to help him muddle
through. . . .
5
Tis decision was not easy for the young man who during his
student years got involved in revolutionary activities (which consisted mainly
in writing about the miserable condition of the Russian workers and studying
Marx and Plekhanov) and learned to despise, if not to hate even, the bourgeois
life. However, the tension between the path chosen and the realities imposed
upon him by external circumstances (how external were they in fact?) was to
manifest itself in more than one aspect of Lev Shestovs life. His father, Isaac
M. Schwartzmann, had been brought up in ways that mixed to a large extent
Jewish orthodoxy with the values of secular emancipation. Isaac Moiseievich
kept some basic Jewish values and traditions re-enforced through centuries of
exilic life by a large number of musts and must-nots, even though many of
the practices instilled by the religious commandments had been long aban-
doned in everyday life. He enjoyed making fun of the narrow-minded fanatics
of the faith wrote Herman Lovtzky, Shestovs brother-in-law; nevertheless,
he quotes him saying that when on a solemn occasion they carry the Torah
scrolls through the synagogue, I kiss them.
6
Moreover, the old man was a
Zionist. Te son Lev, was sent to a gymnasium (Russian high school), then
to the university where he rst studied sciences, seemingly more in sign of a
protest against the elimination of the science courses from the high school cur-
riculum. He served after graduation in the army, for a few months only, most
probably as a volunteer. One might assume that being exposed to a secular,
Te Portrait of the Philosopher as a Young Man 21
non-Jewish way of life while away from home for relatively long periods of
time, the adolescent and the young Shestov had developed habits of which the
father would disapprove. We can only imagine the clashes between this father
still imbued with conservative ideas and the young son educated in the new
spirit of the left-wing intellectual traditions of Bielinsky and Chernishevsky
and who thus found himself very much under the spell of the literature of
Lermontov, Turgenev, and Dostoevsky. Te conicts between father and son
were probably aggravated also by the very unstable political situation prevail-
ing in Russia during the 1870s and the beginning of the 1880s (the Czar,
Alexander II, was assassinated in 1881). Te father was very much stressed
by the events; according to Nathalie Barano-Chestovs account, in 1878 the
twelve-year-old Lev was kidnapped by an anarchist group, and the government
forbade the father to pay the demanded ransom. Kent Hill, based on informa-
tion contained in letters Shestov wrote later to Remizov and to his father,
claimed that at the time of the kidnapping, he was fteen years old already and
that he willingly cooperated with those who took him hostage.
7
Either way,
the fact remains that the adolescent boy was returned to his parents unharmed
but after a six-month absence from home! During the same troubled period,
one of Isaacs daughters from a previous marriage, Dora, in spite of her fathers
will, married a non-Jewish Russian intellectual (the headmaster of a techni-
cal school in the provinces) and became herself a revolutionary. Te old man
angrily rejected her, and it was her half-brother Lev, who later interceded on
her behalf in an attempt to heal the wounds . . . Te assassination of the Czar
led to the eruption of pogroms all over Ukraine; in Kiev lives were lost, and
many Jewish businesses were destroyed. Te Schwartzmann factory was spared
since due to his legal statusIsaac Moiseievich belonged to the upper guild
he was protected by the local authorities. Tus, while the father was coping
with his troubles, the son was torn between a strong desire to join history in
its march toward right and righteous accomplishments and the di culty to
put up with the anti-Semitic overtones of the revolutionary movement. Dos-
toevskys attitude toward the Jews during this periodwhich was to be the
last decade of his lifeis well known, and Shestov, who was already studying
carefully his works, could not have missed it. As a student, he was invited by
Nikolai Mikhailovsky, the literary critic and a reputed theorist of the Russian
populist movement, to join the Narodnaya Volya group. Young Shestov who
studied Marx to became one of his rst commentators in Kiev could not have
missed some remarks bordering on anti-Semitism in both Marx (see his Jewish
Question essay of 1844) and Mikhailovsky. Much later, in a conversation with
his disciple Benjamin Fondane, he would claim that he abandoned Marxism
only when he realized that socialism was on its way to become scientic. In any
event, it is quite clear that young Shestov had to confront a multifaceted real-
ity in which forces of very dierent kinds and various intensities pushed and
pulled him simultaneously in dierent directions.
Te entry of May 11, 1920, in Shestovs diary reads as follows: Twenty-
ve years have already passed since the time fell out of joint, or more exactly,
twenty-ve years will have been elapsed this fall, at the beginning of Septem-
ber. I mark this down, in order not to forget it since often the most important
events in ones life, events about which nobody but oneself knows might in fact
be easily forgotten.
8
What happened in September 1895? We have seen that
in 1891 Shestov returned to Kiev: He works in the family business, reads a
lot and continues his involvement with economic and nancial problems. At
the same time, during this period he tries to write novels and stories writes
Barano-Chestov in her biography.
9
From the story of his alter ego, young
Mirovich, the hero of an aborted literary attempt of this period, we learn that
he was familiar with such classics of Russian literature as Pushkin, Lermontov,
and Gogol since the age of thirteen. He then continued with Nekrassov, Be-
linsky, and Dostoevsky and among foreign authors he read intensively Shake-
speare and Goethe (it is somewhat surprising that Goethe would disappear
almost completely from Shestovs writings later on). Poetry seemed to me to
be the apotheosis of truth; or rather of the good . . . I always believed that life
is nothing else but the eort of the good to vanquish the evil, that the number
of those who believe in goodness is steadily increasing, and their victory is just
a matter of time. . . .
10
Was he already acquainted with Solovyovs idealist phi-
losophy, or was he still under the inuence of the ideologues Lavrov, Bakunin,
and Mikhailovsky? Whatever might have been the case, outwardly Shestov
seemed preoccupied at the time by the economic realities: between 1892 and
1895 he published in local journals several articles on the economic issues of
the day. View his optimistic frame of mind and the positivistic subtext of the
ideologies he adhered to, this fact should not be surprising: any improvement
in the economic situationand a theoretical work on economic issues would
represent in itself an eort toward such an improvementwould lead to prog-
ress on the road toward the eradication of the social evils. Te great Russian
writers mentioned above have shown themselves the way; in their works, they
convinced the emancipated readers that everything is possible. Was not the es-
sence of their greatness contained in the message of their works?
However, the young man had other interests beside the societal ones. He
had a pleasant bass voice that he sought to cultivate in order to become an
opera singer. Furthermore, he was attracted by young women. One of them
was Aniuta Listopadova, the housemaid who, as already mentioned, would
give birth in 1892 to their son, Sergei. Shestov loved the boy and in later years
he would often visit him and his mother in Moscow (Sergeis premature death
during World War I would be another catastrophe in his life, and it would
probably inuence quite signicantly his thinking in the years immediately
following the war). Apparently nobody in the family got too upset by this
story; probably it was not a rare occurrence in those times, and anyhow such
an adventure posed no problem as it did not bring with it the danger of a
mixed marriage: Aniuta was merely a servant girl and young Lev a young
and romantic fool. After her departure, things settled down in a way way which
could remind a Chekhovian routine: the young man did what he was expected
to do and in return he got the freedom to keep alive his literary dreams as well
as his literary connections.
11
One of them was the writer Varvara Grigorevna
Malakhieva-Mirovich (Mirovich, as we remember was the name of the hero of
Shestovs aborted novel mentioned before). Events got, however, an unsettling
turn when during the summer vacation of 1985 Shestov realized that he had
fallen in love with Varvara, who at the time was the governess of his sister So-
nias daughters. He dared open his heart only to receive a very chilling answer:
Varvara Grigorevna explained to him in a letter written at the end of the sum-
mer that he was not in love with her but with a beautiful image constructed
by his own mind.
12
She recognized also that in their specic circumstances, the
fact that she was a Christian might pose an insurmountable problem. Shestov
knew it all too well, but he loved to imagine himself in the role of a modern
Evgheni Oneghin (with Varvara playing Tatianas role) and this prosaic aspect
of the thingsthe religious mismatchcould not t in the picture. When
Varvara persisted in her refusal, Shestov fell in love with her younger sister,
Anastasia (Nastia). One can only speculate about the details and the meanings
of such a story: was Nastia just a consolation for his unreciprocated love for
Varvara? Did Varvara feel betrayed by Shestov when he began courting her
sister? Te two, Shestov and Malakhieva-Mirovich, would continue a platonic
relationship over the years; in a letter written to his wife in 1902, Shestov men-
tions Varvara openly, and years later, they would collaborate in literary mat-
ters.
13
. However, beyond this hypothetical (and perhaps irrelevant) question
remains the fact that young Shestov found himself in 1895 in a situation in
which whatever he did, somebody was to be hurt, including, obviously, himself.
To exit this impossible predicament, he decided to marry Nastia. Tis informa-
tion is provided by the letters he wrote to his parents from Europe in 1896: in
April that year, he writes to his mother, I cannot live without Nastia . . . To
this girl I owe my life, more than my life. If it had not been for her, only God
knows what would have happened to me. She came to me in the most horrible
moment of my life, when I was ready to do anything, when I was as close to
madness as to death and she saved me.
14
His passionate plea was a voice crying in the wilderness as his father re-
mained unyielding: as he was before toward Levs half-sister Dora, as he re-
mained during the six months of his kidnapping. Yet, in spite of his unhap-
piness and his reiterated claims of sickness and utter despair, Shestov would
faithfully and diligently fulll his lial duties in ways that resemble Kierkegaard
before him and anticipate Kafka in the future. However, his father did not give
in: to his attempts to convince him through a long string of pronunciations
about Nastias qualities and in spite of his loyalty to the family, he answered in a
harsh and uncompromising tone, calling him a criminal (he perhaps thought
of the Hebrew connotation of the word, not the Dostoevskyan one) and telling
him bluntly that he would never accept her into his house. His mother, Anna
SchreiberIsaacs second wifewas also a tough lady, known to the family
as the Duchess of Podolsk, was of no help since she too was as unwilling to
compromise as the father was. (Again, we are left to speculate, not knowing
enough about Shestovs parents and their relationship, what would have been
the outcome if she had supported her sons plea. Te fact is that when a year
later he married a Russian woman abroad, he kept the marriage secret till the
death of the father in 1914 but told his mother about it immediately after
that). Young Lev was shattered. Te beautiful absolute truth vanished and his
willingness to seek the good was destroyed forever. An impenetrable wall arose
in front of him, a forbidding barrier was erected by external, impenetrable
forces, between him and the person he wanted to be. Since he was convinced
of his truth, he had no doubt that he was representing the right confronting the
dark forces of evil. He began to feel that his personal life acquired more and
more a tragic character. Tis was the personal drama he underwent around the
fatidic year 1895, a drama that would dene the turning point for the thirty-
year-old Lev Shestov. From this moment on, he lost interest in economic and
political matters. Life appeared no longer as a glorious march toward a rosy
future but rather under the guise of an unfolding tragedy. Te question posed
to the individual is not one related to his social life but one which has to do
with an alienated self cast brutally in a hostile surrounding environment. Man
(meaning mankind
15
) lives a tragedy, and the question is how he should muddle
through it. At this stage, Shestov still believes that the solution was to be found
in the understanding of the depths of this human predicament; such a profound
understanding must lead to an exit, to a way out of the labyrinth. Te guide
must be the great writer such as Shakespeare, Tolstoy, or Dostoevsky who un-
derstands the human soul; the point terminus of the adventure is in the work of
art. Tere is a solution, and this is to be found in the domain of the aesthetics.
Tese were Shestovs beliefs at the time he was coping with the aftermath of
the events of 1895.
I mentioned above the labyrinth; we need, however, to follow Shestov a
step further in order to understand why I use the metaphor of the labyrinth
instead of mentioning a name Shestov uses extensively later in his works, that
of Job. Deeply hurt, he left home and began crisscrossing Europe (mostly the
German realm at this point, Berlin, Vienna, Karlsbad) convinced that he must
nd a cure to his (spiritual as well as physical) ills. Tese years were, one should
remember, the time of the birth of psychoanalysis and the spirit of the time is
visible in the letters sent home by his other brother-in-law, Volodya Mendel-
berg, a doctor himself, who accompanied Shestov on his voyage. In order to
recover, Lev needs, he writes, legal sexual relations of the kind possible only in
marriage! As he moved from the German speaking countries to Italy (an old
friend of his was living there with the hope to recover from tuberculosis), he
met in Rome in February 1897 a young Russian woman whom he clandestinely
marries (his brothers and sisters knew however about the secret marriage) and
who gives birth before the end of the year to his rst daughter, Tatiana. Ana
Eleazarovna Berezovskaya was the daughter of a landowner who belonged to
the hereditary gentry. By the time she was sixteen both of her parents were
dead. She had ve other brothers, among whom one was a surgeon, one an
engineer and another, an actor. One brother looked after the family estate and
another was later killed in a student duel . . . the family was related to P. A. Kro-
potkin, the famous anarchist and to S. A. Muromtsev, the chairman of the rst
Duma, writes Nathalie (the second daughter, born three years later) the au-
thor of the often quoted biography.
16
Shestovs act was a radical answer to both
his therapeutic needs and to his fathers refusal to accept a mixed marriage.
He gave in, though, to his fathers expressed will and kept for the next six-
teen years his marriage secret. All the women Shestov was involved with were
Christians belonging to the Russian Orthodox Church; why didnt he try to
nd a match which would have satised his father as well as the social pressure
exerted by both his Jewish family and the Christian environment? At that time
a mixed marriage was impossible: one of the two participants had to convert to
the religion of the other. Such marriages were recognized in Russia only after
1907. Some authors posed the question in order to open the road to specula-
tions about hidden a nities Shestov manifested secretly toward the Christian
faith. Such an interpretation is suggested by his tendency, in the later writings,
to project on the contents of the New Testament ideas belonging to the Old
one (not in the usual sense of seeing in it the prophetical content announcing
Christianity but rather, as we shall see further, in the sense of appropriating
and integrating its ideas in a primeval biblical thinking manifested in the Old
Testament). Regardless the intrinsic value of such a speculation, it seems that
Shestov would have rejected it: there was nothing stranger to his spirit than
the idea that some kind of generalization or an abstract idea can explain the
specicity, the singularity manifested in the decision of the individual being.
He would have probably replied to any such hypothesis that he just happened
to meet these women and fell in love with them. Of course, things might have
turned out otherwise, but they did not. As mentioned above, Shestov found
himself in a situation which he dened as tragic, and all his energies were spent
in the eort to try to cope with it. He went to the masters of modern tragedy
to learn from them. He also went to Pushkin because, as he wrote in an article
of 1899 about him, in situations in which we can only cry and pull our hair in
despair, the poet only remains calm and rm, he never gives up hope because
he knows that he who searches shall nd and that to his two knocks, the door
shall be opened.
17
Te poet is the only one who can overcome the helpless-
ness following our attempts to solve the riddles of life. At this turning point,
he is still struggling with the problem of the good through lectures from So-
lovyov (An Apology of Good) and follows the authoritative work of Brandes on
Shakespeare as guide to the latters works. His rst published book (in 1898) is
entitled Shakespeare and His Critic Brandes.
Tis book is the only work by Shestov which has not been translated from
Russian. Discussions about its content can be found in French in Shestovs
daughters biography and now, in the excellent study of the philosophers for-
mative years included in Genevive Pirons thesis
18
; in English, Andreas Va-
levicius discussed extensively this early work in his Lev Sestov and His Times. I
will only observe here that before falling under the spell of Nietzsche, Shestovs
shattered man believed still in the exemplarity of that what happened to him.
Everybody is potentially a tragic hero; there is a fatality of the tragic at work,
the good literature and poetry are there to witness it, this mysterious order
of the things hidden from us is supposed to transform our lives into some-
thing unexpected, something valuable. Te tragic aspect of the human life is
not something held against us but rather a source of meaning and of value.
One must penetrate the mystery in order to reach the roots from which the
human destiny grows
19
; Shestov still talks about necessity and meaning as
positive concepts, even though Valevicius points out, rightly, that this necessity
is not the equivalent of the Greek ananke but rather of the concept dened
by Taine (even though what Shakespeare did uncover is forever forbidden to
the scientically minded critics of the kind of Taine).
In Europe Shestov discovered Nietzsche. It would take him a few years
to assimilate the ideas of the German philosopher, and subsequently a radi-
cal change occurred in his ways of thinking. In the next chapter I will present
the unfolding of Shestovs thinking during these rst years of his literary and
philosophical activities in Russia; here I would like to sum up this brief but
essential biographic intermezzo by mentioning a few of the ideas which domi-
nated the thinking of young Shestov at the time of his existential crisis. It is
clear that the attempts to explain the secrets and the meaning of the utterly in-
comprehensible occurrences in our lives through a recreation of these events in
terms of aesthetic renderings, whether in prose, drama, or poetry, represented
an ideal shared by young Shestov with many of his contemporaries. His rst
book proves this assertion. In the essay about Pushkin written around this mo-
ment of crisis, the young author wrote: the poet is not a preacher. He cannot
remain conned to the choice of strong and passionate words which merely
move the reader; one makes stronger demands on him. First and foremost, one
demands sincerity, one expects him to represent life as it is in its reality.
20
Yes, but
reality is cruel and uncompromising he will add. Indeed, he knew very well
what he was talking about as he wrote these essays after his moment of crisis,
in 1895. Te individual is crushed and vanquished by powerful external forces.
Facing this inexorable law, how can the poet reconcile a cruel reality with his
search of the sublime, of the beautiful? Can the aesthetic compensate for the
absence of the ethic in everyday life? Can it overcome the injustice, the evil, the
suering? Apparently, writes Shestov, the poet has no choice: he either serves
the truth and depicts the life with all its horrors or denies their existence and
paints a rosy, unrealistic picture of a beautiful ction. At least, this is what the
Western literature does, he concludes; but not Pushkin, the great Russian poet,
who is not only a great poet but also embodies the Russian spirit, that of the
Easter (European) spirituality. Te modern Sphinx asked him the question
about the possibility of a compatibility between the two ways, and he answered
fearlessly his question with an unhesitant yes. After a long excursion through
the oeuvre of the poet sustained by incursions in the works of Gogol and Ler-
montov, Shestov came to the conclusion that Tatianas (moral) victory over
Oneghin represented the symbol of the victory of the ideal over the concrete
reality. Tere is a secret, which once unveiled allows one to overcome the trag-
edy; Pushkin did nd the way to overcome despair in that he was inspired by
situations that paralyzed others. One only needs to learn the technique (or the
art) of the exit from the labyrinth. Before Pushkin, Shakespeare too had found
his way out. In an essay written at about the same time, Te Ethical Problem
in Shakespeares Works, Shestov began by noticing that in AD 1601 a sin-
gular event marked the playwright for his entire life. After this fateful event,
Shakespeare wrote Julius Cesar a play in which none of the characters dare to
smile and Hamlet in which only the main character has the right to do it.
21

Both plays, as dierent as they were, had a common denominator expressed by
Hamlets words in Act I, Te time is out of jointO cursd spite, Tat ever I
was born to set it right! Shakespeare had lost the (perhaps subconscious) belief
we all have that life has nality and meaning. Tat was also Shestovs belief till
1895; what can be done in this situation? One must nd a new faith; other-
wise life will become an endless torment he writes
22
and sets out to seek this
new faith in Shakespeares plays.
Young Shestov observed that the road to the solution was not straight
and easy to nd; Julius Cesar is still written in the spirit of old Shakespeare.
Virtue is lauded and applauded; the real tragic hero is not the one killed by the
conjurors but Brutus who is pushed by the all powerful moral law to do at all
times the right thing. He knows that he has to do just that; he tries to be a
virtuous man, but his endeavor to do what is right only increases his unhap-
piness. Shakespeare learnt from Plutarch who, in turn, was Platos follower
that one can overcome any injustice life brings upon us if we can go on living
without committing unjust deeds. In accordance with this ideal, he tried to
impose it upon his heroes and upon young Shestov. Ten came Hamlet and
refused the stoic solution, thus posing the question: what gives morals or the
ethical law this all-encompassing authority? In the old times, the answer was
easily obtained: the gods told humans that this is the way things should be. In
modern times, wrote ironically the young author, it was Kant who explained
why the ethical law was all-powerful: the greatest good, the absolute good is
self-sacrice and the sacrice of the other on the altar of the sublime of Eth-
ics.
23
However, when it comes to Hamlet, Shestov points out that neither
Fichtes eloquent discourse nor Kants autonomous ethical law could chase
away the phantom which haunted the poor prince.
24
Te moment came when
the old tricks did not work any longer, when the time was out of joint and the
usual remedies became unacceptable. Te phantoms which haunted Shestovs
life were there to stay and all the learned and subtle solutions proposed by re-
ligion and philosophy were equally unacceptable. Nietzsche is not mentioned
yet explicitly, but his call to become who you are begins to be felt in Shestovs
discourse. It will not be the sublime of ethics he would seek from then on but
the authenticity obtained through the confrontation with the burning embers
of adversity; dying while ghting for ones right to deny the constraints of the
moral imperative is not capitulation, it is rather the way. Tat was Pushkins
message too, and at this stage in his life Lev Shestov was still inclined to follow
the poet rather than the sage.
TWO
Beginnings Without
Ends
The Russian Background
True philosophy must begin with the questions of mans place and destiny in the world.
We do not even know which is more essential and important, the inevitable or the casual.
When toward the end of his life Lev Shestov looked back to the period de-
scribed in the previous chapter, he resumed it more or less in the terms I pre-
sented it, but he claimed that from the disappointment with the philosophers
and their wisdom and the poets and their search for the aesthetic solution, he
went directly to the Bible: My rst master in philosophy, and that might seem
quite strange to many people, was Shakespeare. From him I learnt this men-
acing and troubling phrase, the time is out of joint. What can one do when
such a thing happens, when the horrors of human existence unveil themselves
to men (to Shakespeare) who becomeas time itself isout of joint? From
Shakespeare I rushed to Kant, who tried in his Critique of Practical Reason and
by means of his famous postulates (successfully one must say, for more than
one hundred years), to hide the cracks in the nature of being uncovered by
his own Critique of Pure Reason. But Kant could not provide answers to my
questions. At that point, I began looking elsewhere, toward the Scriptures. Te
question is however, can the Bible withstand the confrontation with the obvi-
ous truths (of reason)? I did not ask myself this question at that time, I did not
dare yet to do it. . . .
1
Te road to the Bible and its message, though, will turn
out to be a quite long and eventful one.
As already mentioned, Shestovs rst book Shakespeare and His Critic
Brandes, which he began writing in 1896, was published in St. Petersburg in
1898 (by that time he had already published in Kiev in 1895 an article about
Brandes Hamlet
2
). Tis was his rst attempt to try to cope with the dramatic
events of his own life during the few years that preceded the writing of the
book. It is worth mentioning that this rst work, in spite of the display of a
real literary talent and a great empathy for Shakespeares heroes (he began by
stating that my rst master was Shakespeare, when I read his line, the time
is out of joints, I began to understand, very early,
3
) was not received with
great enthusiasm in the literary circles of the two Russian cultural capitals,
Moscow and Saint Petersburg. Te book represented in the eyes of his critics
as Nathalie Barano-Chestov put ita protest in the name of idealism and
ethics against Taines positivism and Brandes skepticism.
4
Te literary critic
Ivanov-Razumnik will say that the book represented an apology of the tragedy.
Another reader (Lundberg) observed that the feeling left by the lecture of
Shestovs work is one of anxiety while a much later, non-Russian reader will
nd, perhaps not surprisingly, that all the major themes approached by Shestov
during his mature years are already present in this rst book.
5
At about the time he was writing about Brandes, Taine, and Shakespeare,
Shestov began reading Nietzsche. Te shock was as strong as it was instanta-
neous; he would tell his disciple Benjamin Fondane many years later that the
reading of Te Genealogy of the Morals did stir and upset him to the point that
he became sleepless for a while. At rst, his instinct was to resist Nietzsches
cruel ways of thinking and oppose his frontal attack against the morals, but he
himself began to realize, based on his own experience that the ethics of good
and evil becomes problematic when man feels crushed by external, overwhelm-
ing forces. Te issue of morality could not hold against Nietzsche,
6
he wrote
after having read his biography; probably that as soon as he nished reading
the book, Shestov was tempted to write about Nietzsche. People around him
were talking about this philosopher who seemed to cast a particular fascina-
tion over East European authors. At the same time, Shestov was still very
much under the spell of the classical Russian literature, avidly reading and re-
reading Turgenev, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Gogol, and Chekhov. He felt the need
to confront his struggle with the specic circumstances of his own life with the
weltanschauung of authors close to and familiar with his historical and cultural
surroundings. Tey would, he hoped, resonate better with his attempts to make
Te Russian Background 31
sense of his dilemmas, thoughts and with the strange ideas which began to take
shape in his troubled mind. We have to remember that Shestov began writing
his rst book in 1897, just after the fateful decision to marry in secrecy and
thus challenge the parental authority. In addition, he was certainly troubled by
the idea that he will have to keep his new life a secret; he worked on the text
in Rome next to his wife, while waiting to become a father. He returned at the
end of the year to Kiev, alone and lonely, leaving behind in Italy his wife and a
new-born daughter.
While writing about Shakespeares tragic heroes, Shestov is unhappy with
his own life: but in addition to the troubles described above, he is also exasper-
ated by the contradiction lived day-by-day in his spiritual life (I use, faute de
mieux, this somewhat worn-out expression, reluctantly). He wants to be a phi-
losopher, to write books, to muse upon matters of life and death and instead,
he has to run a family business. His personal problems stemmed to a large
extent from the negative eects of the superposition between a deep respect
for the parentsinstilled by a moral tradition with roots in the Jewish religion
already rejected by most of the members of his generationand an instinc-
tive refusal to transgress customs imposed by the same obsolete (in his eyes at
that moment) and rejected tradition (I remind the reader that the imperative
Honor your father and mother was carved on the Tablets of the Law). Tis
incomplete refusal instilled in young Shestov a feeling of guilt and made him
profoundly unhappy. In addition to that, as soon as he began to publish he
found himself in the ambiguous situation of belonging and at the same time
being an outsider to the Russian intellectual world. Tis permanent oscillation
between an identity imposed upon him (on two fronts) from outside and the
di culties generated by his ceaseless attempts to forge himself a new identity,
pushed Shestov to frantically seek answers to the steadily increasing number of
exceedingly di cult questions which gravitated all around this big black hole
called morality. Questions such as why are people who try to do the good, un-
happy? how should/could one live with the realization of the fact that doing
the ethically right thing might still bring someone to Hell rather than to the
much heralded Paradise? or how open, how honest can one be about these
things? became recurrent and ceaselessly came to trouble his mind. Among
the authors mentioned above, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky confronted in the most
direct way many of these questions which tormented Shestov. At a rst glance
it seemed to him that Tolstoy was closer to Nietzsche than Dostoevsky and
that the rst appeared as a symmetrically negative image of the German think-
er. Reading the long essay Te Good in the Teaching of Tolstoy and Nietzsche one
realizes that Shestovs argument is much subtler than that; he oers an image
of Tolstoy, which in the end breaks this apparent symmetry.
Relatively late in his life, Lev Tolstoy wrote a book entitled What Is Art?
which, as Shestov pointed out ironically at the onset of his essay, was not about
art as more serious and more important problems than that of art are raised
there.
7
Tis work seemed to have originated in the storm which shook Tol-
stoys soul, a storm so terrible that it radically changed his identity, from that
of a teller of stories to that of a judge of human life. In the process he also
learnt to speak a language which is bizarre and strange to us.
8
However,
which questions should be considered more serious and more important than
those related to art? Tolstoys sharp answer was, the questions about morality
and religion; to these his critic will add the question concerning the negative
attitude Tolstoy manifested toward Nietzsche in his book. Shestovs point is
that the Russian writer does not really study the German philosopher in order
to refute his ideas; he uses against him a few clichs which help make Nietz-
sche responsible for all the sins of the younger generation. Tus, the apparent
conclusion Shestov draws is that it is beyond doubt for anyone: Count Tolstoy
and Nietzsche mutually excluded each other.
9
However, immediately after
having made this a rmation he asks a question, which sets the premise and
the frame for the entire discussion which follows: But is it really so? Tolstoy
the writer is extremely accurate in his forceful descriptions of the inequities of
life, but he is acting at the same time as a judge who is passionately interested
in the outcome of the trial.
10
As a result, he will pitilessly lead Anna Karenina
for instance, to her terrible death in order to go with Levin toward the good
and toward salvation (ibid.). In War and Peace, the author produces a harsh
judgmentin Shestovs wordson Sonia, while other heroes (Rostov, Pierre
Bezukhov, Natasha, and so on) have existences that seem necessary and cred-
ible. A contradiction at the roots of Tolstoys interpretation of the meaning
of the lives of his heroes is pointed out from the very beginning: on the one
hand, the great novelist concedes that it is permitted, it is even necessary to
strive to be good. to read the Bible, to be moved at the stories of pilgrims and
mendicants on the other, he tells his reader that it is not worthwhile to stake
ones life on these values as they represent only the poetry of life, not life itself.
Te contradiction appears because Tolstoy, as all great writers, does not simply
describe life, he interrogates it as well. Writing is a process through which the
writer tries to understand himself and the world surrounding him. Indeed,
what is true for Tolstoy is true for Shestov as well: therefore, while writing
about the idea of good in Tolstoy and Nietzsche he is inquiring about the
meaning of the good, of morals in general, in his life.
Nietzsche himself was at some point among those who were ready to re-
nounce life for the sake of the virtues, he too wanted to be in the service of the
good, explains Shestov. Yet, all of a sudden something occurred and changed
all these. At rst he resisted: even at the appearance of the rst faithful signs of
his illness, Nietzsche did not become at all disturbed.
11
Only when life became
a burden to him as a result of ceaseless suering over a period of fteen years,
he felt that he may ask the question why did that happen to somebody whose
only guilt was to be too faithful to the moral ideals? and provide his own an-
swers to it. With Tolstoy things were somewhat dierent: he had been tortured
by doubts in his younger years, but by the time he had the fateful experience of
meeting the poverty in his most blunt and naked expression, as described in his
article on the Census of Moscow, he was in search for a way out of the labyrinth
of doubts. Shestov shows how, without even noticing it, Tolstoy embraced two
of Nietzsches pronouncements in his attitude toward the human misery: one
must not wish to be the doctor of an incurable person and what is tottering
must be pulled further. Perhaps, when much later Tolstoy expressed dissatis-
faction with Shestovs conclusions about him, he minded this part of the essay.
In 1910, just before Tolstoys death, Shestov visited him at Yasnaia Poliana.
Tolstoys encounter with the poor brought him to the conclusion that
those who are ready to help these underprivileged creatures often lack the
moral qualities to do so; therefore, before trying to help others, one must rst
heal oneself. Ironically, Shestov points out that in the process of helping the
poor, it was Count Tolstoy and not the miserable and the wretched who be-
came better: this seems to be the fate of the poor: they have always served
and will continue to serve as a means for the rich.
12
Te moral approach to
peoples misfortune is not only ine cient but it is hypocritical: in twenty years
scores, perhaps hundreds, or thousand of men have passed through the night
shelters, lived there, suered there, committed crimes and died, while Tolstoy
was perfecting himself morally at Yasnaia Poliana.
13
Preaching to others has
no other goal but to aggrandize oneself by acquiring a moral stature. While
writing about Tolstoy, Shestov was most probably thinking about his parents,
in particular his father. At this point in his argumentation, through the ques-
tion why did Tolstoy accept a doctrine in which justice and not mercy is the
principle of punishment? he introduces an interesting philosophical bias into
the discussion. Te answer was, not surprisingly perhaps, because of Kant and
his Critique of Practical Reason. Shestovs disappointment with Kant is directly
projected upon Tolstoy (this will be an intellectual device often used in his
future works): Kantian duty, in that form which does not allow any room for
doubt about what is permitted and forbidden becomes the foundation stone of
the doctrine of Tolstoy.
14
Tis observation is as relevant for Shestov as it is for
Tolstoy; we discover in it the source of one of the main Shestovian themes in
his latter works, that of the relationship between a knowledge obtained from
rational thinking versus the revealed one. Tis is the rst time he poses directly
the question What is there in common between the categorical imperative
or the principle of retribution proclaimed by Kant and the teaching of the
gospel? (ibid.).
Dostoevsky is mentioned in this work only as somebody who makes
the connection between the two main characters of the essay: at some point
Shestov asks himself how is it possible that both Nietzsche and Tolstoy held
in high esteem Dostoevsky? An analysis of Crime and Punishment follows, in
which Shestov shows that in spite of the apparently obvious interpretation of
the novel as representing a discussion about the deep meaning of evil and its
eect on its perpetrator in fact, for Dostoevsky, the meaning of the crime does
not lie in the evil that Raskolnikov has done to his victims but in what he has
done to his own soul.
15
Terefore, he turns out to be very much like Tolstoy,
preoccupied rather with the soul of the perpetrator of the crime than with that
of the victim. Tis is very dierent from Shakespeares Macbeth who is psy-
chologically much more truthful than Dostoevskys hero. Te playwright was
interested in the insubmissive, truly terrible criminal; Dostoevsky chose a sub-
missive, harmless person whom he allowed to become a murderer. Shakespeare
sought to justify the man, Dostoevsky to condemn him.
16
Like Tolstoy, in this work
Dostoevsky is on the preachers side, he wishes, in Shestovs words, to teach the
reader that one can either serve the good or the evil, that he himself serves
the good and therefore is a man worthy of great respect (ibid.)
Tis is the moment to point out two other very signicant remarks
Shestov makes in this chapter: one has to do with the intrinsic meaning of the
Christian Scriptures. After making the above mentioned comparison between
Shakespeare and Dostoevsky, he asks in a rather dramatic way, Which of this
is the true Christian? We nd here one of the rst indications in the direction
of Shestov, religious thinker. Te second remark has to do with Shestov, the
philosopher as it hints to the denition Shestov assigns later to the meaning
and the purpose of philosophy: what has been brought forth in the comparison
between the mentioned writers, seems to me su cient to show what a fun-
damental dierence there is between philosophy and preaching and by whom
preaching is needed and by whom philosophy.
17
Dostoevskys preaching will
never uncover the reader the great truth communicated by Shakespeare. On
the other hand, Macbeth instills in Shestov the feeling that there is no power
which either can or will destroy the man. while the gospel says in Matthew
18:14it is not the will of your heavenly father that a single one of these
little ones shall be lost. Tolstoy himself was a philosopher before becoming a
preacher: of course, not one of those who is talking about space and time or
about monism and dualism, idealism or materialism. However, writes Shestov,
it is not this that nally gives one the right to be called a philosopher . . .
true philosophy must begin with the questions of mans place and destiny in
the world.
18
Tolstoy the writer-philosopher would have repudiated Tolstoy
the preacher: and precisely for this reason he can be compared, after all, with
Nietzsche. Unlike Nietzsche, however, he could not tear from truth its veil
and ended up attempting to forget the fateful enigma of life, to forget it at
all cost.
19
He will try to abandon the philosophy of lifeat that time the
term existential philosophy did not exist yetin favor of preaching. In What is
Art? Tolstoy concluded that the good is the eternal, highest goal of our life.
In whatever way we understand the good, our life is still nothing other than
striving toward the good, i.e., toward God.
20
At this point in his essay on Tolstoy and Nietzsche, Shestov returns to
the similarities between the two thinkers and declares quite surprisingly that
Tolstoys statement God is the good and Nietzsches God is dead are in fact,
equivalent. Moreover, in their discussion of the meaning of the religious belief,
the two set out from the same point of view, he writes.
21
From the point of
view of my presentation here, it is not too important to discuss Shestovs dem-
onstration of these assertions; much more telling are some of their corollaries.
One of them is that following the moment of crisis in their lives, for both the
art which embellishes human sorrow is no longer of any use. Again, it seems
that Shestov is talking about himself as well: at the very moment one realizes
that the human tragedy to which one is exposed is not interpretable in aesthetic
terms, one nds himself suspended in a void. Te only possibility to overcome
such a predicament is oered by religious belief; but one can have faith neither
in a God which turns out to be a mere gment of the human imagination, a
God submitted to the rules of logic, nor in a moral God, who only requires
doing the good in order to ultimately satisfy the all too human longing for
inner peace of mind. Te great liberator of the spirit is the great pain wrote
Nietzsche in Te Gay Science, and this faith generating suering seeks another
God and another relationship with Him than that of the religiosity preached
by Tolstoy. Did however Nietzsche really seek God? asks Shestov. Yes, he did,
he employed all the power of his soul to nd a faith, but he could not nd it.
People caught in a terrible existential predicament will do everything in order
to evade their dire situation: they will be ready to sacrice everything, even God
himself: such was Nietzsches atheism: it was not a duty neglected but a right
lost, remarks Shestov.
22
His conclusion is that it does not depend on the will
of man to believe or not to believe (ibid.). Later, when he reects on the mean-
ing of the encounter between man and God, Shestov realizes that he or she
who has faith cannot avoid the concept of grace brought strongly to the fore by
this new religion born in the shadow of the Hebrew Bible.
Te essay about Tolstoy and Nietzsche contains many more interesting
remarks on the nature of the philosophical and religious thinking of the two
authors who came to replace Shakespeare as the guide of a (very) perplexed
young Shestov. He brings in Heines life and work, as well as Turgenev, to il-
lustrate and re-enforce some of Nietzsches ideas, he discusses the concept of
amor fatiwhich in his later works he will reject totallyas well as that of the
Nietzsches overman (I prefer Walter Kaufmans somewhat awkward rendering
into English of the original superman, which had acquired a quite dier-
ent meaning in the everyday contemporary English language). Even Marx is
mentioned. It is not surprising, however, that the reception of the book about
Tolstoy and Nietzsche was far from being a warm one at the time of its pub-
lication, in spite of the fact that both its style and the sincerity of the author
were recognized and appreciated. He had a hard time with the publishers and
was refused at rst either because of too much Nietzscheianism or for ideas,
which seemingly proved a lack of respect for Tolstoy. Solovyov, perhaps the
most important philosopher in Russia at the time, whom Shestov sent through
an intermediary the manuscript for a preview, reacted by writing, my con-
sciousness does not allow me to recommend it for publication . . . let know the
author, on my behalf, that I suggest never to have published this work because
if he does, he will certainly regret it later.
23
Te book was however published at the beginning of the year 1900. Soon
after its publication, Shestov leaves again for Europe to join in Italy (at Nervi)
his wife and their little daughter, Tatiana. Tey will stay together most of the
year, rst in Italy later in Switzerland (Bern), where his wife gives birth in
November to their second daughter, Nathalie-Natasha. During this long Eu-
ropean sojourn, Shestov begins thinking about a new book, which, this time,
would bring Dostoevsky into confrontation with Nietzsche. He felt now the
need to further pursue some of the philosophical ideas he began to develop in
the book on Tolstoy and Nietzsche. In a letter sent to a friend from Bern in
May, he wrote: nothing new with me. I passed the last weeks reading boring
theoretical philosophers . . . I had a hard time nishing (these lectures) so that
I went back to Nietzsche and Dostoevsky; those I know well. With both one
may quarrel, enter in bitter disputes but one never gets bored.
24
Fascinated by
this endless imaginary discussion with the two authors, after the birth of his
daughter he leaves again for Italy in order to try to write the new book before
his mandatory return to Kiev. From Nervi he writes his wife, I must conquer
the glory (of becoming a recognized author) so that you will come to respect
me! (ibid.). A few months later in Switzerland, Shestov nishes the book and
immediately after his return to Russia during the fall of 1901, he begins to look
for an editor. Tere were di culties again, but this time he made its content
known to the public through installments he published in the review Mir Is-
skustva during the next year; in January 1903, Te Philosophy of Tragedy will
nally be published in St. Petersburg.
Tis new (third) book was, as we have seen, a continuation of the dis-
cussion opened by the previous two works about the question posed by the
circumstances of his own life concerning the confrontation with a time out
of joint. As with Tolstoy and Nietzsche, the lecture of Dostoevskys works
reminded him that neither Hamlet nor he himself were born to set it right. If
we stop for a moment to reect upon the events of Shestovs life (as they were
described so far), we realize that by the time he published this rst book on
Dostoevsky, the author carried the weight of a more than ve years long pro-
cess of regeneration of his own convictions. Te Philosophy of Tragedy begins
with the following quote from Dostoevskys Diary of a Writer: It would be ex-
ceedingly di cult for me to tell the story of the regeneration of my convictions
. . . to which the author hastens to add the observation that Dostoevsky knew
all too well how crucially important the question of the birth of convictions
can be for us. It is not clear at rst why does Shestov consider this question as
being crucially important; neither is transparent to the reader the purpose of
another quote from the Notes from the Underground, what can a decent man
talk about with the greatest pleasure? Answer: himself.
After this somewhat abrupt beginning, the argument is steadily unfold-
ing under the eyes of the reader: Dostoevsky believed in positive values, he
belonged to Belinskys progressive circle, his literary work between 1845 and
1862 was dominated by the realization that it deeply moves your heart to
realize that the most downtrodden man, the lowest of the low, is also a hu-
man being and is called your brother.
25
For the humanistic view promoted by
Belinsky, young Dostoevsky was ready to risk his life. He wanted to change
for the better a world full of Poor Folk and Humiliated and Insulted. Sentenced
to death, he remained strong and stood rm on the ground of his beliefs: the
deed for which we had been condemned, the thoughts, the ideas that had
possessed our minds, seemed to us not only something that did not demand
repentance, but even something that puried us.
26
Moreover, Shestov points
out that in the rst work published after Dostoevskys liberation, Te Village
of Stepanchikovo and Its Inhabitants, the sharpest eye will not nd even a hint
that its author has been a convict . . . you sense in the author a good-natured,
kind, and witty man . . . (who) allows the happiest possible outcome for the
involved circumstances.
27
Te author only wants to stay free and to forget the
horrors he had suered, says Shestov and adds, Dostoevsky, like everyone else,
did not want tragedy in his own life, and he avoided it in every possible way;
and if he did not escape it, it was through no fault of his, but because of out-
side circumstances over which he had no control.
28
Te House of Dead, which
describes his penal experience has its moments of cruelty and doubt but is still
dominated by a positive, humanistic attitude: for the time being, there can be
no question of a regeneration of convictions.
29
Till 1861 Dostoevsky wrote therefore a literature dominated by the pro-
gressive ideas of Belinsky, Chernyshevsky, Nekrasov, and Dobrolyubov; in his
journalistic articles, he still sided with the Westerners against the Slavophiles.
It seemed that he was on the right side of the contemporary history and in
spite of this position, in a very strange way, Dostoevsky stood to the side, just
as if nothing unusual had happened. More than that, he hid in the under-
ground: Russias hopes were not his hopes. Tey were of no concern to him.
30

In 1862, he published Te Notes from the Underground which signaled a radical
change, one is tempted to say a rupture, a discontinuity in his way of thinking.
Te new Dostoevskyan hero, the underground man, in response to an appeal for
moral support utters a phrase, which Shestov often quoted later: Do you know
what I really want? Tat you all go to the devil, thats what. I need peace. Why,
Id sell the whole world right now for a kopeck. Is the world to go to pot, or I
am to go without my tea? I say that the world can go to pot, so long as I can
always get my tea (ibid.). Tis is a dierent Dostoevsky; this is a man sud-
denly convinced that his entire life he had been lying and pretending when he
assured himself and others that the loftiest purpose in life is to serve the hum-
blest man, writes Shestov.
31
Why did this change occur? and what is a man
to do who has discovered in himself such a hideous and disgusting idea? are
both questions, which will turn out to be as essential in Shestovs life as they
were in that of Fyodor Dostoevsky. Te rst question sets the ground for a new
beginning exactly at the point where the Tolstoy story seems to have ended
(even though some of the short storiesthat of Ivan Ilich in particularwill
hint to a very similar process in his life as well). Te change occurred because
a great misfortune, which could have not been handled with any of the usual
intellectual and moral tools at ones disposal, occurred all of a sudden. In the
process of considering all the possible options regarding the answer to second
question, Shestov leads the reader to another aspect of his burgeoning new
philosophy, the one he will dene later as existential.
Te eect of the great shattering moment manifested in Notes from the
Underground is impressive: there, writes Shestov, Schiller, humanity, Nekras-
ovs poetry, the Crystal Palace, in brief everything that once lled Dostoevskys
soul with sympathy and delighteverythingis showered with sarcasm of a
most venomous and personal nature.
32
All of a sudden, the position of rea-
son and conscience seems to be shattered; in an insidious but insistent way
the question about the true nature of the tree of knowledge makes its way
into the consciousness of Dostoevskyand into that of Shestov as well. He is
thirty-four-years old when he dares to put down in writing something he felt
for a numbers of years already, that is the fact that there exists an obvious an-
tagonism between reason and conscience on the one hand and psychology on
the other.
33
Here, psychology stands for the aective, for the ways in which
we react emotionally to events perceived as being decisive in our lives. What
characterizes these states of mind (or of the soul?) is an inability to dene them
in accurate terms and to react to them in rational ways. Psychology is the
underground. Shestov points out that Dostoevsky does not distinguish himself
from Tolstoy because he is more conscientious, more honest or more sincere.
No, in such matters, the degree of determination (to destroy a false past) is
decided by completely dierent laws (ibid.; much eort would be spent by
Shestov in the following years to try to uncover these laws). Tolstoy as Dos-
toevsky, is a psychologist who seeks the roots of the things, he wants faith, but
occupies himself with verication, and that kills every faith (ibid.)! Tis bent
toward verication leads to a tendency to rely on commonplaceness which
is another way of saying idealism. What Dostoevsky discovered through his
man of the underground is that it is impossible to overcome ones unhappi-
ness and doubts by means of idealism.
34
Idealism aims at consolation, but it
does not work for the underground man who cynically states that more than
anything else, the laws of nature have constantly oended him throughout his
life. Shestov invokes here the laws of nature to remind his readers that even
if everything would be perfect in the relationships between individuals within
the societies and between smaller groups within larger collectivities the unhap-
piness can still take over the life of the individual for reasons totally indepen-
dent of himself. At the end of a detailed discussion of the major works in which
Shestov traces the history of the regeneration of Dostoevskys convictions, he
concludes that their true, deep meaning is a rehabilitation of the rights of the
underground man. And this is the link to Nietzsche whose works although . .
. bear little outward resemblance to what Dostoevsky wrote . . . contain denite
and clearly expressed traces of those moods and experiences that astonished us
in the creative work of the latter.
35
I will not insist here on the way Nietzsche
himself is understood and interpreted by Shestov: many authors have reected
on this subject and a large number among them came to the conclusion that
he appropriated and modied the thought of the German philosopher to serve
his purposes. In the course of this work we will touch upon these matters again,
but a thorough attempt to discuss Shestovs Nietzsche would defocus the at-
tention from our main interest: to examine the formation and the intellectual
trajectory followed by Shestov himself.
In 1901 Shestov returned to Kiev and with the exception of a few brief
visits abroad he would remain there until 1908. By the time his third book
appeared, he was split more than ever between his interests in philosophy and
his actual involvement with the family business, between the family he set
up abroad and the family he was born in and whichunlike his wife and
daughterssurrounded him from all sides. Shestov was torn between his phil-
osophical ideas and a manifold of scattered religious thoughts, which took him
further and further away from his former idealist self to move him to new,
unchartered, and dangerous territories. As he was seeking the roots of his own
inner contradictions in the works of others, he encountered more and more
often the traces of his Jewish origins; in the works of some of his contempo-
rary Russian fellow travelers on this same self-searching route, he discovered
a world of ideas and images, which had remained strange and distant to him
so far, that of the Christian scriptures, but which now seemed to become more
and more interesting. In 1899 already, in one of his notebooks in which he be-
gan writing parts of Te Philosophy of Tragedy, Shestov introduced a few apho-
risms in which he mused upon some of the ideas induced by the texts, mostly
those of Nietzsche, he was working on. Tere were also two other writers who
fascinated him at the time, Turgenev and Chekhov, and the ngerprints of
some of their ideas become apparent in his next work. Perhaps the fact that
the book on Dostoevsky and Nietzsche turned out to be an editorial success
oered Shestov an incentive to write about some other kindred hunted souls.
In 1903 he leaves again for Switzerland to nish a new book; before he leaves,
he writes his wife that he would need a few quiet months of sustained and
continuous work as in Kiev it is impossible to write without interruptions . . . I
shall remain abroad . . . till I nish the new book.
36
In the Shestov archives one
nds a notebook containing 146 pages on Turgenev; on its title page dated July
31, 1903, one reads, Apotheosis of Groundlessness. In the end, Shestov, who had
to return in a haste and much earlier than he planned to Kiev because of his
fathers deteriorating health, changed his plans and instead of a book on Turge-
nev (and Nietzsche?) he published a collection of aphorisms that contained
many references to the two mentioned authors. Other materials collected for
this aborted project were introduced in Shestovs next book to appear a few
years later, entitled Penultimate Words,
37
In an extensive prefaceShestov was a great believer in post festum, ex-
planatory prefaceshe explained that he had chosen the aphoristic style be-
cause he felt it to be the most appropriate device for expressing his scattered
and uncertain thoughts. Indeed, as one begins to doubt the constructs of logic,
the meaning, and the role of the general ideas, it is plausible that one nds that
a non-systematic exposition of loosely connected concepts represents the best
way to express ones thoughts. In the preface written as he nished the new
book (in 1904), Shestov explains that he could not bear anymore to write in
a systematic way about any subject he would nd essential, at the core of his
tormented soul. Free thinking cannot be limited by the need to worry about
form and neatness in argumentation: the most troublesome thing in a book is
the presence of general ideas; one must get rid of them otherwise one becomes
their slave.
38
One danger in this way of writing is that of the presence in the
same text of ideas which might contradict one anothernever mindseems
to say the author of this book which constitutes an apology of the groundless-
ness. Another possible negative aspect of the aphoristic style might be found
in the fact that a long string of aphorisms makes it di cult to concentrate on
specic ideas and come to conclusions about their value or validity. But why
one would be willing to conclude, asks Shestov. What good does a general
conception about the world?
39
Of course, we have identied the roots of these
thoughts already in the above discussed rst works of the author; in his new
book, though, Shestov begins a more thorough and to some extent a more
theoretical (most probably he would not have liked this word!) and more in-
depth analysis of the dierences between the needs of a practical knowledge
guided by science and one which could help us understand the concrete exis-
tence of the individual, a meta-sophia which does not reduce the unknown to
the known.
It would be di cult to discuss in detail the wealth of the ideas included
in Te Apotheosis of Groundlessness. One nds there the starting point of practi-
cally all the themes to be developed by Shestov in his later works. In order to
attempt an answer to the question posed by the title of my book, I will limit the
discussion to a few of the thoughts related to the meaning of philosophy and to
the aphorisms that contain hints concerning the origins of Shestovs reections
about religion and faith. Clearly, the evolution of his ideas in these areas was
not at all linear; one nds many bends and twists on the road but a few ideas,
once expressed, remained more or less recognizable as one moves from one pe-
riod in the life of the author to another. Occasionally, Shestov abandoned some
of the ideas of his younger years; in other cases, one clearly senses that Shestov
is not yet sure about his own intellectual constructs. However, if we can learn
something from surveying these blind alleys, it is worthwhile to walk along.
It is also interesting to identify in this book the new thoughts suggested to
Shestov by the two authors, Turgenev and Chekhov, who were supposed to
be, originally, its main object. Above all, it is interesting to observe Shestovs
pattern (if not an obsession) in his works: the eternal return to Tolstoy, Dosto-
evsky, and Nietzsche.
In spite of the fact that in his preface Shestov is ready to pay science its
dues, he is quick to point out in aphorism #11 that from our mind and our
own experience we can deduce nothing that would serve us as a ground for set-
ting even the smallest limit to natures own arbitrary behavior.
40
In the same
aphorism, without using a rigorous philosophical terminology (Shestov never
used concepts such as immanence, epistemology, or contingence, for instance),
he poses a very important question when he writes that we have never been
able to separate the grain of inevitable from the cha of accidental and casual
truth. Moreover, we do not even know which is more essential and important,
the inevitable or the casual.
41
On this type of considerationswhich can, of
course, be refuted on various groundshe reached a conclusion that would
remain a constant of Shestovs philosophical thinking: philosophy must give
up her attempt at nding the veritates aeternae. Te business of philosophy is
to teach man to live in uncertainty . . . briey, the business of philosophy is not
to reassure people, but to upset them (ibid.). Immediately after this in apho-
rism #21 he adds that philosophy should have nothing in common with logic;
philosophy is an art which aims at breaking the logical continuity of argument
and bringing man in contact with the unlimited ocean of imagination. Desta-
bilizing the accepted wisdom becomes thus the main mission, the aim of a new
philosophical thinking, of Shestovs metasophia, and not an impediment or a
limitation: on every possible occasion, in season and out, the generally accept-
ed truths must be ridiculed to death and paradoxes uttered in their place.
42
In order to accomplish such desiderata the thinkerbe he philosopher,
writer, or artist in general, more often than not Shestov did not make the
distinction between these three categories of thinkersmust set himself free
of all constrains. Te idea of Bildung, which began to penetrate the Russian
cultural realm at the time, is rejected by the author who goes even further to
propose, very much in line with later avant-garde movements, the idea that
without freedom in the widest sense, freedom within oneself, freedom from
preconceived ideas, freedom with regard to ones own nation and history, with-
out this the real artist is unthinkable. One should notice the request to be
set free of ones own nation and history; later, in aphorism #100, he is even
more explicit: one needs neither to see, nor to hear or understand what is
taking place around oneself; once your mind is made up, you have lost your
right to grow. . . . It is not that philosophers, writers, and artists did not know
all these truths before him; the trouble was, writes Shestov, that people were
compelled to tell lies and be hypocritical . . . (they) pretended to believe in sci-
ence and morality, only in order to escape the persecution of public opinion
(aphorism #109). I would like to point out the fact that this aphorism begins
with a remark that turns out to be extremely relevant for the future evolution of
Shestovs thinking: After Luther, Christianity degenerated into morality and
all the threads connecting man with God were cut. At this stage, he still used
this observation to make a point about the hypocrisy underlying the submis-
sion to commonly accepted lies but ten years later, he will place this Luther
moment in the very dierent context of the meaning of faith.
Te Apotheosis of Groundlessness contains also the rst Shestovian incur-
sions into the world of Greek philosophy. He is nding there the origins of
the general and universally valid propositions, as well as the idea that philoso-
phy must be a healer, must always explain and through explanation induce the
spiritual tranquility needed to overcome the tragic aspects of the human condi-
tion. Here we nd for the rst time statements that would become later com-
monplace in Shestovs philosophical writings, such as for instance Socrates .
. . wished that all men should rest, rest through eternity, that they should see
their highest fulllment in this resting (aphorism # 25). Te founding father
of Western philosophy is mentioned in aphorism #33 both in connection with
God and the essence of philosophy: Socrates did not believe in gods, so he
wanted to justify virtue through reason writes Shestov and adds, but if there
is God and all men are the children of God, we should be afraid of nothing
and spare nothing. Tis concept is a central idea to be developed further in
the later works. In aphorism #39, Shestov remarks that while the appearance
of Socrates at the horizon of philosophy is hailed as a great event few realize
that under Pericles, Athens ourished without Socratic wisdom and after his
death, in spite of the Platonic succession, Athens steadily declined. Te love
of wisdom did not save Athens; as a rule, wisdom goes one way, society the
other, concluded Shestov.
It is also important to retain Shestovs deep insights in this early work
which predates the bulk of Freuds writingsin psychology; some of his ob-
servations are relevant for the psychoanalytical research developed later and
to certain new trends in psychology. It is true that Shestov was inuenced by
William James, whose works he read very early. Tus, we nd in the Apology
aphorisms discussing the nature and the eects of creativity, creative activity
is a continual progression from failure to failure and the condition of the cre-
ator is usually one of uncertainty, mistrust and shattered nerves (#42) or more
specically, about the nature of philosophical thinking, philosophers clearly
love to call their utterances truths since in that guise they become binding
upon us all. But each philosopher invents his own truths (#56). He wonders
about the relation between the individual and his surroundings and reaches
the apparently trivial conclusion that Crusoes can be found not only on desert
islands (aphorism #52); in its context, however, the message conveyed is that
the individual who separates himself from society risks to be unable to nd a
meaning for his life. It is apparent that at this moment in his life the author
is hesitant between a tendency toward isolating himselfnot only in order
to protest against his dire condition but also in an attempt to re-dene his
own truthand the drive to nd a socially acceptable solution to his status of
pariah, in his immediate surroundings but also outside them (as mentioned
earlier, not only the Jewish parents rejected the mixed marriage, the law of
the country did not allow it either). In spite of the skepticism Shestov began
to manifest toward the moral laws, he was still struggling at the time he wrote
his aphorisms with the question of the meaning of the ethical law: Ought we
not to see in absolute egoism an inalienable and great, yes, very great quality
of human nature? (aphorism #2, in the second part of the book) confronts the
cry for self-renunciation for the sake of the other, only he who has nothing
to sacrice, nothing to lose, having lost everything, can hope to approach the
people as an equal,, expressed in aphorism #61.
Last but not least, I would like to mention the fact that in this book Shestov
stated for the rst time some of the major questions about religion and faith he
will forcefully pose later.
43
Tus, for instance, in aphorism #51, he observes that
nobody has ever been able to understand why God preferred Abels sacrice to
that of Cain. What could be the nature of a God which induces the thought
that there is no justice on earth but there is no justice up above as well? Prog-
ress and civilization did not bring human beings closer to the understanding of
this riddle. Around us, the unanswered questions abound: like our ancestors
we stand still with fright and perplexity before ugliness, disease, misery, senil-
ity, death. Are these remarks meant to address the question related to the na-
ture of God or rather that of the meaning of the good and evil? I mentioned
above another quote that invoked the relationship between God and man; still,
the religious subjects are far from being abundant, not to say preponderant,
at this stage in Shestovs work. Te nature of righteousness is discussed in a
religious context in aphorism # 67, as is that of good and evil. Te conclusion
is that while the good is uncertain, the manifestation of the evil in the world
is obvious and omnipresent: A hawk struck a nightingale, owers withered,
a cold wind froze laughing youthand in terror our question arose. Tat is
evil. Te ancients were right. Not in vain is our earth called a vale of tears and
sorrow . . . (Aphorism #14, second part). Tis emphasis on the concrete, the
real existence of the evil in a world created by a God which is identied with
the good, would also become one of the major themes of Shestovs religious
thought. In a way, this represents a departure from the Jewish tradition which
considers evil a subjective rather than an objective entity. It is not clear, though,
to what extent Shestov was aware of that at this stage. It might be that the idea
was due to an excess of Nietzschean thinking. In any event, such thoughts
did motivate Shestov to read the scriptures; from there, he migrated toward
the authors of the Middle Ages and from them to Luther and to his reaction
to Catholicism (see aphorism #33, second part. Te dispute between Luther
and the Catholic Church was a much discussed subject in Russia, triggered
by the debate between the Westernizers and the Slavophiles). Regardless
though how we interpret this incipient religious thought and independently of
the conclusions we might reach, the fact is that we nd him hinting more and
more at an alternative to metaphysics based on faith. In one of the last apho-
risms of the book (#41, second part) we read that perhaps there is a God and
neither Voltaire nor the metaphysicians have any need to invent Him. Tey, i.e.,
the metaphysicians, never understood that an avowed disbelief in God does
not prove the non-existence of God, but just the opposite.
Te Apotheosis of Groundlessness was the rst book written by Lev Shestov
which, at the time of its apparition in 1905, had a serious impact on the Rus-
sian intellectual milieus. His daughter, Nathalie Barano-Chestov, reproduced
in her biography a few relevant quotations in this direction.
44
While many
of the contemporary readers emphasized the philosophical character of the
booka sign of esteem and appreciation, as by comparison with the status of a
mere literary critic, that of philosopher was incomparably highersome de-
clared themselves puzzled if not upset. Te generation brought up in the spirit
of a positivist thinkingthe rst Russian revolution of the twentieth century
would occur a few months laterwas unhappy with the severe deconstruction
of philosophy and of ethics undertaken by the author. A writer considered very
important at the time found the work too scattered and told Shestov that he
would have expected the order of his works to be just opposite from that of
their chronological appearance: logically he should have progressed from this
confused kind of writing to the more organized one encountered in the books
about Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and Nietzsche to arrive nally at the well ordered
and well thought out piece of work represented by Shakespeare and His Critic
Brandes! However, in spite of the confusion occasioned sometimes, by the time
his next book Beginnings and Ends appeared in 1908, Shestov was already rec-
ognized as one of the most respected Russian thinkers of his generation.
THREE
Penultimate Words
One should accept unintelligibility as the fundamental predicate of being.
A moment comesonly we cannot dene it exactlywhen explanations lose all meaning
and are good for nothing anymore
Leon Shestov, as mentioned above, spent most of his time in Kiev before 1908,
when his fth book Beginnings and Ends appeared in St. Petersburg. His previ-
ous book, Te Apotheosis of Groundlessness, gained him recognition far beyond
the literary circles: famous names in the Russian world of philosophy wrote
about it, among them Berdyaev, Rozanov, Remizov, Bazarov, Zenkowsky, and
Aichenwald. In spite of this public success, Shestov himself was disappointed
and considered that his readers either missed the essential arguments or had a
di cult time accepting both his questions and the proposed solutions, which
were, one must admit, somewhat fuzzy at the time. Te year 1905 was a dif-
cult one in Russia, and the silence of some of his friends, of which Shestov
was bitterly complaining in letters written to his relatives and friends abroad,
might have been motivated by the negative impact of the revolution rather
than by their neglect. To make the message and the meaning of the aphorisms
more transparent, he wrote a long article on Chekhov; in a letter of April 1905,
he recommended to his sister Fanny (Lovtzki) to read this article prior to the
reading of the book as the ideas developed in connection with Chekhovs life
and works would help her understand the seemingly elliptic pronouncements
contained in the Apotheosis.
Te years following the turbulent 1905 were somewhat easier as the parents
moved to Germany before the end of that year; in 1906, following this move,
Shestov succeeded to rid himself of the management of the family business.
He began spending more time abroad with his wife and daughters, and during
the same year they moved in together in a rented house in Freiburg, Germany.
In spite of the fact that he could dedicate now more time to writing, he was
still forced to spend long periods of time in Kiev since during the years 1907
and 1908 (even though he did no longer manage the family business), he was
charged with its transformation into a shareholder company. In fact, till 1910
Lev Shestov still lived a life split between the obligations to the parental family
and those due to his wife and children. As public recognition set in, his interac-
tions with the intellectual circles not only in Kiev but also in Moscow and St.
Petersburg multiplied and to some extent, this alleviated the pain of the sepa-
ration from his wife and children (see chapter V in the rst volume of Nathalie
Barano-Chestovs biography). Te friendship with Remizov and Berdyaev,
which would continue during the exile years, began during this period. With
most of the material ready, Shestov included in his new book an essay about
Chekhov, Creation from the Void, he considered, as we have seen, necessary to
clarify some of the points brought forth in his aphorisms. Tis time his prose
is more conventional, the thoughts presented follow a somewhat linear devel-
opment, and the major ideas are explained clearly and at length. A study on
Dostoevsky, Te Gift of Prophecy, occasioned by the twenty-fth anniversary of
the writers death, completes some of the ideas already exposed previously, but
it insists also on some that were only hinted at before in Te Philosophy of Trag-
edy. However, here older ideas, which were only vaguely mentioned elsewhere,
such as for instance that of Dostoevskys involvement with politics, are further
developed. Penultimate Words, a collection of thoughts, published previously in
the review Russian Tought (Ruskaya Mysl) in 1907, was also included as a
concluding chapter in the new volume. An article in which Shestov was com-
menting Nikolai Berdyaevs article Tragedy and the Everyday, present in the
Russian original was not included in the English translations which appeared
under dierent titles at dierent times.
1
It is not di cult to see why the writings about Chekhov were supposed
to clarify to a large extent some of Shestovs leading ideas; we learn from the
very beginning that this writer who was a poet of the hopelessness
2
had en-
Penultimate Words 49
countered somewhere on his wayas was the case with Tolstoy and Dosto-
evsky (and Nietzsche for that matter)a traumatic, ground shattering experi-
ence which changed him in a fundamental way: following such an existential
event, the author, now attracted to problems which are by their very essence
insoluble,
3
would become an overstrained man (ibid.). Te circular path of
the argumentation is closed through a move back from the circumstances of
the author to the character of his heroes; thus, we learn that the real, the only
hero of Chekhov is the hopeless man. He has absolutely no action left for
him in life, save to beat his head against the stones.
4
However, the discussion
of Chekhovs philosophy leads Shestov to another idea, which would become
central in his later writings: that of the unavoidable need to give in to the in-
exorable laws of nature: with all his soul Chekhov felt the awful dependence
of a living being upon the invisible but invincible and ostentatiously soulless
laws of nature.
5
I will end this very brief review of Chekhovs presentation
in Beginnings and Endings by remarking that for Shestov the only way out
of this trap was to disregard the laws of nature in their logical structures and
deny their meaning for the existential experience of the individual. Te reader
cannot miss the fact that almost everything Shestov wrote about Chekhov
during the rst decade of the twentieth century would be applicable to Kafka
as well some twenty years later. At the same time, a reader familiar with con-
temporary philosophy might react to Shestovs ideas in a way similar to that of
A. J. Ayer, who in his Metaphysics and Common Sensein connection with the
obsessive preoccupation with death of some existentialist philosophersasked
ironically, . . . granting that most of us do not live sub specie mortis, is it all clear
that we should?
6
In the chapter on Dostoevsky one nds references to his implication
with politics and the Slavophil ideas. Tis was an issue left out previously by
Shestov in his works on the writer, mainly because of the di culty it con-
tained: toward the end of his life, Dostoevsky became strongly engaged in the
discussion concerning the relationship between the Slavic-Orthodox ethos and
the external, foreign Western culture, passionately debated within the Russian
intellectual circles. Dostoevsky clearly sided with the most conservative branch
of the Russian nationalist intelligentsia in a dispute that began in the aftermath
of the Napoleonic wars already. As it will happen with many of the writers of
the next century, Dostoevskys political views were very far apart from his deep
philosophical insights. Shestov who was aware of this fact had a problem from
the very beginning with him, and the di culty became even more acute when
he promoted the author of Te Demons and Karamazov Brothers to the rank of
a philosopher of a comparable stature with that of Nietzsche; arrived at that
point, Shestov could not avoid any longer the confrontation with the subject
of Dostoevskys political biases. Surprisingly (or not) Shestov would cut this
Gordian knot in a way which does not leave any space for doubt: Dostoevsky
understands nothing, absolutely nothing about politics, and moreover, he has
nothing at all to do with politics (my emphasis) and this, in spite of the fact that
he sang paeans, made protests, uttered absurditiesand worse than absurdi-
ties.
7
As interesting as this statement might seem in the context of the dis-
cussion of the political engagements of some of the prominent existential(ist)
thinkers and writers of the twentieth century, I will not insist on it here. Te
discussion would be too long and would take us too far away. More important
is another related idea, which would be developed by Shestov during his post-
WW I Parisian exile period: that of the deep, irreconcilable rift between logical
inferences and rational reection about religious matters (which for him meant
faith and God only) and the knowledge obtained through a direct involvement,
an unmediated grasp of revealed messages.
Dostoevsky did speak sometimes as a prophet but he knew, says Shestov,
that he was no prophet. He uttered statements that seemed connected with
events occurring around him, but in fact they were either weak and unfounded
or beside the point. He was in good company: neither Tolstoy nor Goethe
seemed to have understood the meaning and the importance of the revolutions
that unfolded under their eyes. How can such a thing happen? Te explana-
tion to this strange behavior might be found perhaps in the fact that they saw
something else, something which might be even more necessary and more
important.
8
Dostoevsky wanted to achieve something more necessary and far
more important than the mere implementation of insignicant (in his views)
political reforms; he was eager to bring to the people the message of faith, to
strengthen their belief in what was revealed to them; he opposed their tenden-
cy to rely on concepts understood through their logical reasoning, on ideas and
ideals born from their poor inferences from philosophical texts and learned
commentaries of the scriptures. Indeed, some of his contemporariesSolovy-
ov among thembelieved that Dostoevsky was a prophet; Shestov, however,
did not agree with Solovyov and replaced his pronouncement with a quite
dierent one, which led him to the (quite harsh) conclusion that Dostoevsky
remained (his entire life) on the eve of a great truth.
9
He was engaged with
the Eastern Orthodoxy rather than with a true Christian faith which proved
to be too demanding, too di cult to really follow and implement. Shestovs
claim, based apparently upon the interpretation of the literary output of the
great Russian writer, has in fact its roots in his own, personal experience: it
must be confessed, he writes, that one cannot nd in the whole literature
a single man who is prepared to accept the Gospel as a whole, without in-
terpretation. By replacing the word Gospel with the Old Testament, Dosto-
evskys truth becomes that of Shestov. His later interpretations concerning
the essence of Judaism would be based to a large extent on this conclusion; my
inference is sustained and re-enforced by another statement he made about
Dostoevsky: he was, Shestov writes, afraid to accept the Gospel as the foun-
dation of knowledge, and relied much more on (his) reason and experience
of life than upon the words of Christ. Again, if Gospel and Christ in the last
quotation are replaced by Scriptures and God, respectively, Shestovs statement
is transformed into a general pronouncement concerning the human condition
in the Western, Judeo-Christian civilization. I am going to substantiate this
idea of the transfer of values based on a deep aective mechanism of projec-
tions of existential experienced as essential in the establishment of Shestovs
religious thought and his interpretation of the relationship between Judaism
and Christianity.
Te title of the philosophical section of the book under discussion, De
omnibus dubitandum, expresses very well the position Shestov held toward
the questions raised by his own doubts. He was seeking answers to questions
which he posed in unusual ways, either in the realm of literary criticism or in
that of philosophy. He rejected many conventional ideas, but in fact he had
few answers. From the dense fog of this deconstruction, some new ideas began
to surface, however. It is very interesting to notice who are the philosophers
frequented by Shestov at the time of the writing of Beginnings and Ends, be-
sides Nietzsche and the Greeks. Already in the rst section we encounter the
names of Hegel, Descartes, Spencer, two English anthropologists, and a con-
temporary German professor of philosophy, Friedrich Paulsen, who died the
same year the book appeared in Russia. Te Cartesian rule is applied to Hegels
statement about history representing the unfolding of the spirit in the real
world on which the idea of progress is, in fact, based. Shestov takes issue with
the idea that modern man must admit the concept of progress; he doubts that
the savages of ancient times were, from a spiritual point of view, inferior to his
own contemporaries (many years later Benjamin Fondane, his disciple, would
try to substantiate this idea based on the anthropological works of Levy-Bruhl;
see the chapter on the disciple, further down). Following this line of argumen-
tation and re-enforced by his reasoning concerning the works of the men-
tioned Russian authors and those of Nietzsche, Shestov forcefully argues that
our morality, based on religion, prevents us from dashing toward eternity.
Here eternity must be understood as being somehow synonymous with faith;
only those who believe in God (and not just in a morality guaranteed by Him)
will be able to reach spiritual high grounds. Te corollary of this reection is
another very interesting image proposed by Shestov, that of an idea of progress
represented as a line perpendicular to the timeline of history: perhaps, and
most probably, there is development, but the direction of this development is
in a line perpendicular to the line of time he wrote. An indication of the pos-
sibility of a renewal of the act of prophecy in modern times is hinted at when
Shestov adds the remark that the base of the perpendicular may be any human
personality.
10
In his previous work Te Apotheosis of Groundlessness, we have encountered
the idea that the root of all our philosophies lies, not in our objective observa-
tions but in the demands of our own heart, in the subjective
11
; now he refor-
mulates the same idea in a way that leads to another opening, in the direction
of a body of philosophical pronouncements that can accept the contradiction
and the paradox in the most natural way: philosophy is the teaching of truths
which are binding on none.
12
Spinoza is invoked here, as Shestov struggles to
liberate himself from the constraints of a strictly rational approach to philoso-
phy and God. [Spinoza] . . . kept his passions in subservience, but that was
his personal and individual inclination. Consistence was not merely a property
of his mind, but of his whole being,
13
writes Shestov (as we have seen in the
introductory chapter, in his next book, to be published a few years later, we will
discover a changed attitude toward the Dutch philosopher: Spinoza thought
that God himself was bound by necessity.
14
Among the modern philosophers,
Schopenhauer is mentioned in this book several times: Shestov rejects his refu-
tation of the idea of the immortality of the soul and uses this issue to launch
a discussion about the meaning of the notion of belief in the context of the
dogmatic thinking. However, the dogmatism of the philosophers or that of the
scientists (yes, scientists too can be dogmatic!) is not to be confused with the
Dogma of the Church (a thorough discussion of which would be taken up a
few years later by Shestov in Sola Fide). Belief, which has to do with the ways
in which we achieve and/or manifest faith, is not yet distinguished from faith
(as pure interaction with God) at this point. Shestov is ready to grant the dog-
matic thinkers the right to remain attached to their ideas and principles if they
concede that their convictions must not be absolutely and universally binding
. . . upon the whole of mankind without exception.
15
Temes related to the domains of what is philosophy? and what is truth?
are dominant in the book, in spite of the repeated incursions into the works
and the worlds of Ibsen, Heinrich Heine, or Gogol. However, even under the
title What Is philosophy? one nds more answers addressing the questions of
why philosophy? and dissertations around the subject of why one should not
have a too great hope in its promises. Philosophical reection is always con-
sidered with a grain (at least) of irony: Men used to philosophy, like Schopen-
hauer, walk boldly and with condence in a dark room, though they run away
from gun shots or even less dangerous things.
16
Te eort to acquire wisdom
seems to be disproportionately large compared with the worth of the enterprise.
It was as hard for Napoleon to master philosophy as it was for Charlemagne
at the end of days to learn to write; why would one submit himself to such an
ordeal if by far, the academic philosophy is not the last, nor even the penulti-
mate word.
17
Yet, in spite of this overall negative attitude, Shestov discusses
certain ideas, concepts, and philosophical mental constructs belonging to the
domain of epistemology and metaphysics in detail and analyzes with great care
their implications for the human existence. Surprisingly perhaps, he disagrees
with the skeptics who claim that truth does not exist. Truth exists, but we do
not know it in all its volume, he writes. Tis approach seems to represent an
almost Kantian position but to dissipate any confusion Shestov immediately
observes, nor can we formulate that which we do know
18
bringing thus forth
an idea that would have certainly been strange to Kant. He adds also that we
cannot know why it happened thus and not otherwise, or whether that which
happened had to happen thus (ibid.). Tis last observation opens the road to
the presence of God who is the only one to decide not only that things might
happen in various, unpredictable ways, but also that something which has been
done can be undone by Him.
Tere is another important observation Shestov makes in connection with
knowledge and truth in this early work: we do not disbelieve in miracles (just)
because they are impossible.
19
Trough the interpretation of experienced
events, by judging facts a posteriori, we may infer the possibility of the miracle;
the logical di culty consists in the fact that the existence of a miracle at a giv-
en moment does not lead to the conclusion that another miracle may happen
at a later time. Our rational way of thinking does not preclude the possibility of
the miraculous event; it only rejects the necessity of the miracle. Shestov mixes
the rational with the aective when in his chain of inferences he introduces
a psychological argument: human beings can project in the future with ease
that which they do not care too much about, but they do not do the same with
regard to something very close and dear to them: It costs nothing to believe
in the nal triumph of good upon the earth . . . for after all, men are quite suf-
ciently indierent to good . . . , but it is much harder, nay quite impossible,
standing before the dead body of one who is near and dear, to believe that an
angel will y down from heaven and bring the dead to life again (ibid.).
Te last part of the chapter Penultimate Words is dedicated to the problem
of the communication of the truth and to the relationship between I and
Tou (approached in a completely dierent manner from that of Buber in his
discussion of this doublet). Shestov makes the interesting observation that
perhaps the need for communication with the neighbor precludes the possibil-
ity of knowing the truth since in this act one must trade truth for some sort of
a conventional lie which makes the communication possible. Te distinction is
made therefore between the universal, absolute unchangeable truth and a rela-
tive, historical one. However, Shestov adds to this well known distinction made
often by philosophers before and after him, a very peculiar idea: one may know
in himself a truth and still be unable to state it explicitly. It is not certain that
such a truth has to be an absolute or universal truth; it is just that it possesses a
property of incommunicable certainty. A corollary of this thought is that a recog-
nized truth does not need to be made explicit: In yourself, if you have no one
to answer, you know well what the truth is.
20
Shestovs early epistemological
theory (if such a thing exists at all) would thus be based on the inferences that
since truth is not identical with empirical truth, science, which concentrates
on the second, cannot be the ultimate word when we come to discuss truth.
Te follow-up of this thought is that for this reason, the tendency to discredit
scientic knowledge is by no means as reprehensible as it might appear at rst
sight to the inexperienced eye (ibid.). For the same reason, he adds, irony and
sarcasm are necessary tools in the investigation of truth. Of course, all these do
not preclude the use of logic and the recognition of its usefulness: Certainly,
while logic can be useful, it would be unjustiable recklessness to refuse its
services.
21
Tose who along the years accused Shestov of irrationalism and
refusal of logical thinking did not pay attention to his own position on these
matters. Ultimately, at the core of Shestovs epistemology one nds the need to
integrate the aective with the logical, rational approach to things and ideas.
In the last section of the book, entitled I and Tough, Shestov makes ex-
plicit his interpretation of the concepts of soul and spirit in the context of the
discussion of the mechanism that facilitates the dialogue. When we look into
another persons soul, we only see a vast, empty, black abyss, he writes; the
soul of the other remains as invisible to us as before, we can only guess at it.
22

Te frustration generated by the realization that it is hard to penetrate the
alterity leads to some sort of a solipsism, why seek the soul of another person
when you have not seen your own? (ibid.). Psychology does not teach about a
soul but only about certain spiritual states (or states of consciousness as we would
prefer to call them today). On the other hand, perhaps only when the soul is
frightened by the proximity of the other, he becomes visible; a quick, direct
approach may catch it unprepared, and, as a result, he may not have time to
disappear. Ten perhaps, in the depth of the dark abyss something might
be found, but this something will certainly not be a universal truth: never
mind, will say Shestov, the important thing is that the contact has been made.
Moreover, as if he were surprised by the price at which the dialogue is made
possible, he concludes resigned: We must nd a way to escape from the power
of every kind of truth.
23
Bernard Martin, the American editor of Lev Shestovs works, included at
the end of the volume containing Te Apotheosis of Groundlessness (translated as
All Tings Are Possible) and Beginnings and Endings (translated as Penultimate
Words), a collection of scattered thoughts entitled Te Teory of Knowledge ex-
tracted from the book Te Great Vigils to appear a few years later (this would be
Shestovs last book published before WW I). Te choice is easily understand-
able as this essay represents to some extent a summary of Shestovs early philo-
sophical thinking. In this piece, a more mature, more focused author brings
forth new issues while presenting in parallel at the same time new insights on
many of the previously discussed subjects. Te pronouncement on both old and
new themes remains as bold as ever: philosophy must change in radical ways
and the (new) philosopher should not be a teacherhis teaching being neces-
sarily subjective, lacking any universal character. Already in Te Apotheosis of
the Groundlessness Shestov asked philosophers to invent their own truths; now,
he does not want anymore to be a philosopher at all, with or without truths
stued in his bag. Years later, in Paris he tells his disciple Fondane that neither
does he intend to become his teacher nor should Fondane consider himself a
disciple because a philosopher has quite a dierent task, one which does not
in the least resemble teaching.
24
In this later chapter the reader nds names of philosophers and philo-
sophical systems and trends never or only rarely mentioned in previous works
(such as Stuart Mill, Fichte, and even Marx). In addition, classical philosoph-
ical concepts such as that of metaphysics are carefully re-dened and used
to replace the rejected categories of the old philosophy. New ideas become
prominent, one might even say dominant: among them that of ultimate truth,
with which we can enter into communication only when the allegiance toward
logical thinking had ceased, for ultimate truths are absolutely unintelligible.
25

More importantly, as a result of the use of such a new and radical method, we
should accept unintelligibility as the fundamental predicate of being.
26
Tis
statement would become one of the main postulates of Shestovian existential
thinking. It is not that a Supreme Being decided to hide things from us and
made them unintelligible; it is not that after millions of years, the ape brain
developed to a much larger extent. It is axiomatic for Shestov that a moment
comesonly we cannot dene it exactlywhen explanations lose all meaning
and are good for nothing anymore (ibid.).
Te concept of awakening together with that of the man of insight are de-
ned clearly for the rst time in this chapter: Shestov introduces in this con-
text the notion of the problematic role the tree of knowledge of good and evil
played in the biblical story and continues to play to this very day, a theme to
become another major construct in his latter works: the apple of the tree of
knowledge of good and evil, has become to him (the philosopher) the sole
purpose of life, even though the path to it should lie through extreme suf-
fering.
27
However, the man of insight, the new philosopher, the seeker of the
metasophia understands that what he valued, that what was supposed to oer
him meaning and happiness is only exposing him to further suering. He is
awakening but is not there yet; he begins to sense that the truth is arrived at is
a ready made one, and he wants to replace it without having a clear idea about
the nature of the substitution or that of the replacement. Tat is the context in
which Shestov brings up, somewhat timidly but explicitly, however, the story
of the Fall: Practically, the same story is told in the Bible. What indeed was
lacking to Adam? He lived in paradise, in direct proximity to God, from whom
he could learn anything he wanted. And yet it did not suit him.
28
Was Adam a
man of insight? Not yet, as he still needed the shock brought upon him by the
moment of the tasting from the apple of the Tree of Knowledge. It is interest-
ing to observe that Shestovs interpretation of the story and the conclusions
he draws from it are based on the Jewish way of telling the story but not on its
traditional interpretation: as Adam plucked the apple from the forbidden tree
. . . the truth, which until the creation of the world and man had been one,
split and broke with a great, perhaps an innitely great, number of most diverse
truths, eternally being born and eternally dying. To this description, he adds
the observation that during the seventh day of creation, unrecorded in history,
man became Gods collaborator. At rst sight, it seems that Shestov implies
that a special status is conferred upon the seventh day by the fact that during
it man became a collaborator of God that is, a creator in himself. Te ambigu-
ity Shestov introduces through this interpretation makes it di cult to decide
to which tradition, Jewish or Christian, one should assign it. Tis ambiguity
would often emerge in his future utterances. Te fact that man is helping God
to make the world better is certainly an idea promoted by Judaism (and in the
Lurianic Cabbala, it becomes a central issue); on the other hand, by assigning
man the quality of creator, he introduces an immanence which is strange to
the absolute transcendent character of the God described in the Old Testa-
ment (but not to certain Christian theologians; see for instance Shestovs op-
position to Berdyaevs theandric ideas, to be discussed later).
Te conclusion of the above is that by the end of the rst decade of the
new century, Lev Shestov was already a thinker with a fairly well dened welt-
anschauung. Was he an existential philosopher, or in his own terms an awoken
one, a man of insight, or rather a thinker who lost condence in his former
philosophical beliefs and was thus more and more inclined toward faith and a
religious discourse? Te answer to this question is not easy; what seems to be
certain is that at this juncture he adopted the view that a traumatic event in the
life of a thinker canand in most cases willchange radically his ways and
his ability to understand reality. Shestov spent a signicant amount of intel-
lectual energy to identify such moments in the lives and the writings of a large
number of authors from Tolstoy to Dostoevsky, Turgenev to Chekhov, Heine
to Ibsen. Nietzsche was also a paradigmatic gure in this sense and to him he
would add later Pascal, Luther, and Kierkegaard. It is important to note that
in this unique work of psycho-archeology, he was solely guided by his own
feelings and his own experience.
What he discovered was that philosophy had to be re-dened. First of all, in
order to remain relevant, it had to be able to accommodate those troubled souls
which were not interested in nding consolation to their predicaments simply
because they reached the point at which their souls could not be pacied any
longer. What is important to remember is that Shestov did not consider such
lost souls as mere exceptions or insignicant minorities among the common
mortals; moreover, even if that would have been the case, one should always
keep in mind that virtually anybody, at anytime, might enter this abyss and get
trapped in the underground. How is this trapped human being supposed to
cope with his personal tragedy? While Shestov did not deny the right of the
normal philosophy to exist, he claimed in an already quoted fragment from
Beginnings and Endings the right to establish a new way of thinking which
should live by sarcasm, irony, alarm, struggles, despair and which should allow
itself contemplation and quietude only from time to time, as a relaxation.
It seems that ontology was not too much on Shestovs mind at the time:
he does not ask questions about the nature of Being; he seems to be only con-
cerned with the meaning of Truth. His epistemology was also a quite peculiar
one not being based on a string of logical inferences, even though it certainly
did not reject logic itself. What is denied is the right of rational thinking to
dene every and all possible truths. Man has to retain the possibility to under-
stand the word in terms of subjective truths and not be limited to a knowledge
based exclusively on objective statements that can withstand either experimen-
tal or logical proof. It must be acceptable to speak of eternal hesitation and of
temporality of the thought, he claimed (in aphorism #114 of Te Apotheosis
of groundlessness); with this gap closed, it was only a small step to the admis-
sion of the possibility of supernatural interference in the course of the events
would cause logic to lose its certainty and the inevitability of its conclusions
(see aphorism #121). Here we are clearly on a ground dierent from that of
a philosophy built entirely on rational inference; deus ex machina is hinted at,
but it is does not represent yet the exclusive grounding of Shestovs sui generis
epistemology.
If the interference between the philosophical and the religious thinking
becomes more and more evident in Shestovs writings at this time, it is not
quite clear in which port of the monotheistic religions will he anchor his re-
ligious thoughts. One cannot help asking whether he does create deliberately
this ambiguity. Is he just pragmatic and straightforward when he presents his
thoughts in a language familiar to the potential reader? Does he try to hide his
Jewish origins, or does he want to go a step further even and deny them? As
with the questions posed in the philosophical realm, here too, it is hard to avoid
the conclusion that up to this point in his evolution the answers to these ques-
tions remain uncertain. It is obvious that in his analysis and his interpretations
Shestov prefers to use examples taken often from the New Testament but as
I said already, one might argue that this is mainly because the authors whom
he writes about and the public he writes for, are to a large extent, Christians.
Te end of the book on Tolstoy and Nietzsche seems to imply a very strong
religious engagement; however, his mentioning of Nietzsche in this context
Nietzsche has shown us the waymakes it di cult for the reader to identify
the object of the authors belief; it might be as well Christ or Yahweh or for that
matter, Zarathustra. When he continues and writes, we must seek that which
is higher than compassion, higher than the good; we must seek God, it is still
impossible to decide whether this is the God he would so often invoke later,
the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob. When in the Philosophy of Tragedy
he wrote that all moralists have considered it necessary to make God himself
the patron of good, or even, as in the case of count Tolstoy, to identify God
with good, Shestov was taking issue with the moralists and with Tolstoy rather
than stating the absolute transcendence of God. View the fact that the Jewish
tradition assumes both that God is good and transcendental, the God he refers
to at this stage might not be after all He who gave Moses the Law, the God
of the Covenant. In the Apotheosis, we have seen that God was invoked rather
as a guarantor of the authors bold philosophical ideas: if there is God, and
all men are children of God, we should be afraid of nothing and spare noth-
ing. Te idea, which contains intimations of Pagan thinking, that in ancient
times men had a dierent relationship with the Divinity appears in some of
Shestovs early statements; however, the fact was mentioned at that stage not as
an important issue in itself but rather to criticize the wrong turn Christianity
took, in his view, when it degenerated into morality (see the quotation about
Luther in aphorism #109). Finally, when Shestov added in a purely aphoristic
style that an avowed disbelief in God does not prove the non-existence of
God, but just the opposite, he did not bother to explain why that would be the
case. He simply continued his thought to enounce an even stranger statement:
it is the surest sign of faith . . . !? (Aphorism #41, part two).
FOUR
Sola Fide
He who did not know Aristotle, could look for the truth anywhere.
Reality does not need to be conrmed by reason, that the role of the latter is not to com-
mand but to obey, that his power has a limit; what reason might consider to be impossible
may be possible.
Te period between 1910 and 1914 was a very important one in the life of
Lev Shestov. At the beginning of the spring of 1910, he left Russia to es-
tablish himself with the family in Coppet, a small town on Lake Leman in
Switzerland. For the rst time since he got married, a father of two daughters
13 and 10 years old by now, Shestovwho still, at the age of 44, had to keep
the marriage secret from both his parentshad the occasion to move in and
live with his own family on a more or less permanent basis. Te parents lived
now in Germany, and the family business was taken care of in Kiev by one of
Shestovs brothers and a brother-in-law. Just before he left Russia, he worked
intensively on Ibsen: he wrote an article on the Scandinavian playwright en-
titled Victories and Defeats: Te Life and the Work of Henrik Ibsen, pub-
lished in Moscow in April the same year, and within a month he would deliver
three lectures on him in Kiev, Moscow, and St. Petersburg. Why did Shestov
get interested in Ibsen now that he distanced himself from the belief that the
stories told by writers can provide the key to the way out of the labyrinth? Te
answer lies perhaps in an observation made by a friend who visited him a year
later in Coppet. Evghenia Herzyg a long-time friend from the old Russian
years, remembers Shestov telling her that Ibsen was constantly obsessed by
the thought that the worst thing that might happen to a man was to abandon
the beloved woman for a cause or for an abstract idea. To give up ones love
means to give up life; more than that, it means to give up something that is
more profound than the meaning of ones life.
1
Tis observation might explain
also why Shestov felt that he must come and establish himself in Coppet with
his wife and daughters. However, not only Ibsen was on Shestovs mind before
he left Russia; he felt that he had to accomplish another very important task
before leaving to go and visit Tolstoy at Iasnaa Poliana. Visiting Tolstoy had
been a dream of his since the times he published the book on Tolstoy and Ni-
etzsche. His wish was granted when on March 2 the old master received him.
Te meeting did not go too well however: Tolstoy was not impressed, and the
note jolted down in his journal is not a attering one for Shestov.
2
Neither was
Shestov very happy with the way things worked out; still, when the old master
died six months later, Shestov was very depressed by the news.
Life in Coppet promised to be good, and Shestov was working hard: be-
fore leaving, a publisher in Russia oered to print in a series of six volumes
his complete works. To the article on Ibsen he added one on William James
(who died also in 1910) written later during the same year; Te Logic of Reli-
gious Creation: To the Memory of William James and a few other articles and
aphorisms written during the previous years to be included all in the rst vol-
ume of the series entitled Great Vigils.
3
By now Shestov was an accomplished
and recognized author: in May 1911 a book in which Shestovs philosophy is
analyzed together with the works of Rozanov and Merejkovski was published
in Moscow. People, relatives, friends were coming to visit him often in Cop-
pet; his wife obtained her MD license in Paris, and it seems that his personal
life, his social life, and his family reached a state of serene equilibrium at this
point. Still, E. Herzyg notes in her diaries that she never saw Shestov as sad
as during her visit to Coppet in 1911.
4
He was preoccupied by the uncertainty
of his own situation, as if a menace were looming at the horizonbeyond the
tranquil appearances. Indeed, during the winter of 1912 he had to go again to
Kiev to take care of the family and of some business matters. More than any-
thing else, though, his thoughts troubled him. Te same Ms. Herzyg met him
again in Switzerland in April 1912 and this time Shestov told her that for the
last two years he had been reading with an avid interest the medieval mystics
Sola Fide 61
and in particular young Luther, who appears not just to have been a religious
reformer but a tragic spirit, reminding him very much of Nietzsche and of. . .
himself! He confessed also to the passionate reading of the Bible and added
at some point during the conversation that he considered his new mission to
consist of the unveiling of the wrongs of Voltaires mischievous thinking. Ap-
parently, he was ready to sum up these ideas by the time he began writing Sola
Fide at the end of 1913.
In a letter to Hermann Lovtzky written in December 1913, I am pro-
gressing gently-slowly; I already nished the part about Plato. When I return
from Paris, I will move to Aristotle . . . I did well not to hurry and to have
worked thoroughly on the Greeks and the medieval thinkers.
5
In Paris he met
an old acquaintance, Gustav Shpet, whom he knew from Kiev. Shpet, born in
1879, studied philosophy rst in Kiev and then, in 1907, followed his teacher
George Shelpanov to Moscow where he continued his studies and worked
in the psychology institute established there by the professor. Very active and
always open to new ideas, Shpet went to visit various Western European uni-
versities, among them Gttingen, where he met Edmund Husserl. He spent
the academic year 191213 in Germany studying with Husserl and that is how
the meeting in Paris in December 1913 was made possible. We know, however,
that already in 1911 they began a correspondence, which continued later on, in
Russia.
6
Meanwhile, in Paris the two are philosophizing a bit as Shestov puts
it in a letter to the same Lovtzky. One must imagine that the philosophical
exchange between the two had to do quite a bit with Husserls phenomenol-
ogy. It is interesting to observe that these discussions about phenomenology
and the achievements of a philosophy which was to be anchored in the strictest
rigors of rationality was held in parallel with the above mentioned preoccupa-
tion with the religious thinking of the medieval mystics and Luther.
Shestov, however, is much more preoccupied with the ideas left in suspen-
sion before he left for Paris than with Husserls phenomenology; he writes to
Joseph Pohle, professor in Breslau and the author of a treatise entitled Lehrbuch
der Dogmatik, to inquire about recent uses by the Catholic Church of the con-
cept of potestas clavium. A month later, back in Coppet, he asks Lovtzky to
send him Luthers Commentaries to the Letters of St. Paul to the Romans. He read
and wrote incessantly; by the time Shestov decided, after the death of the fa-
ther, to return to Russia in July 1914, a large volume of written documents had
already been assembled. Sola Fide was to comprise not only the essay on Luther
and the Church (as it appeared in 1957 in the rst French translation) but also
a section on Dostoevsky and Tolstoy (to appear later separately under the title
Te Revelations of Death).
7
Sola Fide is on the surface a book about Luther and faith, but in fact it
is much more than that: the text is summing up the results of an interfer-
ence process between Shestovs eorts toward the deconstruction of the basic
principles of a philosophy built upon the absolute rights of rational reasoning
and his search for a meta-sophia based on faith in an absolute Transcendental
(granted, not clearly dened yetas we have seenin his own mind). Even
though chronologically Sola Fide was written before the essay on Husserls
phenomenology, entitled Memento Mori, the two works should not be sepa-
rated not only because the thoughts included in them took shape probably and
evolved simultaneously in their authors mind but also because the arguments
used in them are sometimes intertwined. When in the last chapter of Sola Fide
Shestov writes that for somebody in search of the Truth, universal truths are
irrelevant (pour celui qui cherche la Vrit la reconnaissance gnrale est sans
valeur
8
), he not only uses a statement which belongs to religious thought but
takes issue as well with concepts belonging clearly to the realm of philosophy.
What is really new in Sola Fide when compared with Shestovs previous
works? Is this nally a book about religion, about God? Te title seems to
contain already an allusion: faith, as a possible alternative to a total identica-
tion with the ways of rational thinking, was already hinted at in books written
prior to 1914. In this new work however (interestingly enough never published
during the authors life), Shestov moves closer to according faith a central role
in his thought while at the same time he tries to dene the specics of a cer-
tain kind of faith. He proposes an idealized, pristine, original Christianity, un-
tainted by Greek philosophy and not too far remote from biblical Judaism, a
gment of his own imagination, a result of an unconscious, perhaps wishful
thinking. In spite of the hint implied in the title of the book, it is hard to see
why Shestov chose Luther, who was, after all, a reformer rather than an inno-
vator in religious matters, to play this central role. Aware probably of the as-
tonishment of the prospective reader, the author of Sola Fide hurried to explain
in the rst two chapters of the book his reasoning: a deep, subterranean link
between Dostoevskys and Tolstoys religious thinking and that of the reformer
of the Church was discovered by him during the lecture of the works of young
Luther! Indeed, writes Shestov, in Te Legend of the Grand Inquisitor one nds
all the turmoil and the storms invading young Luthers soul; as for Tolstoy, the
things are even more transparent since in all his worksas it will be shown
in the chapter on the Revelations of the Death (transformed as said previously
into an independent book)one nds the same exact ideas as in Luther (nous
trouvons les mmes ides que chez Luther).
9
From the onset Shestov approached in the most direct way the idea which
would become his main argument in the book: mankind can be saved by faith
and by faith only, this was the message Luther extracted from the Catholic
Sola Fide 63
Church (Lhomme est sauv par la foi et par la foi seule, voila la bonne nou-
velle que Luther arracha leglise catholique).
10
By modifying the original
version of St. Pauls message in Romans 3:28, For our argument is that man is
justied by faith quite apart from success in keeping the law, Luther found the
answer to the questions which tormented him: what if there were not be a Last
Judgment? What would happen to him? Would his soul be saved? By faith
only man is saved; the ambiguity of the statement disappears when Shestov re-
minds the reader that Luther, in order to make clear his point, went as far as to
declare the apocryphal St. James Letter, which claimed that a faith not applied
to proper action, is worthless. Te emphasis on the idea that man can be saved
by faith alone is strange. However, we remember that Shestov was in search
of a solution valid for the trapped individual, not for man in general or for
mankind; besides, at a rst consideration the statement quoted above sounds
somewhat dogmatic, out of line with Shestovs thinking as manifested in his
previous works (although not in disagreement with what one would expect
from a religious reformer such as Luther). In order to clarify his ideas, after
submitting his postulate, Shestov set out for a comprehensive analysis of the
history of Christianity, from its origins and the controversies which haunted
it during the pre-Nicaean period till modern times. A critical analysis of the
Christian faith based on ideas born from his original interpretations of Tolstoy,
Dostoevsky, and Nietzsche is applied in the context of the disputes between
the Founding fathers of the Catholic Church and their followers. From this
dialectical oscillations, through a subtle maieutic process, Shestov distilled his
new ideas about the link between the individual trapped in the underground
and a new vision of faith that has the potentialif not to redeem himat
least to oer some hope. I will briey and somewhat selectively illustrate this
process, as not only the beginning and the ends of the argumentation are of
interest; the dynamics of the unfolding of one theme from another, apparently
unrelated at the onset, is very interesting in itself and teaches quite a bit about
the development of Shestovs religious ideas.
Trough the discussion of the rift between St. Augustine and the Pelagian
movement, the author will illustrate the weakness of the rational approach in
the realm of theology. Shestov points out that both St. Augustine and Pelagius
and his followers read the same Scriptures and believed in the same God and
still they arrived at radically opposite views when they came to decide about
the basic tenets of their faith. Te issue under discussion was that of sin, sinful-
ness, and the role of this concept in the struggle to achieve faith: St. Augustine
held the opinion that the road to faith passed through sin (and Shestov was
careful to point out several times that this statement was based on Augustines
personal experiences before he became a Christian) while his opponent was
of the opinion that sin can be avoided and faith can be reached through a
dedicated, ascetical life guided by the meaning of the Scriptures as uncovered
by our rational thinking (here again Shestov takes care to remind the reader
that Harnack was explicitly talking in his books
11
about the rationalism of
the followers of Pelagius). Tis contradiction had in turn an eect on the
meaning of another key conceptthat of graceand its role in the process
of salvation. When Pelagius says that the good and the evil do not come into
being with us but are brought forth by human beings, he speaks the language
of Socrates, writes Shestov (and he could have added as well that of the Jewish
sages too). Te doctrine of the Pelagians, he writes, is based on two basic tenets,
the rst having been elaborated by Socrates and adopted by all his disciples,
Plato, Aristotle and the Stoics and retained after-all even by the Neoplatonics,
and this is the rule which posits the principles of the good (les norms du bien)
above God and not vice versa.
12
Tis is one of the rst insinuations concern-
ing the inuence of the Greek philosophy with its heavy bent toward rational
thinking on the development of the early Christian theology. However, at this
point Shestov is still undecided: taking issue with Harnacks position toward
the excessive rationality of the Pelagian heresy he writes, surprisingly, that
rationalism does not exclude a religious attitude. One may believe in God,
one might love God and think that one can accede to the revealed truths by
means of rational thinking (again, one may wonder if he gave a thought to the
rationalist bent of the Jewish Mishna and Talmud). In addition, he observes
that faith knows more that reason, it is above-reason (supra-rationelle) not
against-reason (anti-rationelle).
13
Tese statements are very important for a
proper understanding of the evolution of Lev Shestovs philosophical and reli-
gious thinking. However, while his mind was open, his heart was already on St.
Augustines side; he ended the chapter which discussed the mentioned dispute,
by writing the thief on the Cross was closer to the true belief than the virtuous
monk Pelagius or the honest professor Harnack.
Next, Shestov brought into discussion the role of the contradiction and
the paradox in the establishment of the Christian dogma. Catholic theology
was very much inuenced by the Greek thought which during his long history
learned to live with the contradiction in his philosophical thinking. Certainly,
Catholic thinking had to cope with the problem of transgressing the bound-
aries of logic and from the fusion between the Scriptures and the principles
of the Greek philosophy it created a dogma stronger even than the Hellenic
thinking. However, observes Shestov, Catholicism proved to be more coherent
and more logical than those from whom it inherited logic and coherence.
14

During the next step, the transfer of the dogma to the Church, the latter be-
came an absolute ruler that conferred to its elites, the Pope and those around
Sola Fide 65
him, the power of the keys (potestas clavium). Tat is how Shestov introduced
this idea that would become very important in his later thinking. Te power
of the keys is the power held by those who not only have convinced everybody
that there is a way to be followed but also that they have the roadmap and the
keys to open the gate to this road. From this moment on within the Church
of Christ authority is placed above the Scriptures; the power of the keys be-
comes absolute power in religious matters. God even is limited by this power.
After this digression, Shestov returns to St. Augustine. He postulates that
Augustine had always been and remained even after his conversion a faithful
disciple of Plotinus, the thinker who transmitted to the western Christian the-
ology his neo-platonic ideas. However, Plotinus could not soothe the troubled
spirit of Augustine because in spite of the thorough cleaning work of Aristotle,
residual traces of unstable and troublesome ways of thinking inherited from
Plato were all too prominent in the neo-platonic philosophers works. Unlike
Plato, Plotinus did not sanction the eternity of the ideas and did not believe
that the well organized ways of logical thinking could help nd a communica-
tion with the transcendental realm. Still, he did not go as far as to recognize
that the truth revealed in the process of communication with the Divine can-
not be in any ways accommodated by a system of thought governed by logic,
that is that it cannot be explained in terms of sentences having a universal value
which cannot accept internal contradiction. Tis is how Shestov interprets
Plotinus, and it is certain that one can nd quotations from Plotinuss writings
which would be in agreement with this interpretation; still, it seems that here,
as well in the later writings about Plotinus, there are frequent statements that
resonate with Shestovian postulates rather than resemble conclusions drawn
from the words of the philosopher who claimed to have had established oc-
casional contacts with the One and the Irreducible.
In the collection of fourteen aphorisms published in 1909 and included in
the Great Vigils; Shestov wrote that ultimate truths are absolutely unintelli-
gible . . . unintelligible, I repeat but not inaccessible and that one should accept
the unintelligibility as the fundamental predicate of being. At the same time,
there is a universal knowledge . . . which by its very essence cannot be com-
municated to all . . . cannot be turned into veried and demonstrable universal
truths.
15
One wonders if following a careful and dedicated study of the an-
cient and medieval philosophers during his years in Coppet, Shestov has found
a conrmation of his own intuitions expressed above or he did rather impose
his ideas upon these philosophers? Berdyaev used to say that his friend often
does just that,
16
but even if we disregard this remark, the question about the
boundaries of the Shestovian hermeneutic remains always present. I will dwell
more on this point, later.
Let us return again to Shestovs reading of St. Augustine. It interesting to
observe the mechanism of what one might call the Shestovian reduction at
work: even in the extreme and adverse attitude Augustine manifests toward
the pagan world expressed in the statement uneducated people take over by
force the heavens and we, with all our heartless knowledge, just wallow . . .
(the quote is from De civitate Dei, written long after his conversion), Shestov
nds a hidden message. He identies here a deep longing toward a freedom
lost with the advent of Greek philosophical thinking: he who did not know
Aristotle, could look for the truth anywhere (Celui qui ne connaissait pas Ar-
istote pouvait chercher la vrit partout).
17
Conclusion: St. Augustine was still
deep inside himself indebted to his neo-platonic origins, but he had to accept
the authority of the Church in order to make sense of his new Christian expe-
rience. In parallel, though, he wholeheartedly accepted the authority of those
who command (in the best pagan tradition!), rather than that of those who
teach. Te insinuation is that, even though the Church had been inuenced
by Greek thinking, Augustine did not take this intellectual component upon
himself but rather the authoritarian one, an attitude easily justiable since any
attempt to approach God requires total submission. Tat is how things can be
interpreted within the immediate context of the Shestovian text; at a deeper
level, one may think that the idea was instilled in Shestovs subconscious by
the well known distinction made in the Russian intellectual milieu between
the intellectual, reexive, ever hesitant character of the Jew as opposed to the
active, decisive attitude of the Christian homo faber.
One nds in the chapters dedicated to St. Augustine another very im-
portant insight Shestov had in connection with the great theologian. Greek
philosophers invented the concept of virtue: in their view, regardless of what
happens in his real life, man can retain a deep, inner happiness if he accom-
plishes his duty, if he behaves as he should. Te pagan philosophers were very
conscious of the precarious situation to which human beings could be exposed
in an adverse worldwhether this meant nature or the social-political en-
vironmentand that is why they elevated virtue to the rank of the highest
moral value. Virtue was equivalent with doing the right thing regardless of
the consequences: the ancient Greek literature from Homer to the authors of
the great classical tragedies, from the philosophers who followed in Socrates
path to the Stoics, is permeated by this thought. Augustine denied in a radical
way this assumption and put virtue on equal footing with all the other ter-
restrial, human values. In his view, the problem was elsewhere, certainly not
in our deliberate decision to do or not to do certain things; we are not free to
do what we want to do because a sickness nested in our own selves induces in
us an illness that consumes us from within. Moreover, if we cannot be healthy,
Sola Fide 67
writes St. Augustine, how can we be happy? Shestov introduces again a lengthy
quote from De Civitate Dei which illustrates the Stoic view concerning suicide;
suicide, though, was totally rejected by St. Augustine. It is meant to prove that
any existential solution arrived at through methods introduced by the Greek
wisdom is void. It is not through a virtuous life and not by doing the good
and abstaining from evil that human beings achieve the state of happiness
(and that was the ultimate goal of the human being according to the same
philosophers, wasnt it?). However, it is not the state of happiness described by
the pagan philosophers that mankind should seek: man can be redeemed and
elevated to a superior state through his eorts to reach God, but this can occur
only through His grace, claimed St. Augustine.
At this point in the discussion, Shestov interrupts suddenly his musings
about St. Augustine and jumps across lands and centuries directly to Tolstoy
who, in his opinion intends to make a somewhat similar statement but does not
dare to do it. Moreover, he introduces into the discussion Nietzsche through
the observation that his challenge to modern philosophy is identical to that
posed by St. Augustine to the ancient world and reminds his readers that in a
previous work of his, in which he discussed the two mentioned authors (that
is Nietzsche and Tolstoy), he already pointed out these facts.
18
Again, one can-
not help but wonder if it is St. Augustines idea which is used to conrm the
interpretation proposed by Shestov or rather it is his biased reading which
transfers a certain meaning to the Augustinian thought in order to conrm
another (perhaps biased also) idea arrived at by Shestov while reading con-
temporary authors. Indeed, this dynamic brings us back to the question about
the Shestovian hermeneutics. Shestov was aware of the problem and that was
one of the reasons for his interest in the newly developed phenomenological
method (I will discuss later, in more detail, some other reasons). He badly
needed a methodeven if he would not have recognized itwhich would
allow him, on the one hand, to follow the unfolding of his own ideas in time,
and, on the other, to enable him to distinguish between ideas that belonged to
himself from those inferred from philosophers he resonated with (I do not
use the concept of elective a nities, because of its too strong aective con-
notation; in spite of everything, Shestov was sometimes as rational as one can
be in his analysis). I have pointed out that Shestov was aware of the problem;
indeed he himself alludes to this issue quite clearly when, in the chapter from
which I quoted before, he writes about St. Augustine something which would
bring this thinker very (or perhaps too) close to the realm of his own existential
philosophy elaborated in later years: Augustine, he writes, sensed that a reality
which cannot be explained does not lose its status of reality . . . and from that
conclusion there is only one step to the next one, which is that reality does not
need to be conrmed by reason, that the role of the latter is not to command
but to obey, that his power has a limit; what reason might consider to be im-
possible may be possible. As if taken aback but his far fetched conclusion he
adds that these conclusion St. Augustine did not spell out explicitly. . . .
I have also mentioned Shestovs awareness to the need to distinguish be-
tween the old and the new ideas and to the fact that he felt the need to be able
to ascertain the novelty of some of his new insights. One can nd examples to
illustrate the overlaps and sometimes the repetitious character of many ideas
brought forth in Sola Fide. Tus, in a later chapter of the book, Shestov explic-
itly states that in his ght with the Pelagian heresy, Augustine used the Greek
philosophical approach when he asked on which side is the truth? as if the
truth must be on one side or on another. Here, too, one recognizes an idea ex-
pressed already by Shestov. Another example could be the statement, people
while interpreting their aective experiences in the light of logical thinking
come up with judgment which they will proclaim universal and necessary.
19

Have we not read something similar in Te Apotheosis of Groundlessness and/or
in All Tings Are Possible? One has a distinct feeling that many of the truths
Shestov himself was seeking in St. Augustine or Luther were constructs of
his own mind. In a piece entitled What Does the History of Philosophy
Teach Us? included in the above mentioned collection of aphorisms of 1909,
he pointed out that not one single philosophical system, not even those elabo-
rated by philosophers who gave their life to the truth not in words, but in deed
. . . (were) free from internal contradictions. At that time Shestov was wor-
ried mainly by the problem of consistency; the problem related to the limits of
the interpretation would become apparent a few years later: it seems plausible
therefore that during the philosophizing session with Gustav Shpet in 1913,
while thinking about the content of Sola Fide and discussing phenomenol-
ogy, he came to the conclusion that one must seek the answer to ones worries
about method in Husserls works. He had condence in a thinker who was
unafraid of the contradiction contained in thought and has a dierent way
of seeing things, as he wrote several years later in Memento Mori. Acknowl-
edged or not, it is very probable that the study of phenomenology allowed
Shestov to nd if not a method for his own hermeneutical eorts, at least a
way to integrate the contradiction is his metasophia and distill the new ideas
to be developed in his future works. Te main result of Shestovs encounter
with Luther was not the a rmation of sola de as the fundamental principle
of what he would later call the second dimension of thought; it is rather the
exposition of a wealth of ideas, some already expressed in the past works, some
rephrased and made thus more focused, more visible other, entirely new. He
needed, though, to submit them to a thorough criticism in order to evaluate
Sola Fide 69
the new and rethink the older ideas; he hoped to nd the tools for that critical
(re-)evaluation in Husserls phenomenology. One observes later a consistency in
the content of Shestovs major ideas; the continuity between thoughts brought
forth in Sola Fide and those developed later become much more obvious than
those between Shestovs previously developed ideas. Te friendship with Ed-
mund Husserl, to which we will refer later, is a witness to the new equilibrium
reached by Shestov at this stage in his life. At the end of this discussion domi-
nated by faith, it is appropriate to remind again the reader that in fact Shestov
never subscribed or gave in to irrationality. Even when he annoyed his listeners
by saying that it cannot be proven that Socrates death cannot be reversed (by
an almighty God), he recognized the value of the rational thinking and the
need to practice it. In a conversation with Fondane, about a year before his
death, he illustrates very well the paradoxical nature of his philosophical ap-
proach: I know very well that Necessity rules at this point in time, as it did a
thousand, two thousand years ago, he said. But who can prove that it ruled
always? Tat before these times, there wasnt something else? And after, there
will not be something else also?
20
Beyond the paradox, there was something
else also, deeper than philosophy; in another conversation with his disciple he
said, somewhat bitterly, one reminds me always that two times two equals
four. Tey think I ignore this fact. Unfortunately I know it and I know it very
well! My entire life I fought against myself when I was thinking that after all,
two times two equals four. . . .
21
FI VE
Before the Emigration
All Things Are (Still) Possible
In these mysterious books the principle of contradiction, the rst condition for the truth
of any statement, is completely ignored . . . one can say that Greek philosophy, by its very
nature, excluded the possibility of the revelation of the Old and New Testaments.
Te accursed serpent deceived Eve, deceived Adam, deceived Anaximander, and blinds all
of us to this day.
In 1914 Shestov returned with his immediate familywife and two daugh-
tersto Russia with the intent to establish themselves there. Neither the war
nor the Bolshevik revolution a few years later was part of their planning. Both
events would be lived by the philosopher in Russia. Till the October revolu-
tion the family stayed in Moscow, and after the new communist regime was
installed there they moved to Kiev. Since the biographical details are very well
described in Nathalie Barano-Chestovs book, I am mentioning them only
marginally. However, the connection between the historical events and the
writings of the author has to be made when one talks about the existential
thinker par excellence Lev Shestov was.
While the manuscript of the last work nished in Europe, Sola Fide, was
left behind, at rst in Switzerland then in Germany, the ideas discussed there
remained constantly on the mind of the philosopher. Once settled in Moscow,
he began to rewrite some and expand others and publish collections of notes
taken for the abandoned manuscript in literary and philosophical journals in
Moscow and St. Petersburg. Very soon after his arrival in Paris a few years
later, he collected them in a book entitled Potestas Clavium rst published in
Germany and later in France.
1
Tis book included in addition to the above
mentioned articles a few pieces written during the brief period of time spent
in Kiev before the emigration in 1919. Te rst eighteen aphorisms to appear
in the book were published in 1916 in Russkaya Mysl under the title Potes-
tas Clavium, while another twenty-one were published later (in 1917). As we
have seen already, Memento Mori also dates to this period; the chapter entitled
On the Roots of Tings and what would become the introduction to the book
published in France later, A Tousand and One Nights, were written in Kiev in
191819).
In the preceding chapter, I proposed the idea that Memento Mori was writ-
ten in an attempt to establish a critical dialogue with himself and test some
of the main ideas contained in Sola Fide. Shestov the philosopher looked at
what Shestov the future religious thinker had to say. One can reach the same
conclusion from the comparison of the aphorisms published at about the same
time as the article about Husserls phenomenology was written. In the process
of such a comparison, one may expect to identify some of the new directions
his thought began to take; another by-product of this process might be a better
understanding of the ways in which older ideas were being altered by the new
realities the author was living while writing these texts. Te aphorisms writ-
ten during the years 1916 and 17 can also be compared with those dated 1918
and 19, and nally with fragments written perhaps in Russia but reviewed and
published in Paris after Potestas Clavium (I refer to the aphorisms collected
under the title Revolt and Submission, included in Jobs Balances). Tat way, one
obtains also information about the unfolding of the ideas to be addressed by
Shestov in his last works, especially the book on Kierkegaard and Athens and
Jerusalem.
Should one be surprised to ndat the time of such a critical and ar-
cheological inquirythat all the major themes identied in the previous col-
lections of aphorisms and articles are present in Potestas Clavium? Perhaps
not. However, in the process of revisiting his beloved Russian authors, from
Pushkin to Dostoevsky, and re-thinking his philosophical mentor, Nietzsche,
Shestov nds ways to add new insights and to re-formulate some of his older
thoughts. He observes that his heroes remained often ambiguous insofar as the
rules of the moral law were concerned: Even men like Tolstoy, Nietzsche and
Dostoevsky were incapable of renouncing the right of correcting and reproving
All Tings Are (Still) Possible 73
their neighbors they arrogated to themselves. However, one can exonerate at
least some of them for that grave error since Nietzsche and Tolstoy felt espe-
cially how important moral perfection is for man and how unimportant it is
in the eyes of God.
2
As expected, the Greek philosophers are also extensively
discussed but this time not only the founders but also those who followed in
the footsteps of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, in particular the Stoics and the
Cynics, as well as some of the pre-Socratics. Tis development is not surprising
since, as we have seen already, Shestov spent long hours in Europe before the
war, studying them. We are told that Socrates was the rst to claim the human
capacity for omniscience, while Plato wanted philosophy to be an apprentice-
ship for and anticipation of death and claimed that for the non-initiate this is
a secret.
3
Socrates is credited also with the priority over the Christianity and
the Catholic Church later, insofar as the idea of the power of the keys was
concerned: It will be a mistake to believe that the idea of potestas clavium was
born at the beginning of our era he writes and explains that according to Plato
Socrates was the rst to discover that man has at his disposal this immense
and terrible power, the keys to the kingdom of heaven.
4
Te implicit thought,
often brought up by Shestov, being thus that rational knowledge represents,
for the classical philosophers, the supreme good. Finally, the idea that the three
founders of philosophy are the culprits when it comes to assign responsi-
bilities for a philosophy that excludes the individual, the particular, is again
mentioned in the aphorism entitled Te Philosophy of History: Socrates, Plato,
Aristotleall the best representatives of the ancient wisdomdeclared that
the truth must be sought in the general and not in the particular.
5
Following
a somewhat lacking argumentation, Shestov concluded that this tendency of
denying the particular in favor of the general is made only because we are un-
willing to admit the free action of God, only because we have faith in ourselves
alone and are afraid to put our faith in the Creator.
6
Te fact that the logical
link between the two ideas was not well established (Shestov never succeeded
in this attempt) is however much less important than the fact that this repre-
sented one of the rst moments when the problem of faith was clearly spelled
out.
It is time to understand that only that philosophy which dares to be arbi-
trary will succeed in breaking its way throughthis thought uttered in 1916
echoes similar observations read in the writings of a decade earlier. However,
here Shestov moves one step further and declares in the fragment Magna
Charta Libertatum that to pass from empirical philosophy to metaphysics one
must be prepared to renounce the principles of identity and contradiction.
7

When he approached this issue in aphorism #121 in the Apotheosis of Ground-
lessness, Shestov was, as we have seen, much more modest; he only hinted to
the fact that supernatural intervention might perturb the principle of identity.
Another example of an idea reconsidered and modied in the process is to
be found in the aphorism about Reason; as in the fragment What Is Truth?
published earlier in Beginnings and Ends, the question about the way aectiv-
ity relates to philosophical reasoning is brought forth again. Te conclusion in
the older work was that the way we chose to believe in something is strongly
inuenced by our psychological make-up and our aective implication with
the evidence under consideration. Now, Shestov narrows the focus and shows
that the aective reaction implied in the judgment does not really decide the
outcome between two modes of reasoning. Te choice Epictetus made, he tells
us, was from the beginning one driven by his a priori valuation of the supreme
goal of the Stoic philosophy, the ataraxia, that is the choice of the complete
independence of man vis--vis external circumstances.
8
Te fragment entitled Rules and Exceptions is also signicant and impor-
tant in that it gives an older and somewhat fuzzy idea a new, much better
dened shape: we read often that a new way of thinking is needed in order to
understand truths that are revealed by a transcendental entity. Ideas that are
understandable to all, as strange as it might sound, are useless when it comes
to understand the man-God relationship (they become poor, at, and empty
writes Shestov in the aphorism Eros and the Ideas and may serve only statistics
or positive science). Te truth he seeks is one which is understandable to the
individual only or as he puts it in this fragment, as soon as we pass beyond the
limits of the so-called exact sciences, every man goes his own way.
9
After re-
minding his reader that it was Philo who in his attempt to make the Bible un-
derstandable to the Greco-Roman world insisted on the rationality of biblical
doctrine, Shestov points out that this eort ended in the submission of the
revealed truth to logical thinking or revelation must not contradict the reason
of the Greeks, the logos in Shestovs words.
10
Te reality was, though, that the
Bible, i.e., both the Old and the New Testaments, did not at all comply with
the demands reason imposes on truth; it seems that here Shestov states for the
rst time in a clear and explicit way one of his major pronouncements insofar
as the relationship between philosophical and religious thought is concerned:
In these mysterious books the principle of contradiction, the rst condition
for the truth of any statement, is completely ignored . . . one can say that Greek
philosophy, by its very nature, excluded the possibility of the revelation of the
Old and New Testaments.
11
Since the Scriptures have been mentioned, this is perhaps the moment to
observe that Shestov was more careful in preserving an equilibrium between
the references to the Old and the New Testament with only a slight prefer-
ence given to the second. It is true, though, that his tone, his interpretations,
his examples do not allow the reader to identify the writer as being of Jewish
origin; if anything, based on his writings only, he could have been very well
considered to be a Russian orthodox thinker endowed with a good knowledge
of the Jewish Bible. He writes for instance in a very impersonal way, Te Old
Testament recounts the history of the Jewish people and explains its fate and
adds immediately that all the events of this history had a deep signicance
that (the) Scripture illuminated. To make his intention clearer, he supple-
ments the quoted phrase with the observation that it was precisely this that
led St. Augustine astray.
12
Was Lev Shestov trying to hide his Jewish identity?
It is di cult, if not impossible, to give an unambiguous answer to this question.
Te return to Russia with his wife and their two daughters was a bold move
meant to open a new page. He was much less stressed now, after the death of
his father in 1914, and he had acquired a solid enough reputation in the literary
and philosophical circles to be entitled to free himself from a material point of
view from the dependency on the family business (his wife was a medical doc-
tor already and that signicantly improved the odds of becoming nancially
independent). Shestov had a fairly good knowledge of the Jewish traditions; he
knew about the issues that preoccupied large Jewish populations on the way to
emancipation in the Eastern and Central European realm. During his youth
years in Kiev, he met in his fathers house Shalom Aleichem and other local
Jewish writers and intellectuals; toward the end of the 1890s, at his fathers re-
quest, Shestov travelled to Basel to participate in one of the early Zionist con-
gresses. He was sensitive to the eects of the outbursts of violent anti-Semitic
manifestations during the early years of the century (190405) and those oc-
casioned by the Beilis trial in 1912 in Kiev.
13
However, if one looks at his early
writings, one can hardly nd any trace of Jewish interferences or inferences
in his works. On the contrary, as mentioned, Shestov preferred to use Christian
symbols and rhetoric even when he could have substituted it with Jewish ones
(in spite of the fact that in the Philosophy of Tragedy he stated explicitly that
a person lives and learns from [his own] life). Moreover, Shestov learnt a lot
from his own life; apparently, however, he had chosen to dress his conclusions
in a garb tailored by others and that to the point that even when he wrote
about Heinrich Heine he managed to avoid the issue of his Jewish origins.
In the Apotheosis of Groundlessness, the Pharisees were presented, in the best
Christian tradition, as righteous hypocrites (see aphorism #67); the prophets
were sometimes considered barren and useless, kings without an army
14
or
denied at times even the right to exist.
15
At times the Jews are mentioned in a
matter-of-fact, neutral style which apparently was meant to indicate objectiv-
ity: Te Greeks dreamed of Titans and heroes. Te Jews consider themselves
to be the chosen people and await the Messiah. As for the Gospel, it is hard
to say to which method of struggle it gives preference.
16
When he criticized
the negative eects of the Enlightenment, which led to a situation in which
people, on the whole, were compelled to tell lies and play the hypocrite . . .
[and] pretended to believe in science and morality only in order to escape the
persecution of the public opinion,
17
Shestov pointed out that the belief in
the causal law attached with this situation would lead ultimately to chaos and
madness and as a result to the . . . abolition of the law itself. To illustrate the
situation he returned to Luther. Of course, he could not have illustrated this
particular point using examples taken from the Jewish tradition as this never
gave up the Law.
It would not be easy, therefore, to settle the issue of the relationship
Shestov had during these years to his Jewishness and his intentions toward
the Christian faith. Te blurred character of his pronouncements in this area
meets his lack of concern toward consistency; it might very well be that at this
time Shestov himself was not sure where he should position himself. He was
struggling to free himself from the constraints of a limiting thinking and nd
ways to address God, regardless whether it was the God of the Old or the
New Testament. Perhaps there was only one God, and Jews and Christians
were just confused by external events which prevented them from realizing
that they belonged to one and the same belief. Te dierences could turn out
to be inessential if one could focus only on God without being sidetracked
by circumstantial interpretations. It might very well be that this was the road
Shestov was embarked on without knowing it yet. At the very end, he would
come to the conclusion that indeed, early Christianity was a branch of the
same tree, if one may turn around St. Pauls famous metaphor. Disregarding
historical evidence of the contrary, Shestov wanted to believe that the Jews of
the rst century CE were indierent to this new branch in a positive way. Tey
could have accepted its strange story if some of the members of this splinter
group which were the early Christians, would not have had the misfortune to
discover Greek philosophy. Shestov did not explain his insights in a coherent
and explicit way, but all the individual elements of such an explanation, like
the pieces of a puzzle were laid on the table. Later on, he would begin to put
the pieces together, but he always remained hesitant and somewhat muddled
in this regard.
I anticipated somewhat and went too far and perhaps too fast with the de-
scription of this unfolding story. Let us return therefore to the last quotations
I commented above. In the same fragment, Te Philosophy of History we read:
It is said in the Bible that God chose the Jewish people in order to realize his
great purpose. And He made this known to the world through the mouth of
his prophets. But does this give us the right to say that God assigns to each of
the peoples a certain mission and informs the philosophers and historians, the
successors of ancient prophets, of His designs? Of course not: to answer in the
a rmative would require one to generalize in inadmissible ways. One might
argue that in both cases quoted above, Shestov did infer from the eld of reli-
gious thinking something belonging rather to the domain of philosophy; also,
in these specic examples there is no preference given to one or another part of
the scriptures. It seems that depending on the context, Shestov would some-
times use an example taken from the Old Testament while at other times, he
found it suitable to use the Christian scriptures. All in all, one cannot miss the
ubiquity of the Christian scriptures versus the scarcity of the Jewish sources in
the writings of early Shestov. In everything he wrote before his emigration,
when it came to discuss religious concepts he preferred Christian symbols and
lore to the Jewish ones. It might very well be that this entire discussion about
where does Shestov stand with respect to Judaism and Christianity, isat this
stage in his developmentnon-essential. Indeed, in Moscow he seems to be
much more concerned with the question about the relationship between phi-
losophy and religious thought in general and anxious to position himself with
respect to this dipole. From his very rst essays he had the tendency to mix
philosophy with religious thought; after the return to Russia, philosophy was
redened in his writings in terms of religious concepts. From now on he would
concentrate his eorts on reection upon the individual existence understood
in terms of its relationship with a God fully involved with the existence of the
individual. An aphorism entitled Te Magic Cap, begins with the observation:
Philosophy has often raised and resolved the so-called nal questions: Does
God exist? Is there a soul, and if there is, is it immortal or not? However, by
merely posing this question one prevents any possible answer to it and that
because there are truths which cannot be uttered, or more exactly, there are
truths that one can see but one cannot show. It is not that one cannot discuss
these questions, one can and one does it quite often in reality, but their nature
is such that the answers, if they ever present themselves to our consciousness,
come uninvited. Furthermore, by the time we want to talk about them, they
are gone. Perhaps the best illustration of this awkward situation is oered by
Shestov himself who in the aphorism On the Absolutely Perfect Being seems
to get lost in his own argumentation. Trying to dene the predicates of the
absolute perfect being he establishes them to be omniscience and omnipotence.
However, the rst cannot be the case because omniscience paralyzes the will:
if one knows everything one is not curious to know any longer, therefore one
becomes totally static. Terefore, the absolute perfect being should not be om-
niscient: To know muchthat is very good, but to know everything is dread-
ful.
18
Is the writer talking about man or about God? It seems that he is not
referring to the Almighty God of the Bible who must obviously be omniscient;
man on the other hand, should not be considered under any circumstance an
absolutely perfect being. Shestov seems thus entangled in a circular argument;
or is there a subtle hint hiding under the surface? One reads further that it
is the same with omnipotence. Tis time, it must God he is talking about as
clearly no man can be omnipotent. Being able to do anything, the omnipotent
being does not need anything outside him. However, precisely because of that,
he would become utterly bored, the ennui would prevail, and in the end it
would take over; an utterly bored being needs some external being or thing to
alleviate this pitiful state, but if so, he is not omnipotent! (the idea of anxiety
as originating in the impotence of rationality will be discussed by Benjamin
Fondane in his work on Baudelaire, published posthumously in 1947
19
). A
third predicate of the perfect beingthat of its static nature, a being eternally
at restcondemns it to an even more dreadful fate, and so on. In the end it
turns out that Shestov refers all the time to God but uses his argumentation
to show that any statement about Him represents ultimately merely a botched
attempt of a severely limited being to understand the Absolute. Tis is a very
limited truth, which can be understood and explained as well: through such
a truth we contrive an absolute perfect being in order to ingratiate ourselves
with Him. Did Shestov know that long before him Maimonides emphatically
rejected any attempt to nd attributes to the Almighty God he believed in?
Whether he did it or not, there is no explicit mentioning of the famous Jewish
religious philosopher in Shestovs text (although it is hard to believe, after the
impressive display of knowledge of the Christian Medieval thinkers manifest
in the writings which preceded this work, that he did not come across Mai-
monides Guide of the Perplexed, at least. My suspicion is that he neglected him
because he did disagree with his attempt to reconcile philosophy and religion
as he will later, reject Herman Cohens eorts in this domain). Instead, we nd
in the discussed text a Latin quotation and a another reference to Catholic
theologians; regardless however the nature of his references, the conclusion
Shestov arrived at in Te Magic Cap is very important for the future evolution
of his thought: the absolute perfect being must be powerful enough to be what
he wishes to be and not such as human wisdom would make him if its words
could transform themselves into deeds.
20
In a longer piece entitled Te Labyrinth (included later in Potestas Clavi-
um), we nd for the rst time an in-depth treatment of another theme which
begins to take central place in the Shestovian narrative: that of the biblical
story of the fall of Adam and Eve. It is in the writings belonging to this period
that Shestov would argue in a forceful way that this story has a dierent mean-
ing from that conferred upon it by the theologians educated in the realm of
the Greek thought. After reminding the reader of the literal meaning of the
biblical text which talks about the specic interdiction to touch the fruit of
the tree of knowledge, Shestov points out the dierent (and faulty, in his view)
interpretation of the (Christian) theologians beginning with the classic argu-
ment of Anselm of Canterbury . . .. From Anselm he passes to Gregory the
Great and refutes, by invoking Tertullian, his bent toward hailing a knowledge
based exclusively on rationality. Te core of his argument consists in the af-
rmation that the accursed serpent deceived Eve, deceived Adam, deceived
Anaximander, and blinds all of us to this day.
21
When many years later Martin
Buber told him about the terrible things that were happening in Germany and
the problems that loomed at Europes horizon, Shestov replied, according to
his disciples recollection, that the real issue mankind faced was not Hitler but
the temptation of the serpent! Buber could not understand, but at that time,
this belief was already well established in Shestovs mind (see the next two
chapters on Shestov in Paris).
In the aphorism entitled Sursum Corda, the dwellers of the Garden of Eden
are mentioned again, this time in connection with a long discussion around
the meaning of life versus the origins of the inquiry into the subject of the
meaning of meaning. Life is contrasted with knowledge, and the role the two
concepts play in philosophical/metaphysical thinking is critically evaluated.
Shestov poses the question If Adam asked Evebefore the sin, naturally
what the meaning of life is, would not this question appear absurd to her?
and points out that Hamlets famous to be or not to be would have also
been meaningless in paradise. God would not ask himself such a question, why
should then man do it? Still, man does it because his presumptuous reason fell
this time, as it had already done hundreds and thousands of times before, into
a trap by transforming an illusion of senses into an idea. Tis rather long apho-
rism, which clearly has a didactic characterthe title itself witnesses it, the
Latin expression meaning lift up your hearts is taken from a prayer included
in the Christian liturgyis very instructive as it presents a few central ideas
developing in Shestovs mind during the war years and sheds also light on the
wanderings of his thought processes and the mechanisms of its development.
Tus, for instance, he observes that Hamlet poses the famous question only as
a result of the traumatic experience of having to live the consequences of a ter-
rible crime in which his mother was involved: had the crime of his uncle and
mother not taken place . . . the fatal question would perhaps not even arisen in
his mind.
22
Except that in this case the fatal question did not transform the
hero into an underground man who rejected the reason and the logic that gave
it meaning. As with Tolstoy, the traumatic experience pushed him rather to a
re-thinking of the premises on which his world-views were based. Not-to-be
means to die; death is an empirical evidence for Hamlet as it is for all human
beings; therefore, the idea of non-being is extracted from the empirical evi-
dence death represents. Te gods of the Olympus could not have arrived at this
notion of non-being. Is this argument introduced to prove the immortality of
the soul? Not at all would have replied immediately Shestov, who at this point
was not interested in great ontological questions limiting himself to the mean-
ing of the things one thinks about in concrete situations and to the ways one
obtains and grants these meanings. If anything, he conrms in this aphorism
an inclination toward axiology and epistemology rather than ontology. (Tis
issue became later the source of his quarrel with Jaspers and Heidegger.) It
is . . . important to me at this moment to show in what nets modern thought
struggles and how easily it accepts as indubitable truth the rst absurdity that
is oered to it. . . .
23
However, all these aphorisms do not imply that Shestov did seek shortcuts
or that he tried to avoid serious confrontations. Te reading of Husserl, his
attempts to understand and face the di culties encountered in validating his
ways of thinking were all part of a process of self-reection and self-judgment.
Memento Mori, the long article Shestov wrote about Husserls philosophy
was published for the rst time in Moscow in 1917 and was later included in
the volume Potestas Clavium.
24
Even though it was very important, the role this
essay had in making phenomenology known to the Russian and later to the
French public is less interesting for us here. For reasons discussed in the chap-
ter Sola Fide, it is important to try to nd out also the date of the writing: was
the text (or parts of it) written after the return of the Shestov family to Russia
in 1914 or before? Was it started at the time Shestov was writing Sola Fide, just
before his return? Te questions about the origins of those two works and their
temporal relationship correlate strongly with the question related to the mo-
ment of conversion, if I may use this expression, the moment at which Shestov
took a sharp turn toward the religious approach to life. (I use this cautious way to
describe the nature of Shestovs turn, not being sure that belief would be the ap-
propriate term.) Of course, one remembers the sentence at the end of the essay
on Tolstoy and Nietzsche (written in 1898 and in 1899 already and published
in 1900 in St. Petersburg), Nietzsche has shown us the way. We must seek that
which is higher than compassion, higher than the good, we must seek God.
25

At this early stage, the accent was on transgressing the boundaries imposed by
a suocating morality, on the search for a new way rather than a call for a reli-
gious modus vivendi. Shestovs disciple, Benjamin Fondane, spoke of three dis-
tinct periods in his masters intellectual evolution
26
; during the rst one, which,
according to him, included the period of the writing of the above quoted book
on Tolstoy and Nietzsche (as well as that about Nietzsche and Dostoevsky),
the philosopher seemed to say that if nature and/or society were merciless to-
wards us we should not try to imitate them but rather overcome their cruelty
by seeking God. Viewed under this perspective, the transcendental represents
the means to overcome a state of tension externally imposed upon us. Tis
period was followed, writes Fondane, by one during which Shestov acted as
a cynical banterer like a Voltaire of [pure] negativity (un Voltaire du ngatif),
an author who challenged any danger, who wanted to proclaim his quality of a
schwindelfree
27
thinker. Potestas Clavium in its entirety and the Memento Mori
essay included in it would thus be a work written in this spirit of revolt. In the
following, I will propose a somewhat dierent view.
As we have seen already, in Sola Fide one nds fragments that witness a
state of tension between the acknowledgment of the truth of two times two
equals four and the need to ght against such a powerful evidence. In an at-
tempt to discuss and understand the nature of this tension and its practical
meaning in real life, Shestov applied himself to the study of Husserl whom
he considered to have been his teacher in philosophy (for reasons alluded at
before) and perhaps, because up to a certain point their opposition to wis-
dom and virtue represented a common ght. Shestov hinted to that when he
cautioned that he is not disposed to take on the role of defender of oppressed
virtuesfor reasons, however quite dierent from Husserls.
28
He too was in
search of a philosophical method that would facilitate the understanding of
phenomena that, seemingly, exceeded our capacities of reception. In a dierent
context but in the same vein he wrote in Sola Fide: Te human spirit, even the
most remarkable, even the genius, is unable to understand simultaneously the
multiple aspects embedded in the Scriptures. Everybody believes that only one
perpendicular can be drawn to a straight line at any given point. It turns out,
however, that one can draw not only two, but many, a fact most people would
consider absurd. We live in a given plane; it is very di cult to us to accept the
reality of other planes and let our fellow creatures move freely in space.
29
One
may add to all that has been already said on this matter so far that Shestov
came to study Husserls phenomenology in order to nd out if such a multi-
planar approach could be implemented within the borders of a new modality
of philosophical thinking. He realized that when he claimed that the prophets
and the apostlesstill untainted by Greek philosophytaught St. Augustine
to trust his aective experiences, he was already moving along one perpen-
dicular in this given plane; when he discussed Luthers rejection of rationalitys
pretension to the role of absolute guide and went along with him on the path
dened by the idea that reason cannot understand, cannot bring us the truth
with the corollary hominem sola de justicari (the human existence can be jus-
tied by faith only), Shestov saw himself moving now along another perpen-
dicular in the same plane. Te question is whether moving along dierent lines
of thought, all of them orthogonal to one and the same line and all inscribed
into one plane would ensure the reconciliation between ideas which taken in-
dividually seem to oppose each other. Tis metaphor was a clever construct, but
beyond its usefulness in suggesting an idea can one nd any reality in it? Can
aectivity be integrated into rational thinking? Is it worth trying even? Tose
were probably a few among the many questions Shestov would have liked to
ask Husserl while he was working on Sola Fide (and I imagine, after that, as
well); in any event, I believe that Memento Mori was born from Shestovs dia-
logue with the phenomenological method occasioned by the thoughts devel-
oped in Sola Fide.
Te lecture of the essay on Husserl shows indeed that Shestovs critique
of phenomenologybased at the time mainly on his lecture of Logical Inves-
tigationswas guided by the ideas developed in Sola Fide. He read Husserl
in original but the rst volume of this work, Prolegomena to Pure Logic, was
already available to the Russian public since 1909, and Shestov could have
been familiar with Simeon Franks foreword to this translation. Also, the article
which initially inspired the writing of the essay, Philosophy as Rigorous Science
(published by Husserl in Logos in 1911) was translated the same year into Rus-
sian. By the time the conversations with Shpet occurred in Coppet, all these
materials were available to Shestov. At the time of their meeting, Shpet, him-
self deeply involved in the study of phenomenology, almost nished writing
his book Appearance and Sense, a general description of Husserls phenomenol-
ogy, based on Ideas I and II.
30
Shestov, who strongly opposed the neo-Kantian
philosophy, inuenced probably Shpet in his choice of phenomenology as an
alternative to the all powerful neo-Kantian trends at the time. When they met
in Switzerland, Shestov was very eager to nd out how could a philosophy
introduced by its author as a representing descriptive psychology help him
clarify his own ideas concerning the relationship between rational thinking
and aectivity.
Not surprisingly, very early in his analysis Shestov took issue with Hus-
serls attempts to give philosophy a scientic status: to the question, what is
philosophy? Husserl replies, a science of true principles, of sources, of origins
of the roots of all things. . . .
31
He wrote often on this subject prior to the writ-
ing of Memento Mori. Te conclusion he arrived at already in the second section
of the essay is that the critical review of classical philosophy performed in the
article published in Logos, contain(s) briey the entire genealogy of Husserls
thought: from Socrates and Plato through Descartes to Kant and Fichte.
32

However, he assures his readers that he is not going to give up; on the contrary
he promises to go to the big book of the German philosopher to nd out, in
spite of this rst deception how Husserl was going to integrate psychology in
a rigorous theory of knowledge. Very quickly however, he nds out that this is
not what the author of the Logical Investigation was doing: on the contrary, he
looked for ways to eliminate psychology from the thought process. Te reason
for this is fairly simple, explains Shestov: if our thought-processes depended on
the psychological make-up of each individual, there would be no way to have
a unied, general, and universally valid theory of knowledge. Relativism would
set in and destroy the premise on which the new approach proposed by Husserl
stands, which is that an absolute knowledge of the truth can be obtained. He
points out that Husserl does not agree to admit relativism, either implicitly or
explicitly, under any form whatsoever
33
and challenges the Husserlian reason-
ing in very strong terms: either reason can express absolute truths that angels
and gods as well as men must accept, or we must renounce the philosophic
heritage of the Greeks and re-establish the rights of Protagoras of which he
was robbed by history (ibid.). Te way out of this quandary is to reject the
need for genealogic information, that is to deny the need to establish the
origins of our knowledge. Tat rejection is repeatedly stated by Husserl (fact
which annoys Shestov), who puts the emphasis rather on the structure and the
internal relationship between the laws that govern thinking. In turn, these laws
being anchored in a logic that has an absolute validity are free of any interfer-
ence by the contingency. At this point, Shestov refuses to follow the details and
intricacies of the Husserlian constructs. Later, during the years of his exile in
Paris, a very close relationship with Husserl developed, and these issues were
re-discussed between the two, but at that time Shestov was already fascinated
by the writings of Kierkegaard and did not feel any longer the need to discuss
in depth phenomenology (here I should point out the interesting fact that it
was Husserl who strongly encouraged Shestov to read Kierkegaard after their
meeting in 1929). All in all, Shestov rejected phenomenology on the ground
that it represents in fact just a new version of neo-Kantianism: Tey try to
base philosophy exclusively on the lumen naturale; hence they are obliged to
endow the lumen naturale with absolute rights. Te negative method that Hus-
serl employs in this task is the same as that of the neo-Kantians.
34
Husserls phenomenology, in its attempt to provide access to an absolute
knowledge that leads to a truth that cannot be contested either by man or by
his gods was rejected by Shestov, if not in toto, at least in its essentials. Ironi-
cally, he observed toward the end of his essay that Husserl, to our great regret,
has still not written a phenomenology of religion. I daresay he will never write
it.
35
He was not able to nd in the science of phenomenology the light which
he hoped would help clarify his ideas concerning the relationship between
the sorrowful situation of the individual and the possibility of overcoming it
through faith. Memento Mori, this long excursion in a domain which seemed to
oer a promise only to turn out to have been rather a deception, left the author
of Sola Fide at the same place he found himself before this phenomenological
adventure. Te reading of Husserl only reinforced in him the belief that there
is a certain limit beyond which it is necessary to guide oneself not according to
the general rules of logic but according to something else which still does not,
and probably never will, have any name in the language of men.
36
While thus suspended between Sola Fide and Memento Mori all of a sud-
den, time seemed to get out of joint once again for Lev Shestov. Only that
this time it was not an experience reserved to the individual thinker; a revolu-
tion broke out in Russia. At rst, it seemed that the revolution would succeed
in changing the existing order and install a democratic government through
a non-violent process. During the last days of the month of February 1917,
Kerensky, the leader of Russian Socialist Party asked Tsar Nicolas II to resign.
After his resignation on March 13, a new government was formed, and things
seemed to evolve in a steady and fairly quiet way in Moscow. In a letter sent
to one of his sisters living in Switzerland, Shestov reports on March 19 that
presently, the order reigns here: the trams are in circulation again, the workers
are back at their workplaces. Besides, the post-o ces, the telegraph services
and the rail-road worked undisturbed throughout these eventful days.
37
In
Kiev, things were calm, too; St. Petersburg witnessed some skirmishes, but they
did not seem to matter very much. Normalcy was re-instating itself as new
forms of life and administration became evident: the entire society is in agree-
ment: those who held extreme views are pushed aside and slowly disappear.
Te government has the condence of practically everybody, he wrote in a
letter sent at the end of March to his mother in Germany. However, things
were not going well on the front: the new government was in favor of the
continuation of the war, and this decision had very little public support. After
the abolishment of the death penalty under Kerenskys tenure as the minister
of Justice, the soldiers began deserting the army in large numbers; the lack of
success on the Galician front further aggravated the situation. Not only the
number of the deserters reached very large proportions (according to some
historians, more than 2 million soldiers deserted), but larger and larger num-
bers of peasant soldiers began returning to their villages to claim the property
from the wealthy land owners. Te redistribution of rural property created a
state of instability behind the lines of a front which was already on the way to
collapse. Matters went from bad to worse and came to a point of crisis during
the summer months.
Berdyaev, Shestovs good friend was less convinced of the possibility of a
peaceful revolution in Russia. He knew too well the actors to be fooled by the
peaceful appearances of the process in its rst phases. Many of Shestovs friends
and literary acquaintances began sharing his views. Te feeling that something
of apocalyptic dimensions might happen began to slowly penetrate the quiet
countryside refuge where the Shestov family spent the summer. Writing again
to his mother who from Germany inquired about the state of the family busi-
ness during these troubled times, he let her know that things are under control
at home and the business is stable, but at the same time warned that these
days the business is of lesser interest; these days there is only one business
which interests us all and that is the business called Russia.
38
Soon after that,
the harsh reality interrupted the day-dreaming; the waking call arrived when
the workers of the family enterprise in Kiev went on strike. As time passed,
the situation of the newly formed Kerensky government worsened also to the
point that at the beginning of the fall general Kornilov asked for the resigna-
tion of the government, and Kerensky had to call in the Bolsheviks to save the
situation (Lenin would say later that they helped the governmentallied at
that time with the Menshevik fraction of the communist partyonly in order
to ght a reactionary military inclined to continue the war). At the beginning
of November, Shestov wrote his brother-in-law that insofar as the situation is
Russia is concerned, better not to speak about it. We hope that things will work
out but we are sad, very sad. In November the Bolsheviks took over by violent
means Moscow and the winter will turn out to be very di cult under revolu-
tionary rule. Many hope that from the present chaos a new better world will
be born. Tey are wrong. Te present chaos will give birth to a vile reaction,
39

wrote Shestov in a letter to his sister. Finally, in February 1918 he noted, I
live from one day to the other. I try not to think about war and politics and to
work (ibid.). He remained in Moscow a few more months, and then, in July,
the family moved to Kiev.
Tere, received temporarily in the house of one of the sisters of the philos-
opher (Sophia, married with the rich Daniel Balachowsky), the Shestovs tried
to re-start their lives. A certain degree of normalcy set in when during the fall
the daughters enrolled in school. Te situation in Kiev was dierent from that
in Moscow, as at the time the city still belonged to an independent Ukrainian
entity under German control. However, once the Germans left in November
1918, everything collapsed. During the coming months, alternative national-
ist and communist occupations of the city followed one another. When the
Balachowsky family left for France before the end of the year, the Shestov
family installed itself comfortably in the large apartment (Scriabins widow
and her brother, Boris de Schloezer, who later became Shestovs translator into
French, lived with them for a while). Again, for a brief moment it seemed that
matters would settle down: indeed, till the month of October of 1919 Shestov
taught at one of the newly opened universities. First, he taught a course on
Te historical interpretation of fundamental philosophical issues, from Plato
to Descartes, to be followed by a second one about the history of Greek phi-
losophy (from Tales to the Epicureans). During this period he collected his
works written and published after his return to Russia in preparation of a new
book. However, this project was not to be implemented in Russia (the volume
appeared later in exile under the title Te Power of the Keys). Happiness in Kiev
did not last long: on the one hand, the new communist regime did not accept
an independent mind as that of Lev Shestov and, on the other, the armies of
the nationalist forces did not like the Jew Leib Schwartzman. It became soon
clear that his days in Kiev were numbered. When in August 1919 the White
Russian forces re-conquered for a short while the city, the decision was made.
On November 22 the family left for Yalta hoping that the proximity to the sea-
shore would facilitate a transfer to Turkey and from there to Western Europe.
Not being certain that he would be able to leave soon, Shestov inquired about
the possibility to teach at the local university; he obtained a faculty appoint-
ment, but he left Russia before giving his rst lecture at the Crimean Univer-
sity (these appointments helped him to obtain later teaching positions at the
Sorbonne). In January 1920, they were in Constantinople, the Turkish capital,
and in February they arrived to Geneva, Switzerland.
SI X
In Jobs Balances
Shestov in Paris
In the ego and only in the ego and in its irrationality, lies the hope that it may be possible
to dissipate the hypnosis of mathematical truth which the philosophers, mislead by its im-
materiality and eternity, have put in the place of God.
Submission to the law is the beginning of all impiety
Once arrived in France, Shestov did not waste a moment: he immediately
established contacts with some of the Russian intellectuals who had arrived
earlier in Paris. He approached those, with whom he had collaborated in Kiev,
Moscow, and St. Petersburg and inquired about the possibility of publishing
some of the articles written before his departure. People were interested in
obtaining rsthand information about events in Russia, and Shestov was eager
to provide it: before the end of March, he sent, while still in Germany, a long
article, entitled What Is Bolshevism? which was published a few months
later in the prestigious Mercure de France. Very soon after that, Shestov began
publishing in the Russian review Sovremmenye Zapisky
1
articles he wrote just
before he went into exile. As the other center of the Russian emigration was
Berlin, Shestov contemplated also the possibility of establishing himself there.
A newpublishing house, Skify (Te Scythes), founded by representatives of the
emigration there began publishing his works. In the end, Paris with its many
institutions for higher learning with a focus on Russian was more attractive.
Indeed, Shestov obtained a position of professor at the Institute of Slavic Stud-
ies, which functioned as a part of the famous Paris University, Sorbonne. He
would teach philosophy there for the next sixteen years. Te French solution
turned out to be a very good one for the rest of the family as well; his wife had
great hopes to be able to practice medicine in France, and their daughters en-
rolled at the University of Grenoble rst and then, later, they continued their
studies at the Sorbonne. Between 1921 and 1930, Shestov often visited Ger-
many where he established contacts not only with the representatives of the
Russian emigration but also with German institutions (such as for instance,
the Nietzsche Gesellschaft) and personalities belonging to various cultural and
academic circles, among them Husserl and his former student Heidegger, Max
Scheler, and Dr. Max Eitingon, a former student of Sigmund Freuds and a
famous psychiatrist at the time.
After brief stays in Grenoble and Clamart, near Paris (were his good friend
Berdyaev settled down after his arrival in France), Shestov established himself
in the city and pursued during the year 1921 a very active involvement with the
Russian intellectual milieu.
2
At rst, he missed completely the contacts with
the French intelligentsia. Luckily, just about the time of his arrival in Paris,
the most prestigious literary journal in France at the time, La Nouvelle Revue
Franaise, was on the way to prepare a special issue dedicated to Dostoevsky.
By the intermediation of Boris de Schloezer, who was asked by Jacques Rivire
and Andr Gide to nd a Russian author able to collaborate with them on this
project, Shestov was oered the occasion to make himself known to the French
public. His article, a shortened version of a paper published previously in the
Russian literary press, appeared in February 1922 and was very well received
by the critics and created quite a stir among the readers; from that moment on,
the door to the French cultural circles was open. In June 1923 Shestov pub-
lished again in another prestigious review, Mercure de France, an article about
Spinoza to be later included in the volume In Jobs Balances under the title
Children and Stepchildren of Time. During the fall of the same year, fty-two
aphorisms written mainly before his departure from Russia and during the
brief sojourn in Geneva in 1920, which were also included in the same volume
under the title Revolts and Submissions, were published in two Russian reviews,
the already mentioned Sovremenye Zapisky and Okno (Te Window). In De-
cember 1922, he began writing an article about Pascal, occasioned by the three
hundredth anniversary of the birth of the French philosopher and intended for
publication in the same Mercure de France. Te article, nished in April 1923,
Shestov in Paris 89
turned out to be too long, however, for the journal; but by now Shestov was a
well-known author, much appreciated by the French cultural milieu. Charles
Du Bos talked to Daniel Halvy, the coordinator of the Cahiers Verts a pres-
tigious collection, published by one of the largest printing houses of France,
Grasset and as a result, the work on Pascal was published as an independent
book entitled Gethsemane Night (to be included later in the volume In Jobs Bal-
ances). Within just a few years, Shestov thus became a well known and much
appreciated author in Paris: Masson-Oursel and Albert Tibaudet wrote about
him, and he corresponded with L. Brunschvicg, Bergson, and Lvy-Bruhl, the
pillars of the French philosophical establishment in France. As a result of this
newly acquired notoriety, he was invited in 1923 by Paul Desjardins and Andr
Gide to the prestigious gathering at Pontigny where Rilke, Unamuno, and Or-
tega y Gasset were also invited next to the French Maurois, Gide, Martin du
Gard, and others (Shestov continued to be a guest at the Pontigny gatherings
during the coming years).
In 1924 Nicolai Berdyaev arrived in France (from Berlin, he was among
the Russian intellectuals expulsed by the Soviet government in 1922) and es-
tablished himself in Clamart, near Paris, where he lived until the end of his life
in 1948. Te two remained in contact, and their friendship established many
years before in Kiev remained steady and unaected by the endless disputes
and the controversial discussions on philosophical and religious subjects the
two friends would have during the next decade. Te year 1924 turned out to
be also important because of the meeting that year with the philosopher Jules
de Gaultier who published in Editions de Sicle the French translation of his
book on Tolstoy and Nietzsche. Moreover, in the house of the French philoso-
pher, Shestov met the newly arrived (from Romania) Benjamin Fondane, who
became if not a follower, certainly his main disciple who will act during the
following years as an excellent interpreter and proponent of his existential phi-
losophy. At the same time, Shestov began writing a study on Plotinus which
was published two years later in the Russian journal Versty (this study was also
included in Te Jobs Balances. Shestov had many notes and had written appar-
ently other fragments for a more extensive work on Plotinus (for details see
Genevive Pirons thesis and the volume edited by Valentina Parisi, in Italian
3
).
At Pontigny he met that year Max Scheler and Ernst Robert Curtius. He vis-
ited) Germany where his books on Tolstoy and Nietzsche and Dostoevsky and
Nietzsche were published in 1923 and 1924, respectively. In 1925 Te Apotheosis
of Groundlessness was also published in German translation. Te beginning of
1925 was marked by the deaths of Jacques Rivire, whom Shestov befriended
in Paris and of his life-long friend Mikhail Gershenson in Russia; the same
year, his sister Elisabeth, together with her husband departed for Palestine. In
August that year, Shestov wrote them a letter in which he speculated about the
possibility of visiting them in the Holy Land and wondered whether the local
Jewish leaders would invite him to lecture there as those who are at the head
of the Zionist and Jewish movement do not understand the cultural activities
and philosophy is in particular strange to them. But who knows. . . .
4
Surpris-
ingly (for Shestov), it seemed for a moment that this voyage would take place
and in preparation, he planned even a series of lectures on Biblical inuences
on the Russian and European philosophy. (It would have been extremely in-
teresting to have them today.) It did not work out in 1925 and Shestov had
to wait more than ten years before he would visit the Holy Land in 1936. Te
year 1925 remains however a memorable one also because following the meet-
ing with Lucien Lvy-Bruhl,
5
the latter accepted for publication, in his very
prestigious Revue Philosophique, the article Memento Mori. In the aftermath of
this meeting the two developed a friendship based on mutual respect and the
agreement to disagree on philosophical matters
6
: the French anthropologist
never accepted Shestovs claim that Lvy-Bruhl was a philosopher (I told
Lvy-Bruhl years ago that he is a metaphysician but he never agreed with this
statement
7
). When it appeared in January 1926, Shestovs long essay was one
of the rst serious studies about phenomenology published in France up to
that time.
Te everyday life in Paris was di cult in spite of the fact that all the mem-
bers of the family worked by now; as a result, the Shestovs had to leave their
quarters and move in again with the better o Balachowsky family (the two
families would live together for more than three years, from 1926 to the begin-
ning of 1929). Nathalie Chestov-Barano writes in her biography that these
three years can be considered as representing the most interesting period of
Shestovs life during the emigration years.
8
In the large quarters of his in-laws
apartment, he could receive friends, guests, and organize literary and philo-
sophical debates and even musical evenings; indeed, as soon as they moved in,
he received Max Scheler and Tomas Mann who were visiting Paris. A few
months later, he received count Keyserling, a quite well known and inuential
philosopher during the years immediately following WW I. During this pe-
riod he prepared a series of lectures on Solovyov and Religous Tought and
nished an article entitled What Is Truth? in response to the rebuttal profes-
sor Herrig published following the publication of Memento Mori in France
(the English translation of this article is included in Potestas Clavium). When
at the beginning of the year 1927, Shestov organized a birthday party, forty-
ve persons participated, among them Lvy-Bruhl; Andr Gide told Boris de
Schloezer that since his encounter with Nietzsche he had not meet anybody as
impressive as Lev Shestov. Andr Malraux was determined to help him publish
Shestov in Paris 91
his collected works in French. Paris proved to be indeed the right choice for
Shestov, but he worked very hard all these years in order to establish a reputa-
tion for himself and to gain the appreciation of the French intellectual public.
During a sojourn in Berlin in 1927, Shestov met Einstein; still, the most
signicant encounter he ever had in Germany occurred a year later when he
met Edmund Husserl. In fact, their rst meeting took place in April that year
at a philosophical gathering in Amsterdam; in November 1928, Shestov vis-
ited him in Freiburg. Teir intellectual encounter occurred several years earlier
while Shestov was trying to understand how to overcome the limitations of a
philosophy that competed with science for the truth and simultaneously build
another one, a way of thinking grounded in the subjectivity of the individual
thinker. He was looking at the time for the roots of things. In the essay Te
Root of Tings, written still in Russia but published in Paris a few years later,
Husserl was mentioned: In recent times, Husserl has dened philosophy as
the science of the roots of things.
9
As in Memento Mori, Shestov claimed
anew that Husserl intended to expel wisdom and virtue from the domain of
philosophy as did Kant, in fact, when he concluded upon the impossibility of
metaphysics. However, Husserl ended up in a blind alley, observed Shestov,
because if you obey reason, you will obtain rigorous science, but you will nd
yourself innitely removed from the roots of the things; if however, you aspire
to them (Shestov uses in his text the expression rizomatha panton in its original
Greek), in other words, if you admit that the most important is . . . found where
these deep roots are hidden, you must renounce reason and the hope of ever
obtaining the certitude that what you consider as the roots of things are indeed
roots.
10
In spite of this strong opposition to the Husserlian attempt to make
philosophy into a science, an attitude totally opposed to Shestovs position,
he would tell Benjamin Fondane in one of their conversations: I was luckier
than Dostoevsky because I had the chance to meet Husserl, my second (philo-
sophical) guide after Dostoevsky, who was my real master.
11
Regardless, their
total divergence insofar as the philosophical opinions were concerned, the two
very much liked each other (they would meet several times during the coming
years, and the last essay written by Shestov, almost on his death bed, was an in
memoriam dedicated to Edmund Husserl).
Te personal encounter between the two had another unintended but very
important consequence: listening to Shestovs arguments, Husserl immediately
realized their closeness, in many respects, to those brought forth by Kierkeg-
aard when it came to matters of faith and the rejection of a philosophy, which
prized, above all, objectivity. In the above mentioned article dedicated to Hus-
serl, Shestov remembered that as I was telling him in Freiburg that I do not
know Kierkegaard, he insisted upon the fact that I should read the works of the
Danish philosopher; more than that, he ordered me to do so.
12
As soon as he
left Husserl, Shestov began reading Kierkegaard. In a letter sent in December
to his brother-in-law Herman Lovtzki, he wrote a bit disappointed at rst: I
read Kierkegaardindeed, there are some things which may by common to
both of us. But from what I read so far, it seems to me that there is no philoso-
phy here.
13
A few months later (in April 1929), in another letter to Lovtzki
he writes now that unlike Buber, I believe that Nietzsche is much more im-
portant than Kierkegaard.
14
Te year 1930 will be almost entirely dedicated to
the intensive study of the works of the Danish philosopher; in 1931 he wrote
to Boris de Schloezer that the year of his confrontation with the ideas of Ki-
erkegaard was a very di cult one. By the end of the year, in December 1931,
Shestov began a course on Dostoevsky and Kierkegaard at the Sorbonne, and
at about the same time he completed the several chapters on Kierkegaard to
be included in the study Te Bull of Phalaris, which was published later as a
chapter in Athens and Jerusalem.
After the conference in Amsterdam in April 1928, Shestov travelled to
Frankfurt to meet Martin Buber. (I will discuss in more detail their relation-
ship in a later chapter.) Te same year, he met Heidegger, whom he read al-
ready (the lecture [of Sein und Zeit] is di cult but it is worth to undertake
the eort,, he wrote to his sister Fany and with whom he would exchange a
few letters later). At the beginning of 1929, he hosted Husserl who came to
Paris to give a series of presentations at the Sorbonne. In general, this year too
would prove to be full of interesting meetings and events; among other things,
a translation of the book In Jobs Balances was published in Germany and in
Paris the book appeared in Russian. A long article on Solovyov (written a bit
earlier) was published now, a lecture about Te sources of the metaphysical
truths was delivered during the same year to a Russian audience (it would be
published later as Parmenides in Chains in Revue Philosophique), the cor-
respondence with Husserl and Buber continued, and one nds also traces of
many exchanges of letters with French, German, and Russian writers and phi-
losophers following the publication of the books mentioned above.
15
Even though Shestov always wrote in Russian, ten years after his arrival
in France, he was probably the best known Russian emigrant in the Parisian
intellectual circles. During the thirties, in addition to the names mentioned
already, writers such as Jean Paulhan, or philosophers among whom one can
mention Henri Corbin (busy at the time translating Heidegger into French, to
become later one of the great European specialists in Susm) and Jean Wahl
(who introduced during the thirties Kierkegaard to the French philosophical
world), were writing about him or wanted to help translating and publishing
his works in French. Partly, this success was due to the fact that he was perma-
Shestov in Paris 93
nently acting (in the Bergsonian sense he would say; Shestov explicitly used the
verb agir which he interpreted to mean denying mental immobility) but also
to the fact that his writings were very much in tune with a world traumatized
by the experience of WW I and already scared by the gloomy perspective of a
new apocalyptic clash between the newly instated totalitarian ideologies and
the weak democracies of old Europe. Under the appearances of a renewed
vitality, seemingly illustrated by the avant-garde movements and intense politi-
cal activities, people were unhappy and uncertain, and the horizon was full of
bad premonitions. Te dreams about a world ruled by logic and reason seemed
to fade away, and the ideal of equilibrium and peace of mind built upon a
philosophy based on eternal truths became less and less credible. Shestov did
not believe in equilibrium, in the ability of the human society to steadily im-
prove, in individual happiness based on knowledge, or in a collective salvation
through the right application of universal laws to be found at work in nature
and in society. Even people who were not ready to follow Shestovs ideas did
listen to him. Husserl wrote him in one of his letters, you know that I take
very seriously your attempts to uncover, for yourself and for us all, a world of
God in which one will be able to live and die.
16
A philosophical discourse dominated by an anti-rationalist bent and strong
hints to faith and the need to accept Gods presence in the concrete world of
the human existence was not strange to the philosophical/intellectual Paris
during the years between the two world wars. One should remember that next
to Marxist, existentialist, personalist, rationalist, neopositivist, or bergsonian
philosophies, the neothomist thought, and a brand of religious existentialism
of the kind proposed by Gabriel Marcel were also very active during this pe-
riod.
17
Shestovs discourse was too radical both for those who tried to move
away from the positivist, phenomenological, neo-Kantian and/or neo-Hege-
lian trends in philosophy and the forms of religious existentialism with roots in
the Catholic faith. Even though the contours of the philosophical map where
poorly dened in France at the time: Henri Corbin was translating Heidegger
and at the same time he studied the Su mystics of Persia and Alexandre Koy-
r, also of Jewish-Russian origins but much younger than Shestov who studied
in Germany with Husserl and David Hilbert and in France with Bergson, was
considered a phenomenologist, a philosopher of science or by some, a thinker
with . . . theosophical inclinations. To a much larger extent than Germany,
France had a number of active and inuential thinkers, who were not a liated
with either universities or academic institutions; some were foreigners brought
by racial persecution or social revolutions, but the number of French authors
who served as interface between the literary and philosophical avant-gardes
was quite signicant. Authors as dierent as Jules de Gaultier, George Bataille,
Gabriel Marcel, and Rachel Bespalo gravitated in Shestovs orbit for longer
or shorter periods of time; Jean Wahl who often found himself at the bor-
derline between the rigorous academic philosophy and the non-conventional,
quasi-existential philosophical approach manifested at some point a degree of
openness toward his weltanschauung. Perhaps Shestov could have been em-
braced by thinkers who would later be considered the main representatives
of the existentialist philosophy, if he had not rejected so categorically any
attempt to consider solutions to the epistemological and ontological queries
of the generation. Gabriel Marcel, for instance, said he did look in Shestovs
works for doors he thought would open toward new perspectives only to nd
out that there were no doors at all in Shestovs constructions.
18
Jean Wahl, very
much in search for ways to include the concrete into metaphysical thinking,
explained also, in a conversation with Fondane (in an indirect way rather) why
he could not in the end nd in Shestov anything acceptable from his point of
view.
19
Only Camus, an existential thinker who refused also to seek an ontol-
ogy (his refusal was based on other grounds than Shestovs though; he did not
need it as he had an alternative way of expression in his literary works), will
refer to Shestov in a signicant way in his Myth of Sisyphus.
As we have seen, Shestov reworked some of the materials elaborated dur-
ing his late Russian period and later in Paris and published them in periodi-
cals, as well as in the rst two books Potestas Clavium and In Job Balances to
appear during the rst decade of his French exile. While the very rst articles
published there were still very much inuenced by the style of those writ-
ten during his pre-exilic period, in Revolts and Submissions one begins to see
emerging new themes and novel angles of approach as well. As we have seen,
Shestov often talked about the need to restate philosophy, to rebuilt it outside
of the connes of a reason destined (only) to guide man in his empiric exis-
tence; in the essays published in exile, he becomes more sharp, more focused,
more imperative: the whole art of philosophy should be directed towards free-
ing us from the good and evil of cooks and carpenters, to nding that frontier
beyond which the might of general ideas ceases, he writes.
20
In the country
of Descartes, such a radical critique of a philosophy based upon reason, logic,
and causality might have seemed indeed to many, if not nonsensical, hardly
acceptable; how can one philosophize, seek wisdom, if reason, causality, and
the principle of non-contradiction were excluded from the process? What is
left to be said once one discards the very pillars upon which wisdom lies?
Only somebody in great despair or a very cynical person could make such a
statement; Jean Wahl, in a letter to Benjamin Fondane wrote, Unfortunately,
I cannot read Shestov . . . It is perhaps because I myself know only too well
from years of experience, the meaning of both irony and despair. . . . However,
Shestov in Paris 95
we know that in fact Shestov never attacked rational thinking per se: he only
denied it the right to impose itself in a total, tyrannical way to the mind of
the reecting human being. We do not think only when we want to solve a
practical problem, whether this problem is a challenge in mathematics or the
best way to produce enough food without producing ecological damage. We
also reect upon our happiness when we are happy and over the causes of our
unhappiness in moments we feel miserable. We engage our knowledge when
we want to develop or build something but try to be wise also when we en-
counter evil or we face the fear of death. What Shestov did, in fact, was merely
to claim that one cannot indiscriminately apply the same kind of knowledge,
to judge by the same wisdom in all these cases. In the exile writings, this idea
comes to the fore in a clearer way than in the previous works. Still, he doggedly
repeated that philosophyfollowing in the footsteps of a tradition originating
with the ancient Greeks and continued to our very daysdoes exactly that. It
postulates that the only tool we have to reect upon things, immanent and/or
transcendental, from this world or from the realm of the everlasting, is reason.
Te corollary of this belief is that a law of causality must be at work (in spite
of Humes critique) and a logic of non-contradiction to which everything, near
and far, men, stones, and gods must obey (in agreement with Aristotle and his
followers). Only thus do we stand a chance to understand. In order to refute
this way of thinking Shestov rened his previous analysis of the nature of the
evidences that came to support the basic axioms of philosophy. He tried hard
to invent another way of thinking that refused the status of modern philoso-
phy, that of a handmaid of science.
It is interesting to see how Shestovs attitude toward Spinoza evolved un-
der these new circumstances. As we have seen, Shestovs position toward the
philosopher from Amsterdam was somewhat ambivalent during the years be-
fore World War I and began to change after the work on young Luther. If
Luther wanted to replace the Law and the reason with sola de, Spinoza almost
necessarily became his opposite (after all, he was Jewish and recognized the
centrality of the Law in Judaism). In Sola Fide already, an entire chapter (VII)
was dedicated to a relatively extended discussion of Spinozas philosophical-
theological views. Very perceptively Shestov observed from the very beginning
that more than Kant, Spinoza was responsible for the implantation into our
minds of certain thoughts upon which the modern philosophy and science
would build its ways of understanding Heaven and Earth, man and God, chaos
and cosmos. Spinoza was the thinker who stated in his Ethics that the order
and connections we establish between our ideas (ordo et connexio idearum) rep-
resents a one-to-one correspondence with those existing in the objective reality
(ordo et connexio rerum).
21
Tis, together with the postulates of the eternity of
the natural laws and that which limits Gods creation to the actually created
world, represents the basis upon which modernity built its ways of thinking.
Spinoza needed logic as St. Augustine, before him, needed the dogma elabo-
rated by the Church to ensure the stability and to guarantee the validity of
his thoughts. Tat because he too had doubts: if God was perfect, how was to
be explained the imperfection introduced in the world? Moreover, Spinoza
himself had existential experiences similar to those of Pascal, which induced
in him that strange feeling of the presence of an abyss, painful and movingd
experiences, in Shestovs words. In his own description of the ways in which his
inner, personal drama interfered with the origins of his philosophical outlook,
Spinoza recognized that fear and hope shaped it. However, why did not such a
permanent oscillation between despair and hope make Spinoza into a man of
the subterranean world, resembling Dostoevskys heroes? Why did he remain
faithful to the principle of more geometrico and, like St. Augustine and other
philosophers, went out to seek beatitude as the supreme goal of the philosophi-
cal thought? To all these questions posed already at the time he wrote Sola Fide,
Shestov returned to Paris ten years later, while writing his essay on Spinoza in
History. Tis time, however, he wrote about Spinoza with Pascal in his mind,
and this changed everything.
Back now to Revolt and Submission: in one of its sections Shestov presents
in a masterly way, in a few pages only, the genesis of a reasoning based on the
principle of causality.
22
Te apparently objective question of causalityas
the author puts itis rooted in our struggle for existence, a struggle that
imposes practical needs: Our interest is twofold. On the one hand, the outer
world must be divided into parts for us to be able to overcome them; on the
other hand, those parts must be connected as closely as possible in order to
leave nothing, or as little as possible, of the unforeseen, which nips in the bud
the possibility of any systematic progress. Here Shestov introduced a very
meaningful and subtle observation: if one reects a moment upon the essence
of the Newtonian-Galilean revolution in natural sciences, one notices that
what he said in the above quoted statement was equivalent to a description in
nuce of the essence of this same revolution. In its framespace, time, velocity,
acceleration, momentum and forcehave been linked together in a coherent
way through mathematical constructs, and thus the foundation for an unprec-
edented scientic and technological explosion was set. As a result, mankind
was indeed granted the gifts of the earth. Shestov was not at all against that,
there is no need to renounce the gifts of the earth, he wrote, but we must
not forget heaven for their sakes.
23
Tat, he argues, because . . . were not we
preoccupied only with the utilitarian ends, we should not interest ourselves in
what look like relationships existing between what looks like parts (ibid., my em-
Shestov in Paris 97
phasis). In order to work, science must make all things unremarkable, explained
Shestov, and by that he meant that science transforms the parts it operates
upon, into operational concepts, that is, things that have the appearance of parts
of something and between which sustainable relationships can be established.
Anything else must be excluded. Te single, the uncontrollable, the incompre-
hensible, the irreproducible (the fortuitous,, as he called it), have no place in
rigorous, scientic, or philosophical thinking. Tus, science would make unre-
markable everything (which is) remarkable. Tat is why, according to Shestov,
science cannot satisfy mans quest for truth. Despite science, the unremarkable
refuses to lose all its meaning; the unremarkable, the particulier existentiel as
Fondane would call it in his philosophical writings, which refuses to be con-
ceptualized, strains all its forces to become as remarkable as possible.
24
Can
there be a philosophy of the unremarkable? will ask Shestov in the end.
In another section of the same essay entitled What Are Questions Made
Of? Shestov, following Plato, concluded that the reasonable creatures desire
for knowledge is born out of his limitations.
25
Trough a somewhat sophistic
argument, he adds: consequently reasonableness is itself limitation. As we
have seen, it is not rare to nd in Shestovs writings such somersaults. However,
they should not lead one to the conclusion that his critique of the tyranny
of reason,, as he terms it, and his eorts to establish a new way of thinking,
his metasophia meant to transcend the conventional philosophy, originated in
sophistic arguments. From the very rst aphorisms published in the Apotheosis
of Groundlessness, one could see that Shestovs point of departure in his ar-
gumentations was sound and solid: in his deconstruction of the supremacy
of the rational thinking, he always followed two parallel paths: one was that
of the analysis of the ways and methods which led us to the acceptance of
some sort of a generalized concept of logos understood as a synthesis of the
external, objective law which governs everything including the human ability
to uncover it. Tis happens, as we have seen above, through a fragmentation,
a de-composition into parts which can be re-united according to logic and
causality. Implicit in this process, there is also an acceptance of the continuity
of imperceptible changes, which ts our mental constructs: the unremarkable
becomes the building block of our theories. To better understand these abstract
arguments, I will use concepts borrowed from the natural sciences (Shestov
himself did that sometimes; I am sure he would not have minded it): if one
reects upon the periodic movement of a frictionless pendulum or the move-
ment of small ball-like atoms or electrons, one quickly realizes that none of
the above exists as such. We cannot eliminate friction, and the movement of
a pendulum is not strictly periodic, and electrons are not tiny, perfect spheres
turning around a nucleus, but we still can build theories based on these as-
sumptions, and surprisingly enough they work very well. (In the case of atoms
and electrons, the classical mechanics had to be amended in order to take into
account the coarseness of the simplications involved in the models.) One uses
in these scientic explanations idealized concepts that interact through smooth
changes that accommodate causality and eliminate contradictions. Te result is
a cult of the imperceptible as Shestov called it. By that he meant that an ab-
solute submission to the concepts that can be manipulated using reproducible
and testable laws is always at work in our mental constructs. Te corollary of all
these is that in such a realm, the question is conditioned by the answer and if the
answers are complete and certain, man will cease to ask; he will himself be as
God. Butadds Shestovthis is just where the fatal self-deception is hidden.
Tat is why the o cial, recognized philosophy, which aims at being science,
does not go beyond the intelligere, and is, moreover, quite genuinely convinced
that it alone is seeking the truth.
26
Te second deconstructive path followed by Shestov was that of the strug-
gle for the legitimacy of the aective in philosophical thinking. As we know by
now, this is not a new issue in his writings, but now, in his writings published
following the exile, he became much more insistent insofar as this matter was
concerned. In another section of Revolt and Submission, he reproduced an alleg-
edly overheard confession and commented upon it. Tese confessions sound
like a fragment from Kafkas diaries, but in the comment under discussion, it
is again Tolstoy who is invoked: the author renders the famous conversion Tol-
stoy underwent: all of a sudden intolerable, torturing, and unfounded fears
were insidiously creeping into the writers soul. He felt that something impe-
rious, hard, merciless, was rending him away from all that was dear, homely,
nearfrom wife, child, artistic creation, from his property at Yasnaia Polyana,
from life itself.
27
For a long while it was clear to Tolstoy that he had to ee
the evil of these torturing fears and return to his earlier world. However, then,
. . . ten, twenty years went by; looking back on his past, he sees just as clearly
and distinctly that the unfounded fears were a good, and that his wife, his
children, his books and his property were the greatest of evils.
28
Shestov did
not describe the experience of the abyss Tolstoy underwent to arrive at this
point (he did it, though, in his early book on Tolstoy and Nietzsche abun-
dantly discussed in a previous chapter). He went on with his argument and
concluded: Tere you have experience pitted against experience, self-evidence
against self-evidence. Which is one to believe? Is it necessary to believe nally
in anything? Is it possible to believe? (ibid., my emphasis). Te reader recognizes
the pattern of this statement; I quoted a similar one from an earlier collection
of aphorisms, and I spoke about the feeling of dj vu which takes hold of us
while reading Shestov. However, this is not the essential point; what is impor-
Shestov in Paris 99
tant is to realize that this second path of deconstruction would lead Shestov
to the same conclusion he reached at the end of the rst one, described above:
rational thinking does not unveil any truth since a really signicant truth cannot
be unveiled either by scientic research or by philosophy as it was practiced
from Socrates to Hegel, and beyond, to his very days. At best, these illusory
truths might oer comfort: If you want to be released from torture, submit
yourself to ideas, become yourself ideas. Herein, and herein alone lies your sal-
vation, wrote Shestov in the book In Jobs Balances.
29
Te disquietude remains
a fact though, and with this ceaseless and ever growing disquietude every man
must deal for himself.
30
Te conclusion one arrives at reading Shestov of the
beginning of his exilic period is that religion or at least some sort of a reli-
gious based thinking must become the philosophy of the individual as this is
the only thought appropriate to cope with the concrete, unique experience of
the individual. We hear him telling his reader more and more often that this
is what one learns from the story of Abraham, this is what Jobs story teaches.
Shestov had extensively discussed the process through which even the religions
inferred from the biblical mythology (in this respect I do not believe that he
made a distinction between Judaism and Christianity) have been transformed
to teach that God himself is a prisoner of the ratio. In a way, therefore, Jacques
Maritain was right to write that the existentialism of Shestov (and Fondane)
was an essentially religious irruption and claim, an agony of faith, the cry of
subjectivity towards its God.
31
I would like to sum up this description of Shestovs major themes devel-
oped during the rst part of his Parisian exile by observing a division between
the rst ones (elaborated during the very rst years of this period, 1922 to
1925) which are still reecting the preoccupations of a thinker torn between
Sola Fide and Memento Mori, and the others, written during the late twen-
ties and early thirties, which present an author who has overcome already this
dilemma. Te lecture of Kierkegaard represents to some extent a dividing line
between the two periods. Shestovs ideas about the Danish religious thinker
will be discussed in one of the next chapters; here, I only point out that the
thoughts included in Revolts and Submission and discussed above represent the
moment following immediately the turning point of this transformation, while
the very subject matters of the essays on Spinoza, Pascal, and Plotinus further
dene and characterize the thinker who would write at the end of the second
stage of this development that Athens and Jerusalem and religious philosophy
are expressions with identical meanings.
SEVEN
Shestov in Paris II
Out of the Bull of Phalaris
He who loved the Lord his God with all his heart and with all his soul . . . was condemned
by God himself to slay God
We must awake out of something, overcome some self-evident truths
Te essay about Spinoza mentioned in the previous chapter was written more
or less at the same time as that on Pascal (192223). Te French thinker did
appear occasionally in Shestovs earlier writings but only as vaguely represent-
ing the revolt against the rigors imposed by rational thinking. In the essay
dedicated to Pascal, Gethsemane Night, the French philosopher comes to
the fore but not only (and mainly) in this context. Shestov often interpreted
Pascal in terms somewhat detached from those of his own historical-philo-
sophical context (as, for instance, when he disregards the fact that quotations
taken from Pascals works such as I do not expect a thing from the world, I do
not need anything, I do not want anything; thank God I do not need either the
protection or the favors of whoever it might be, relate directly to his interac-
tions with the Jansenists
1
). However, as in other cases mentioned above, the
personal interpretation he gives to Pascals works and to his thoughts about
man and God and the essence of faith is more interestingfrom our point
of view in this workthan the accuracy of the description of Pascals inter-
actions with Port Royal and the established religious trends and authorities
representing them. From the very beginning, Shestov states that Pascal was
never a Cartesian; moreover, his real absolute judge when it comes to our pro-
nouncements about knowledge and truth is not man but He who is above all
men.
2
Pascals ad tuum, Domine Jesu, tribunal appello might be misinterpreted
by neglecting the historical context in which he wrote this pathetic appeal, but
in the Shestovian context this choice is very signicant. Since Christ will ago-
nize till the end of the days, one must not fall asleep at any time, but Pascal, as
Macbeth, will not withstand the temptation; one remembers that even Christs
vicar on earth, St. Peter, falls sound asleep in the Garden of Gethsemane at
a fateful moment. Tis idea of the denial of the supreme authority in order
to better exercise human liberty and to come closer to it appeared already in
earlier works, where the issue of Nietzsches belief was discussed; the thought
would evolve in Shestovs mind and be expressed forcefully in the essay on
Plotinus written three years later. Meanwhile, St. Augustine is invoked again,
in order to remind the reader that for him the theoretical and the practical
signicance of the idea of the Church and of that of reason were essentially the
same
3
; Shestov reminds us also that Pascal mentions from time to time the
sovereign right of reason but takes care to add that in the depths of his soul,
(he) despises and hates this autocrat.
4
Furthermore, even if one might have
doubts concerning the statement that Pascal called not only Rome but reason
itself before the tribunal of God, Shestovs text leaves no doubt about the fact
that he builds his analysis and understanding of Pascals thought upon this
premise. In the frame of this interpretation, Shestov sees what would become
his logic, conrmed in Pascals writings. Rome and reason ordain it; there-
fore it must not be done; such is Pascals logic, he writes.
5
Te corollary of this
logic is that one must seek the truth while crying (the Pascalian quote to which
Shestov alludes is je napprouve que ceux qui cherchent en gmissant) and you
must not pause, you must not rest, you must march on, march without ceasing
(ibid.). Pascal refuses to grant the searching man any security. While this idea
is not new with Shestovwe have seen him write against a philosophy of con-
solation in his early writings alreadythe a rmation is made here in a much
closer proximity to the idea of God.
According to Shestov, Pascal did overcome Stoicism in philosophy; that
represented a rst resonance between the two. He often criticized the Stoic
philosophy because, as he repeats here, what was true for antiquity is true for
us, the thoughts on which we live are the thoughts of Stoicism,
6
and he would
discuss these ideas again and in more detail in a future essay on Plotinus. How-
Out of the Bull of Phalaris 103
ever, in his essay on Pascal, he singled out the opposition between the French
philosopher and the Stoics in order to introduce the rights of the aectivity, of
the individual, of the ego facing the absolute rights of reason and the general,
as required by all major philosophies, which preceded Pascal as well as those
who came after him. In the ego and only in the ego and in its irrationality,
lies the hope that it may be possible to dissipate the hypnosis of mathematical
truth which the philosophers, misled by its immateriality and eternity, have
put in the place of God, writes Shestov.
7
Te search for this truth drew Pas-
cal to St. Augustine and past St. Augustine to St. Paul, past St. Paul to what
Paul found in certain passages of Isaiah and in the Biblical story of the Fall
(ibid.). Tis last quotation is important because it establishes a trajectory, from
the existential philosophy of the troubled self to God, a movement that would
be perfectly reversible in Shestovs later philosophical and religious thought,
making it di cult to separate between the two. Moreover, Shestov established
also a connection between Pascal and Luther, which was not emphasized in
Sola Fide: the same question which had confronted Luther a century earlier,
presents itself to Paul: Whence does salvation come to man? (ibid.). In the
opposite direction, he establishes a link with Spinoza also when he recalls the
negative attitude he had toward aectivity expressed by the famous (and very
often quoted by Shestov) non ridere, non lugere, neque detestari, sed intelligere
(laugh not, weep not, be not wroth, but understand).
Of course, as the religiously biased discourse becomes more pronounced
and questions such as how can one justify a God whose very principle is ar-
bitrary caprice? are posed, Shestov has to confront principles and ideas that
are very dierently dened in the two books of the scriptures, the Old and the
New Testament. In his writings in exile, Shestov begins a long journey into the
unchartered territory of an ill-dened mixture of Jewish and Christian religious
symbols and interpretations. We will discuss this issue in more detail later on;
here, I want to mention another instance in which Shestovs ambiguous atti-
tude toward the law was brought to the fore. Once Luther came to realize that
a strict observance of the law does not save the believer, he became terrorized
by the fear that this thought opened the road to perdition. Experiencing such a
truth is extraordinary, and the normal reaction should be an attempt to recon-
cile the new, extraordinary idea with the established wisdom induced by tradi-
tion, culture, and religion. However, Shestov, in agreement with Luther, wrote
that we have no right to reject an unusual experience, even though it does
not agree with our a priori notions
8
and added in a quite categorical manner
that submission to the law is the beginning of all impiety. And the highest
point of impiety is the deication of the laws, of those eternal and immaterial
truths dependent on a single truth, of which Pascal had spoken to us later.
9

It is surprising for a thinker with Shestovs background to deny in such a radi-
cal way the value of the Law that in the Jewish tradition is considered to be
transcendental, external to history since it was established before the creation
(the Torah, according to the Jewish tradition, served as a blueprint to God).
However, he seems either to be unaware of this idea or ready to give it up; and
to make sure that his position on this matter is clear and unambiguous, after
conceding that in the Bible there where also lawsMoses brought the tables
down from SinaiShestov added that Luther will tell us what Pascal heard at
the supreme tribunal . . . etc. (follows a long quote from Luther), thus imply-
ing that Moses and the Bible represent only a rst stage in a story that began
with the Creation, Moses, and the exit from Egypt and later, in a continuous
way led to Golgotha and the Evangels. Moreover, quoting immediately after
that, St. Paul, Shestov pointed out, that God himself violates the supreme law
of justice: He manifests himself to those who do not inquire after Him, He is
found by those who do not seek Him.
10
As mentioned above, these ideas are
hardly acceptable within the frame of reference of the traditional Jewish theol-
ogy, but the author of the above quotes does not seem bothered by this issue.
On the contrary, he seems to feel quite comfortable with an immediate and
straightforward interpretation of a discourse that positions him in the tradition
of the Christian interpretations of the scriptures. Again, we return to the ques-
tion does this make Shestov a Christian religious philosopher? Te answer
is, doubtful; his disciple Benjamin Fondane would dwell at length on these
matters in his discussions with Maritain and Berdyaev, after an endless num-
ber of discussions on these themes with Shestov, answered the question with a
categorical, no. Perhaps the best explanation is to be found in Shestovs own
words, in his letter sent to Serge Bulgakov, written shortly before his death.
Another idea encountered in Shestovs earlier writings resurfaces in the
essay about Pascal; it is the story of the Fall, re-considered now in light of
Shestovs new ideas insofar as the balance between philosophy and religion
is concerned. Even though in this respect, Shestov was somewhat closer to a
traditional Jewish approach in opposition to the Christian one (even Pascals
companions at Port Royal refused to accept the biblical story of the Fall in all
its mysterious fullness
11
), he still preferred to begin his argumentation with
quotes from St. Paul and Tertullian. Te law entered so that the oence might
abound said the former while the latter stated that only after having broken
the law, Adam and Eve could really begin to believe, since only the knowledge
acquired as a result of the transgression of the law clearly separated the reason-
able from the absurd. For the companions at Port Royal eating from the fruit
of the tree of knowledge was not a sin, an unfortunate occurrence and that
simply because for them knowledge was the summum bonum; the sin consisted
in Adams disobedience. Te consummation of any fruit, be it an apple or a
plum, would have had the same consequences, that is illness, suering, and
death, writes Shestov and adds, this is the usual interpretation of the Fall,
since the Bible got in the hands of man educated in the Hellenic tradition
(ibid.). Shestov follows up immediately with the statement, thus, the Bible is
interpreted to this day, in spite of Isaiahs aming words and St. Pauls inspired
epistles which becomes very signicant in connection with the observations
made above concerning the position Shestov took toward the traditional Jew-
ish religious thinking. Tis last remark could be seen as the pronouncement of
a Christian thinker who includes the Old Testament in the Scriptures and in
a way consistent with Christian theology sees in the Bible merely a document
foretelling the upcoming story of Jesus the Messiah. Alternatively, Shestovs
pronouncement could be seen as coming from a religious thinker who decided
not to make any longer the distinction between the prophet and the apostle,
between the Old and the New Testament considering both to be equally repre-
sentatives of one and the same faith, a primeval Judaism or an all encompassing
Judaism. Shestov implies that Judaism was changed in its very essence, rst by
the contact with the Greek philosophy, which introduced a rigid rationality
and replaced the prophet with the interpreter of the scripture and a second
time, by the traumatic experience of the loss of the Temple in Jerusalem, the
exile and as a result, the need to re-dene and codify the message contained
in the Bible for a people who, while remaining loyal to the Covenant, lost the
possibility to implement its laws in the traditional manner. Under the newly
created conditions, both the prophet and the scribe are replaced by the Rabbi.
Christianity, which in Shestovs view was at its very beginning just another
way in which human beings created by God in his image interacted with the
Creator after His decision to become involved once again with Adam and his
descendants, was also deeply modied by the Greek spirit. From this moment
on, in all his writings Shestov would aim principally to make clear these ideas;
if he did not always succeed, one cannot blame him as he often quoted Pascals
dictum, do not reproach us with the lack of clarity for we make it our profes-
sion. Whatever the conclusion the reader or the interpreter of Shestovs works
will reach, one thing seems to be beyond doubt and controversy: to the extent
he had faith, Shestov believed in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and not
the in the God of philosophers and the wise men.
At the very beginning of his essay on Spinoza, Shestov revisits St. Pauls
ambiguous statement about the law, the law came that oence might abound,
but with a dierent intent than in the case of the work on Pascal. Here, since
he spoke about a philosopher who not only did not reject reason but wanted to
demonstrate everything more geometrico, the author began by asking why would
one needafter St. Paulto introduce a new law, the rst commandment of
modern philosophy Shestov called it, which required the total emancipation
of philosophy from all postulates. It is not only that modern philosophy refuses
to admit postulates; it excludes from its practice any references to myths and
legends, considering them illegitimate. Furthermore, the Scriptures being con-
sidered to belong to these last categories, are no exception. However, Shestov
remarked that the Greek philosophy had a myth about the origin of man, as
the Bible had one, and he presented and discussed the formulation Anaxi-
mander gave to it. Te Greek and the biblical myths are opposed to each other,
and the question is where the truth lies. In the economy of his text, this digres-
sion had the task to remind us again the deeply engrained opposition between
Athens and Jerusalem but also that between Descartes clear and distinct ideas
and Pascals fuzzy thinking. In addition, this discussion served to introduce
Spinoza as the arbiter between the two, the judge who would set the things
straight. Shestov wrote explicitly: Spinoza probably did not know Pascal, but
the kind of thought which Pascal held . . . was, of course, only too familiar to
Spinoza, and he held his historic mission to be to combat precisely this kind of
thought.
12
Following a relatively long detour across some of the older Shestovian re-
marks about the role of the general ideas in the newly established philosophy
of the Greeks and the re-reading of the religious texts of the Bible by Philo
of Alexandria, the rst Apostle of the Gentiles using Greek tools, the author
concluded that for fteen hundred years the reason of European humanity
endeavored to quench the light which came from the East.
13
However, who
will do the work of slaying a God who disturbs the philosophers? Using the
logic at work earlier in the case of Nietzsche, Shestov pointed out that the task
fell upon he who loved the Lord his God with all his heart and with all his
soulhow often and how emphatically he speaks of these in his earlier works
and in the Ethicswas condemned by God himself to slay God.
14
Tat is how
(and why) Spinoza arrived at his non ridere, based on the axiomatic exclusion
of the aectivity from the philosophical exercise, since the emotions of fear
and hope cannot in themselves be good. Shestov recognized that there was
a time when Spinoza was still free of the constraints imposed by the mental
laws of gravity of the all mighty reason; but by the time he wrote the Ethics
he was already enslaved to the more geometrico: beauty, ugliness, good, evil, joy
and sorrow, fear and hope, order and disorder, all these are human matters, all
this is transitory and has not connection with truth. Ye imagine that God cares
for the needs of man? Tat He created the world for man? . . . To comprehend
God one must strive to emancipate oneself from cares and joys, from fears and
hopes. . . .
15
Tis is Shestovs Spinoza now, and that is why he would become
for him the embodiment of a view of man, God, and their relationship that has
to be rejected. Te observation that thinkers who undergo a traumatic experi-
ence respond by attempting to cancel and/or overcome its eects, is explained
by Shestov in a quite strange way: God sent out his prophets to blind and bind
men, that they, fettered and blinded, should hold themselves free and seeing.
Why was that necessary? Did Spinoza know that? Do we know it, who read
Isaiah and Spinoza?
16
Tese, too, are new questions on which Shestov would
dwell in subsequent essays published later in Paris.
Before discussing them, however, we must cast a brief glance upon an an-
other essay written more or less during the same period Shestov wrote about
Spinoza and Pascal. Tis particular essay focuses on Plotinus and is entitled
Worlds Tat Are Swallowed Up: Plotinus Ecstasies. Here, the starting point
is a quote from the last great pagan philosopher, who claimed that as long as
the soul remains in the body, he stays sound asleep. Shestov asked what is the
relationship between the truths found by a soul freed from the body and those
found by souls still unfreed?
17
dening thus the question in the realm of phi-
losophy. In a way, this is a return to the statement made in an early aphorism
(#17 in the second part of Te Apotheosis of Groundlessness) about a meta-
physics that cannot exist side-by-side with reason. Plotinus was mentioned in
Sola Fide also, but there Shestov claimed that he did not dare go as far as to
recognize the essential fact that revealed truth cannot be discussed within the
connes of a logical system, that is, that it cannot be expressed through judg-
ments of universal value and statement which will not admit contradiction.
18

Now he wants to re-consider this statement as it seems to him that a more at-
tentive lecture of the ancient philosopher would lead to a dierent conclusion.
In this article, Shestov sets o to show that perhaps Plotinus did go as far as
to arrive at this crucial observation. First, he observed that when Plotinus had
to decide between revealed and natural truths, he unhesitatingly took the side
of the former.
19
Second, one nds in the Ennead (IX, 3,4) the statement that
the comprehension of the One is not given us through knowledge (epistheme)
and also not through thinking (noesis) like the cognition of the ideal things but
through a communion (parousia) which is something higher than knowledge.
20

Tis theory poses a problem, however: If we assume that Plotinus has reached
any valuable knowledge through a state in which his soul was able to free itself
from his body and through a penetration into the deep self he acquired a hint
about the knowledge of the One, how are we going to unfold from his text this
piece of knowledge? In Shestovs words, we face the dilemma: to understand
Plotinus means to kill him and not to study him means to renounce him.
21
I
mention this point not only to emphasize the paradoxical nature of the esoteric
knowledge but also the fact that Shestov was fully aware of it. How to proceed
therefore? Porphyry, his faithful disciple, wrote that Plotinus never re-read his
works and his explanation had to do with the masters poor sight at old age (he
began writing down his works at the age of fty). Shestov nds the excuse a
lame and probably untrue one. Te reason Plotinus did not re-read himself was
that if he had done it, he would have had to tell himself that he had lost truth
in reason (ibid.). Overreading cancels the deeply hidden meaning of the read-
ing. Te teacher had to write in a way the students would understand, but deep
inside, beyond the surface, a truth which has the ability to compel, the only one
which, writes Shestov, represents the fundamental mark of true genuineness
of thought,, unveils itself.
22
Te Pascal connection in this essay appears by the intermediary of Epic-
tetus, the philosopher Pascal loved best.
23
Tere was, however, something
harsh in this Stoic philosopher, something that repelled Pascal, some sort of a
superbe diabolique was manifest in his Discourses. If Pascal had known Plotinus,
he would have found in him the same repelling property, hubris perhaps, which
pushed both to attempt to create, like God, something out of nothing. At this
point, Shestov poses a key question to which he would oer a quite surprising
answer: How could so mad a thought occur to man, and above all, to men like
Epictetus and Plotinus? Is it not clear that a supernatural force is at work here?
24

Tis is the rst time that Shestov introduced the need to believe in such a simple,
casual, straightforward way. Te reasoning is philosophical, even though the
material to which it is applied is of a mixed nature, philosophical and theologi-
cal. However, the main theme proposed by Shestov in the essay on Plotinus
is that of the awakening: Plotinus, as Epictetus (and Socrates and Plato as
well) felt that we must awake out of something, overcome some self-evident
truths.
25
Tis theme would recur often especially in Athens and Jerusalem. An-
other central idea in Shestovs later years revolves around the concept that an
awakening from the slumber of traditional philosophy as well as from that of
traditional theology, be it Jewish or Christian, must occur. Again, what he had
in mind was a Jewish-Christian religious continuum that started with Abraham
in Ur-Kasdim and continued on Mount Sinai, in Babylon, in Nazareth, in
Bethlehem, and Jerusalem through the exile and the crucixion and the de-
struction of the Temple and ended with the rewriting of this history by Philo
of Alexandria and the fathers of the Church in terms of Greek wisdom.
Parmenides in Chains is a study originally prepared as a collection of talks
to be delivered in Germany around 1930; in a letter to Lovtzki, Shestov ex-
plained that in writing about Plato and his teachings in which he stated that
philosophy represented a discourse about death, he wanted to show that as
long as the thought was dependent on the constraint (ananke), one could not
penetrate the domain of a metaphysics that existed and was validated in the
divine realm.
26
Tis was not a new idea of Shestovs, and the essay in its en-
tirety is largely a repetition of former ideas but now presented perhaps in a
more learned and more elegant style. Kant and Hegel are discussed extensively,
as they should be, considering that the material was prepared for a German
philosophical public. Shestov took up again the old argument against Necessity:
whatever eld of philosophical thought we approach, we always run up against
this blind, deaf and dumb Necessity, he writes.
27
Te discussion is interesting
insofar as it brings some light concerning the origins of Shestovs thoughts
about existential philosophy. Parmenides stated that being and thought are
one and the same; but being, despite what Parmenides says, is not the same
as thought.
28
Te trouble is, remarks Shestov, that being cannot express itself
outside the thought, and even when it refuses to submit itself to Necessity, it is
paralyzed by thought. When in a previous conversation with Husserl, Shestov
tried to convince him that philosophy should support being instead of thought,
the latter replied sharply that philosophy is Besinnung, that is reection. Now,
Shestov picks up on this remark and states that philosophy has always meant
and wished to mean reection (ibid.), which means looking back, always look-
ing back. However this retrospection, as it happens to Lots wife transforms
the philosopher into a block of salt. Terefore, when one follows this lead, one
arrives at a dead end.
In the Bull of Phalaris, written approximately a year later with a dif-
ferent purpose in mind and in parallel with the aphorisms to be published
under the title Te Second Dimension of the Tought, Shestov revisited the sub-
jects of knowledge and freedom under dierent angles and following dierent
approaches. Philosophy, in spite of Hegels requirement not to be instructive,
edifying, is just that; moreover, writes Shestov, philosophy had invaded the do-
main of religion and tried to explain revelation. At this point, he believed that
Kierkegaard illustrated this situation when he presented God as submissive to
the objective order of things. Human freedom is lost in this process while the
philosophers continue to claim, from within the belly of the incandescent bull,
smilingly and in spite of all evidence, their absolute freedom. In a nutshell,
this is Shestovs argument in his essay, but, as he pointed out in the letter to
Boris de Schloezer, he was afraid that the too brief and schematic presentation
would miss the point.
29
However, the questions remain whether Shestov was
right about Kierkegaard and whether he succeeded in making clear his intent
in this essay.
In view of this intensive preoccupation with Kierkegaard at this stage of
his life, the reader cannot avoid the question concerning Shestovs interest in
the philosophy of the Danish thinker: was he motivated by a need to better
understand Heideggerhe recognized as soon as he began reading his works
to what extent he inuenced Heideggeror was it just a natural response to
a kindred spirit insofar as the axiomatic values of philosophy and the criticism
of the fundaments of metaphysical speculation were concerned? Alternatively,
perhaps the elective a nities Shestov felt toward Kierkegaard were based on
his perception that they shared a common existential experience? In the rst
chapter on Kierkegaard, in the Bull of Phalaris, Shestov points out that the
breaking o with Regine Olsen occurred, as it occurred in the case of his sen-
timental involvements prior to the crisis of 1895not of his own volition but
because he was obliged to do so, obliged not internally by some higher con-
sideration but externally . . .
30
by circumstances oensive to him, even banal
when viewed retrospectively and ultimately shameful, repugnant. Kierkegaard
had not sacriced Regine; Regine had been taken away from him by force, he
concluded, as were his rst loves in Russia.
It is interesting to observe that what Shestov never explicitly dared to say
in relation with his own life-experience, he did when it came to Kierkegaard:
he traced the road from this decisive personal existential crisis to his philo-
sophical and religious thinking. Here is the schema of this enterprise in a few
words: as Orpheus, Kierkegaard lost what he prized most in the world, but
not only his EurydiceRegine was taken away, everything that God gives to
man was taken away from him. Unlike Orpheus, however, he could not talk to
stones and animals but only to men, and these would only laugh at somebody
who found himself deprived of everything. One can tell stones the truth, but
for men it is preferable to hide it, writes ironically and sadly at the same time
Shestov, in both his and Kierkegaards name. Tere are perhaps two observa-
tions to be made here: one is that the existence of alternative truths or the
rejection of the truth of philosophers based on the postulate of the absolute
power of reason is arrived at by means of a very non-philosophical reasoning.
Second, one notices that in spite of the very subjective considerations involved,
there seems to be some sort of a common ground in the existential experiences
of this two very dierent individuals, Lev Shestov and Sren Kierkegaard. It
seems that the subjective, the very singular suering of the individual, the con-
crete (as opposed to the objective, the general, and the universal) can become
after all the starting point of a philosophical endeavor.
How will Shestov arrive from Orpheus story to philosophy? As we have
noticed, suering for reasons that are not perceived as acceptable, as normal,
cannot be shared: in general, it is useless to speak of suerings. Tey will be
brushed o; people will laugh at them. Philosophers may perhaps withhold
their laugh, but they, too, reject the topic as illegitimate because it troubles
the order and the connection of things. Tus, we arrive again at Spinoza and
his famous non ridere, non lugere, neque detestare sed inteligere (do not laugh, do
not lament, do not curse, only (strive to) understand), which Shestov so much
liked to quote. Many philosophers who sueredSpinoza himself and Ni-
etzsche among themresigned themselves to amor fati. At this point Shestov
introduces the notion of shamefulness: it is a shame to claim vindication to
suering, and it is shameful to accept the idea that a human beings torments
will pass without leaving any traces and will change nothing in the general
economy of the universe.
31
However, whether we go to the Symposium or to
the Bible to extract the philosophical meaning of the concept of shame, we shall
arrive at the same conclusion: in both cases, it will turn out that the notion of
shame is related to the concept of knowledge, a knowledge of universal and
necessary truth, according to Shestov.
Te subjective, personal experience of suering brings the reecting hu-
man being to philosophy (and to religious thinking as well). Once arrived at
this point, man discovers however, that in most cases both philosophy and
religious reection are reduced to Erbauung, edication only. Among Kierkeg-
aards books, twoFear and Trembling and Te Concept of Dreadare par-
ticularly revelatory in this respect, wrote Shestov. Both dealt with religious
matters, the story of Abraham and his readiness for sacrice and with the issue
of the original sin. Both deal with faith but in dierent ways, as Kierkegaards
understanding of faith evolved between the two works. Again, Shestov would
point out a very personal event in the life of the author, whichwhile discuss-
ing the issue of faith in the two mentioned books would escape many com-
mentators: in the interval between the two books, that is between 1843 and
1844 Regine Olsen became engaged. In the rst book, Kierkegaard discusses
the implication of Abrahams readiness to sacrice his son on Mount Moriah.
It is clear that he is on the way to commit a terrible crime, a transgression of an
ethical absolute. How is it possible to do that in the name of faith? Kierkegaard
explains the unfolding events in very simple terms: Abraham believed that
God is all-powerful, and he would be able to return to him his son after this
proof of unbound faith was made. It was an absurd thought but, as he put it, all
human calculations had long ceased to exist for him at this moment. Already
in the introduction to Fear and Trembling, the author pointed out that the
story of the potential sacrice on Mount Moriah is a metaphorical image of a
terrible truth: faith is a monstrous paradox, a paradox that transforms murder
into a holy action . . . a paradox that no thought can master for faith begins pre-
cisely where thought ends
32
(my emphasis). Tat is the origin of the idea of the
suspension of the ethical: the ethical is an essential value for human beings
living within the realm of the universal and to abandon the ethical requires a
leap, a radical discontinuity. Tus, in 1843, after the traumatic experience of the
severance of the relationship with Regine Olson and before the engagement of
the latter to Johan Schlegel, Kierkegaard resolved to seek salvation in the Ab-
surd, writes Shestov. By virtue of the Absurd, he tells us, God could decide for
the suspension of the ethical.
33
However, after this singular, exceptional mo-
ment, he relapsed into his Socratic complex; he could never bring himself to
renounce the idea that our life must be determined by our thoughts. We think
in categories of eternal truths who are immutable, virtue, like faith consists in
living in the categories in which we think, and God himself must be immu-
table for Kierkegaard, as it was for Socrates and Spinoza. Te Concept of Dread
exposed the abandonment by Kierkegaard of the daring ideas brought forth
in his previous book. Innocence is ignorance, and the knowledge gained from
the primordial sin has brought the ability to distinguish between good and
evil and thus the ethical judgment. Why would then this represent a fall, why
would it be a sin? Shestov observed that Kierkegaard wishes unconditionally
to understand, to explain the fall, and yet he never stops repeating that it is
inexplicable, that it does not admit any explanation. Accordingly, he tries in
every way to discover some lack, some defect in the state of innocence.
34
Tese
oscillations between the ideas expressed in Fear and Trembling and Te Concept
of Dread would remain the constant (or the paradox?) of Kierkegaards thought
and Shestov would become very aware of that; he points out that a few years
later, in Te Sickness unto Death, the Danish philosopher would again write that
to believe means to lose reason in order to nd God.
Repetition is also discussed in the brief essays on Kierkegaard included
in Shestovs last book Athens and Jerusalem. It is interesting to muse over the
reasons which brought the author to include these fragments in a book pub-
lished two years after his volume entirely dedicated to Kierkegaard. Tis work
was lengthy and repetitious; perhaps Shestov thought that the essence of Ki-
erkegaards thought got diluted by repetition and lack of focus. Most probably,
though, he needed to review the basic tenets of Nietzsches and Kierkegaards
thought as background to this nal review of his own religious thinking. In-
deed, the French version was entitled, Athnes et Jrusalem: un essai de philoso-
phie religieuse. A brief discussion of Job, representing another exemplary hero
who illustrates the refusal to compromise with the false consolations of rea-
sonable thinking, was necessary in the context. Job was in a way very much like
Abraham; posed to lose everything, he was left only with his unlimited belief
in his almighty God. Why does Kierkegaard want to join the private thinker
Job instead of the professor publicus ordinarius, Hegel? asked Shestov and left
the answer to Kierkegaard: the importance of Job consists in the fact that he
ghts through the boundary disputes to faith . . . the meaning of Job consists
precisely in the fact that he does not diminish the passion of freedom with
false consolations.
35
However, Kierkegaard did not ask himself what would
have Job answered Socrates or Spinoza if they had come to oer him wisdom
while he was facing his dire predicament observed Shestov; perhaps because he
felt that they could not do anything dierent from his friends Eliphaz, Zophar,
and Bildad. Like them, Kierkegaard not only was himself enslaved to the rules
of the universal and necessary truths, but neither could he free his God from
them (For Kierkegaard, as for Socrates and Spinoza, de servo arbitrio extends
likewise to God, wrote Shestov
36
). Shestov arrived at the conclusion that Ki-
erkegaard appeals to the absurd, but in vain: he appeals to it but he is incapable
of realizing it. He speaks to us constantly of the existential philosophy; he rails
at speculation and the speculators with their objective truth but, like Socrates
and Spinoza, he himself aspires to live and oblige others to live in the catego-
ries in which they think. Tat is why one will have to modify the categories in
which we think if we want to live dierently.
EI GHT
Encounters with
Judaism
Tose old times when not men determined truth but truth became revealed to them
I would have liked to ask Hermann Cohen where is Bore Olam dwelling? Lev Shestov
in a letter to Martin Buber
If one asked me who is the true successor of Friedrich Nietzsche I would answer without
hesitation, Lev Shestov
Hillel Zeitlin in 1907
Benjamin Fondane remembers in his Shestov journals the meeting with Martin
Buber in Paris. Edmond Fleg, Boris de Schloezer, the hosts, Herman Lovtzky
and his wife Fany (Shestovs sister), Dr. Fritz Lieb, a German theologian, friend
of Berdyaev, among others, were present at this encounter. It was April 1934, a
year after Hitlers coming to power in Berlin, and Buber was trying to convey
his audience the di cult situation Jews faced in Germany: our aloofness based
on the belief that we represent the spirit is not justied; as long as we do not
know how to handle the situation there is no justication to such a feeling
of superiority.
1
He added that the situation was desperate because nobody
could see any way out. Still, one must nd one, said Buber, since out of despair
men tend to try unreasonable solutions, seek absurd avenues, a state which is
in itself dangerous; it seems, he added, that at present time people try to kill
the Biblical serpent. At this point Shestov interjected and said: And this is
exactly what one must do. For years I ght, day and night, against this serpent.
What is Hitler by comparison with the serpent of knowledge?
2
To Bubers
answer that the serpent was merely an accident, that things were dierent at
times preceding the incident which involved him, even if we do not know in
which way, Shestov answered, precisely, we came after the serpent, that is why
we should kill it (ibid.). Speechless in front of this apparently non-sensical
conversation, Buber muttered something like I do not understand, we should
not go that far back, it is worthless to try to kill the serpent, only to be again
strongly rebuked by Shestov: It is the serpent who speaks inside you, who pre-
vents you from understanding (ibid.). Tis conversation, coming six years after
their rst encounter tells much about the relationship between the two and
casts light also on the worldviews of the two thinkers and on their interpreta-
tion of history, Judaism, and the meaning of the religious sentiment as well.
In a conversation after the fact with Fondane, Shestov explained their dier-
ences: Buber thinks like Spinoza when he claims that for the Hassidic Jews the
prayer is merely a way to achieve some state of communion with God and not
the means to reach God himself. Moreover, he was in total disagreement with
Buber insofar as the meaning of the original sin was concerned. For Buber sin
was not born in the act committed by Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden
but through Cains murder. For me, explained Shestov, this is non-sense.
Te sin is the striving for knowledge.
3
He added a statement, which would
alter to some extent his previous conclusion concerning the role Dostoevsky
played as philosopher: I would say . . . that it was not Dostoevsky who did in
fact the real Critique of pure reason but God Himself when he decreed thou
shall die if you will have the knowledge . . . (ibid.). Te last phrase Fondane
wrote down in his notes captured very well Shestovs philosophical outlook,
and it is worthwhile to have it quoted in its entirety: Te very moment man
ate from the forbidden fruit he gained Knowledge and lost his freedom. Man
does need to know. To ask, to beg questions, to require proofs, answers, means
that one is not free. To know means to know necessity. Knowledge and Freedom are
irreducible opposites (ibid., my emphasis). Here again, Shestov willingly or not,
found himself wandering away from one of Judaisms basic tenets: the ability
to distinguish between good and evil, the knowledge of good and that of evil is
in fact the only guarantor of human freedom. It is explained in many texts that
have become part of the canon that the possibility of evil itself was induced by
the need to oer human beings the freedom to distinguish it from the good
and choose the latter.
Encounters with Judaism 117
To the best of my knowledge, Shestov rst met Buber when after a reunion
of philosophers in Amsterdam in April 1928, he travelled to Frankfurt to meet
him in person. It seems that in Bubers circle he heard for the rst time about
Kierkegaard as well. Following this meeting, the two began to collaborate,
Buber helping Shestov publish in Kreatur in Germany (an inter-confessional
journal representing Jewish, Protestant, and Catholic views), while Shestov,
in turn, facilitated for him contacts in France, among them, publication in
Parisian reviews and the participation to the Pontigny annual meetings
4
(but
also in Germany within the Russian circles; for instance, he contacted Sim-
eon Frank, by that time a recognized gure among philosophers and religious
thinkers of the day; Shestov had known him since the Russian years). Te rst
theological confrontation between the two occurred around the accuracy of
the interpretation of Isaiah 6: 810 used by Shestov as motto
5
for his article
on Spinoza, Children and Stepchildren of Time. It is clear from the let-
ters exchanged by the two that Shestov was inuenced by the quite abundant
Christian interpretations to Isaiah 6 to 9 found in the literature. Buber does
not enter into a real confrontation on this theme; he restrains his remarks to
pointing out politely to Shestov his erroneous interpretation of the original
text, and thus a deeper discussion was (unfortunately for us, today) avoided
when Shestov recognized that indeed, he had some di culty in understand-
ing the exact meaning of the quoted fragment. However, he wrote in his reply
that even if Buber were right, his interpretation remained valid in the context
of his statement about Spinoza. I mention this detail only to repeat and fur-
ther substantiate my previous observation concerning the fact that Shestov did
sometimes show a bias toward the Septuagint and its Christian interpretations
while referring to the biblical text.
In 1929, as soon as In Jobs Balances was published in Germany, Shestov
sent a copy to Buber accompanied by his thanks: without you, the book would
have had a di cult time to nd a publisher, he wrote.
6
Buber answered by
restating the close proximity of his ways of thinking to those of Shestov, which
was certainly of the nature to please the latter and to encourage him. Most of
the letters of that and the following year contain information about the logis-
tics related to reciprocal visits of the two and various publications; in 1932,
thanking his correspondent for a recent book of his (probably Kingship of God),
Shestov expresses his satisfaction about the reading of a work that concerns
the biblical faith and remarked Bubers emphasis of the totalitarian, all
encompassing character of the Jewish faith. His observation about your un-
derstanding of the crisis which gave birth to the Yahwehs Messiah, Christos
Kurion
7
is somewhat confused, and in the absence of Bubers reply it is hard
to know what Shestov really meant. In the mentioned book, Buber discussed
the meaning of the concept of the Kingdom of God in Judaism and pointed
out that the relationship between God and His people was one in which the
political and the theological were at all times mixed up. Te presence of God
in the concrete world and His involvement with the events in which the Cho-
sen People is involved, is permanent. Shestov, who read at the same time the
recently published book by Bergson on the Two Sources of Morale and Religion
(and recommended it to Buber), was upset by the French philosophers claim
that the Jewish religion, in opposition with the Catholic branch of Christian-
ity, was not a truly mystical one. (In fact, there were many Jewish thinkers, both
among those who belonged to the orthodoxy and those who tried to reform
Judaism, who made the same claim). He was eager to hear Bubers opinion
about the original sin; the next letter, written a few months later, reminded
his correspondent in Germany that he still awaited a clarication concerning
this matter apparently following Bubers statement in a letter, which was not
conserved, that their views on this issue were quite dierent.
Shestov had the intuition that Buber understood the role of the biblical
serpent as being the catalyst of the I-It relationship. In his letter he wrote that
whenever the serious is present in the writing of an author, one identies the
Serpent behind it: Does not the It in your work represent the Serpent? he
overtly asked.
8
As we have seen at the very beginning of this chapter, Buber
was far from Shestovs interpretation of the original sin, and this issue would
remain a contentious point between the two till the very end. At about the
time this dialogue with Buber was taking place, Shestov met in his friend
Nikolai Berdyaevs house the Swiss theologian Fritz Lieb; both Berdyaev and
Lieb became interested in Bubers theological writings and decided to make
him known within the Russian emigration circles (by publishing reviews of his
books in Put). Moreover, as the two were involved in an activity that tried to
promote an orthodox-protestant dialogue, they decided to make Buber known
also to the group united around the Orient and Occident, their publication. Te
discussion concerning the need to know the views of the Jewish authors on
matters of relevance to Christian theologians interests, was brought up ear-
lier in a letter written by Berdyaev to Lieb, in connection with Shestov him-
self. In this letter of January 1929, Berdyaev, after confessing that for him the
pre-Christian religion described in the Old Testament was one of fear and of
anxiety, added that long discussions with Shestov have convinced me that the
belief in Christ is completely strange to him, (that) he defends himself against
it and does not acknowledge the incarnation of God.
9
If he did not agree with
Buber concerning the meaning of the original sin, Shestov certainly agreed
with him on this last point.
Soon after the last mentioned letter to Buber, Shestov wrote again and
asked to bring back the conversation to the old serpents story, this time fol-
lowing Bubers recommendation to read certain pages from his Hassidic Tales.
Probably Buber still tried to convey Shestov the idea that his interpretation of
the original sin is not a valid one: in the Cabbalistic literature as well as later in
the Hassidic one, the idea that certain souls escaped the all encompassing soul
of Adam (according to the tradition all souls born after the rst created man
were already contained in this primordial one) before he committed the sin
and thus they remained untainted by itis often encountered. Unperturbed by
the implications of such a possibility, Shestov, faithful to his idea, wrote stub-
bornly: nothing would conrm such a presupposition but all these would only
prove that we all sinned through the rst man
10
. Realizing however his own
inconsistency, he concluded resigned that ultimately one thing only is certain,
and this is the fact that the story told in the Bible is exceedingly hard (if not
impossible) to understand: As I grow older I am more and more convinced
that the Biblical story tells us something extremely important and deeply mys-
terious. Te power of the serpent is overwhelming however to the point that
we cannot accept this truth to ourselves (ibid.). Tis idea, which explains also
Shestovs persistence in his ght against an overwhelming rationality, is an
often recurring one in his discourse. Te thought concerning the mystery hid-
den in the text of the Bible will become central in the religious thought of his
follower and disciple Benjamin Fondane, who in a letter to Jacques Maritain
would mention it explicitly.
Sestovs correspondence with Martin Buber which continued, with inter-
ruptions, till 1937 allows a few other important insights in Shestovs under-
standing of Judaism and his knowledge (or lack of ) the debates carried on
by his contemporaries, concerning the attempts to rethink some of the major
themes of the Jewish religious thinking. Indeed, in another letter (of Novem-
ber 12, 1932) Shestov recognized in his correspondence with Buber that he
could never study Hermann Cohen whom he found to be just a modern Philo
of Alexandria; neither was he aware of Franz Rosenzweigs works. Tis letter
contains also a fragment which, through a very strange coincidence, sheds light
on a potential hidden resonance between Shestov and Rosenzweig: in order to
emphasize to what extentin his viewCohen was removed from the living
spirit of true Judaism (as he perceived it), Shestov writes to Buber that if he
knew Hebrew he would have asked Cohen where is Bore Olam dwelling?
What is really strange here is not the fact that he would have asked such a
question (or the fact that he honestly recognized the fact that he did not know
what exactly Bore Olam meant, which is in itself surprising and casts doubts
about his real knowledge of living and true Judaism), but the incredible co-
incidence between this remark and a story told by Franz Rosenzweig himself
about Hermann Cohen, in a somewhat similar context.
11
While in Marburg,
Hermann Cohen met an old religious Jew to whom he was trying to explain
his ideas about God and ethics. After listening for a fairly long while very at-
tentively and respectfully to him, as the philosopher ended his long string of
explanations, the old Jew asked simply, and where is (in all these) Bore Olam?
Rosenzweig writes that an utterly confused and speechless Cohen burst into
tears. Of course, Rosenzweig understood better than the old philosopher the
reason for the question: for this religious Jew, Bore Olam was not an abstract
and remote concept (etwas Fernes), the Creator of the Universe was, on the
contrary, something near, someone to whom he could relate through an aec-
tive process rather than through a rational one. Beyond the anecdotic aspect
of this story, its importance consists in the fact that it shows that Shestovs in-
stinct was correct; if he would have been better read in classical Jewish authors
he could have substantiated his point perhaps by making reference to Judah
Ha-Levy who wrote ten centuries earlier that the same God who is dwelling
far above the world we live in is also to be found in the broken hearts of all
suering men. Hugo Bergman (who will be later a colleague of Martin Buber
at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem) explicitly pointed out in his book on
the dialogical philosophy that one must be aware of the fact that Cohen talks
about the concept of God, not about God.
12
In addition, in a very Shestovian
way (another resonance?!), he added that the concept of God is a gratuitous
assumption made by the philosopher in order to harmonize science and ethics
(ibid.).
In a letter dating from 1935, we nd Shestov expressing again a few of his
guiding thoughts insofar reason, faith and the belief in the God of the scrip-
tures are concerned. Tese statements are signicant because they represent
the last stage in Shestovs philosophical and religious thinking. Teir common
denominator is to be found in the idea that Greek philosophy is always seeking
peace with reality while the Bible is permanently ghting it. From this point
of view, there is no dierence between the Old and the New Testament,
13
he
wrote to Buber and added, Tat is why the source of the truth uncovered by
the Bible is not reason but faith (ibid.). Tere is another important observa-
tion about the faith as the second dimension of thought, he made in that letter.
We remember Shestovs spatial models of thought and thinking encountered
in the earlier writings, perhaps a mark of his early studies in mathematics; in
1932 he published a collection of aphorisms which would be included in his
last work Athens and Jerusalem entitled On the second dimension of thought.
Fondane, the disciple, would dwell quite at length on this topic and will later,
through a thorough analysis of Lucien Lvy-Bruhls anthropological works, try
to substantiate Shestovs idea that a pense de participation, a participatory
thinking opposed to one based exclusively on abstract reection, is possible for
the man guided by faith. In the article on Martin Buber published rst in the
Russian review Put in June 1933, Shestov himself mentioned the old times
when not men determined truth but truth became revealed to them and this
because during those times men were still able to establish contact with the
mysterious.
14
Tis subject matter is further discussed in the chapter about
Benjamin Fondane, the Disciple.
In 1936 Shestov published in Paris his book entitled Kierkegaard and Ex-
istential Philosophy and soon after its apparition Emanuel Levinas, a young
and little known philosopher at the time, very interested in phenomenology
and the new existential trends issued from it, wrote for Revue des Etudes Juives
a review article on Shestovs book.
15
Young Levinas observed that one could
not recommend his book too strongly to those who wish to rethink their Ju-
daism as a religion, (those) who cannot be content with philological research
on the past of Israel and who are tired of the sterile ecstasies about the beauty
of the Decalogue and the Morality of the prophets.
16
Te observation was
ambiguous as Shestov did not intend at all to rethink Judaism as a religion;
if anything, he was making the distinction (even if not explicitly) Buber made
between religiosity and religion. Levinas added in his review that the author
was indeed a Jewish philosopher but certainly not a philosopher of Judaism.
Tis opinion stood in stark opposition, however, to Benjamin Fondanes view
about Shestov as expressed in his discussions held at about the same time with
Jacques Maritain, the neo-Tomist thinker. Shortly before his second trip to
Argentina in 1936, Fondane wrote and published in Revue Juive de Geneve
a brief article occasioned by Shestovs seventieth birthday, entitled Lon
Chestov, la recherche du judaisme perdu, in which he tried to state in a
concise way Shestovs denition of the essence of Judaism. On the way back
from Argentina (late autumn, the same year), he spent long hours discussing
the subject with Maritain who was sailing back also from South America.
In a letter addressed to Maritain more than a year later (February 1938), the
subject of the Jewish thought was at the core of a heated debate between the
two: En ce qui concerne Chestov, vous faites erreur. Sa conception nest pas
spcique au juifmais la pense juive, he wrote.
17
Fondane referred to an al-
lusion to Shestovs way of understanding faith contained in a text published
by Maritain in the collective volume edited by Daniel Rops, Les Juifs
18
(Again,
I shall discuss in more detail these points in the chapter about Fondane).
Another possible way to approach the question about Shestovs interfer-
ences with Judaism and to evaluate its consequences could be that of trying to
identify the impact his thought might have had on Jewish authors who were
themselves at the threshold of assimilation or struggling even with it. Many
such intellectuals very well aware of the surrounding culture, familiar with the
values of the Western Enlightenment but still hesitant or unwilling to embrace
them at the price of abandoning the values of their ancient tradition. Tere was
an entire generation of Eastern European Jewish intellectuals (mostly Russian
and Polish authors), contemporary with Shestov, who oscillated between as-
similation and the search for a renewed Judaism, who did not want to abandon
their roots but could not continue in the footsteps of their forefathers. Martin
Buber could serve as a representative of this group in the Central European
realm but the names of Ahad Haam, Berdichevsky or Hillel Zeitlin would be
much more relevant for the Jewish intellectuals with Eastern European and
Russian roots. Te last one happened to be very familiar with Shestovs early
works (although, view the interest the other two had for Nietzsche and the
fact that, like Hillel Zeitlin, they too grew up intellectually within the Rus-
sian realm, I would not be surprised if an attentive lecture of their works did
uncover explicit or hidden references to early Shestov). Zeitlin, in any event,
wrote two articles in Hebrew about him very early, the rst being published in
Yosef Haim Brenners review Ha-Meorer in 1907 and the second in Ha-Tekufa,
in 1923.
19
Even though at the turn of the century, Hillel Zeitlin was known,
among the new generation of Jewish writers and thinkers who wrote in He-
brew, to be a follower of Nietzsche (he was among the rst authors to write
a monograph in Hebrew about the German philosopher); it is surprising to
discover in him a great admirer of an author who was still far away from great
notoriety. As we have seen, before 1907 Shestov published only four books:
the rst three dealt with Shakespeare, Nietzsche, Tolstoy, and Dostoevsky; the
fourth one was, for the most part, a collection of aphorisms. However, Zeit-
lins intuition was very accurate as he identied Shestovs progression from an
esthetic view of the world to the recognition of the fallacy represented by this
approach.
20
Another resonance was thus established.
Hillel Zeitlins reading of the early Shestov turns out to be extremely ac-
curate: he pointed out that the experience of the Inferno might induce the
poets to write beautiful poems (and mentioned in this context both Dante and
Baudelaire) while that of a life stuck in the mud of the underground leads to
a quite dierent horizon. In a style reminiscent of the Hassidic tale, Zeitlin
observes that when you descend into the Inferno you nd many stories to tell
(but) if you crawl in the mud, what can you tell?
21
Crossing muddy territories
does not constitute an adventure; it is rather an experience prone to take apart
ones life and that is why Shestov could identify in the works of Dostoevsky
and Nietzsche hidden signals sent by heroes with broken lives, wrote Zeitlin.
Not only could he identify these signs of distress, but he knew also how to in-
terpret messages not apparent to the eyes of the previous readers and commen-
tators. Zeitlin pointed out that the importance of Shestovs writings consists
in the fact that he revealed things many teachers and luminaries did not know
or did not suspect even to exist.
22
Tat is why he wrote in 1907 already that if
someone asked me who was the true successor of Friedrich Nietzsche, I would
answer without hesitation, L. Shestov.
23
Of course, Nietzsche was a genius, and those moved exclusively by the
genial character might not be willing to read Shestov: Nietzsche was a master
of the style and Shestov was not (this is a somewhat surprising observation
from such a receptive critic; almost in unanimity, those who read Shestov in
Russian agreed that he had an exquisite style). Nietzsche was a philosopher,
a poet, a composer, and a prophet, and Shestov was perhaps none of these,
added Zeitlin. However, Shestov knows the terrible truth and what is beyond
it and that is why all his books represent an endless and frightening cry.
24

Man abandoned in a state of despair will search for a way out. He cannot ac-
cept what reason tells him because reason says that there is no point to cry: the
world is ruled by objective laws who do not relate to his despair. In spite of it,
he feels miserable; therefore, there must be at least one unexplained mystery in
this world without beginning and without end: that of mans predicament in
the world. Who controls it? Zeitlin pointed out that Shestov did not mention
God but rarely (which is quite true, as we have seen, when it comes to his early
works); one would infer, therefore, that he had not yet arrived at that notion
of faith that would be so manifest in his later works. Nevertheless, Zeitlins
instinct is surprising again the reader: Shestov does not talk about God not
because a lack of faith but out of his innite respect for Him; the biblical com-
mandment Tou shall not take the name of God thy Lord in vain is always
present in his mind. Shestov, the Jewish author, writes Zeitlin, stands in awe
in front of his God who is not that of the mob, of the philosophers or of the
poets.
25
He rejects this sentiment, though those persons who believe merely
because they have been taught to do so, exist; he despises those infatuated
with the abstract God of chants, rituals, and apologetic literature, the God of
dogmas and of dogmatic thinking. Toward the end of his article, Hillel Zeitlin
hinted to something which would become extremely signicant for the un-
derstanding of the religious thought of Shestov later. Te ending statements
of the article read as follows: And thus, the (man) left without a thing in this
world, who lost everything, while reecting upon his forthcoming acts, cannot
refrain from thinking about that miraculous hidden voice and cries: My God,
My God why have you forsaken me!
Tis ending line is strange and surprising at the same time: strange be-
cause Hillel Zeitlin, even though he made a long and deep excursion into the
Western culture and civilization, returned in the end to his Hassidic origins.
Mentioning this cry of despair common to King David and to Jesus Christ
26

in a Jewish context triggers the thought that its invocation may hint to mean-
ings that extend beyond Jewish boundaries. King David himself had moments
when he felt that he lost everything; Christ on the way to Golgotha or on
the Cross knew that in his human embodiment he already lost everything: to
which of the two did Zeitlin hint? To both, perhaps? I wrote above surpris-
ing, because through this ambiguity Zeitlin might have alluded to Shestovs
inclinationwhich as we saw already, will become apparent after WW I in his
writingsto incorporate the early ideas and forms of the Christian belief into
an encompassing primordial Judaism.
In his second article, much more extensive, written more than fteen years
later, at a time when Zeitlin was already on his way back to the Orthodox
practice of Judaism, Shestov is still described as a thinker in search of God. In
his analysis, extended now to the lecture of the books and articles published
in this interval by Shestov, among them Potestas Clavium, Hillel Zeitlin begins
to use more often hermeneutic tools borrowed from the Jewish Hassidic and
Cabbalistic traditions. As in the case of the rst article, his understanding is
very sharp and accurate: he senses in the writings of Shestov a movement
from the mere intuition of a remote God, distanced from the reality of the
harsh human predicament to the belief in the presence of a God who can be,
if not approached, at least invoked by man during moments of deep distress.
Te times have changed quite a bit since 1907 and the dangers looming at the
horizon were now innitely greater. Zeitlin, as Shestov, had the feeling that
the new world on the way to emerge from the Great War would be very dif-
ferent from the old one: before the recent cataclysmic event, the ax was men-
acing the branches of the tree, but now the roots themselves were in danger
(in his text, Zeitlin had the premonition of the catastrophe to follow the First
World War in Europe; in 1942 he would be deported from Warsaw and killed
in Treblinka). He understood another thing also, which probably determined
him to move away from the ideas of the Emancipation and return to Judaism:
the old pagan beliefs and modes of behavior of the Western world remained
very much alive under the veneer of a Christian surface. He understood also,
as Shestov did, that the Greek philosophy changed the scope of the origi-
nal Christianity; at the very beginning of his article he pointed out that one
should not forget the Greek mythology and philosophys contribution to the
new faith.
27
A Christianity that denied its Jewish roots through the interven-
tion of the Greek thought in its theology and dogma permeated by a strong
residual paganism appeared too menacing to Zeitlin, who, in the end, decided
to abandon his attempts to integrate himself into the surrounding culture. For
a while he continued, however, to use its intellectual tools.
If in his rst article he considered still Nietzsche to be the master and
Shestov his follower, in the second one, the two are setif not at the same
levelon a more leveled ground. First, because Zeitlin came now to the con-
clusion that Shestovs deconstruction of the philosophical thought was more
radical than Nietzsches, a quite surprising statement considering that the lat-
ter unambiguously stated that to enable a sanctuary to be set up, a sanctuary
has got to be destroyed: that is a law, show me an instance where it has not been
fullled!
28
Nietzsche himself did just that in order to be able to propose the
idea of the Overman (superman). Shestov, however, did more than that: by
destroying the basic principles of traditional philosophy, by denying reason
the right to decide and preside over the destiny of man and God alike, he
built a new sanctuary, that of the suering, miserable man, the man who lost
everything but hope. I hear him often, wrote Zeitlin about Shestov, alluding
quite forcefully to a far remote hope (in my words I would call it celestial or
godly) which appears just when man had lost everything he has, including his
spiritual values.
29
Zeitlin extracted from Shestovs writings the essence of his thought and
explained it in a very concise and precise way. While reading this article by
Zeitlin, one has at times the distinct impression that an experience known in
Zen Buddhism as satori is explained to the reader: rst, man gets entangled in
a hopeless situation, somewhat similar to that of Job (interestingly, Job is not
mentioned at all by Zeitlin, even when he describes the state of the Shestovian
man to be in many ways similar to that of Job on his dung-heap): almost voice-
less, left without any will to ght, his heart broken. Tere is no help in sight
on Earth or above it; the broken man does not dare to call God, but his soul
wants to cry, to bring his predicament to His attention. In this awful silence,
in this void, something happens: man discovers somewhere far away a strange
but beautiful horizon . . . a spring which was sealed in the depths comes forth
to water the desert of this resigned soul,
30
writes Zeitlin and adds: it is not
clear at all that what has been revealed to one person has an objective, absolute
existence so that what occurred in one case will happen again and again in
all cases (ibid.). Moreover, he singles out the important fact that Shestov is
emphasizing the subjective character of the described experience; unlike most
of the thinkers of older times and his contemporaries who try to link a similar
experience of enlightenment with some sort of rational explanation based on
logic and on the validity of the absolute, universal concepts, Shestov believed
that only the most extreme subjectivity will bring us close to the eternal, to
God. At this point Zeitlin, takes care to explain that the described process
has nothing to do with Bergsons intuitionism; it is not serendipity that makes
us stumble upon a truth we did not expect; on the contrary, this miracle is the
result of a state of grace obtained only by the human being who cries from the
depth of his or her despair. Pascal is not mentioned, but the need for (his) cry
is clearly audible.
Shestovs reading of the philosophers he writes about, writes Zeitlin, was
based on the assumption that a true message can be brought forth only when
its author is searching his soul and writes a confession. A great writer is one
who can tell in a convincing manner the story of the most hidden events of
his life . . . often an artist refuses the confession but if he is a real great artist
he will end up in doing just that . . . and there is no greater master in the art
of uncovering hidden riddles than Shestov writes Zeitlin.
31
He also pointed
out the fact that Shestov does not shy away in his writings from the contra-
diction, from the paradox. In a realm that is beyond the everyday life and the
usual ways of thinking, contradictions and paradoxes do not pose a problem.
Shestov said often and in many ways that philosophy should not be about nd-
ing consolation. Tose writing about him always remember his quotation from
Pascal who says that one should never rest, one should seek and search what is
boundless and beyond any imaginable boundary till the end of the days. Zeitlin
extended these desiderata and reminded his reader that the Hassidic tradition
a rmed that the Just men (Tzadikkim) do not rest, neither in this nor in the
Nether world.
32
After mentioning that Shestov did rediscover the great secret of the Bible,
the discovery of God, Zeiltlin surprises again when he writes that Shestovs
ways of thinking reminded those of one of the greatest Jewish thinkers, Rabbi
Nathan Sternhartz the pupil of Rabbi Nachman from Breslau. Not that he
shared with Rabbi Nathan the same enthusiastic and mysterious religious feel-
ing or that the Rabbi could have shared with Shestov his deep skepticism and
total detachment from the surrounding world (allusion to his apotheosis of
the groundlessness, perhaps). Te two would have been most probably unable to
understand each other (my emphasis); maybe Shestov could understand some
of the teachings of Rabbi Nathan, but I am not sure. I say that because I feel
in Shestov a lack of understanding, or should I say a lack of interest in anything
which relates to the Jewish world today (if he ever mentions Israel he speaks only
about Ancient Israel, of that of the Bible . . . (again, my italics).
33
Tis statement
is dierent from previous ones: : on the one hand, Zeitlin nds it important
to introduce parallels between the philosopher and one of the most important
representatives of a major Hassidic sect, perhaps the closest to an existential
thinking of the kind developed by Shestov, on the other, he points out already
in 1923, something which many of Shestovs commentators will discover only
during the years to come (Levinas among them, in the mentioned review of
Shestovs book on Kierkegaard). In spite of the fact that he was speaking often,
in particular in his later writings, about Jerusalem and a very specic Jewish
approach to God, and about the meaning of His absolutely Transcendental
nature, Shestov could hardly be considered from inside a Jewish thinker in
the sense his contemporaries Rosenzweig and Buber, and later Levinas, were.
He was rather, as his disciple Benjamin Fondane explained it, a thinker of
Jewish origin who imagined a sui generis Judaism, which could have accommo-
dated Tertullian, Pascal and Luther, Kierkegaard and Nietzsche. Perhaps for
the same reasons, but with other ends in mind, Gershon Sholem kept sending
Walter Benjamin to visit Shestov in Paris during the early thirties.
Nevertheless, continued Zeitlin his argument, there is perhaps a strange
bond which in mysterious and invisible ways may link the two (that is Rab-
bi Nathan and Shestov), and this concept might have to be related to (their
agreement upon) the strangeness of the human ways of thinking, which enable
the enormous leap, the ability to look far up in the sky and at the same time
to see the depths of the abyss at our feet; they also shared an ability to attack
their (intellectual, spiritual) enemies or opponents directly by attacking the
fundaments of their constructs, not from hidden positions or by using clever
and tricky devices.
34
Te Hassidic Rabbi manifested also his opposition to
the Medieval and modern philosophers of Judaism: like Shestov, he believed
that philosophers missed the point while trying to explain the world in terms
of human rationality. Rabbi Nathan was against those who tried to extract
only meaning from texts which were meant rst and foremost to bring man
closer to his Creator. He believed that to be close to God (avodat ha-Bore, the
term used by Zeitlin in his text is a concept di cult to translate as it includes
simultaneously study, prayer, and the scrupulous respect of the law) means to
help Him at least at the same extent as is meant to help oneself by seeking His
proximity. Te Holy Book is not an object of abstract hermeneutics; according
to Rabbi Nathan from Breslau, its message is simple, one simply must do ones
best and help make the world better. Te great Maimonides and all the com-
mentators who weighted every ounce of holy wisdom and measured every inch
of meaning will not change this simple truth. Shestov and Rabbi Nathan were
both daring deconstructionists (the use of this concept is not too strong; in
connection with Rabbi Nathans critique of the religious philosophers, Zeitlin
mentioned the name of Samson and his last deed against the Philistines, which
went far beyond deconstruction!) who showed that there are no essential dif-
ferences between idealism and realism, between idealism and materialism be-
tween metaphysics and positivism and science. What distinguishes them is the
language they use, the preferences in choosing their concepts, their ideas, their
colors; human whims and natural propensities might play a role, but when it
comes to judge the deep meaning of all these, one nds that the they will only
explain the simple and common occurrences of a profoundly material world.
35

All these fancy interpreters are blinded by their own wisdom; they seem to
look afar but they see only their immediate surroundings. As we have seen,
Plato and Plotinus were to some extent exempted of these shortcomings by
Shestov; both, in dierent ways did get a glimpse of those things which cannot
be appropriated by senses or understood by human intelligence but can only be
perceived in their divine quality in ways which transgress mind and body.
In the nal part of his article, before giving extensive quotes from Shestovs
most recent writings, Hillel Zeitlin considered the problem of the human in-
ertia, which seems to be built in us. It is an interesting point that has always
preoccupied the Jewish interpreters of the Book. Man was created in the image
of God, but this statement refers only to his potential. Te di culty consists
in nding the way to realize this potential, to overcome the state of suspen-
sion between two worlds, to arrive at the point where one can see something
through the thick fog of our earthly existence, even if we cannot ever make the
next decisive step. Te danger of falling back into a world of illusions we our-
selves built is overwhelming: it happened to Dostoevsky when he abandoned
the visions of his heroes and came close to the Pan-Slavic tendencies of con-
temporary Russia. Te same was the case with Nietzsche when he attempted
to build a new brave world for his Overman instead of going on and embrace
that which is indeed over and beyond anything else. Tolstoy, the other great
hero of Shestov, fell into the same trap when instead of following his intuition
concerning the deep meaning of Abrahams experience, he went back to seek
the essence of faith in the constructs of his own mind. In this nal part of the
essay, one comes again across a description of the man who is seeing through,
the being in search of the above mentioned experience of satori; Zeitlin makes
a passionate plea against inertia, toward a ght which never ends, which re-
minds Pascals call never to rest.
NI NE
The Last Writings
Between Athens and Jerusalem
It is not reason which brings forth truth but faith
Te freedom created by God, which does not accept the constraint, has a completely dif-
ferent origin from that of our knowledge: it dees it, it aspires not only at what is in our
power to achieve but also to something which is beyond it
God Almighty is the only Godboth Testaments bring this message which is the only one
capable of helping us withstand the horrors we face in life. Tis is the subject of my book
Athens and Jerusalem
In 1938 Lev Shestov published his last book, Athens and Jerusalem. As men-
tioned in the introductory chapter, most of its content consisted of materials
written and published long before the printing of the book. During the last
year of his life, Shestov wrote, however, several articles that contain a few of
his nal pronouncements about existential philosophy and religious thinking,
some occasioned by anniversaries/obituariesand others by recent publications
of the authors reviewed. In chronological order, these are Sine Eusione San-
guinis on Jaspers (1937), Nicolai Berdyaev: Gnosis and Existential Philoso-
phy and To the Memory of a Great Philosopher, Edmund Husserl, both
written in 1938.
Tese three articles contain statements that allow a fairly complete pre-
sentation of Shestovs deconstructive attitude toward philosophy and give a
measure of his eorts in the attempt to replace speculative metaphysics with a
new metasophia based on faith. Together with certain chapters included in the
book Athens and Jerusalem, they establish the continuity of a number of major
ideas and unveil the emergence of new themes at this late stage in the evolu-
tion of Shestovs thinking. To the mentioned essays, one should add the article
about the evolution of Dostoevskys convictions, based on ve talks delivered
by Shestov at Radio Paris in 1937,
1
which treated in a direct way the question
concerning the transformations of the convictions of an author. Tis later
article contains a very important hint insofar as the origin or the trigger of
the Shestovian existential philosophy is concerned: Dostoevsky was a writer of
cruel, merciless stories about human beings and their destinies, as were both
Nietzsche and Kierkegaard. Te reader remarks immediately two ideas at work
in Shestovs argumentation: rst, writers of ction, philosophers, and religious
thinkers, united by a common interest and by a strong fascination with spe-
cic aspects of the human condition, might become equally relevant for the
establishment of a metasophia that transcends the classical metaphysics of the
philosophers. Second, the grounding of the new existential thinking is found
in sorrow and in the cruel nature of a destiny determined by an omnipres-
ent evil ready to interfere destructively at all times with our lives. Tis does
not transform Shestov into a follower of the Marquis de Sade or a prophet
announcing Michel Foucault or other late twentieth-century thinkers who
would re-interpret Nietzsche in ways biased by realistic and/or ideologically
oriented views; it is interesting to point out though (I shall come back later to
this point) that in the article on Husserl, Shestov observed that the ideal of
cruelty proclaimed by Nietzsche, is not such an absolute novelty in philosophy,
as many people would want to believe.
2
In addition to the hint to the origins of Shestovs metasophia, the men-
tioned article on Dostoevsky provides also the grounds for a discussion con-
cerning the dynamics and the evolution of the ideas professed by the thinker
(any thinker): is there a history more interesting more moving than that of the
transformation of the convictions of an author?
3
asked Shestov rhetorically.
Most probably that, with small corrections, what he wrote about Dostoevsky
could have been applicable to himself as well: as he grew older and got more
and more dedicated to the ultimate and most important mysteries of existence,
Dostoevsky became more and more involved with and dedicated to the poor
and wretched souls, with the most miserable among human beings. A correc-
tion should be applied in Shestovs case: for him, the most miserable human
Between Athens and Jerusalem 131
being was the man who strived to communicate with God but did not realize
that unless he gave up his own will, his own ways to see, understand, and re-
construct the world and put his trust in God, he did not stand a chance. Man
must replace rational thinking with faith insofar as matters related to his soul
are concerned, will say unhesitant Shestov at the end of his life.
In the mentioned article on Jaspers, Shestov went back again as far as to
Tertullian to state that based on the biblical thinking (that is on Jerusalem)
the latter concluded that the impossibilia, all our impossibilities originate in
reason, solely in reason; or, it is not reason which brings forth truth but faith.
4

Trough a long somersault in time, he stated in the same article that the ex-
istential philosophy is not that elaborated by Jaspers, that of an existierende
Mensch resigned to the rulings of almighty reason, but that of a thinking which
overcomes Dostoevskys stone wall of impossibilities, very much like the phi-
losophy Kierkegaard attempted to build. For Shestov, Jaspers was only a mod-
ern rendering of Kant when it came to existential philosophy; when he wrote
in his book Reason and Existence
5
that existence can understand itself only by
means of a reason which in turn, has its content dened by existence itself, he
followed in fact Kant who in his Critique of Pure Reason wrote also that the
ideas without a content are empty and the intuitions unsupported by reason are
blind.
6
Shestov recognized the inuence of both Nietzsche and Kierkegaard
on Jaspers, who pointed out that through their daring critique of the accepted
fundamentals of epistemology, ontology and ethics, the two went beyond lim-
its considered denitive by their predecessors. However, he stopped short from
embracing some of the evidence of this new thinking beyond the frontiers
should have imposed upon him: both jump into the real of a transcendental
being where nobody can follow them.
7
Jaspers refused to grant even a mean-
ing to the concept of existential philosophy considered by him a mere illusion.
Philosophy is one: from its very beginning, it was a search for truth accom-
plished by the human intellect acting within the connes of rational thinking.
Man must seek truth without a fanatic bent toward exclusivity; this philosophia
perennis wrote Jaspersin Shestovs interpretationwas ready to admit its in-
ability to comprehend faith (or its total absence). Moreover, claimed the Ger-
man philosopher, philosophy must be ready to accept the right of both those
attitudes to a deep and thorough interpretation of reality, in accord with their
own terms and within the borders of their (rational) rules. Jaspers would have
never agreed with Shestov that true freedom consists in transgressing the ethi-
cal, in going beyond the distinction between good and evil or to the claim that
in order to obtain truth, man has to give up his willingness to use reason.
It is interesting to observe that in accord with his old habit, in writing an
article about Jaspers, Shestov was in fact writing about subjects who preoccu-
pied him with or without Jaspers, before and after having become even familiar
with his philosophy. Not that he was impervious to his arguments or that he
was not interested in them: he could not detach himself from the ultimate
truths that obsessed him. Tus, for instance, at the very beginning of the ar-
ticle, he quoted Jaspers main argument concerning the impossibility to follow
Nietzsche and Kierkegaard on the way to uncovering new truths about the
meaning of human existence: they abandoned us without oering a purpose, a
denite task. Te question is to nd out how to live our ordinary lives in view
of the extraordinary, how the exceptions can guide us in nding the meaning
of our inner lives.
8
However, this is the wrong argument, would reply Shestov
since the question is how to communicate with the negative content of Nietz-
sches and Kierkegaards lives and beyond that, to nd out in which ways their
traumatic experiences should aect us: should not we attempt to somehow in-
corporate their splinter in the esh rather than gloss upon it in abstract ways?
wondered Shestov. Nevertheless, this is exactly what he himself did in his article
on Dostoevsky mentioned above: after describing the ethical bent of the young
author and his confrontation with Belinskys question concerning the moral
responsibility insofar as the misfortunes of the Other was concernedand not
only that which we personally witnessed but that of the many generations of
persecuted and excluded back in timeShestov pointed out that Dostoevsky
evolved toward a state of an organically assimilated unhappiness. Unlike Jas-
pers, however, from the very moment Dostoevsky understood that our ways of
thinking accepted the idea that the suering of the other justify somehow our
happiness, he began concentrating on the horrors of the human existence. Tat,
in order to try to understand in the process how to save himself from becoming
the prisoner of a situation in which the impotent love for the other human
beings is necessarily transformed into hate.
9
Te article about Jaspers ended
with the same negative conclusion about the eternal philosophy embraced by
him very much like that found in the essay about Dostoevsky and would nd
later in the article about Berdyaev: the critical and pre-critical philosophies of
Socrates, Kant and Mendelssohn agree that only ethics has the monopoly of
that absolute truth which nds itself to be judex et princeps omnium [the judge
and the principle of everything] and this leaves Job, Abraham, Nietzsche . . .
and the God of the Bible who cannot answer the supplications of his crucied
Son, condemned and lost for ever.
10
Te essay about his good old friend Nicolai Berdyaev was occasioned by
his recently published book, Spirit and Reality. As we have already seen, the
history of their relationship was a very old one, starting back in Kiev at the be-
ginning of the century
11
; each wrote about the others works in Russia already
during the years preceding WW I (Berdyaev wrote about Shestovs Apotheosis
of Groundlessness as early as 1905 and Shestov wrote about Berdyaevs book
Sub Specie Aeternitatis in 190708
12
). We never agreed with each other told
Shestov to Fondane, as he always accused me of reading my own ideas in the
works of Doestoevsky, Tolstoy and later, Kierkegaard. Indeed, in the article
in memoriam written immediately after Shestovs death, Berdyaev pointed out
that by embracing the ideal of a thinking guided by revelation rather than one
anchored in rational inference, Shestov could not (and did not) approach the
problem of the communication between the human beings. Te two would
nd a common ground and will be in agreement insofar as the value of the
creative thinking was concerned but they strongly diverged when they came to
discuss the possibility of its communication. Reason exhibits various degrees,
might present dierent qualities and depends on the human will wrote Berdy-
aev.
13
In their private conversations he seems to have often protested against
Shestovs tendency to deny him the right to be free to know, to which his
friend would stubbornly repeat that knowing, means knowing that necessity
exists and that knowledge and freedom are incompatible.
14
During a visit at
the Shestovs house in 1935, the philosophers wife apparently told Fondane
that each time Berdyaev is coming, the two have terrible disputes; both be-
come red and this goes on for thirty years now.
15
Red or not, Shestov was very sober in his analysis of Berdyaevs philosophy
and followed a fairly clear line of argumentation: in spite of the progressive tra-
jectory Berdyaevs thought followed, from a grounding of his philosophy in a
form of a gnosis to the acknowledgment of existential philosophy and Kierkeg-
aards oeuvre, he remained the prisoner of the thinking of the German mystics
Master Eckhart, Tauler, Angelus Silesius, Boehme, and of the modern German
philosophical idealism (this later argument upset very much Berdyaev who in a
letter following the publication of his article wrote him that Dostoevsky and
Nietzsche played a much more important role in my life than Schelling and
German idealism; in the same letter he tried to explain Shestovhow many
times must have he done it before?that the way he understood the concept
of freedom was very dierent from that of Jacob Boehme
16
). In essence, wrote
Shestov, for Berdyaev the mystery to be uncovered in the surrounding reality
is not something attached to the object of our study, but it consists rather in
the reection about the act through which a truth is obtained. What appears
to be a conclusion is in reality rather an axiom related to the theandric idea,
which always dominated Berdyaevs thinking: the Godlike qualities inculcated
in man are the only guarantors of his liberty and worth of being understood.
Berdyaevs philosophical evolution consists in a more and more accentuated
emphasis on the human factor in his theandric philosophy to the detriment of
the divine moment. To the point that as mans stature becomes more promi-
nent and gains independence, Gods position is continuously diminished.
17
As mentioned, another issue on which Shestov and Berdyaev were deeply
split was that of the human freedom; for the latter, as for Boehme and the
German idealists, argued Shestov, freedom precedes the world, is uncreated,
independent of the will of God. (Berdyaev in the letter mentioned above stated
clearly that Boehme, unlike himself, did anchor liberty in God). In agreement
with Schelling, who wrote in his Ideas on a Philosophy of Nature (in a somewhat
dierent context though) that if freedom is a capability for evil, than it must
have a root independent of God,
18
Berdyaev stated that freedom is sustained
by the all powerful capacity of the human being to make the distinction be-
tween good and evil. However, that cannot represent a phenomenology of the
revelation, as its author pretended since there is no place for such an inter-
pretation in the Holy Scriptures, wrote Shestov. However, neither Berdyaev
nor his allies, the German mystics, and the idealist philosophers, would have
accepted to remain conned to these documents only, while discussing the phi-
losophy of revelation: they extended the debate to a discussion based on Gnos-
tic interpretations. Tus, the freedom of men turned out to be the factor that
enabled them to escape the potential status of robots in a world in which God
would instate the good only and control or eliminate altogether the evil. Te
sine qua non condition for human freedom required that human kinds freedom
should be kept separated from the will of God, be uncreated and as such, be
part of the primordial nothingness rather than of Gods plenitude. God is all
powerful within the realm of the being, but not in that of the nothingness, not
insofar freedom is concerned,, insisted Berdyaev.
19
However, a nothingness
thus understood limits the extent of the powerfulness of the absolute God.
Moreover, in such a situation redemption becomes some sort of a dynamic
process since the good that vanquishes evil is superior to that which existed
before its coming into the world. Shestov quoted Berdyaev who concluded
that redemption does not represent a return to a Paradise which preceded the
original sin but a passage to a superior state, one in which the superior nature
of humane spirituality reveals itself (ibid.).
Obviously, Shestov could not agree with these viewsBerdyaev was right
when he wrote him that he has the feeling that they belong to two worlds far
apartand he tried to prove him wrong either by nding inconsistencies in
his ways of reasoning or by presenting, as convincingly as he could, his opposite
point of view. Tis book is not the place to describe in detail neither of the two
lines of argumentation; the rst one was based on the assumption that even if
Berdyaev was self-consistent in his reasoning, in the end one conclusion rooted
in experience should confront another one, based also on experience: one must
choose one of the two, and at this point the phenomenological approach breaks
down. En passant, Shestov observed that like Buber, Berdyaev too believed that
the human consciousness had acquired its moral character with Gods interro-
gation addressed to Cain. Tat man can do something outside Gods will, im-
plies indeed a God-like quality in men (the theandric idea mentioned above);
but if God himself cannot overcome human liberty how would we know that
the Man-God could overcome an uncreated liberty?
According to Berdyaev, a man who is in the possession of such a precious
gift nds himself under the constraining moral obligation to always move on,
in an endless ascendant movement toward a superior state warranted by his
condition; in the process, he is illuminated by reason and the horrors of ex-
istence he might witness occasionally and that will serve merely as a buoy-
ancy force that keeps him on his ever ascending path. In Job, Berdyaev saw
something very dierent from what Shestov saw; this observation might have
served as starting point for Shestovs positive argumentation against Berdy-
aevs philosophy. Job rejected the edifying qualities of reasonable argumenta-
tion; the main message of his story was not that encoded in the dispute with
his friends but in his refusal to accept Gods verdict. In the end, God recog-
nized that Job was right and returned him all his former possessions. Why did
Kant as well as Berdyaev, neglect this detail? asked Shestov. In opposition with
their attitude, Kierkegaard believed that Jobs stubborn, maximalist attitude
was the only reasonable one in his direct confrontation with God. Moreover,
Kierkegaard, as interpreted by Shestov, was totally opposed to a submission
of the human being to the constraints of the reason and its compulsive drive
to always distinguish between good and evil. Te proposed solution based on
the dialectical synthesis between opposite tendencies or that of the perpetual
move upwards as a result of the judicious choice, both originating in the
Greek (that is rational) ways of thinking, should be replacedin Shestovs
viewby an existential philosophy which originates in the human despair. Te
true existential philosophy is that of Kierkegaard and not that proposed by
Berdyaev and by the friends of Job. Te end of the article contains a brief list
of the main tenets of Shestovs existential philosophy, of his metasophia: this
new philosophy beyond philosophy is to be born within the connes of a new
dimension of the human thought, orthogonal to that dominated by reason. Its
truth should not be a constraining (only) one, its freedom must not nd itself
outside and/or beyond the reach of God: the freedom created by God, which
does not accept the constraint, has a completely dierent origin from that of
our knowledge: it dees it, it aspires not only at what is in our power to achieve
but also at something positioned beyond it . . . Te source of wisdom is in the fear
of God not in that of the Nothingness. And freedom originates in faith and not
in knowledge, in the faith which liberates us from our nightmares.
20
Edmund Husserl died at the age of almost eighty, during the spring
of 1938. Te journal of the Russian intellectual community in exile, Ruskie
Zapisky, asked Shestov to write about the deceased philosopher. A weak and
ailing Shestov made the eort and sent out the article less than a month before
his death. It is puzzling but moving at the same time to observe these strange
elective a nities between these two thinkers who found themselvesap-
parentlyat two opposite poles insofar their attitude toward the meaning of
philosophy and its functions were concerned. Somebody wrote that Husserl
was anchored in the nineteenth-century philosophical bent toward the abso-
lute character of human knowledge. Even if he was not recognized as a major
gure in the post-WW I movement toward the establishment of a new theo-
logical thinking built upon revelation, as were for instance the Protestant Karl
Barth or the Jewish thinker Franz Rosenzweig, Shestov belonged, however, to
the group of theological reformers rather than to that of the anti-Neokantian
rebels or to that of the exponents of various Lebensphilosophien. In the end,
regardless the place we assign them in the context of the modern European
philosophy, the fact is that a very strong resonance was at work between the
two. In the context of Memento Mori, this late article only strengthens my pre-
vious observations. On the other hand, Shestov did not keep secret his erce
opposition to many of Husserls ideas; the in memoriam article begins with him
mentioning the question posed to him by Max Scheler, why do you so strong-
ly oppose Husserl? In spite of a long detour, in the characteristic Shestovian
style, the answer, given in terms of a psychological interpretation, turned out in
the end to be: Husserl, as Kierkegaard, was a thinker of the either-or alternative.
He could not content himself with approximate answers and even less with the
perspective of an uncertain knowledge. Te Danish thinker has chosen certain-
ty in God; Husserl sought the answer in the human intellect. Te all-mighty
God, who could change his mind and cancel even an event that historically
had taken place, such as Socrates death, for instance, the Absolute Transcen-
dental proposed by Shestov as the ultimate solution, was unacceptable to him.
However, after having exposed clearly their dierences, Shestov explained also
in no ambiguous terms why he held in such high esteem Husserl: with a rare
courage he posed the most signicant and the most di cult and painful ques-
tion, that of the meaning of our knowledge.
21
He found in him a mirror image
of Kierkegaard; both couldand didinduce in the contemporary minds a
sense of urgency toward the need to re-consider our ways of thinking. Beyond
this however, he saw, I believe, both these thinkers as potential apostles of his
own cause: that of causing men (I should write mankind but I try to avoid its
abstract connotation) to awaken from their existential slumber. One nds in
this last piece of Shestovian writing yet another subtle observation: in connec-
tion with the question why did he want me to study Kierkegaard? Shestov
remarked (about Husserl) that by making truth absolute he found himself in
the position of relativizing being, that is human life.
22
In this he resembled
Nietzsche, thus the conclusion: Between Husserls thinking and that of Nietz-
sche and Kierkegaard there lies a profound and intimate link (ibid.).
I return now to Athens and Jerusalem, the last book published by Lev
Shestov. In a letter sent a few days before his death to the orthodox priest and
theologian Sergei Bulgakov, whom he knew well from the early Russian years,
Shestov wrote: For me, the contradictions between the Old and the New Tes-
tament seemed always something imaginary. When Jesus was asked (in Mark
12:29) what is to be the rst commandment, he answered: Hear, O Israel, etc.
and in the Apocalypse (2:7): To the vanquished I shall give to eat from Te
Tree of Life. Knowledge is thus overcome, truth is revealed, God Almighty
is the only Godboth Testaments bring this message, which is the only one
capable of helping us withstand the horrors we face in life. Tis is the subject
of my book Athens and Jerusalem, which I would very much like to discuss with
you. . . .
23
Moreover, to the question related to Shestovs belief, we nd in the
same letter another signicant phrase: . . . in my view, we must make huge
spiritual eorts to get rid of the atheistic nightmare and the lack of faith which
dominates humanity.
Tis statement quoted above, was preceded by a remark concerning the
chapter on the philosophical thought of the Middle Ages included in the book.
Its presence in Athens and Jerusalem, as well as the fact that the text written
in 1935 is one of the last texts written by Shestov, makes it worthy of closer
consideration in the context of our concluding remarks. Te essay is based on
the observation that Etienne Gilsons work Lsprit de la philosophy mdivale
posed the question concerning the meaning of the Judeo-Christian philoso-
phy and its novelty in the larger realm of the human thought. Moreover, the
book of the neo-Tomist thinker seemed to overcome the apparently inherent
contradiction between a thinking based on biblical revelation and the require-
ment to ground any philosophy worthy of its name in a rational approach,
that is, built on demonstrable, indisputable truths. Tat can in principle occur
because, as Lessing pointed out, the revealed truth becomes rational in the
mind of the believer. Gilsons formulation of the same idea was expressed by
Shestov as follows: the revealed truth is founded on nothing, proves, nothing,
is justied before nothing and, despite this, is transformed in our mind into a
justied, demonstrated, self-evident truth. Tis idea was a very important one
of course, and Benjamin Fondane, the disciple, fully realized it: in his works,
even before but more intensely after the death of the master, he would try
hard to nd a way to explain this subtle mechanism in terms acceptable to an
existential philosophy (this represents perhaps the starting point of Fondanes
originality insofar as his existential philosophy is concerned; see also the next
chapter Benjamin Fondane, the Disciple). Trough this subtleand so far
unexplained processrevelation becomes truth; if one adds to this idea the
postulate that metaphysics wishes to possess the revealed truth, a leitmotif of
Gilsons beautiful book,
24
we see how the connection between medieval phi-
losophy on the one hand, and ancient and modern philosophy on the other, has
been established in the work of the French philosopher. Shestov found no aw
in this line of argumentation until he reached the point at which Gilson stated
that God, besides somehow creating himself and the universe, created also the
eternal truths. Tat statement, reinforced by Clement of Alexandrias assertion
that Christian thought in its beginnings . . . admitted two Old Testaments,
the Bible and the Greek philosophy
25
brought Gilson to the observation that
one could legitimately ask if there would ever have been a Christian philoso-
phy if Greek philosophy had not existed.
26
In some sense, he was in agreement
with Shestov (Christian philosophy means an interpretation of the Christian
theology in terms of the Greek philosophy); but in another domain, he held a
position totally unacceptable to Shestov.
Indeed, Shestov would not have found quarrel with this statement if for
him Christian, as well as Jewish philosophy, had not meant a philosophy that
necessarily included a religious dimension. More specically, philosophy had
to be anchored in a reality, in which only God and his will are eternal and
boundless and as a result, reason with its conceptual frame based on abstract
and universal ideas operated in the realm of strictly logical thinking, cannot be
the main (and the only) tool of investigation, as was the case with the Greek
and with the contemporary philosophy. Tat not only because the God of
Scripture is above the truth as well as the goodon that point Shestov and
Gilson could agreebut also (and mainly) because God cannot be constrained
by any law, his truths not having to comply with any rule of (self ) consistency;
the epistemology of the Greeks (or anybody elses for that matter) could not
constrain the truths of the Book of Exodus.
27
Gilson and his contemporaries
seem to have completely forgotten the passages of the Book of Genesis which
relate directly to the problem. I am thinking, wrote Shestov, about the story
of the fall of the rst man and the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good
and evil.
28
We have seen all along the importance of the motive of the fall in Shestovs
philosophy; I shall not return to it here. Rather, I would follow him a bit fur-
ther in his observations related to Gilsons book and his interpretation of the
Middle Age philosophy, in order to understand an important methodological/
hermeneutical issue: the di culty to grasp the messages encrypted in the old
texts in general and the Old Testament in particular. Shestov agreed that we
have inherited from the Greeks both the fundamental philosophical problems
and the rational principles for their solution, as well as the entire technique
of our thought. However, the question is how shall we succeed in reading
and understanding scripture not according to the teaching of the great Greek
masters?
29
Te question concerning the interpretation of documents originat-
ing under radically dierent cultural and historical conditions is, of course, a
well known (and much discussed) issue in contemporary hermeneutics, but
Shestov was not preoccupied with its epistemologicaland to an even lesser
extent with its sociological or anthropological implications. He made the very
simple and obvious observation, that as long as the Bible was only in the
hands of the chosen people, this question did not arise and asked: is a man
educated by the Greeks capable of preserving that freedom which is the condi-
tion of the right understanding of what the Bible says?
30
We nd here another
Shestovian attempt to express in a concise manner the essence of his message,
which I summarize here as follows: my philosophy is based on truths brought
forth through the Bible, all of which let (induce) me to believe in an Almighty
God. Tis last statement means that for Him all things are possible, including
the modication at any time, following His will, of whatever we humans would
consider eternal truths. Any predicament in my life is therefore temporary
and potentially negotiable; I only need to nd out how to enter the dialog with
Him, as Job did. Faith is indispensable for the attainment of that possibility.
Te story of the original sin was not properly understood by those who
followed in the path of Philo and Clement of Alexandria because of the bias
introduced by the Greek interpretation given to the Bible. Gods words From
every tree of the Paradise you may eat; however, from the tree of Knowledge
of good and evil you shall not eat do not mean that man would be punished
for having disobeyed, but rather that knowledge hides in itself death, wrote
Shestov. Tat was something the followers of Athenian wisdom could not ac-
cept. Indeed, there was another very important point Shestov made at the same
time: he observed that in the Bible the metaphysics of knowledge was related to that
of being. God has told Adam and Eve that if they transgressed his orders, that
is, if they began to know, they would also begin to die at the same time (and
that is why Shestov was never preoccupied with ontology; for him ontology
and epistemology were mixed ab initio). Of course, the fall can be interpreted
in a dierent way, for instance, as liberation: the serpent told the truth; knowl-
edge does not kill. On the contrary, it opens a completely new view, presents to
Adam and Eve a new dimension of life even. Ten, if that is the case, how could
they have chosen to reject knowledge? asked Shestov. Tere are, therefore, two
dierent ways to interpret the story of Adam, Eve, and the serpent: one which
leads to the rationalist, philosophical approach to life and existence, and the
other, which Shestov considered to represent a mixture of a primordial Jewish
thinking and an, untainted, original Christianity, which he lumped together
in that Judeo-Christian thought mentioned in the letter to Sergei Bulgakov.
A careful reading uncovers yet another epistemological subtlety discussed
by Shestov in this context: the fact that Adam and Eve possessed a certain kind
of knowledge is clearly suggested by the Book of Genesis. Tis knowledge was
one of the that, a knowledge relevant in the created world, in which man was
asked to give names to all animals on Earth, but not one of the why, a dier-
ent kind of knowledge, needed to nd out abstract truths related to God and
his intentions. Mans mind was guided by the serpent into a new direction;
as soon as he abandoned the belief in the revealed truths of God he began to
seek another kind of truth, that of the universal and the necessary, a truth that
certainly deprives him of his freedom but protects him against the arbitrariness
of God.
31
Here we encounter another essential tenet of Shestovs philosophy:
the real choice made by man was not between an easy life in Paradise and the
bitter fate of a fallen being but that between a true freedom lived under the per-
manent menace of the arbitrariness of an omnipotent Being and a fake, unauthentic
freedom lived in the shadow of the eternal, self-evident truths. To this very day, the
reecting man/woman nds him/herself in the same position Adam and Eve
found themselves facing the tree of knowledge: he or she needs to transform
the truths received from God, without the shadow of a proof into proven
truths, concluded Shestov.
If for the medieval philosophers following in the footsteps of St. Tomas
32

(and not only for them), it was true that their intellectual longing will be satis-
ed only when the word of God brought by the prophet will have obtained the
blessing of the principle of contradiction,
33
it is not obvious that things should
be the same in modern times, in particular for those of Shestovs contempo-
raries who can be associated with the religious existential thinking of the twen-
tieth century. However, even those religious thinkers who were inclined toward
an existential philosophy much like that proposed by Shestov, were tempted to
preserve the medieval interpretation of the notion of sin and failed to see the
meaning of the experience of the fall the way Shestov did. Man was punished
because he failed to obey; acting against Gods will is under any circumstance
a sinful act since, as St. Augustine wrote, the creature was so made that it is
useful for it to be subjected to God but injurious for it to do its own will and
not the will of Him by Whom he was created.
34
Not so for Shestov, for whom
God is not immutable; that is why Abraham, the father of faith did at times
argue with God. He argued with God about Sodom and Gomorrah, and God
forgot that he is immutable (my emphasis) and gave in to his servant, pointed
out Shestov and added without hesitation: it is obvious that biblical faith has
nothing in common with obedience.
35
Shestov does not tire of repeating that the religious thinkers of the Middle
Ages were blinded in their reading of the Bible by Greek philosophy; as this
considered gnosis to be the supreme dignity of man, the ability to distinguish
between good and evil could not represent in itself a sin. On the contrary, it was
to become a virtue. Shestov remarked that following a hint from St. Paul (all
that does not come of faith is sin,, Romans, 14:23), Kierkegaard wrote that the
opposite of sin is not virtue but faith.
36
Tus, he established a sharp distinction
between Greek philosophy and the original Jewish-Christian thought (I use
this expression to distinguish it from a Judeo-Christian tradition transformed
in the process of interference with the Greek philosophy). Clearly, the Greek
did not have the same concept of the nature of the divinity, of the transcen-
dental, the Jewish-Christian tradition had at its very beginning. How and why
should they be therefore compared? Because whether we call this supra-human
entity, a Platonic idea or eternal and immutable truth, it shares with the Judeo-
Christian thought the absolute and totally transcendental character ascribed by
it to the divinity. Tey are not identical, certainly. Shestov points out that Gil-
son, in his book, recognizes all the vicissitudes of the intense struggle which
developed between the two during the Middle Ages. However, Shestov is very
blunt in pointing out that already from St. Augustine on, it became accepted
that faith is under the control of reason. How else can one understand the
famous intellige ut credas, crede ut inteligas
37
? Te corollary of the rst part of the
Augustinian statement became later in St. Tomass transcription, a very sharp
and uncompromising, that which contains a contradiction does not fall under
Gods omnipotence.
38
Against this idea, Shestov posed the question: From
where does the Judeo-Christian philosophies draw this unshakable conviction
that the principle of contradiction cannot be overcome?
39
His answer came in
quickly and was not less sharp and unambiguous: not from the Bible, surely
since this takes no account of the principle of contradiction, just as it takes
no account of any principle, of any law, for it is the source, the sole source, and
master of all laws.
40
Te conclusion seems to be clear: for Shestov, the Old and the New Testa-
ments were up to a certain point, one. Both represented and described the will
of an Almighty God deeply involved in what happens in the world He created.
He had chosen a people of priests who were supposed to observe his Law, but
at some point He changed his mind and wanted all people on earth to fol-
low his commandments. Te absolute Law man was made for, has been thus
transformed in a normative law made for man. He sent another prophet, this
time one from Nazareth and asked all peoples to listed and follow his message.
How this has been interpreted later by the multitude of peoples involved, is
a dierent story. For the learned, it was the Greek inuence which made the
dierence. For others, the specic local ethos was responsible for the new in-
terpretations, the new laws and for the reviewed versions of Gods words. It did
not make any dierence to Shestov, as long as it was understood that in both
Books, in the Old as well as in the New Testament, the message was the same:
God is Almighty and for reasons impossible to understand, he might change
his mind. Te dierence between primeval Christianity and Judaism as he was
expressed in and by the Bible was not, in his mind, an essential one.
TEN
Benjamin Fondane,
the Disciple
Schloezer ma dit que votre tude tait la meilleur introduction la philosophie existen-
tielle que l on a fait jusqu prsent.
Shestov to Fondane, December 4, 1937
Chestov est le philosophe qui veut dlaisser le problme du savoir pour aborder franche-
ment le Savoir en tant que problme.
Benjamin Fondane
One of the most important encounters Shestov had in Paris was that with the
poet Benjamin Fondane. It is still debatable whether it is appropriate or not to
call Fondane a disciple or a follower. He was both and none of these. Certainly,
he was formed philosophically by Shestov, but an exceptional intellectual mo-
bility as well as his literary endeavors pushed Fondane into directions that
tended to diverge at times from those of the master. Te two met very soon
after Fondanes arrival to France (in 1923) in the house of the philosopher
Jules de Gaultier (who wrote at the turn of the century one of the rst books
on Nietzsche in France), and a close relationship developed between them with
deep consequences for both. Between 1929 and 1938 Fondane wrote many
articles about Shestov and his philosophical and religious thought, and pub-
lished them in various journals or as chapters in his book La Conscience mal-
heureuse (1936); in fact, practically all his works written after 1930 contained
references to the man who introduced him to philosophy. Although the subject
of this chapter is Fondane, the disciple, it would be interesting to nd out
also to what extent Fondane might have inuenced Shestov (besides the fact
that it certainly helped to keep up his morale through his dedicated work as a
promoter of his ideas).
Benjamin Fondane was not born to be a philosopher; his encounter with
Lev Shestov determined him to approach philosophyreluctantly at rstin
order to clarify some of the queries left unanswered by questions he posed so
far only in the poetical realm. In fact, Benjamin Fondane was and remained his
entire life, fundamentally, a poet. Te reasons and the circumstances of his drift
toward philosophy have been accurately described by the poet in the introduc-
tory chapter (Sur les rives de l Ilissus) to the book Rencontres avec Leon Chestov,
in which he presented their fteen-year intellectual relationship. Tis work is
probably one of the best introductions to the Shestovian philosophy ever writ-
ten and it contains, at the same time, a history of Fondanes evolution toward
an original existential philosophical outlook. In the very narrow frame of this
chapter, I will limit the discussion to a brief rendering of the main steps in this
evolution, as described by Fondane himself.
Te rst meeting between the young poet (Fondane was born in 1898) re-
cently arrived in Paris and the famous Russian-Jewish philosopher occurred in
1924. At the time, Benjamin Fondane was struggling to forge for himself a new
identity both on the individual/personal side as well as insofar his poetical/lit-
erary activities were concerned. His previous involvement with philosophy was
limited to a few authors only, among them Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, and Jules
de Gaultier, who provided my youthful years with the intoxicating idea of the
esthetic justication of the univers
1
(note how similar this situation was to that
of young Shestov before the turn of the century). Te years spent in searching
for this new identity were painful and a long period of crisis ensued. Te period
of Fondanes philosophical apprenticeship covers roughly the years 192629,
during which Shestov taught Fondane not his own thought and philosophy
but mainly that of others: he forced me to read the philosophers everybody
was talking about at the time, Husserl, Heidegger. . . .
2
In parallel, Fondane
would begin reading his mentors works as well (he had a brief encounter with
Shestovs works while still in Romania, mainly through the book Revelations of
the Death translated to Romanian after WW I), and these lectures helped him
to identify a Nietzschean strain in his own personality. Reading Shestov he
realized that this taste for the concrete, the living, the individual hero and his
dramatic existence
3
was something he had in common with his (recently en-
Benjamin Fondane, the Disciple 145
countered) teacher. Once this resonance established, Shestov taught Fondane
the meaning of his ways of expressing himself . . . as well as the meaning of
this strange resistance existence put up against theoretical speculation (ibid.).
Tis last point is essential since it explains not only the essence of the existen-
tial thinking common to the two thinkers but also why Fondane the philosopher,
continued to remain at the same time Fondane the poet, too.
Benjamin Fondane began publishing his rst philosophical articles in 1929;
the very rst one was an essay on Shestov entitled, Un philosophe tragique:
Lon Chestov. It appeared in the literary-philosophical review Europe, fol-
lowed, in the same journal, by an article on Husserl. Te same year, during his
rst visit to Argentina (a second will follow in 1936), he presented in Buenos
Aires a talk entitled Un nouveau visage du Dieu: Lon Chestov mystique
russe. In a letter to Herman Lovtzki, Shestov mentioned his young student;
the article for Europe is written in a somewhat impressionistic style, he writes,
Fondane is not a philosopher, he states explicitly that he writes for artists but
one nds in it, all in all, quite a bit of energy.
4
A year later, Fondane would
have ready for publication a rst version of a book (to be published only in
1933) on the French poet Arthur Rimbaud, which would turn out to be rather
a philosophical work than one of literary criticism. Tis blending was clearly
a result of Shestovs inuence on Fondane; in a letter addressed to the master in
1927, he already explicitly recognized his inuence when he wrote, you make
me understand not only Nietzsche, Tolstoy etc., but also authors you never con-
sidered such as Rimbaud, Baudelaire
5
(the remark was only party accurate as
Shestov did in fact meditate quite a bit about Baudelaire in his younger years).
Indeed, Rimbaud le Voyou is at least as much a book of existential philosophy as
it is one about a great modern poet. As a short illustration, I quote two intro-
ductory statements from the book: if a Rimbaud did not appear from time to
time to subvert the idea the spirit has of itself, men would fall asleep for ever.
6

Why would such a thing happen? Because, wrote Fondane, men are born in a
world where the received and the preconceived ideas have an ascendance over
any and all experience of the real.
7
Benjamin Fondanes rst major philosophical work La conscience mal-
heureuse (1936), contains chapters that discuss in detail the philosophies of
such philosophers of existence as Shestov, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, and Heidegger,
but the works and the ideas of Husserl, Freud, Bergson, and Gide were also
considered. An extensive preface and the introductory chapter, entitled also
Te Unhappy Consciousness, did set the background for a discussion, in the best
Shestovian tradition, about the need to nd new ways toward a philosophy
liberated from the old patterns and the idiosyncrasies of classical metaphysics.
Fondane began by observing that while we are simultaneously citizens of the
social order and its misfortunes and as such, political beings, we remain always
also citizens of the human misfortunes (citoyens du malheur humain).
8
Fon-
dane, as Shestov for that matter (I did not insist in the previous chapters on the
social and/or historical thought of Shestov but that not because it did not exist;
my analysis simply concentrated on what I considered essential in his work,
the deconstruction of philosophical thinking on the road toward a religious
thought), recognized the role of the social life and its eects on the existence
of the individual, but he refused againas Sestov always didto accord it a
preponderant specic weight. Te human unhappy consciousness (la conscience
malheureuse) must face the hostile forces of the contradiction, weakness and
the necessity of death, that is of this fatum through which the total alienation
of the human forces is realized.
9
Repeating some of the major motives of Shestovs philosophy, Fondane
arrived at the conclusion that the task of the real philosophy must not be
therefore that of building systems of thought based on abstract categories and
general laws governed by logic, destined to calm us down and perpetuate a
state of intellectual beatitude. Instead, philosophy must seek the means that
enable living individuals to cope with their actual circumstances, their real ex-
istence. In a way, the entire book seemed to be dedicated to the discussion
concerning the distinction to be made between those philosophical solutions
that try to impose the laws of a so-called objective reality upon a man left
without recourse to freedom and those that can be useful to men embarked on
a search for genuine freedom. Tis freedom isas Shestov dened itthat of
Job and Abraham, who dared defy both the will of the Almighty God and the
impositions of the ethical laws (be them of divine or Kantian origin), which
bound mankind. In one of the chapters dedicated to Shestov in La Conscience
malheureuse, Fondane emphasized, perhaps stronger even than the master did,
the need to live ones own philosophy, even if that implied the renounciation
of ethics and the need for logical proofs. Understanding our ways of reasoning
must go beyond mere logical inferences. However, Fondane not only followed
in the domain of epistemology the ways of Shestov; in the domain of ontology,
that is in the realm of the questions related to the explanation of the nature
and meaning of being itself, Fondane asked for a dierent approach from that
of the academic, traditional philosophy. Educated in a dierent intellectual
frame, belonging to a dierent time, and having his own, dierent sensitivi-
ties, Fondane would be much more aware of the distinction between these
two philosophical domains than his master. Human existence eludes us; it is
unpredictable and often arbitrary; facing such an ontological reality, reason
reacts negatively: reason does not like to recognize the irreducible opposition
between the real and the reasonable.
10
While at the rst reading it might have
seemed that such statements represented simple renditions of the Shestovian
ideas, a more careful lecture uncovers the attempts Fondane made to over-
come the merely deconstructive aspect of his masters thinking. Without go-
ing into details here, I only want to point out that in his later writings, such as
Faux trait desthtique, published in 1938, as well as in his unnished book on
Baudelaire (Baudelaire et l exprience du goure), both written by Fondane after
Shestovs death (the second was published posthumously in 1947), the author
follows his own path insofar as the content of existential philosophy and its
consequences for the individual life are concerned. He very much strives to
overcome the feeling of despair and powerlessness induced by Shestovs works;
being a poet, Fondane concentrated on the examination of the nature of the
poetical act, its meaning and its impact on our lived, real, lives. Te issue was
not only the poetry or the poet, he writes in his False Treatise of Estheticsthe
fate of poetry and of the poets should be of utter concern to all human beings
since the poetical act, incorporated in the deepest folds of our existence, acts
as a radioactive substance emanating a quality intimately linked to our real
existence. In Fondanes view, the real essence of the individual existence, that
which one lives of and reects upon, was that which was seized and lived simul-
taneously in an act of participation-creation, or in his words, la ralit ne doit
ainsi tre nomme que dans le bref instant o elle est vcue et saisie dans lacte
de participation-inspiration.
11
When in 1938 Shestov died, Benjamin Fondane found himself alone and
lonely. By that time, however, he was set already on a philosophical road of
himself: the thorough deconstruction performed by Shestov was necessary for
the creation of a new existential philosophy, but it was not su cient. Fondane
tried to nd inspiration and resonances in dierent quarters for the continua-
tion of the debate related to the relationship between being and knowledge. In
fact, in his literary testament he was mentioning a planned book with this title
(Being and Knowledge, Ltre et la connaissance) which was supposed to con-
tinue, beyond Shestov, this discussion. He looked for new outlets in Stephane
Lupascos ideas about thinking reality without submitting oneself to the rigors
of a logic embodied in the all powerful law of the excluded middle (that is, A
must always be identical to A and non-A is always and under any circumstance
radically dierent and distinct from A); he was probing the possibility of living
and acting within a reality that could be understood and experienced in terms
of the contradiction and paradox (Fondane insists on Kafka quite a bit in his
book on Baudelaire). In addition, he tried to nd in the works of Lvy-Bruhl
conrmation of his ideas concerning the possibility to revitalize a participa-
tory thinking (pense de participation); a chapter on this author, based on two
extensive papers published just before the outbreak of WW II was to be part of
the above mentioned book, Ltre et la connaissance (together with one chapter
on Lupasco and another on Shestov). During the war years, Fondane was also
very actively following Gaston Bachelards ideas and he wrote about him and
his books a few articles, published in Cahiers du Sud.
Benjamin Fondanes philosophical swans song was a text written at
the request of Jean Grenier, Albert Camuss philosophical mentor, just a few
months before his arrest, in March 1944. Te article, entitled Le lundi existen-
tiel et le dimanche de lhistoire (Existential Monday and the Sunday of History)
was to be part of anthology on existential thinking (entitled Lexistence; it was
published in 1945 by Grenier). In this last work of his (the title was inspired
by an entry in Kafkas Journals), Fondane tried to outline the basic principles of
a new philosophy of existence. After considering the existential philosophers
and philosophies of the day, from Karl Jaspers to Gabriel Marcel, the author
observed that one should decide whether philosophers need to know what
consciousness thinks about the existent being or rather the opposite, that is,
what does the real existent thinks of consciousness (il faudrait se decider sur la
marche suivre: voulons nous relment savoir ce que la Connaissance pense de
lexistant, ou bien, pour une fois, ce que lexistant pense de la Connaissance?
12

Te existentialist philosophies which came into fashion after WW II, inspired
mainly by Sartre and Heidegger, avoided the question Fondane posed. Tese
post-war philosophers, perhaps traumatized by the encounter with a problem-
atic existence (Sartre) and by the short-falls of a number of not less problem-
atic ways of reecting upon existence (Heidegger), decided to avoid this (too)
blunt question concerning the relationship between existence and knowledge
(as the problem was posed rather in terms of existence and being). Fondanes
question, est-ce lexistence, comme toujours, ou est-ce la connaissance, enn,
quil sagit de rendre problmatique? (ibid.)., which clearly echoed Shestov, will
become of interest later, but this will happen in a frame dierent from that
of existential philosophy (from Wittgenstein in Philosophical Investigations to
postmodernists such as Deleuze or Derrida, the problem of the relationship
between existence and knowledge was reformulated and extensively discussed
after WW II).
Benjamin Fondane, who began his philosophical career as a disciple of
an existential philosopher, became therefore himself a philosopher in search
of new ways and means to counteract the tyranny of the reason. One of the
ways he explored was that of a poetical thinking in guise of philosophy: in his
already mentioned False Treatise of Esthetics, Fondane dwelled upon the deep
meaning of the poetical act and its implication for a possibly new philosophy
of the existence (something equivalent to what I referred to as Shestovs meta-
sophia, in the previous chapters). As he saw it, this was not to be a rational
discussion about an existence represented by an abstract concept, but rather a
way of reecting upon the life of the concrete individual as it unfolded within
the connes of the actual circumstances of his existence. Two years before pub-
lishing Te Treatise, in the preface to his Unhappy Consciousness Fondane wrote:
Tat which should have been kept, above all, silentthe terrifying secret of
homo philosophuswe have slowly but with much passion, spelled out deep
inside ourselves! Is it possible that this pure wisdom, this learning accumulated
since ancient times we call knowledge, was a lie? A lie brought forth in order to
forget precisely its own primeval question, the very rst question of all: What is
knowledge good for? What is the meaning of the deep, absolute truths? Why
do we need these unshakable pillars upon which the knowledge is built? And
what should we do with those postulates which are supposed to sustain the
building but who turn out not to be able to perform the task? What good does
a knowledge based on sacrice? Does life need it in order to survive? Is this
knowledge really necessary or rather, just the opposite, it represents a denial of
life, a suicide, a way out from a situation life refuses to accept?
13
Our unhappy
consciousness has to nd a way out of this tension between Hegels rational
(and reasonable) knowledge and Jobs total refuse of it. Poetry, Fondane be-
lieved, is one option. His reasoning can be summarized as follows: once upon
a time, there was no split in human consciousness between the world in which
one lived and acted and this other, parallel world created by the mind in its act
of reection upon the external world. At that time our thinking was a thinking
of participation. As the rational, Socratic thinking (that is philosophy in the
traditional sense) was born and began to evolve, this thinking of participa-
tion, this existential thinking (not existentialist!) began to retreat and dimin-
ish. At the point of intersection of the two, the thinking of participation and
the philosophical reection, poetry was born. Poetry is thus the refuge of the
unhappy consciousness, the refuge oered to a being engaged in a confronta-
tion with an all pervading rationality. However, poetry cannot be practiced
in a world in which the literal dominates; a world in which there is a perfect
match between the signied and the signier, a world deprived of metaphors.
Unfortunately, Fondane did not have the opportunity to explain further this,
so promising, idea.
I mentioned above Fondanes literary testament: in a note sent from
Drancy to his wife just before he was transferred to Auschwitz, he explained
that the study Levy-Bruhl ou le mtaphysicien malgr lui was meant to be-
come part, in a revised version,
14
of a book entitled LEtre et la Connaissance.
In addition to this, the planned work was to include his most comprehensive
article on Shestov published just before the death of the master in 1938 and a
study of Stephane Lupascos ideas concerning his new logic, which proposed
to incorporate the contradiction.
15
Te planned book was probably supposed
to contain the exposition of Fondanes philosophical ideas as they evolved after
the death of Lev Shestov. Between 1938 and 1944, Fondane wrote a few ar-
ticles about Gaston Bachelard and Stephane Lupasco (published in Cahiers du
Sud) and worked practically without interruption on his book on Baudelaire.
Moreover, we have indirect information about the fact that during the years
of the German occupation of Paris, he often audited at the Sorbonne Gaston
Bachelards courses. It is quite clear that Fondane was in search of his own
brand of meta-sophia, a philosophy designed by his master to be a thought
which does not seek knowledge (nest pas du domaine du je sais) and replaces
intelligere with the cry (le cri) as tool, as method of inquiry.
16
I presented above very succinctly some of the convergences and the di-
vergences between Fondane and his master in the domain of existential phi-
losophy; the next question in the context posed by the title of this book is that
concerning the relationship between their approaches to religion in general
and to Judaism in particular. One can begin the discussion with the analysis
of two already mentioned documents: the article Lon Chestov la recherche du
Judasme perdu published in 1936 in Revue Juive de Genve and the letter sent
in 1938 by Fondane to the French philosopher and Catholic thinker, Jacques
Maritain.
17
Until the mid-1930s, one could nd only scattered hints to preoc-
cupations with Jewish themes in Fondanes work; he wrote on Jewish subjects
while still in Romania, and in France he touched upon subjects related to the
presence of Jewish artists in modernity in general and in the avant-garde in
particular (such for instance was the article on Chagall (1930); one also nds
numerous citations from Jewish authors in Rimbaud le voyou (1934).
18
How-
ever, until that point, Fondane did not seem interested in discussing religious
themes in general and questions related to the issue of Jewish thinking in
particular, in any coherent or substantial way. In the rst article mentioned
above, Fondane explained for the rst time what Jewish meant for him. In
his denitions, he distinguished between the notions of being specically Jew-
ish and (being) essentially Jewish. Shestov was Jewish by birth, but this cir-
cumstance was irrelevant, wrote Fondane; there were many other important
thinkers who were born Jewish but had nothing specically or essentially Jew-
ish (nont rien de spciquement et encore moins dessentiellement juif
19
).
Specic is for Fondane some spiritual entity emerging from a historical, psy-
chological and/or biological evolution, which has been consciously integrated
and which, in time, seeks a way of making itself explicit, of expressing itself.
Essential relates to those a-temporal characteristics of a thinker who remains
outside time and history and rejects any limiting boundary, be it geographical,
historical, or national. Such a thinker expresses willingly or sometimes even
against his explicit intent, a revealed message, which, even though it was ad-
dressed to one specic people is of utmost relevance to the destiny of the entire
humanity.
20
To illustrate the last denition, Fondane brought Bergson, Freud,
and Einstein as examples. Te surprise comes when he mentions Pascal who
wanted to pray to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and Kierkegaard who
rejected Hegel in favor of the private thinkers, Job and Abraham. Jews cannot
be Jews as Germans are Germans or Guatemalans are the indigenous people of
Guatemala: one cannot pretend to be the chosen people without consequences.
Tat was an idea Shestov shared with some prominent Jewish thinkers associ-
ated with the revival movement, represented in both camps, the Zionist one
as well as in that which opposed it. I will discuss this issue elsewhere, as it is a
too demanding and extensive subject to be included in such a narrow frame.
Tis is the background for the discussion of Shestovs search for a lost Ju-
daism. Up to the date of the writing his article, Benjamin Fondane presented
his teacher under various guises and with dierent purposes. In the previous
articles, however, the accent was on the nature of Shestovs philosophical think-
ing and on the discussion of its departure from the accepted, main-stream ap-
proaches of the time.
21
Here, at the occasion of the seventieth birthday of the
master, Fondane took the opportunity to address a dierent and somewhat
special issue, rarely considered in his previous works: Lev Shestovs relevance
in the context of the contemporary debate concerning the essence of Judaism
and its modern embodiments. One nds some traces of discussions between
the master and his pupil concerning these topics in Fondanes notes gathered
in Rencontres avec Lon Chestov. At the time Fondane began recording their
conversations (1934), Shestov was already an author considered to be more of
a religious thinker than a philosopher. His writings on Plotinus, St. Augustine,
and the medieval philosophers, his essays on Pascal, Luther, and Kierkegaard
were already published by now. Shestov, who had a long lasting friendship with
Russian religious thinkers such as Semen Frank, Sergei Bulgakov, and Nikolai
Berdyaev and with Martin Buber, didas already mentioned in the previous
chaptersdiscuss religious matters and often alluded at the Scriptures and
their main heroes, in his works. Scattered references to such subjects can be
found in Fondanes writing also; however, what was new in his case was his
willingness to engage directly the discussion on this topic. Perhaps even more
signicant is the fact that once engaged on this path, Fondane did not aban-
don it till the very end of his life. He learnt from his master that the individual
human being, with his poorly understood whims and impulses, his endless
suering stemming from the confrontation with adversities imposed (mostly)
externally, and more often than not, arbitrarily, could not content himself only
with the possibility of a rational understanding of his fate. He needed a way
to muddle through; he had to transgress the poor consolation wisdom oered
him by a faith in an independent, absolute, transcendental God. When applied
to the specic issue of the fate of the Jewish individual in a world in which
time seemed to have, once again, gotten out of joint, this general and somewhat
vague observation led to the need to reconsider the essence of Judaism.
After Kants attempt to create an autonomous ethic based on human ra-
tionality, the emancipated Jew, who knew that his essence was dened through
a certain moral attitude, had become a prisoner of this self-denition, which
was anchored in the ethics of good and evil: on a fait croire aux Juifs quils
taient grands par leur morale, wrote Fondane.
22
To this he added the surpris-
ing observation that it was not Maimonides, with his (too) high esteem for
the rational understanding and interpretation of the Holly Writ, who pointed
out to Jews that ethics must be based on other premises than those of the sa-
vantes et philosophes, but the Christian thinker Blaise Pascal. Te tradition
of a Judaism based on the moral imperative has been diverted into something
else (aline, was the concept used by Fondane); the autonomous ethics of
the Jewish people had become the sin of pride, of arrogance, carried by them
across history. Shestov came to re-establish the things and return them to their
right place; he became a modern guide of the perplexedif not even the new
founding father of a new, authentic Judaism. Fondane pointed out that the
God who was assassinated by Nietzsche was, according to Shestov, the God of
the Good as dened by the moral law introduced by the Greek philosophers and
not the (Good) God of the Bible: Le dieu assassin de Nietzsche, netait autre
que le dieu des philosophes grecs, et nullement le Dieu de LAncien Testa-
ment. Te metaphysical interpretation of the Jewish tradition of the Almighty,
Transcendental God of the ancient Judaism was replaced in modern timesby
Spinoza and Moses Mendelssohnwith a new one based on ethics; there was
only one way left to the contemporary Jew and that was that of the return to
the primeval Judaism of the Fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. However, this
return cannot be implemented by following a way, which already led the Jewish
people to catastrophe in the past: the sin of knowledge that sent us into exile
cannot bring us back to paradise (ce nest pas le pch de savoir qui, nous ayant
chass du paradis, nous y ramnera), concluded Fondane.
Considering all these, it is not surprising that Fondane would write two
years later to Jacques Maritain: En ce qui concerne Chestov, vous faites er-
reur. Sa conception nest pas spcique au juifmais la pense juivepuisque
Kierkegaard, Luther, voire un Tertullien pensent souvent exactement comme
lui.
23
Te secular Jew, argued Fondane (referring to a conference on the theme
of the status of the Jews in Europe, Les Juifs parmi les nations, recently deliv-
ered by Maritain), immersed already in the western culture or the rabbi toiling
night and day over Talmudic texts, may share a way of thinking that reects
their Jewishness. However, this way of thinking has fallen under the spell of the
all powerful rationality. It is the thinking that brought to mankind, after the
fall, a knowledge supposed to be of divine origin. Trough it, man has discov-
ered the law, the purpose, the truth obtained through logical demonstration
or scientic reasoning. Soon after, even God became the prisoner of the law
brought in the world by man. Tis way of thinking led, as we have already seen,
to an autonomous ethic adopted not only by the Christian theology but also by
Maimonides and Spinoza (before Kant).
Shestov fought, as we know, a life-long battle against the tyranny of these
necessary truths: Il fait, writes Fondane in the above discussed article of
1936 une analyse meurtrire de notre progrs, de notre savoir, de notre mo-
rale, Before the Fall man had knowledge, but he knew only God and through
his knowledge of Him, he knew the world. Tis is the essence of Jewish think-
ing, this position metaphysique du Judaisme as Fondane dened it in his article;
this was the knowledge that guided Abraham and Job in their reasoning and
their deeds in the world. God Almighty is neither just nor perfect; human be-
ings forced him to become such by setting up an ethic to which God himself
had to complain. Shestov made this point clear and that is why he should be
considered le philosophe juif par excellence. Shestov, though, accomplished much
more than that: he showed the way and called for the return of Judaism to its
point of departure, to a primeval, pure state, uncontaminated by the Greek
philosophical thinking. Fondane believed that the corollary of his masters
general deconstruction, applied not only to philosophy but also to religious
thought, resulted in the rejection of Nietzsches claim that God was dead. To
this assessment, Fondane added a great insight that went beyond the masters
thought: genuine Jewish thinking is represented by a permanent wrestling with
the idea of the absence of God. In his memorable words: Si le Juif, seul dans
lantiquit, a temoign de la prsence eective de Dieu, du moins pourrait-il,
dans le monde moderne, et contre le monde moderne, tre seul tmoigner,
avec la mme angoisse, de labsence de Dieu!
24
One should not be surprised, therefore, to read in Maritains essay on ex-
istentialism published immediately after the end of the war (1946), that Fon-
danes existential thinking was an essentially religious irruption and claim,
an agony of faith, the cry of the subjectivity towards its God.
25
However, the
philosophizing neo-Tomist theologian was too preoccupied to understand
the phenomenon of the religious protest in the guise of a philosophy (Maritains
emphasis); he completely missed the point Fondane and his master tried to
make. In a way, one may say that the argument between Fondane and Maritain
goes back to Pascals protest against Descartes attempt to exclude the revealed
truth from philosophy. Benjamin Fondane was not in search of a religious
protest in the guise of a philosophy as Maritain put it but rather in search
of a sublimated form of faith able to guide him in a world dominated by the
confrontation with very concrete manifestations of evil and a painful absence
of God. Were could he nd this kind of faith? In the Book, would answer
Fondane without hesitation and in that he followed his master. In his letter to
Maritain, Fondane wrote: Rien nest clair en tout cela, toute est embrouill,
confus et cependant, certes, la seule chose claire cest que la clef de lnigme
est dans lEcriture. Tese words sounded like an echo to Shestovs words in
his letter to Buber: An innitely profound and important truth has been re-
vealed to us through the Bible. But the power of the serpent is such, that we
are unable to recognize this truth.
26
Te truth must be looked for in the Bible,
but only a mind puried from the residuals of a thinking governed by the all-
powerful necessity can hope to nd the way. Shestov set again the goal; one
has to re-think the Bible in the light of a new philosophy freed of the ballast of
Athens and of the (biblical) serpent. However, the master pointed out also that
once Adam, still holding on to his half-eaten apple, found his way to Athens,
it became impossible to separate anymore the two, religion and philosophy.
Athens and Jerusalem, the last work of Shestov and his magnum opus, presented
the history of this development. Religion had to be separated by a certain kind
of philosophy; if the philosophy which transgressed philosophy, a philosophy
anchored in a new dimension of the thinking, the metasophia could be dened,
religion could be reformulated in this new frame of reference. With this man-
date and guided by the code hidden in Shestovs last writings, Fondane set out
to nd this new philosophy. Te rst station on his road was his own poetry
born at the borderline between the thinking of participation and philosophy.
Unfortunately, Fondane did not have the time to go too far on this road;
would he have been able to convince Maritain if their dialogue continued after
the war? Philosophy represents a process of reection upon meaning, wheth-
er it is the meaning of a simple human act in everyday life or the meaning of
the relationship between man and God (or the transcendental, or of the lack
of it, if one prefers). Human existence remains an event if not reected upon
but becomes a philosophical concept as soon as it is put under scrutiny. Is there
anything in-between these two possibilities? A concept has an essence that
denes it (as concept), otherwise it would be a mere object, the concrete; thus,
the concept of existence implies an essence. Our intellect makes essences intel-
ligible to us. If you abolish essence, or that which esse posits, by that very act
you abolish existence, or esse, wrote Maritain in the mentioned book.
27
Tere-
fore, true existential thinking (existentialism) was represented for Maritain, by
a philosophy that claimed the primacy of existence, but as implying and pre-
serving essences . . . and as manifesting the supreme victory of the intellect and
intelligibility (ibid). Fondane, on the contrary, was seeking a reection upon
the concrete, the individual or, as he called it, le particulier existentiel and the
possibility to simultaneously live in the process this reected upon life. Shestov
and Fondane were in search of philosophy of the individual, of the accidental
and the non-essential. Te apparent arbitrariness of such a philosophy of the
contingent seems to need to nd a correspondence, to be somehow in agree-
ment with the arbitrary nature of an Almighty, absolutely Transcendental God
of the Old Testament. A man frozen in the molds imposed by the omnipo-
tent rationality cannot follow an unbound, living God; he has, therefore, two
choices: either to freeze God by submitting Him to the rigors of the laws of
logic or to free himself from their bondage, nding thus his way back to the
Garden of Eden and the ability to talk again to the free God of the Bible. Can
man think Paradise, though? According to Fondane, and this idea represents
another serious departure from Shestov, primeval Judaism consisted in a cer-
tain way of living in the world rather than in a special way of interacting with
God. Indeed, Micha, the prophet expressed this concept as follows: ( Judaism
means) . . . to do justice and to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy
God. However, the way one acts in the world is very strongly related to the
way one interacts with the Transcendental. From what was said above follows
that Fondanes homo judaicus ways to act and behave in concrete circumstances
(as illustrated by Abraham and Job, for instance), his ways to think and judge
the meaning of his own acts and the events he responded to, would have been
unusual and di cult to understand to the modern, post-Enlightenment man.
Shestov, the master, annoyed many with his refusal to yield to evidences, with
his often quoted (Dostoyevskys) underground man and his recurring sentence
about Socrates revival if God only wanted it. Fondane was talking about a
second dimension of thinking (he went further than Shestov in his attempts
to give a philosophical meaning to this Shestovian idea) and about the need to
replace a philosophy based on the problem of the knowledge with one in which
knowledge becomes the problem, a philosophy in which le cri est la methode.
All these may not mean very much to the traditional philosopher; but for a
man trying to walk with his God, to someone who feels lost in the world and
is who in search of Him, such an approach might become both a walking stick
and a compass.
After all these, the question was Benjamin Fondane a Jewish thinker ac-
cording to his own denitions? seems unavoidable. He was certainly a poet
and under Shestovs inuence and guidance had become a philosopher, too. We
have seen that until the masters death in 1938, he acted if not as a disciple at
least as a follower. Shestov established a link between his existential philosophy
and a certain kind of Judaism he proposed and illustrated abundantly in his
last two works, Kierkegaard and existential philosophy and Athens and Jerusalem.
In his last philosophical essay Existential Monday and the Sunday of Historys
Sunday published posthumously, Fondane observed that existential philosophy
was not an outcome of the classical Greek philosophy but a daughter of the
thinking of the book of Genesis ( . . . elle nest pas davantage dAthnes, mais
lle de la pense de la Gense . . .). Tis was, briey expressed, a statement of
allegiance to the master, several years after his death. However, as we have seen
already, Fondane went on and evolved along a path set by himself. Te poet
explored directions the philosopher either did not dare or did not know how
to approach.
After Shestovs death, in his poetry and in his writings about Baudelaire
and Kafka, among others, Fondane pursued his own search insofar as his Ju-
daism and the nature of Jewish thinking were concerned, as well as hisby
nowimaginary dialogues with Shestov and Maritain. If the crop of Fondanes
theoretical writings on Judaism is meager, his poetry abounds in Jewish mo-
tives (I refer to the French poetry written after 1930, during his Shestovian
years). After the moment of crisis, which occurred during the last years of
the twenties, Fondane published in Romania his rst volume of poetry entitled
Privelisti (Landscapes). In 1933, Ulysses was published (in Brussels) to be fol-
lowed by Titanic in 1936 (in France). In between, Fondane began writing a
long poem entitled LExode, which would be reworked many times and in the
denitive collection of his French poetry would appear after Titanic.
28
To fol-
low the evolution of his poems in time is particularly important in the context
discussed here. Besides the fact that, as poets always do, Fondane too, used to
rework several times practically everything he wrote, he also introduced dur-
ing the years new motives in agreement with the trends and movements of his
philosophical thought. As the latter evolved dramatically after the meeting
with Shestov, in particular insofar as the existential and religious implications
of his thinking were concerned, one can follow clearly the patterns of interfer-
ence between the poetical and the philosophical thinking of the author.
29
Te
Jewish motives will be strongly enhanced during the years of the war and the
German occupation of Paris, but they were present in his poetry from the very
rst version of Ulysses.
30
As Andr Spire wrote, lUlysse de Benjamin Fondane,
cest le Juif artiste, religieux, metaphysicien, pote.
31
As I pointed out above,
the study of Fondanes poetry is equivalent with the study of his search for a
new philosophical and religious thought. I will return to this topic in a forth-
coming book on Fondane.
ELEVEN
Instead of Conclusion
Scattered Thoughts
about Lev Shestov
Shestov never related to the contradiction inherent in a philosophy based on
faith: its grounding is based on revelation, but as Franz von Baader has pointed
out, this is possible only because mans intelligence is able to understand the
concept of the absolute. Tis insight leads to Gnosticism and to the thought
that human logic is guaranteed (only) by the Transcendental.
*
I should mention the role Emil Lask should play in any discussion about the
existence of the hiatus irrationalis. Was Shestov aware of Lasks works? His
friend Aaron Steinberg might have told him about this former student of
Ricketts whom he met while studying in Germany. He maintained that Ossip
Mandelstam, the poet, was inuenced by Lask when he audited his course on
Hegel in 1910 in Heidelberg (see the book Inscription and Modernity by John
Kenneth MacKay).
*
Karl Barth was mentioned once by Shestov in his article Job and Hegel, but
one cannot write about him without thinking of the Swiss theologian. He was
as adamant as Shestov when it came to the rejection of philosophy and the
proclamation of faith as the only real option for the human being. He was also
a master of the paradox in his reading of St. Pauls Roman Epistle but became
dogmatic later. Shestov was persistent and persevering but not dogmatic.
*
Reason is always required to control the excess of faith, writes Milton Stein-
berg in his Anatomy of Faith.
*
In his article on Solovyev and Shestov, V. N. Porus emphasized their unity
in tragedy. Indeed, their conict can be seen as representing a moment of the
Russian cultural tragedy and their two dierent approaches as dierent paths
the Russian philosophical thought took to understand the causes and conse-
quences of the crisis of European and Russian culture.
1
As this is a subject
in itself, I avoided in this work a detailed discussion and analysis of the con-
frontation between the two. Te interested reader will nd a good comparative
analysis of the religious thought of the two authors in the chapter entitled
God Beyond the Whole in William Desmonds book Is Tere a Sabbath for
Tought? (Desmond considers Shestov a Russian religious thinker who bit-
terly excoriated dubious collusions between religion and philosophy).
*
It will not be quite true to say that Shestov was forgotten after WW II; Cze-
slaw Milosz, George Steiner, Yves Bonnefoy, and Paul Celan remembered him.
Most of those who referred to him later were poets, but Deleuze and Steiner,
who can be poetical at times, also mention him. In a recent Cahiers Leon Shestov
an interesting article on Blanchot and Shestov has appeared, and a large part
of Europes April 2009 issue in France as well as an entire issue of Humanitas in
Italy (vol. 64, 3/2009) were dedicated to him this very year.
Research on the Internet reveals that in Russia he has been often men-
tioned in recent years, too.
2
*
Another discussion I left out in the book is that about the relationship between
Shestov and his French translator, Boris de Schloezer (18811969). Tey met
in 1919 in Kiev whereas we have seenthe Shestov family moved from the
turbulent post-revolutionary Moscow. For a while they all lived in the huge
mansion of Daniel Balachovsly, where Scriabins widow and her family came
to nd refuge in January 1919. Balachovsky was a good friend of the Russian
composer, and Boris de Schloezer was the brother of Tatiana, Scriabins wife.
3

Scattered Toughts about Lev Shestov 159
In France, de Schloezer would be known as a translator of Tolstoy and Dos-
toevsky (and Shestov, of course) and as a philosopher and theorist of music.
He was very active in promoting Russian authors, from the very beginning of
his life in exile: in 1923 he translated together with Andr Gide and another
Russian migr to become well known in the editorial world, Jacques Schif-
frin, Pushkins Queen of Spades, and in 1926 he became at the prestigious NRF,
the editor of the new collection of Young Russian writers. He also published
the biographies of the two most important contemporary Russian composers,
Scriabin and Stravinsky. In 1966, he helped organize in Paris the festivities oc-
casioned by the Shestov centennial and was the keynote speaker at this event.
At this occasion, de Schloezer made two statements I have kept in mind all
the time while writing this book; one had to do with Shestovs attitude to-
ward Kierkegaard. It took two years to get his book on the Danish philosopher
published in Paris despite the interest in his work at the time; the delay, as de
Schloezer would tell Shestov, was caused by the general opinion that the book
was not about Kierkegaard but rather about . . . Shestov. To this observation,
the old philosopher replied calmly that when one writes about thinkers like
Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Dostoevsky or Tolstoy, the author must take sides and
unveil his own thinking as it was re-shaped by theirs. I wanted to write a book
about Kierkegaard I experienced while reading him.
4
Te second memorable
quote from de Schloezers speech was contained in its concluding paragraph:
At the end of my talk I have a sentiment of dissatisfaction: Shestov knew to
express himself so vividly in such a lively and original style that any commen-
tary seems to be superuous. Briey, in order to present his work one should
simply choose a number of fragments from his writings, present them to the
reader, and then leave him alone to reect upon them. Tat is why I so often
referred to Shestov himself rather than commenting on him in some of the
previous chapters.
*
In a letter sent to Shestov in 1906, Hillel Zeitlin pointed out to him that he
made a mistake in not observing that the main revolutionary trends of Nietz-
sches thought were present already in the works of the rst period of his activ-
ity.
5
For some reason, that reminds me that quite a few misreadings regarding
Nietzsche and Shestov might be found in Rachel Bespalos essay on Shestov
published in Cheminements et Carrefours.
*
I mentioned several times in the book the Russian migr revue in Paris, where
Shestov often published his articles, Put (Te Road). A PhD thesis by Antoine
Arjakovsky regarding the activity of this focal point of Russian cultural life in
Paris between 1925 and 1940 was recently published. It is an excellent source
of information for those who want to understand better the Russian intellec-
tual context of Shestovs activities during the twenties and the thirties of the
previous century.
*
I do not know where I found this quote from Tolstoy about the Jews. I men-
tion it because it is relevant to the observation he made after his meeting with
Shestov in 1910 when he said that Shestov must be a believer since all Jews are:
Te Jew is that sacred being who has brought down from heaven the everlast-
ing re and has illumined with it the entire world. He is the religious source,
spring, and fountain out of which all the rest of the peoples have drawn their
beliefs and their religions.
*
Te quote above reminds one of Prometheus and recalls the notion of hubris.
In his last article on Husserl, discussed in a chapter of the book, Shestov wrote
that the horrors of our existence are due to the fact that reason only is left to
determine the limits of the possible. Is not that another way of understanding
hubris?
*
While Shestov was writing about Gilson and Medieval Philosophy in Paris in
1935, in Moscow Gustav Shpet was arrested for the rst time for anti-Soviet
activities. Exiled to Siberia, it seems that he was still able to continue his activ-
ities as he was working in Tomsk on a translation of Hegels Phenomenology of
the Spirit. I wonder if during Shestovs visit to the Holy Land in 1936, he dis-
cussed the fate of Shpet with friends and acquaintances they had in common.
Toward the end of 1937, as the ailing Shestov was preparing his conferences
about Kierkegaard for Paris Radio, Gustav Shpet, charged with conspiracy for
the re-instatement of the monarchy in Soviet Russia, was arrested again and
executed later that year.
*
Another very good source for the understanding of the Shestovian background
is the work of Georges Nivat.
6
I have not mentioned the role played by the
prince Trubetskoy in the Russian cultural life at the beginning of the twentieth
century (and in particular the activities around his review Moscow Weekly which
was published between 1906 and 1910, a critical period following the aborted
1905 revolution). I have not focused on other important names for the Russian
cultural history of the pre-communist years her, but those interested will nd
many details relevant for the evolution of Shestovs thinking during these years
in the thesis of Genevieve Piron.
*
Nivat pointed out that immediately after the Revolution of October 1917,
many important intellectuals and writers (among others, Blok, Biely, Ivanon-
Razumnik) considered the political events as an opening toward a spiritual
revolution, which, they thought, would take over not only Russia but the en-
tire world.
*
While some of the Russian intellectuals believed in the political revolution
as a precursor and trigger of a quite dierent spiritual revolution, others
among them Nikolai Berdyaev, Sergei Bulgakov, and Semen Frank (I mention
only a few better known names among the nine authors who contributed in
1909 to the collective volume entitled Landmarks)were opposed to this idea.
Shestovs friend Gershenzon, who initiated the volume and Peter Struve were
somewhat hesitant.
7
It is interesting to note Gershenzons ambiguous position
in this discussion; Shestov would reproach his friend for the same wobbling
attitude later (see his article dedicated to Gershenzon after his death, in Specu-
lation and Revelation). It is interesting to observe that Shestov, who at the time
was perceived as being a stranger to either of the two groups, did not partici-
pate in the debate.
*
I did not discuss explicitly in the book Lev Shestovs political attitude. It is not
that he never assumed any; the truth is that he always tried to stay away from
any formal involvement with politics and ideology. In his youth, he did have a
penchant toward socialist ideas. Later, in particular after the Kerensky phase
of the revolution, he was not unsympathetic to social changes in a country that
has seen too many and too deep injustices, but he could not accept the tyranny
of a minority who imposed its rules on the basis of something he rejected
entirely: the legitimacy of a knowledge (in this case social/political) based on
abstract logical inferences. Conclusions reached on Hegelian grounds would
have been inacceptable to him with or without Marx. I mentioned in a pre-
vious chapter of the book Shestovs pamphlet about the Russian bolshevism
published immediately after he left Soviet Russia. Lesser known is a strange
article published in 1934 entitled Menacing Barbarians of the Day. In this ar-
ticle, after a long analysis of the European political landscape, Shestov pointed
out that the new barbarians at the gate were not at all disturbed by science
or by a sophisticated technology built upon modern scientic knowledge. On
the contrary, they knew very well how to take advantage of it. What the new
barbarians hated was that which has been revealed to man in the Scriptures,
that who has been bestowed on us by religion: the understanding and the love
of liberty.
*
Shestov was loved by the poets. I have already mentioned already Celan, Milo-
sz, and Bonnefoy, and I should add Marina Tsvetaeva. What brought her close
to Shestov in Paris in 1926 and 1927? Perhaps the resonances with his works
expressed in entries like this in fragments of a diary published a few years
earlier in Prague: the most valuable thing in poems and in lifeis what didnt
work out . . .
*
Gershon Sholem, who probably met Shestov during his visit to the Holy Land
in 1936, tried to convince his friend Walter Benjamin to read his works. Ben-
jamin was hesitant, busy always with other things; in a letter sent to Sholem
from Paris on February 4, 1939, he mentioned Athens and Jerusalem (I decided
that I will read [it] someday) and immediately added that one can only take
o ones hat to the commentator in him and I think that his stile is superb.
However, when he came to his philosophy, Benjamin concluded that it was I
believe, rather admirable but useless! When one reads his correspondenceof
the same yearswith Adorno, one understands why he came to this conclu-
sion.
*
At the occasion of the centennial anniversary mentioned above, Boris de
Schloezer observed that those who understood Shestov, regardless of their
philosophical view, were deeply transformed by this encounter; he told the
story of a young fellow he met in Cerisy, the son of a rabbi who confessed to
him that after being for years one of Shestovs followers, he left him to become
a philosopher of science. However, he added, je suis rationaliste autrement
depuis que je suis pass par Chestov (I am a dierent kind of a rationalist since
I encountered Shestov).
*
Did Shestov, the philosopher of faith, have faith? Boris de Schloezer, who was
very close to him, had his doubts. He certainly had a longing for faith, which
was an expression of a strong want of hopebelieved de Schloezerbut in
his everyday life, he was rather a stoic. Pushed harder, during the conversation
with Brice Parrain (who was of the opinion that unless Shestov had faith, he
could not have written his terrible books without falling prey to utter and cata-
strophic despair), de Schloezer repeated that Shestov strived always to achieve
faith, but he was not a real believer Il avait lesprance de la foi, pas la foi, mais
lesprance de la foi).
*
It is not easy to understand Shestovs evolution from the statement about a
world in which time was out of its joint to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob. It is di cult perhaps to accept that the same Shestov who believed that
the God who revealed His law to Moses believed that He sent later His son
to redeem mankind from the original sin; still, he said it in his letter to Bul-
gakov.
*
Questions such as, why did not Shestov become cynical following his thor-
ough deconstruction of contemporary philosophy, so strongly stated in his
apotheosis of the groundlessness? represent also a di cult challenge. Liv-
ing dangerously was not his choice; in fact, the problem was not that at all;
Shestovs existential nightmare was related to the condition of the man trapped
in a situation that does not allow an acceptable outcome. Tis is not a one-time
occurrence, it is not a situation similar to the one in which the hero of the
Greek tragedy nds himself as his situation accepts always the heroic outcome.
Te Shestovian hero, if one may generalize beyond the personality of Shestov
himself, is in a state of permanent tension and he has to live with it for ever. Te
option of dying in a spectacular way is not acceptable to him. Catharsis was not
a concept that had rights in Leon Shestovs house.
*
What kind of a Jew was Shestov? Tis is another di cult question to which
almost any answer will be necessarily partial if not simply erroneous. Of course
he was born Jewish, but according to cultural, external criteria he was an as-
similated Jew. He wrote in ways that induced some critics to consider him
a Russian orthodox thinker; others thought about him as a mystic lacking a
clear religious a liation. He clearly transgressed certain basic Judaic traditions
while remaining faithful stubbornly to others.
*
In this book I have revealed and interpreted the trajectory of a life and how
this trajectory was established, and I have also pointed out its meanings and its
consequences. Shestov had to live from the very beginning with an all present
lie which became an all present constraint. Te general ideas, the well argued
theories, strong moral principles, or beautiful artistic constructsbe they po-
ems, Shakespearian tragedies or deep metaphysicscould not help him over-
come his predicament. How could he believe in them? Moreover, he noticed
that others have been a icted, from Nietzsche to Dostoevsky, from Kierkeg-
aard to Tolstoy by a similar curse. What was to be done? Prove the fallacy of the
rational thinking and nd a replacement. Indeed, that is what he did during
the rst part of his life; he kept pounding on the philosophy of the philoso-
phers, on science, and in the end, on ethics of the good and evil. Te only way
out was God. However, there he had a problem, and his God was part of the
problem he had. He wanted to get rid of his Jewishness, but he could not. He
wanted to become a Russian, and he could not. In 1914, though, he was on the
way to nd a solution. He could become a Russian and remain a Jew if he could
show that the early Christianity of Jesus and his apostles was a new form of
Judaism corrupted by Greek rational thinking. Te essence of the new religion
was the same in that it relied on the idea of an Almighty God who could, if
He so wished, change his mind and hint about those things Jesus was talking
about. Shestov tried to overcome his predicament by creating a new religious
frame in which he could assume a new identity without having to abandon the
old one. Te same was the case with Benjamin Fondane and with Yonathan
Ratosh (who wanted to create a Canaanite civilization based on a primordial
Judaism, but which could include other cultures as well); was it true for David
Vogel though? I think it was because his change of the frame was related to
the Hebrew language.
8
*
In his lecture delivered at the Harmony Club in NY in 2001 (May 15), Michael
Walzer talked about Universalism and Jewish Values (see www.carnegiecoun-
cil.org). For emancipated Jews, he said, such Jewish ideas as the creation of
men and women in Gods image, the liberation from Egyptian bondage, the
prophetic critique of injustice, the vision of a general redemption were more
likely to derive from Kant or Marx rather than from the Bible or the Tal-
mud. Walzer pointed out that the supporters of the universalist values simply
picked the nicest passages and ignored everything else; one might wonder if
that was not the case with Shestov.
*
What is Jewish in Shestov? I am afraid very little. I realize now that he speaks
always of the Judeo-Christian philosophy/thought (see also the mentioned let-
ter to Bulgakov). For him, Jerusalem was not the city of David only but also
that of the crucixion, of Christ (in spite of the fact that Jesus was named the
Nazarene). Fondane tried to make him Jewish (see his letter to Maritain), but
he himself was not sure . . .
*
Husserl, following St. Augustine, wrote in his Cartesian Meditations, do not
wish to go out; go back into you. Truth dwells in the inner man.
9
He wanted
to be in total control: if we start from ourselves and censor everything which
is not evident to us in the strictest sense, the probability of going astray in our
speculations is signicantly reduced. Te transcendental is thus eliminated, be-
ing totally external to us, to our mind. Te belief in God becomes impossible
since God is barred from the science of phenomenology. What about faith?
*
Young Levinas became strongly infatuated with phenomenology as soon as he
learnt about it. Atheists and the agnostics, such as Sartre or Heidegger, saw in
it the perfect method the only way to rid themselves of the Kantian and Hege-
lian residuals in an idealism they were eager to reject. For Shestov, it was obvi-
ous that embracing Husserl meant renouncing the God of Abraham, Isaac and
Jacob. However, is this conclusion as obvious as one might think it is? Could
transcendental phenomenology, which in the mind of its proponent, was sup-
posed to overcome the naturalistic objectivism, include Shestovs God?
*
Levinas wrote in his review of Shestovs book on Kirkegaard that the only
modern philosopher of Judaism worthy of the name was Franz Rosenzweig.
It is very tempting to write a book about the four, Shestov, Buber, Rosenzweig
and Levinas. All of them tried to redene Judaism for modern times. Te trou-
ble is that each of them begins with a very dierent starting point; each had
in view a dierent Judaism as the subject of change or reform. Moreover, each
of them had a very dierent philosophical outlook on which they based the
analysis of the past, the present, and the future. Te temptation to write about
the four thinkers as proponents of Judaism for the future times is tempered
by the disappointment produced by the faint echo their work has today beyond
the connes of the academic world and a few limited intellectual circles.
*
I have, however, prepared materials about the three thinkers in view of such a
comparative study and will present here a few scattered ideas about Levinas. At
the time Shestov was writing Athens and Jerusalem, Levinas was working on his
rst philosophical essay, De l vasion (published in 1935 in Recherches philoso-
phiques, a review directed by Koyr, Spaier, Wahl, and Gaston Bachelard). In
a letter to Jacques Rollandwho reprinted the old text (in 1982) with an ex-
tensive commentary and an attempt to position the thinking of early Levinas
in the a contemporary contextthe author pointed out the aim of the essay:
mon vieux texte etait peut-tre . . . tmoigner dune situation intellectuelle de
la n du sens o lexistence tenue ltre oubliait, la veille de grands massacres,
jusquau problme de sa justication.
10
What could have Shestov commented
on such a text? Existence, in his mind was not attached to being as being is an
abstract concept while existence is suggests being alive and is experienced by the
individual human being Emmanuel Levinas . . .
*
As a good student of Husserl and an enthusiastic follower (at that time) of
Heidegger, Levinas observed at the beginning of his essay that traditional
philosophy did not accept easily the concept of being; why would that be?
It is because being interferes with (human) freedom. Te human being is at
odds with a world that is external to it, not within itself: . . . les luttes qui le
dchirent . . . ne brisent pas lunit du moi. . . .
11
Te author takes issue with
the self-su cient moi (self ) and denes it as a typical feature of the bour-
geois spirit. Such an attitude implies an understanding of the being (tre) in
terms of its denition based on external inuences.
12
Tus, being exists without
any need for further qualication. Te Western philosophy never went be-
yond this point, claimed young Levinas. Te peace of mind of the philosopher
was achieved through the postulation of this simple denition of the being.
Any di culty concerning the human condition was assumed to be due to this
bounded, nite dimension of the being. Te meaning of this nite character
was not scrutinized; only an eort toward transcendence could help overcome
this situation: la transcendence de ces limites, la communion avec ltre inni
demeurait sa seule proccupation.
13
Te modern temper (sensibility), on the
other hand, seemed to depart from this attitude, according to Levinas. Te idea
of limit, of boundary, was not applicable to the existence of that which exists but
to its nature only. Being had another, deeper, problem than that of being nite.
Tat is why we tend to run away from being, to avoid it; it is at this juncture
that Levinas introduced the concept of vasion. At this same moment, Shestov
would have said probably, stop, abandon this hopeless track and go read the
Scriptures. . . .
*
Levinas too discovered the concept of suering but in a very dierent way
from Shestov. For him, a certain unsatised metaphysical need (besoin in the
French original), something similar to what troubles Sartres character in La
Nause, a deciency in the essence of the being transferred upon the being it-
self, engenders suering. Moreover, for Levinas the specic suering induced
by this unsatised want represents the (state of ) sickness. Sickness is not, how-
ever, a passive state but on the contrary, a dynamic one. Te suerer tries to
overcome this situation, to overcome it by dening a certain purpose, but he
would abandon his attempt if this target turns out to be attainable. Tere are
wants, and there is a consciousness of the want and the relationship between
the latter and the qualities of the various wants, and they are problematic.
However, the suering associated with the want does not mean necessarily
that we are nite beings. Satisfying a need, a want, does not cure the suering:
the need may re-occur, or we might be very disappointed post factum. We are
left with the lingering feeling of suering and that is exactly what denes our
specicity: ce qui donne au cas de lhomme toute son importance cest prcis-
ment cette inadquation de la satisfaction au besoin!
14
At this point, in order
to substantiate the claim that need enhances the being rather than weakening it,
Levinas introduces another concept: that of pleasure (le plaisir), which in turn,
leads to that of shame (la honte), and so forth. Maybe one day I will come back
to ponder about the impossible dialogue between Shestov and Levinas . . .
*
In an article about Buber, Levinas made the distinction between Jewish thought
and Jewish philosophy: I speak of thought and not of philosophy, because the
intellectual life of Judaism which has retained its Jewishness does not pres-
ent itself in terms of principles, nor should it be judged on that basis. Would
Rosenzweig have agreed with this statement?
*
I want to reiterate here a point I have made earlier, but I am afraid it has not
benn emphasized enough (that is one of the reasons for writing these con-
densed statements here, at the end of the book: they might be retained easier
than long and elaborated arguments would be). For Shestov the interaction
with God was the only essential, meaningful human interaction. He/she who
attempts this ultimate communication knows how to communicate with his/
her fellow human beings. Buber seems to be preoccupied mainly with the in-
volvement of the I with the other; but Levinas observes that for Buber the dia-
log is built in the essence of the I which by reuniting the sacred and the profane
in itself is from the very beginning not a substance but a relationship.
*
After trying to explain the essence of Bubers understanding of the Judaism in
terms of the I-Tou relationship, the concept of the Meeting, and so forth,
Levinas abruptly stops and writes I will never go beyond this statement, be-
cause I do not know how to summarize Judaism. Because I cannotone can-
notsummarize Judaism.
15
Tis assessment is true: Judaism does not have
a dogma on which one can rely; the Mishna and the Talmud are part of that
body that constitutes Judaism but so are the Bible and the Midrashim, the
Cabbala, the writings of Yehuda HaLevi and Maimonides, the Hassidic tales,
and many other documents.
*
If it is not easy to position Shestov within Judaism because of the di culty
to position Judaism itself, it is not easy to dene Shestovs attitude toward
Christianity either, even if in this case, the target at least is better dened as
formal theologies have been developed in all its main branches. In her thesis,
Michaela Willeke concluded that Shestov viewed both the Old and the New
Testament as bearing witness to the biblical God but while accepting the
outstanding role of Jesus . . . [he] accused Christianity of having abandoned its
biblical tradition in favor of the Greek philosophy.
16
To some extent, I agree
with this conclusion, even though I nd it somewhat biased; but is not the bias
due to Shestovs own ambiguous position?
*
Shestovs insistent references to Abraham and Job in his later writings brings
up the issue of the distinction between the role of faith in Judaism versus
Christianity: Judaism requires a faith dened by Abrahams lech lecha or ak-
kidat Itzhak episodes. Christianity requires a belief in Jesus story of crucixion.
Shestov talks all the time about faith and the Jewish commitment to give pre-
cedence to the do vis--vis to the listen, hear, and understand when it comes to
Gods revelations (the famous Naase ve nishma in Hebrew; based on faith,it
is not identical with the Greek pistis). He would have agreed that one should
rst consider and then think over the meaning of the things before acting, but
that should be the case when it comes to matters between human beings and/
or the relationship of man with his surroundings. Here laws and constants of
behavior can be found, and it is reasonable to act only after reecting upon
them. Not when it comes to Gods commandments.
*
Te problem of the law in Judaism: Gods law is absolute and has to be followed
based on the absolute faith in Him. Te story of the Rabbi (Rabbi Akher, one
of the major rabbinical gures of the Mishnaic period) who abandoned Juda-
ism as a result of witnessing a personal tragedy induced by the submission to
one of the laws required by the Jewish ritual (mitzvat shiluach ha ken), is per-
haps the paradigmatic example. Not so with Aquinas and the entire medieval
Christian religious thinking. Te idea that the Law was made for the man and
not the man for the Law was instilled by Saint Paul but Judaism remained
impermeable to it. Man must do his best to obey the Law even though every-
body knows that he cannot always do it. At times he does at times he does not.
Tis inconsistency/inconstancy is pointed out again and again by Shestov in
his writings.
*
Te issue of the depth of history: in Judaism, the past has meaning since at
every stage the behavior of men aects the possibility of Redemption. If past
could be annulled, the fact that the Law was transgressed during this period
becomes irrelevant and the game can start anew. In this case Redemption, as
a concept which implies the collectivity, loses its meaning. Tat is why, from a
Jewish point of view, Shestovs annoying metaphor about God who may at any
time, according to His will, annul Socrates death does not make sense.
*
Te second part of Paul Rostennes book, Lon ChestovPhilosophie et Libert
(Bordeaux: Editions Biere, 1994) is entitled, From Irrational to Trans-Ratio-
nal. Te intent of the author was to explain that Shestov sought an experience,
which cannot be translated in rational terms, but which is still possible for the
man who succeeds in communicating with the Absolute. Like the Zen satori, it
would consist in an experience that cannot be rendered in rational terms.
*
Speaking of satori: I planned to introduce in this book a chapter entitled
Shestov and Zen as I worked on this idea for many years, not only because
I have discovered that before WW II Shestov was very fashionable in Japan;
I believe his search for a dialogue with the absolute resonates in many ways
with the metaphysical approaches of some of the representatives of the Kyoto
school and in particular its master and founder Nishida Kitaro. However, when
I re-read the text I wrote, I came to the conclusion that in order to make it
transparent to the reader, I will need to explain too many details belonging to
domains far remote from the realm in which Shestovs story unfolds. Te dan-
ger was that instead of adding knowledge to my text, I would add confusion.
For now I have given up on this project but may return to it in a future work
on Shestov.
*
I have found it also di cult to introduce Benjamin Fondane in this book; at
rst, its title was supposed to be Lev Shestov and Benjamin Fondane, existential
thinkers or religious philosophers? However, I soon realized that it would have
taken quite a bit of explaining to make clear why Fondane, the poet, should be
considered a religious thinker. Te real di culty, though, would have consisted
in the need to introduce another biography and another entire oeuvre in one
single volume. Even though the two were strongly bound in the realm of phi-
losophy by their existential thinking, there are points where they depart from
each other, even in this domain. I hinted in my text to the interest Fondane
had in Bachelards and Lupascos philosophies and to explain this a nity, for
instance, would have required too much of a departure from Shestovs works.
*
I will introduce, however, a few observations about their common interest in
Lvy-Bruhl: in 1936 Shestov wrote (in Russian) an article about Lvy-Bruhl
entitled Mythe et Vrit, occasioned by the publication by the French an-
thropologist during the previous year of the book La mythologie primitive.
17

Tey had known each other for almost four years, and from the review under
discussion we learn that Shestov was well acquainted with Lvy-Bruhls work.
As mentioned above, the two rst met in 1925
18
and developed a friendship
based on mutual respect rather than on philosophical agreements.
19
Shes-
tov claimed that Lvy-Bruhl was a philosopher (jai dit Lvy-Bruhl, il y a
des annes de cela: vous tes un metaphysician. Il me repondait que non
20
)
rather than an anthropologist or sociologist. In his article, Shestov does not
mention la pense de participation. Fondane, who at that time was only vaguely
acquainted with the anthropologists works, was emboldened by the master
to read Mythologie primitive, the book is extremely interesting, and I would
suggest you to write a review in Cahiers du Sud.
21
When Fondane agreed
(the article would be entitled Lvy-Bruhl ou le metaphysicien malgr lui
22
),
Shestov was very appreciative: (your article) on Lvy-Bruhl is from all points
of view excellent. You pointed out, so convincingly his qualities as philosopher
and metaphysic (metaphysicien) that he himself, after having read your article,
will be persuaded.
23
*
Benjamin Fondane wrote another short article about Lvy-Bruhl in Cahiers
du Sud in 1939 and published a more extensive one in Revue philosophique in
1940. In fact, as mentioned in the chapter dedicated to Fondane, it was his
intention to write a book on this author; in the obituary written immediately
following the death of Lvy-Bruhl in 1939, Fondane wrote that he will not
insist on the contribution the great anthropologist brought to the metaphysics
of consciousness (an idea triggered by Shestov in his article mentioned above),
as this would be part of a discussion included in his upcoming book.
*
Interestingly enough, I found some ideas relevant to this pense de participa-
tion, in Bubers Report on Two Talks, a piece written in 1932, before the
meeting with Shestov in Paris. Buber did not mention Lvy-Bruhl, it is doubt-
ful that he had read his work (at the time at least), but he referred to the fact
the modern man who had introduced an utterly conceptualized discourse in
talking about God was totally missing the point. In other times, however, when
the sacred and the profane were in direct communication, man could talk to
God, indeed.
24
*
Te following are observations I made in an article entitled Shestov and Fon-
danes search for metasophia, I mentioned somewhere in the previous pages
of my book; I reproduce them here again in order to emphasize the point
about Shestovs search for a radically new meta-sophia, a thought of the trans-
rational that describes the adventures of the man in this heroic space of the
communication with the total otherness.
*
Was Shestov the only proponent of this need to break through the connes
of philosophy and construct a new way of thinking, a metasophia, appropri-
ate to guide us in this heroic space? A now forgotten Italian philosopher who
was quite well known during the rst half of the century, Giovanni Papini,
thought about it, too. In his posthumously published diaries, Pagine di Diario
e di Appunti, I found the following two entries; one is dated in 1944, and the
other one in 1946: Gli parlo della Metasoasapienza superiore, al di l del
gergo dialettico dei loso, che devesser tratta dalle rivelazioni dei poeti e
degli artisti and, Bisogna trovare una nuova via di conoscenza al di l della
ragionee questa si pu trovare attraverso la poesia, larte, lestro (whim) del
genio, lentusiasmo, il furore, la pazzia. Mutare il cuore e la mente. . . .
25
Both
quotes sound like fragments of Shestovian aphorisms; or perhaps, rather like
sentences written by his disciple Benjamin Fondane, who was, more often than
the master, talking about the second dimension of the thinking (Papinis sa-
pienza superiore). He also wrote often about a philosophy in which le cri
est la methode, about poetry which is being an inner need rather than an
act of aesthetic satisfaction, an act and not an idle comfort (un act et non un
delaissement) and about a poetry which had an existential function because it
represented the act of living reality (une a rmation de la ralit). He wanted,
as Papini did, mutare il cuore e la mente, he sought to fuse them and move them
to that point that was simultaneously the locus of reality and our perception of
it. Fondanes concept of goure itself was an elaboration and an attempt to fo-
cus on a Shestovian idea expressed always in a somewhat fuzzy and diluted way
by the master. Till the tragic end of his life, Fondane echoed the Shestovian
themes (Shestov considered Shakespeares characters un-submissive, and I
wonder whether this un-submissiveness was not at the origin of Fondanes ir-
resignation?) in everything he wrote in prose. Te examples are numerous; for
instance, in his Baudelaire et l experience du goure, Fondane wrote la philoso-
phie est incapable dadmettre lexistance du Goure, de la Pythie.
26
Howerver,
this is exactly what Shestov said in a text mentioned earlier in the book, where
he quoted the old Russian proverb about men who would always prefer to give
up the crane in the sky for the tit in the hand. We are conditioned by our phi-
losophy of life to always give up the crane in the sky, because, writes Shestov,
. . . this is the eternal law of destiny: the wages are not given twice and they
[men] have sold their birthright before death for a tit. Of course, these consider-
ations have clearly never occurred to that philosophy which pursues positive ends. It
thinks quite obviously that groundless fears are evil and sure possession a good (my
emphasis). However, since the master left it therehe ends the paragraph with
a question, as he so often does, . . . what shall we say of Tolstoys experience,
and other similar experiences?, the disciple felt the need to explain the nature
of the experience and to further explore its relevance to philosophy.
Trough the experience du goure the poet attains, nolens volens, a way of
knowledge and a modality of expression which confrontsand keeps the con-
ict with the rational and conscientious, permanent. Tis new way of knowled-
ge, described as larvaire and balbutiante, escapes denition and cannot reach
the status of the concept; but this is exactly what one is looking for, will say
Fondane: Il faut quelle demeure larvaire, il faut quelle choue vis--vis du
concept; trop de forces se trouvent intresses maintenir cette impuissance,
par la persuasion si possible, par la contrainte, si ncessaire.
*
Shestov had indicated the need for a metasophia. Fondane was painfully aware
that the masters arguments were not always convincing: Bataille has left the
battle, Gabriel Marcel, disappointed, declared that for a while he followed
Shestov in search for a port to knock at, but he abandoned him when he dis-
covered that where he searched, there was no port to be found. Rachel Be-
spalo complained that after having induced her to jump into the depths of a
cold and treacherous river, Shestov abandoned her, content to send only faint
signs of consolation while sitting on its banks . . . Many were inuenced by
Shestov, but they limited themselves to mere quotations or specic arguments
extracted from their context (Camus in the Myth of Sisyphus is an example).
Tere was a need for further clarications, and Fondane did this very well. In
the process, he prepared also the ground for the next step. Tus for instance, in
the pastexplained Fondanereligion oriented itself toward knowledge and
power; it identied adversaries in those who menaced to limit its power rather
than in those who attacked its essence. Tat while a few, among them, St. Paul,
Tertullian, Pierre Damien, Pascal and LutherBible in handstried to bring
the theological consciousness (la conscience thologique) to its original question,
celle du pch originel en tant que Savoir, Necessit et Mort. Tat was pure
Shestov; however, at this point, Fondane surprises us with a comment that was
never made explicitly by Shestov. Religious thinking must be specic to the
religious experience: Le besoin religieux ne peut pas subsiter sans une pense
lui . . . (il) doit sexprimer en une pense, en un langage.
27
Fondane made,
therefore, the point that religious thinking was not against knowledge in itself
but rather against autonomous knowledge. It is here that he talks about an open
monade, il (l esprit religieux, that is) veut dun savoir, dune morale, qui aient
des portes et des fenestres, qui puissent recevoir ces espces messagres que
Leibnitz rejetait de sa monade (ibid.). Religion meets philosophy, because the
absurdities born from the exclusion of anything but autonomous reason, the
individual, the color, the aective, have been captured in the gravitation eld
of the former: Est-il donc surprenantasks Fondaneque ces absurdits,
la longue, se sentent solidaires et, la recherche dune pense qui les puisse
runir et dfendre et exprimer, gravitent autour du centre dattraction le plus
puissant de leur cosmoscette pense mme que balbutie le besoin religieux?
(ibid.). Chapter XXVII in the book about Baudelaire is very important for the
understanding of the new directions in Fondanes existential thinking.
*
Shestov and Fondane were both in serch of a metasophia. To reach it, one had
to overcome heart and mind, mutare il cuore e la mente. Going beyond the par-
ticulier existentiel, as Fondane told Lupasco, meant following Ulysses beyond
the realm of the sea, retracing Jobs great voyage in quest for the hidden face of
God. Is that possible? Shestov died an unhappy Sisyphus but about Fondane
we might think that Camus words, il faut imaginer Sisyphe heureux, hold
true.
Notes
Introduction
1. We will see in the following chapters many instances of such biased readings; sometimes, as
in the case of Joseph Franck, Nihilism and Notes from the Underground, Te Sewanee Re-
view, 59, no. 1 (1961): 133, they are quite extreme. In this article it is stated that Shestov
is an extremely irresponsible literary critic who neglects or rejects whatever aspect of a
writer which does not jibe with his opinions.
2. Lev Shestov, All Tings Are Possible was published in English together with Penultimate
Words and Other Essays by Bernard Martin (Athens Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1977).
Lev Shestov, Chekhov and Other Essays (Ann Arbor: Te University of Michigan Press,
1966) is a reprint of the volume published in 1916 in England with a preface by D. H.
Lawrence. Te name of the author in this edition is Leon Shestov.
3. Lev Shestov, Kierkegaard et la philosophie existentielle: Vox clamantis in deserto (Paris: Vrin,
1972); Athens and Jerusalem (Athens Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1966).
4. Lev Shestov, Potestas Clavium (Athens Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1968); Lev Shestov, In
Jobs Balances (Athens Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1975). Practically, all the new transla-
tions and the editing of Shestovs works has been done during the sixties and the seventies
by Bernard Martin, at the time a professor at Ohio University.
5. Shestov and Fondane in Search for Metasophia, in Te Tragic Discourse: Shestov and Fon-
danes Existential Tought, ed. Ramona Fotiade (Bern: Peter Lang, 2006), pp. 7987.
6. Lev Shestov, In Jobs Balances, p. 175.
7. Benjamin Fondane, Rencontres avec Lon Chestov (Paris: Editions Plasma, 1982), p. 144 :
Schloezer told me that your essay was the best introduction to existential philosophy writ-
ten so far, my translation.
8. Ibid., p. 184: remettent en cause, avec fermet et insistance, les problmes fondamentaux
de la connaissance, de la religion et de lexistence . . . son uvre est la critique la plus radi-
cale que ait jamais t faite de la thorie de la connaissance et de la connaissance elle
mme.
9. Nier la possibilit mme de l vidence, la possibilit mme de la connaissance, attaquer le
principe de contradiction, foncer sur la ncessit, prtendre que l o il y a connaissance il
ny a pas de libert, que la libert ne commence que l o nit la connaissance . . . (ibid.).
10. Ibid., p. 185: Seule donc la pense cre la libert ou la ncessit, lordre ou larbitraire. . . .
11. Shestov, Athens and Jerusalem (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1966) p. 48.
12. Ibid., p. 51.
13. Ibid., p. 75.
14. Ibid., p. 411.
15. Ibid., p. 408.
16. Fondane, Rencontres, p. 205: chacun de nous doit dcider par lui-mme et pour lui-mme,
sil acceptera le gnral . . . si obissant lthique il fera de Dieu une pense sans force ou
si, par contre, il se mettra dans un rapport absolu avec labsolu et entrera en contestation
avec Dieu..
17. Shestov, Athens and Jerusalem, p. 376.
18. Correspondence Benjamin FondaneJean Wahl, Europe, no. 827 (Mars 1998) (p. 141):
je crois que cest parce que je connais par trop, et depuis de trop longues annes, lironie et
aussi le dsespoir.
19. Shestov, Athens and Jerusalem, pp. 7071.
20. Jacques Maritain, Existence and the Existent (New York: Image Books, 1956), p. 131. I will
discuss in a later chapter in more detail the Maritain connection..
21. Bernard Martin, Great 20th Century Jewish Philosophers (New York: Te Macmillan Com-
pany, 1970), p. X.
22. Bergman, Faith and Reason, see bibliography.
23. Lon Chestov, Spculation et Rvlation (Paris: Lage dHomme, 1981), p. 7. Te article
written by Nicolai Berdyaev appears as preface to this posthumous collection of articles
written by Shestov after WWI.
24. Frank Bowman, Irredentist Existentialism: Fondane and Shestov, Yale French Studies, no.
16 (Winter 195556): 111117.
25. John Bayley, Idealism and Its Critic, Te New York Review of Books, 14, no. 12, June 18,
1970; my emphasis.
26. Leon Shestov, Chekhov and Other Essays (Ann Arbor: Te University of Michigan Press,
1966), p. XXIII.
27. Shestov appeared independently in the third volume of the collective work of Edie, Scan-
lan, Zeldin; and Kline on Russian Philosophy; more recently he is mentioned in two books
addressed to a general public authored by Leslie Chamberlain, Motherland: A Philosophical
History of Russia (New York: Overlook Press, 2007) and Lenins Private War (New York: St.
Martins Press, 2006).See also, A History of Russian Philosophy, edited by A. Kuvakin (Buf-
falo: Prometheus Books, 1991).
Notes 177
28. See for instance, Walter Kaufman, ExistentialismFrom Dostoevsky to Sartre (London:
Penguin Books, 1975) and Robert C. Salomon, From Hegel to Existentialism (Oxford: Ox-
ford University Pres, 1987); neither of the two deals specically with Shestovand this is
a statement in itselfhowever they oer an excellent backlighting to Shestovs existential
thinking.
29. Here, the great proponent is Bernard Martin himself; the challenge he posed, to consider
Shestov one of the great Jewish thinkers of the last century was not echoed favorably by the
establishment of the Jewish studies, perhaps for reasons we discuss in the present chapter.
30. Ramona Fotiade, Conceptions of the Absurd (Oxford: Legenda, 2001).
31. Shestov, Te Philosophy of Tragedy, p. 196.
32. Penultimate Words, p. 180 and p. 195, respectively.
33. Ibid., p. 209.
34. Ibid., p. 221.
35. In Spinozas Ethics II, 7, it is written ordo et connexio idearum idem est, ac ordo et connexio
rerum. I reproduce the Latin quote from Shestovs Sola Fide in order to remind the reader
one of his peculiarities (which reected a concern or a complex of inferiority when it came
to discussing philosophy): not having been educated formally in theology or philosophy, he
wanted to convince the reader that not only he studied thoroughly the authors he discussed
but also educated himself to the point of being able to read the works in their original,
Greek, Latin, German or French. Kierkegaard however, he read in German, not in Dan-
ish.
36. Sola Fide, p. 51.
37. Ibid., p. 49.
38. Ibid., p. 51.
39. Lev Shestov, Te Good in the Teaching of Tolstoy and Nietzsche (in Dostoevsky, Tolstoy and
Nietzsche, Athens: Ohio University Press, 1969), p. 82.
40. Lev Shestov, Te Philosophy of Tragedy (in Dostoevsky, Tolstoy and Nietzsche, Athens: Ohio
University Press, 1969), p. 269.
41. A very good article concerning Shestov and Nietzsche is that of Anna Escher Di Stefano,
Chestov, lettore di Nietzsche, Il Contributo, 4, no. 3 (Luglio-Settembre 1982). See also
Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal, Shestovs Interpretation of Nietzsche, in Te Tragic Discourse,
ed. Ramona Fotiade (Bern: Peter Lang, 2006). .
42. James M. McLachlan, Shestovs Reading and Misreading of Kierkegaard, Canadian
Slavonic Papers, 28, no. 2 (1986): 174186. Another interesting article in this area is Nicole
Hatem, Kierkegaard et Chestov, philosophes du tragique, in Te Tragic Discourse, edited
by Ramona Fotiade.
Chapter One
1. Nathalie Barano-Chestov, Vie de Lon Chestov, 2 vols. (Paris: Editions de la Dirence,
1993). Since the volumes are numbered independently, I will use the abbreviations Vie I and
Vie II to refer to them.
2. Lev Shestov, All Tings Are Possible (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1977), p. 18.
3. Te genesis of the pen-name, Shestov is described in Andrius Valevicius book, Shestov and
His Times: Encounters with Brandes, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Checkhov, Ibsen, Nietzsche and Hus-
serl (New York: Peter Lang, 1993).
4. Barano-Chestov, Vie I, p. 15.
5. Ibid., p. 24.
6. Hermann Lovtzky wrote a brief biographical sketch about Shestov in Russian, which has
never been translated into English. Another source for details related to Shestovs early
life is found in the memoirs of Aaron (Aron) Steinberg, but this text, too, is available only
in Russian. Tese sources are often quoted in the books by Barano-Chestov, Valevicius,
Genevive Piron, La Gense de loeuvre de Lev Chestov: Leau vive et leau morte de Che-
stov, PhD diss. (University of Geneva, 2008); Pirons dissertation is forthcoming in book
form by LAge dHomme in Paris.
7. Kent Hill, On the Treshold of Faith: An Intellectual Biography of Lev Shestov from
19011920 PhD diss. University of Washington, 1980; his work remains a very important
contribution to the study of Shestovs life and philosophical work.
8. Lev Shestov, Journal de mes penses, vol. 1 (Qubc: Le Beroi, c 1986), p. 30; my translation
from the French. In spite of this remark, in all his writings Shestov emphasized the role of
the memorable events in his life.
10. Ibid., p. 27.
11. For details, see Barano-Chestov, Vie I, pp. 3031.
12. Again, letters in Russian are conserved in Shestovs archives in Paris, but information can
be obtained from both the biography of Barano-Chestov and the thesis of Kent Hill.
13. Barano-Chestov, Vie I, p. 32 and p. 72.
14. Hill, On the Treshold of Faith, p. 39.
15. I could have adopted the politically correct feminine form or other devices commonly used
in the postmodern discourse, but I ended up staying with Shestovs rhetoric. Obviously,
whenever I write man or men,, I mean human beings, regardless their gender.
17. Te article about Pushkin was published posthumously in Lon Chestov, Spculation et
Rvlation; as elsewhere, my translation from the French.
18. La Gense de loeuvre de Lev Chestov, see reference 6 above.
19. Valevicius, p. 22.
20. Spculation et Rvlation, p. 224, my emphasis.
21. I use the text published as an Appendix to the French edition of Lev Shestov, Apotheosis of
Groundlessness entitled Sur les conns de la vie (Paris: ditions de la Pliade, 1927).
22. Shestov, Sur les conns, p. 226.
23. Ibid., p. 231.
24. Ibid., p. 237.
Chapter Two
1. From his last article on Edmund Husserl, published after his death in 1938 and reproduced
in Spculation et Rvlation (Paris: LAge de lHomme, 1981), p. 206.
2. See the chronological bibliography contained in G. Pirons doctoral thesis, p. 442.
3. Benjamin Fondane, Rencontres avec Lon Chestov (Paris: Editions Plasma, 1982), p. 148.
Notes 179
5. Te reader is Kent Hill who expressed this view in his already mentioned PhD disserta-
tion.
6. Fondane, Rencontres, p. 85.
7. Lev Shestov, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, and Nietzsche, (Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press,
1969), p. 22. Te book contains both the essays on Tolstoy and Nietzsche and that about
Dostoevsky and Nietzsche, subtitled Te Philosophy of Tragedy.
8. Ibid., p. 11.
9. Ibid., p. 26.
10. Ibid., p. 12.
11. Ibid., p. 25.
12. Ibid., p. 35.
13. Ibid., p. 37.
14. Ibid., p. 41.
15. Ibid., p. 51.
16. Ibid., p. 55, italics are mine.
17. Ibid., p. 56.
18. Ibid., p. 59.
19. Ibid., p. 68.
20. Shestovs quote, ibid., p. 70.
21. Ibid., p. 72.
22. Ibid., p. 83.
25. Te Philosophy of Tragedy., p. 152.
26. Ibid., p. 156.
27. Ibid., p. 158.
28. Ibid., p. 160.
29. Ibid., p. 164.
30. Ibid., p. 168.
31. Ibid., p. 169.
32. Ibid., p. 172.
33. Ibid., p. 174.
34. Ibid., p. 202.
35. Ibid., p. 239.
37. More extensive biographical details and a description of the manuscripts containing mate-
rials of the books published by Shestov during the period under discussion can be found in
Barano-Chestovs Vie I and G. Pirons doctoral thesis.
38. Shestov, Sur les conns de la vie, p. iii. All the quotations from the preface are my translations
from the French edition of this book. Te English edition does not contain the original
preface written by the author.
39. Ibid., p. v.
40. Shestov, All Tings Are Possible, p. 11.
41. In order to limit the number of notes, I will subsequently only indicate the aphorism num-
bers in the French volume Sur les conns de la vie, from which I translate the quotes.
42. Ibid., p. 13.
43. It is not that in the previous books Shestov did not mention such questions; we have seen
and discussed such instances already. However, such ideas were so far scattered and the
accent was on the need for a dierent way of thinking rather than on the content of the
thoughts themselves.
44. See Barano-Chestov, Vie I, pp. 8694.
Chapter Three
1. First published in 1916, the English translation had an introduction by D. H. Lawrence; a
new version of this edition was published in 1966 under the title Chekhov and Other Essays
at Te University of Michigan Press. In 1977, Ohio University Press included the book
under the title Penultimate Words and Other Essays, in a volume together with his previous
book, Te Apotheosis of Groundlessness, with the title changed to All Tings Are Possible. Tese
mixes and changes of titles between dierent editions and various translations pose some-
times a problem in the identications of Shestovs works. A very good biblio-chronological
list that claries many of the puzzles related to the Shestovian bibliography can be found
in G. Pirons doctoral thesis.
2. Shestov, Penultimate Words, p. 118.
3. Ibid., p. 126.
4. Ibid., p. 134.
5. Ibid., p. 140.
6. A. J. Ayer, Metaphysics and Common Sense (San Francisco: Freeman, Cooper and Company,
1969), p. 211.
7. Ibid., pp. 155156.
8. Ibid., p. 157.
9. Ibid., p. 158.
13. Ibid., p. 179.
14. Ibid., p. 209.
15. Ibid., p. 175.
16. Ibid., p. 182.
17. Ibid., p. 183.
18. Ibid., p. 191.
19. Ibid., p. 190.
20. Ibid., p. 193.
21. Ibid., p. 195.
22. Ibid., p. 197.
23. Ibid., p. 198.
24. Ibid., p. 204.
25. Ibid., p. 208.
26. Ibid., p. 209.
27. Ibid., p. 214.
28. Ibid., p. 218.
Notes 181
Chapter Four
1. BaranoChestov, Vie de Lon Chestov, vol. I, p. 142. Tis idea remained strongly impressed
upon Shestovs mind; almost thirty years later, he would tell Fondane, I remember John
Gabriel Borkman . . . see Fondane, Rencontres, p. 99.
2. Te reader can nd a good rendering of the event in BaranoChestov, Vie I, pp. 126
131.
3. Great Vigils has not yet been translated into English; I mentioned in the previous chapter
that in a volume that includes the two previous works of Shestov, edited by Bernard Martin
and published under the title All Tings Are Possible and Penultimate Words and Other Essays,
the editor included a chapter about Te Teory of Knowledge extracted from the Great Vi-
gils.
5. Ibid., p. 143.
6. Barano-Shestov mentions that at the Lenin library in Moscow she uncovered 8 letters
Shestov wrote to Shpet between 1911 and 1919, see Vie I, p. 112.
7. For a clear explanation of the genesis of the text and its future fortunes see, G. Pirons the-
sis.
8. Lev Shestov, Sola Fide (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1957), p. 152.
9. Ibid., p. 7.
10. Ibid., p. 8.
11. Shestov indicates two of Adolf Harnacks books among his references, Lehrbuch der Dog-
mengeschichte (Outlines of the History of Dogma, Boston: Beacon Press, 1959) and Das Wesen
des Christentums (translated in English under the title What Is Christianity? and published
by Punam s Sons, in New York in 1901).
12. Shestov, Sola Fide., p. 17.
13. Ibid., p. 18.
14. Ibid., p. 23.
15. Shestove, All Tings Are Possible, pp. 208210; partly quoted in the previous chapter.
16. See Fondane, Rencontres, p. 87.
18. Tere are slight dierences between the way this quote appears in the French translation of
Sola Fide as compared with that of the English translation of the book on Tolstoy and Niet-
zsche: Le bien nest pas Dieu, il faut chercher ce qui est au-dessus du bien, il faut chercher
Dieu. In any case, if there is something problematic in this statement, it has to do with
the strong a rmation of the search for God in the case of Nietzsche and not in the small
semantic dierences between the two versions of the quote.
19. Ibid., p. 57.
20. Fondane, Rencontres, pp. 143144.
21. Ibid., p. 98.
Chapter Five
1. A thorough discussion concerning Shestovs publications in Russia during the WW I years
is to be found in G. Pirons dissertation.
2. Shestov, Potestas Clavium, pp. 6667.
3. Ibid., pp. 41 and 43.
4. Ibid., p. 48.
5. Ibid., p. 70.
6. Ibid., p. 71.
7. Ibid., p. 113.
8. Ibid., p. 88.
9. Ibid., p. 95.
10. Ibid., p. 100.
11. Ibid., p. 101.
12. Ibid., p. 70.
13. For details see, Barano-Chestov, Vie I.
15. In a fragment about Dostoevsky he writes that he knew of course he was no prophet, but
he knew that there had never been one on earth and that those who were prophets had no
better right to the title than he. Ibid., p. 157.
16. Ibid., p. 168.
17. Aphorism 109 in Shestov, Te Apotheosis.
18. Ibid., p. 131.
19. Benjamin Fondane, Baudelaire et l exprience du goure; a new edition was published in 1994
by Editions Complexe in Paris.
20. Shestov, Potestas Clavium, p. 133.
21. Ibid., p. 157.
22. Ibid., p. 172.
23. Ibid., p. 176.
24. Lev Shestov, Voprosy Philosphii I psychologii, #139/140 Moscow, 1917; Shestov, Potestas
Clavium was rst published in Russian in Germany (Mnchen: Verlag der Nietzsche Ge-
sellschaft, 1923) and in 1928 in French translation (Paris: La Pliade). However, the French
public could read the article earlier as it was published in Revue philosophique de la France et
de l etranger (#12, Jan.-Febr. 1926).
25. Lev Shestov, Te Good in the Teaching of Tolstoy and Nietzsche.p.140
26. Fondane, Rencontres, pp. 26 and 27.
27. Te term means nausea-free; it is used to warn of dangerous paths in the Swiss Alps.
Shestov read this sign during a hiking trip in Switzerland.
28. Lev Shestov, Memento Mori, in Potestas Clavium, p. 293.
29. Shestov, Sola Fide, p. 57.
30. Te complete title of Husserls book is Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a
Phenomenological Philosophy and its rst volume was published in 1913. During the year
Shpet spent at Gttingen University, Husserl taught a course on Nature and Spirit, which
was based on Ideas II on the way to be elaborated (see translators notice in the introduction
to the English version of Appearance and Sense (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers,
1991).
31. Shestov, Memento Mori, p. 298.
32. Ibid., p. 301.
33. Ibid., p. 309.
Notes 183
34. Ibid., p. 312.
35. Ibid., p. 349.
36. Ibid., p. 328.
38. Ibid., p. 179.
39. Ibid., p. 182.
Chapter Six
1. Lev Shestov, What Is Bolshevism? Mercure de France (# 533, Paris, September 1st, 1920).
,A very good description of this Russian milieu in Paris can be found in Barano-Chestov,
Vie I, pp. 209215.
2. See Barano-Chestov, Vie I, pp. 230 et passim.
3. Lev Shestov, Leredit fatale (Torino: Ananke, 2005).
5. Shestov asked Jules de Gaultier to help him publish in Revue Philosophique his article on
Husserl, Memento Mori. In May 1925, Gaultier wrote him: I spoke to M. Lvy-Bruhl
about your work on Husserl. He seems quite interested in publishing it. You will only need
to discuss with him the issue of the translation when you go to see him . . . He knows your
work and will be very pleased to see you (My translation from Nathalie Barano-Chestov,
La vie de Lon Chestov, vol. I (Paris: Editions de la Dirence, 1993), p. 375. Lvy-Bruhl
read immediately after publication the French translation of Shestovs essay on Pascal,
Nuit de Gethsmani, and was quite impressed (see again, Barano-Chestov, Vie I, p.
289).
6. Lvy-Bruhl a dit Mme Bespalo : Je suis en complet dsaccord avec Chestov ; mais cest
un homme de talent et il a le droit dexprimer sa pense. Quoted from Benjamin Fondane,
Rencontres, p. 82.
7. Ibid., p. 92.
9. Shestov, Potestas Clavium, p. 275.
10. Ibid., p. 281.
12. Shestov, Spculation et Rvlation, p. 207 (my emphasis).
13. Barano-Chestov, Vie II, p. 28.
14. Ibid., p. 36.
15. See Barano-Chestov, Vie II, pp. 4044.
17. Obviously, most of the references to this topic exist in French: a book such as that of
Michel Winock, Le sicle des intellectuels (Paris: ditions du Seuil, 1999) presents a good
panoramic view, written for the general public. In English, there is an extensive literature
that addresses specic authors of the period, but each book contains also a fairly thorough
description of the background: for instance, Bruce Baugh, French Hegel, from Surrealism to
Postmodernism by Bruce Baugh (London: Routledge, 2003) or Richard Wolin, Te Seduction
of Unreason (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004); both represent a good illustra-
tion of this statement and contain many useful references. Moreover, many of the works
of the representative authors of the mentioned trends in the inter-war French philosophy,
from Sartre to Maritain and from Mounier to Gabriel Marcel, have been translated into
English.
18. Tis might not be entirely true: Gabriel Marcel embraced Shestovs critique of the causality
and when he argued that there were various kinds of causality in a later work, he was still
echoing Shestov: see Gabriel Marcel, Dieu et la causalit, Prsence de Gabriel Marcel, no.
18, (2008): pp. 917.
19. See Michael Finkenthal, Le dialogue manqu,Europe, no. 827 (Mars 1998) : 128142.
20. Shestov, Revolt and Submission, in In Jobs Balances, p. 175.
21. Shestov, Sola Fide, p. 46 ; Spinoza, Ethics, vol. II 7 (Te Latin text translated by R.H. M. El-
wes in 1883 can be found online at http://frank.mtsu.edu (MTSU Philosophy WebWorks
Hypertext Edition, 1997).
22. Ibid., pp. 186 to 194.
23. Ibid., p. 193.
24. Ibid., p. 194.
25. Plato claimed that the gods do not philosophize because they do not need to become wise;
ibid., p. 156.
26. Ibid., p. 160.
27. Ibid., p. 144.
28. Ibid., p. 145.
29. Ibid., p. 188.
30. Ibid., p. 191.
31.
Jacques Maritain, Existence and the Existent (New York: Pantheon Books, 1947), p. 131.
Chapter Seven
1. Shestov, Gethsemane Night. However, one nds in this essay many statements that attest
to the fact that Shestov had a very good understanding of Pascals writings and a good
grasp of their context. He explicitly mentions, after talking quite a bit about the role of the
concept of abyss in Pascals works, that in the Provinciales, there is no word about the abyss:
Pascals sole object was to get reason and morality on to his side, the side of his friends at
Port Royal In Jobs Balances, p. 294.
2. Shestov, In Jobs Balances, p. 277.
3. Ibid., p. 280.
4. Ibid., p. 283.
5. Ibid., p. 287.
6. Ibid., p. 299.
7. Ibid., p. 305.
8. Ibid., p. 307.
9. Ibid., p. 308.
10. Ibid., p. 310.
11. Ibid., p. 313.
12. Ibid., p. 256 (original emphasis).
13. Ibid., p. 261.
Notes 185
14. Ibid., p. 263.
15. Ibid., p. 267.
16. Ibid., p. 272.
17. Ibid., p. 328.
18. Shestov, Sola Fide, p. 30.
20. Ibid., p. 331.
21. Ibid., p. 335.
22. Perhaps for a contemporary reader used to the deconstructionist theories, this seems just
a plain description of the way one separates the exo from the esoteric meanings. Also, the
concept of over-reading is hardly acceptable while the re-reading, the reprise is, on the
contrary a quite fashionable notion.
24. Ibid., p. 347.
25. Ibid., p. 349.
27. Shestov, Athens and Jerusalem, p. 89.
28. Ibid., p. 90.
29. See letter of September 30, 1931 to de Schloezer reproduced in Barano-Chestov, Vie II,
p. 99.
30. Tis reference, as well as the subsequent ones, are from chapter XI (pp. 226233) in
Shestovs essay, In the Bull of Phalaris, section II in Athens and Jerusalem.
31. Ibid., p. 231.
32. Te Kierkegaardian quotes from Shestov in Athens and Jerusalem, p. 236.
33. Ibid., p. 253.
34. Ibid., p. 257.
35. Ibid., p. 249.
36. Ibid., p. 252.
Chapter Eight
2. Ibid., p. 64.
3. Ibid., p. 73.
4. For the correspondence between Martin Buber and Leon Shestov, see Cahiers Lon Chestov,
2005,# 45, a journal published by the Shestov Society in Glasgow, editor Dr. Ramona Fotia-
de. Also, information about the contacts between the two can be found in the rst chapter
of Barano-Chestov, Vie II.
5. Barano-Chestov, Vie II, pp. 1718 and the above mentioned Cahiers Lon Chestov, pp.
4345.
6. Letter to Martin Buber, f May 6, 1929.
7. Letter to Martin Buber, September 6, 1932; the German original reads: . . . . welchen Sinn
Ihr Schluss ber die Krisis hat aus der meschiach YHWH, Xristos kurion hervortaucht.
8. Letter to Martin Buber, September 22, 1932; in original, Ist denn das Es bei Ihnen nicht
die Schlange?
9. Te letters are published on the Internet at http://www.berdyaev.com/bambauer/Fritz_Lieb.
html.
10. Letter to Martin Buber, September 29, 1932.
11. Nahum Glazer, Franz Rosenzweig: His Life and Tought (New York: Shoken Books, 1953),
p. 282.
12. S. H. Bergman, Dialogical Philosophy (Albany: SUNY Press, 1991), p. 153.
13. Letter to Martin Buber, April 3, 1935.
14. Lon Chestov, Spculations et Rvlations, p. 85.
15. Leon Chestov, Kierkegaard et la philosophie existentielle (Vox clamantis in deserto) (Paris :
Vrin, 1936) ; Emanuel Levinas, review of Kierkegaard et la philosophie existentielle, by Leon
Chestov, Rvue des Etudes Juives,. 101, no. 12 (1937): 139141.
16. I use here James McLachlans translation from French, private communication.
17. Benjamin Fondane, Lon Chestov, la recherche du judaisme perdu, Rvue Juive de
Geneve IV, 37, Avril 1936, pp. 326328. Fondane-Maritain, Correspondence (eds. Michel
Carassou and Ren Mougel, Paris: Editions Paris-Mditerrane, 1997), p. 38: Insofar as
Shestov is concerned you are wrong. His thinking is not specically Jewish but specic to
the Jewish thinking (italics belong to Fondane; my translation).
18. Daniel Rops, ed., Les Juifs (Paris: Plon, 1937).
19. Hillel Zeitlin, Lev Shestov, HaMeorer , May 1907; Hillel Zeitlin, Lev Shestov in Search
of God, Ha-Tekufa, 1923. It has been reprinted in the second volume of Zeitlins collected
works published by Yavneh Publishing House, Tel Aviv, 2003.
20. Tis point is very well described in Genevive Pirons dissertation .
21. Zeitlin,Lev Shestov, HaMeorer, p. 176. Here, as in the following, my translations from
Hebrew.
22. Ibid., p. 177. Such a statement could be based on Shestovs remark in Te Philosophy of Tra-
gedy, But fate decided otherwise. Instead of letting Nietzsche calmly concern himself with
the future of all mankind and even the whole universe, it asked him as it did Dostoevsky,
one short and simple question-about his own future (p. 249) or many others from this and
the book about Tolstoy and Nietzsche.
23. Ibid.
24. Ibid., p. 178.
25. Ibid., p. 180.
26. It appears in the Old Testament in Psalms 22 but also in the New Testament in Mark 15:34
and Matthew 27:46.
27. Hillel Zeitlin, On the Border between Two Worlds (Tel Aviv: Yavneh Publishing, 2003), p.
70.
28. Friedrich Nietzsche, Te Genealogy of Morals,in Te Complete Works of Friedrich Nietz-
sche, vol. 13 (Edinburgh and London: T. N. Foulis, 1913), p. 116.
29. Ibid., p. 86.
30. Ibid.
31. Ibid., p. 90.
32. Ibid.
33. Ibid., p. 91.
34. Ibid., p. 92.
35. Ibid., p. 93.
Notes 187
Chapter Nine
1. All these articles have been published posthumously in Spculation et Rvlation (Paris:
LAge de lHomme, 1981); all the translations from the French are mine.
2. Spculation, p. 216.
3. Ibid., p. 116.
4. Ibid., p. 170.
5. Shestov quotes from Immanuel Kant, Vernunft und Existenz (Grningen: Verlag J. B. Wol-
ters, 1935).
6. Shestov, Spculation, p. 172.
7. Ibid., p. 156.
8. Ibid., p. 160. Rachel Bespalo, who was very close to Shestov for a while, had a similar
reaction toward him in the long essay she dedicated to him in Cheminements et carrefours
(A new edition of the book was published recently, Paris: Vrin, 2004).
9. Ibid., p. 122.
10. Ibid., p. 178.
11. In his conversations with Fondane, Shestov recalled that he was about thirty years old when
he met Berdyaev who was eight years younger than him (see Fondane, Rencontres, p. 87).
From a letter to his wife (quoted in Barano-Chestov, Vie I, p. 73) we nd out that they
rst met at the end of the year 1902.
12. See G. Pirons dissertation.
15. Ibid., p. 88.
16. Barano-Chestov, Vie II, p. 223. Tis letter was originally published in Russian in Mosty,
no. 8, 1961.
17. Shestov, Spculation, p. 18.
18. See Ernst Behler, ed., Philosophy of German Idealism, (New York: Continuum, 2003), p.
234.
20. Ibid., p. 202. Te italicized sentence is almost literally quoting Proverbs and many other
Jewish references which converge on this point.
21. Ibid., p. 220.
22. Ibid., p. 214.
23. Te letter is reproduced in Barano-Chestov, Vie II, pp. 221222; my translation from the
French.
24. All these and previous quotations are from Shestov, Athens and Jerusalem, p. 271.
25. Ibid.
26. Te quotation from Gilson is brought from Shestovs text, p. 274.
27. Shestov quoted Gilson saying that Te metaphysics of the Book of Exodus penetrates
to the very heart of epistemology, ibid., p. 275. In a previous section of the book, entitled
Parmenides in chains, Shestov took issue with Platos statement in Protagoras (345D),
which stated that even the gods are impotent in the ght against necessity.
28. Ibid., p. 277.
29. Ibid., p. 278.
30. Ibid.
31. Ibid., p. 281.
32. Not only Christian philosophers were trying to make faith into something which can be
understood; this trend was strong in the Jewish medieval philosophy, and Maimonides him-
self had given in to this temptation in large parts of his Guide of the Perplexed.
33. Ibid., p. 282.
34. Quoted by Shestov from De Civitatate Dei, in Athens and Jerusalem, p. 283.
35. Ibid., p. 253.
36. From Sickness unto Death, quoted by Shestov in Athens and Jerusalem, p. 254.
37. Understand in order to believe, believe in order to understand. Even if the rst part of the sen-
tence did not start as it does, the mere connection between the two is problematic in the
biblical context.
38. From Summa Teologica, quoted by Shestov on p. 302.
39. Ibid.
40. Ibid.
Chapter Ten
2. Ibid., p. 22.
3. Ibid., p. 24.
6. Benjamin Fondane, Rimbaud le Voyou (Paris: Denol et Steele, 1933), p. 19.
7. Ibid., p. 34.
8. Benjamin Fondane, La conscience malheureuse (Paris: Denol et Steele, 1936), p. X.
9. Ibid., p. 12.
10. Ibid., p. 267.
11. Benjamin Fondane, Faux Trait desthhtique (Paris: Editions ParisMditerrane, 1998), p.
108.
12. Benjamine Fondane, Le lundi existentiel (Paris: Editions du Rocher, 1990), p. 23.
13. Fondane, La conscience malheureuse, p. XIX. My translation from the French.
14. Jesprais pouvoir refaire le texte au point de vue des problmes poss par les nouvelles
logique, quoted in BSEBF, no.2 (Automne 1994), p. 9.
15. Tis work has appeared under the title LEtre et la connaissance; for a brief review of Lupa-
scos ideas, see my introductory notes to this book (Paris: Paris-Mediterrane, 1998).
16. Te article Leon Shestov and His Fight against the Evidence, published in Revue phi-
losophique de la France et de l tranger, no.78 ( Juil/Aot 1938) was included in Benjamin
Fondane, Rencontres avec Lon Chestov (Paris: Editions Plasma, 1982). Te quote above is
from p. 249.
17. Michel Carassou et Ren Mougel, eds. Fondane-Maritain Correspondance,(Paris: Editions
Paris-Mediterrane, 1997).
18. Te recently published book by Monique Jutrin, Ecrits sur le Judasme (Paris: Parole et
Silence, 2009) contains all the texts written Fondane in Romania as well as in France, on
Jewish themes.
Notes 189
19. Benjamin Fondane, Lon Chestov la recherche du Judasme perdu, Revue Juive de Ge-
nve, IV (1936): 326328.
20. Jappelle essentiels les traits dune gure qui se situe hors du temps, hors de lhistoire, hors
des bornes dune structure dnie: geographique, historique, nationale, et qui sattache
exprimer, ou exprime malgr soi , la densit dune rvlation qui, bien que con un seul
peuple, intresse au plus haut degr le salut de lhumanit en gnral (ibid.).
21. See the conference on Chestov, Un nouveau visage de Dieu: Lon Chestov mystique russe, gi-
ven during his rst visit in Argentina in 1929 (published in Europe, Mars 1998), the article
Un philosophe tragique: Leon Chestov Europe XIX (1929): 142, and the two chapters on
Shestov, included in La conscience malheureuse, book published by Fondane in 1936, one of
which, Chestov, Kierkegaard et le serpent, was already published in Cahiers du Sud in 1934.
To these, one should add two more articles written later, included in Rencontres avec Lon
Chestov.
22. Jews began to believe that they have a high moral standing due to their ethics.
23. Insofar as Shestov is concerned, you are wrong. His way of thinking is not specic to the
Jew but to the Jewish thinking; Often, Kierkegaard, Luther, even Tertullian would think
like him. Letter of February 28, 1938, in Fondane-Maritain Correspondence, p. 38 ; italics
belong to Fondane, my translation from the French.
24. If during antiquity the Jew was Gods only witness, in the modern worldand against his
willthe Jew, as anxiously as ever, will be the only one who will be the witness of Gods
absence, my translation, ibid.
25. Jacques Maritain, Existence and the Existent (New York: Image Books, 1946), p. 131.
27. Maritain, Existence and the Existent, p. 13.
28. Tis is not the only oddity in the set-up of the volume, which would have the nal title of
Le mal de fantmes. Te poem with this title, written mostly during the war years (194243),
was introduced following the will of the poet in between Ulysses and Titanic, see the Fon-
danes literary testament in Bulletin de la Socit dEtudes Benjamin Fondane, 2 (1994) and
Monique Jutrins articles in Cahiers Benjamin Fondane 11 (2008) and 12 (2009).
29. I will not follow up on this idea; I only want to mention that such interferences were ob-
served already by early critics of the author; thus in a review of Ulysses written immediately
after its publication, Lon-Gabriel Gros pointed out the inuence of Pascal on the poet.
Tis came most probably following the lecture of Shestovs Gethsemane Night, Cahiers
du Sud, 157 (1933, September).
30. For details see the above quoted article by Monique Jutrin in Cahiers Benjamin Fondane, 11
(2008): pp. 117129.
31. Andr Spire was a French-Jewish poet, who held Fondane in high esteem. Te quote reads,
Fondanes Ulysses is the Jewish artist, religious, metaphysician and poet (my transla-
tion).
Chapter Eleven
1. See V. N. Porus, Solovyev and Shestov, Russian Studies in Philosophy, 44, no. 4 (2006):
5974.
2. See for instance in Russian Tought after Communism, ed. James P. Scanlan (Armonk: M.E.
Sharpe, 1994) the article of Taras D. Zakudalsky on Shestov, and the revival of religious
thought in Russia.
3. For the relationship between the two see the article by Peter G. Christensen, published in
the collective volume Te Tragic Discourse, edited by Ramona Fotiade (Bern: Peter Lang,
2006).
4. Te information about the details of life in Kiev in 1919 comes from Barano-Chestov,
Vie I; there exists a typed copy of Boris de Schloezers talk, which I received from Monique
Jutrin the publisher of Cahiers Fondane.
5. Tree letters of their (probably more extensive) correspondence were uncovered by Gene-
vieve Piron (private communication).
6. Georges Michel Nivat, RussieEurope, la n du schisme; accessible on the Internet in
French at http://classiques.uqac.ca/
7. Te conict between the two, occasioned by the publication of this volume, is thoroughly
discussed in an article by Brian Horowitz, Unity and Disunity in Landmarks: Te Rivalry
between Petr Struve and Mikhail Gershenzon, Studies in East European Tought, 51, no. 1,
(1999): 6178.
8. All these may sound strange to the reader. I am working on a study that discusses the dif-
ferent approaches taken by the three poets mentioned, Fondane, Vogel, and Ratosh, on the
way toward a redenition of their identity; the three, without knowing of one another, lived
in Paris in 1939.
9. Edmund Husserl, Cartesian Meditations (Te Hague: Martinus Nijho, , 1969), p. 157.
10. Emmanuel Levinas, De l vasion (Paris: Fata Morgana, 1982), p. 7. Te English translation
, On Escape, was published in 2003 by Stanford University Press. My old text was perhaps
in a position to bear witness to an intellectual situation of meanings end, wherein the exi-
stence attached to being forgot, on the eve of great massacres, even the problem of its own
justication (translation by Bettina Bergo).
11. Levinas, De l Evasion, p. 67; Tese struggles do not break up the unity of the I..
12. . . . cette catgorie de la su sance est conue sur limage de ltre telle que nous lore les
choses, , ibid. p. 68.
13. Ibid., p. 69; Te transcendence of these limits, communication with the innite being,
remained philosophys sole preoccupation.
14. Ibid., p. 79; What gives the human condition all its importance is precisely this inadequacy
of satisfaction to need..
15. Emmanuel Levinas, Outside the Subject (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1993), p. 17.
16. Private Communication; Michaela Willekes doctoral thesis at Mnster University, entitled
Lev Sestov: Unterwegs vom Nichts durch das Sein zur Flle was published by Lit Verlag in
Berlin in 2006 in book form (thanks to Till Kuhnle for this information).
18. Shestov asked Jules de Gaultier to help him publish in Revue Philosophique his article on
Husserl, Memento Mori. In May 1925, Gaultier wrote him: I spoke to M. Lvy-Bruhl
about your work on Husserl. He seems quite interested in publishing it. You will only need
to discuss with him the issue of the translation when you go to see him . . . He knows your
work and will be very pleased to see you Quoted in Nathalie Barano-Chestov, Vie I, p.
375). Lvy-Bruhl read immediately after publication the French translation of Shestovs
essay on Pascal, Nuit de Gethsmani, and was quite impressed;see again Barano-Che-
stov, Vie de Chestov I, p. 289.
Notes 191
19. Lvy-Bruhl a dit Mme Bespalo : Je suis en complet dsaccord avec Chestov ; mais cest
un homme de talent et il a le droit dexprimer sa pense. Rencontres, p. 82.
20. Ibid., p. 92 ; For years I told Lvy-Bruhl that he is a philosopher ; he replied, no.
22. Benjam Fondane, Lvy-Bruhl ou le metaphysicien malgr lui, Le Rouge et le Noir, 21
September 1937.
23. Fondane, Rencontres., p. 141.
24. In Martin Buber, Eclipse of God (Atlantic Highlands: Humanities Press International,
1988).
25. Giovanni Papaini, Scritti Postumi (Roma: Mondadori, 1966), p. 273 and p. 396: I speak of
Metasophia, a superior knowledge, beyond the dialectical jargon of the philosophers, fed
by revelations made by poets and artists and one must nd a new modality of knowledge,
beyond reason, which is generated by poetry, arts, the whim of the genius, enthusiasm, fury,
and foolishness (my translation).
27. His poetry was a dierent issue; what he wrote after Titanic was part of an exercise in
something I might call, faute de mieux, practical existentialism. Tis, though, is an entirely
dierent subject not to be discussed here (see also, the end of the chapter about Fondane,
the disciple).
Bibliography
Bibliographical Note
Shestov wrote all his books in Russian, but the translations did not follow
the chronology of their appearance. Furthermore, the original titles were not
retained in many cases. In fact, entire books or fragments taken from various
works have been lumped together at times, and these rearrangments of the
dierent parts of books make their identications somewhat di cult. Subse-
quently, I will list under Primary Sources the books I used in various languages,
in the order of their apparition in Russian, regardless the dates of the various
Western translations. Very useful chronological lists of Shestovs works can
be found in Nathalie Barano-Chestov, Vie de Lon Chestov (Paris: ditions
de la Dirence, 1993) and in the Appendix II to the book Potestas Clavium,
translated by Bernard Martin into English (Athens: Ohio University Press,
1968); the most complete up-to-date bibliography is contained, to the best
of my knowledge, in Genevive Pirons doctoral thesis entitled La genese de
l oeuvre de Lev Shestov (Genve 2009) to be published soon at LAge dHomme
in Lausanne.
Primary Sources, Annotated
Books
Shestov, Lev. Dostoevsky Tolstoy and Nietzsche. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1978.
Tis collective volume contains Te Good in the Teaching of Tolstoy and Nietzsche: Philosophy
and Preaching (rst published in Russian in 1900) and Te Philosophy of Tragedy (rst Rus-
sian edition in 1903)
Shestov, Lev. All Tings Are Possible. Ed. and Trans. Bernard Martin. Athens: Ohio University
Press, 1977.
Tis volume contains Te Apotheosis of Groundlessness published for the rst time in 1905
and in English in 1920, with a foreword by D. H. Lawrence; it was translated into French
as Sur les conns de la vie (Paris: ditions de la Pliade, 1927). All Tings Are Possible includes
also Beginnings and Endings published originally in 1908 and translated in English as Pen-
ultimate Words and Other Essays. Tis second work, including an article extracted from Te
Great Vigils (1911)a still un-translated work by Shestovwas published also under the
title, Chekhov and Other Essays by Te University of Michigan Press (Ann Arbor) in 1966.
Shestov, Lev. Potestas Clavium. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1968.
It was rst published in Russian in Berlin in 1923 at Skythen Verlag, then in French trans-
lation in 1928.
Shestov, Lev. In Jobs Balances. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1975 (the rst French translation
was published in 1929.
Te book includes also a chapter often quoted separately under the title Revelations of the
Death as well as the translation of La Nuit de Gethsmani: Essai sur la philosophie du Pascal,
published for the rst time in French by Grasset in Paris in 1923.
Shestov, Lev. Kierkegaard and Existential Philosophy. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1969.
Tis volume was rst published in France as Kierkegaard et la philosophie existentielle: Vox
clamantis in deserto. Paris: Vrin, 1936.
Shestov, Lev. Athens and Jerusalem.Athens: Ohio University Press, 1966.
It rst appeared in France in 1936 at Vrin in Paris.
Shestov, Lev. Sola Fide (Luther et l Eglise). Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1957.
Shestov, Lev. Spculation et Rvlation. Lausanne: LAge dHomme, 1981.
Shestov, Lev. Shakespeare and His Critic Brandes. St. Petersburg: Mendeleev Ed., 1898.
Tis book, the rst written by Shestov, has never been translated from the Russian.
estov, Lev. Leredit fatale: Etica e ontologia in Plotino. Torino: Ananke, 2005.
Articles published in France
Shestov, Lev. What Is Boshevism. Mercure de France (#533, September 1
st
, 1920).
Shestov, Lev. Descartes and Spinoza. Mercure de France (#600, June 15
th
, 1923).
Shestov, Lev. Martin Buber. Revue Philosophique de la France et de ltranger (#1112, No-
vemberDecember 1933).
Shestov, Lev. Job ou Hegel ? La Nouvelle Revue Francaise (#240, May 1935).
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Index
A
A Tousand and One Nights, 72
Abraham (biblical gure), 7, 99, 108, 111
112, 128, 132, 140, 146, 151153, 168
Adam (biblical gure), 56, 71, 7879,
104105, 116, 119, 139140, 154, 158
Aleichem, Shalom, 75
All Tings Are Possible, See: Apotheosis of
Groundlessness, Te
ananke, 26, 108
Anselm of Canterbury, 79
Anton Chekhov and Other Essays, 3
Apotheosis of Groundlessness, Te, 3, 13, 4041,
4345, 47, 52, 57, 68, 73, 75, 89, 97, 107
Aristotle, 59, 61, 6466, 73, 95
Athens and Jerusalem, vii, 47, 72, 92, 99,
112, 129142, 154, 156, 162, 165
Athens, 43, 99, 106, 154
Augustine, Saint, 14, 6368, 75, 81, 96,
102103, 140141, 151, 165
Averroism, vii
Ayer, A. J., 49
B
Barano-Chestov, Nathalie, x, 19, 2122, 30,
45, 48, 71, 90
Baudelaire, Charles, 2, 78, 122, 145, 147,
150, 156, 172173
Bayley, John, 11
Beginnings and Ends, 45, 47, 51, 74
Belinsky, Vissarion, 22, 3738, 132
Berdyaev, Nikolai, viii, 1011, 4748, 56, 65,
84, 8889, 104, 115, 118, 129, 132135,
151, 161
Bergman, Hugo, 10, 120
Boehme, Jacob, 133134
Boitani, Piero, xi
131, 138140, 146
Eros and the Ideas, 74
ethics, 810, 16, 2728, 3031, 4445, 111
112, 120, 131132, 146, 152153, 164
F
False Treatise of Esthetics, 147148
Fear and Trembling, 111112
Fichte, Johann Gottlieb, 28, 55, 82
First World War, See: World War I
Fondane, Benjamin, viii-x, 2, 4, 89, 12, 21,
30, 51, 55, 69, 78, 8081, 89, 91, 94, 97,
99, 104, 115116, 119121, 127, 133,
137138, 143156, 164165, 169173
Fotiade, Ramona, x, 12
Frank, Semen, 10, 82, 117, 151, 161
Freud, Sigmund, 43, 88, 145, 151
G
Gaultier, Jules de, 89, 93, 143144
Gershenzon, Mikhail, 89, 161
Gethsemane Night, 89, 101
Gide, Andr, 8890, 145, 159
Gift of Prophecy, Te, 48
Gilson, Etienne, 5, 137138, 141, 160
gnosis, 133, 141
Gnosticism, 134, 157
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 22, 50
Gogol, Nikolai, 22, 27, 30, 52
Good in the Teaching of Tolstoy and Nietzsche,
Te, 31
Great Vigils, Te, 13, 55, 60, 65
Grenier, Jean, 148
H
Hamlet, 19, 2728, 30, 37, 7980
Harnack, Adolf, 64
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 3, 51, 93,
99, 109, 112, 149, 151, 157, 160161, 165
Heidegger, Martin, viiiix , 9, 11, 80, 88, 92,
Bolshevik Revolution, 20, 71, 81, 85
Bowman, Frank, 11
Brodsky, Joseph, x
Buber, Martin, viii, 53, 79, 92, 115122, 127,
135, 151, 154, 165, 167, 171
Bulgakov, Sergei, 10, 104, 137, 140, 151,
161, 163164
C
Cabbala, 56, 168
Cain (biblical gure), 44, 116, 135
Camus, Albert, viii, 94, 148, 173
Catholicism, 4445, 6164, 73, 78, 93,
117118, 150
Celan, Paul, 158, 162
Chekhov, Anton, 3, 23, 30, 4041, 4849, 57
Children and Stepchildren of Time, 88, 117
Cohen, Hermann, 78, 115, 119120
Concept of Dread, Te, 111112
Corbin, Henri, 9293
Creation from the Void, 48
Crime and Punishment, 34
Critique of Practical Reason, 29, 33
D
De Civitate Dei, 6667
De omnibus dubitandum, 51
Derrida, Jacques, 12, 148
Descartes, Ren, 3, 1314, 51, 82, 86, 94,
106, 153
Desilets, Andr, x
Dostoevsky, Fyodor, x-xi, 3, 15, 2122, 24,
3031, 34, 3641, 45, 4851, 57, 6163,
72, 80, 8889, 9192, 96, 116, 122, 128,
130133, 159, 164
E
ennui, 2, 78
Epictetus, 74, 108
epistemology, 6, 9, 16, 42, 5354, 57, 80, 107,
Index 201
151152, 156, 159160, 164
knowledge, 110, 1314, 16, 33, 41, 50,
5357, 6566, 73, 79, 83, 93, 95, 97, 102
104, 107112, 116117, 133, 135140,
147155, 161162, 172173
L
Labyrinth, Te, 78
Lawrence, D. H., 9, 1112
Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, 3
Lermontov, Mikhail, 2122, 27
Lev Shestov Journal, x
Levinas, Emmanuel, viii, xi, 11, 1516, 121,
126127, 165167
Lvy-Bruhl, Lucien, 51, 8990, 120, 147,
149, 170171
Lieb, Fritz, 115, 118
logos, 74, 97
Lovtzky, Herman, 20, 61, 115
Luther, Martin, 3, 14, 4244, 5758, 6163,
68, 76, 81, 95, 103104, 127, 151152,
173
M
Macbeth, 34, 102
MacLachlan, James M., xi, 16
Magic Cap, Te, 7778
Magna Charta Libertatum, 73
Maimonides, 78, 127, 152153, 168
Malakahieva-Mirovich, Varvara Grigorevna,
2223
Mann, Tomas, 90
Marcel, Gabriel, viii, 9394, 148, 172
Maritain, Jacques, 9, 99, 104, 119, 121,
150154, 156, 165
Martin, Bernard, x,1, 910, 12, 54
Marx, Karl, 2021, 36, 55, 93, 161, 164
Memento Mori, 5, 62, 68, 72, 80, 84, 9091,
99, 136
metasophia, 16, 42, 56, 68, 97, 130, 135, 148,
154, 171173
Mikhailovsky, Nikolai, 2122
109110, 144145, 148, 165166
Heine, Heinrich, 17, 36, 52, 57, 75
hermeneutics, vii, x, 5, 1112, 65, 6768, 124,
127, 138139
Herzyg, Evghenia, 60
Hill, Kent, x, 12, 21
Hitler, Adolf, 79, 115116
hubris, 160
Hume, David, 13, 95
Husserl, Edmund, 3, 5, 1112, 6162, 68
69, 72, 8084, 88, 9193, 109, 129130,
136137, 144145, 160, 165166
I
I and Tou, 54
Ibsen, Henrik, 52, 57, 5960
In Jobs Balances, 4, 14, 72, 8789, 92, 99, 117
In the Bull of Phalaris, 5, 92, 109110
J
James, William, 9, 43, 60
Jaspers, Karl Teodor, 9, 80, 129, 131132,
148
Job (biblical gure), 7, 25, 99, 112113, 125,
132, 135, 139, 146, 149, 151, 153, 155,
168, 173
Julius Caesar, 2728
Jutrin, Monique, x
K
Kafka, Franz, 24, 49, 98, 147148, 156
Kant, Immanuel, 3, 6, 1215, 2829, 3334,
53, 8283, 91, 93, 95, 109, 131132, 135,
146, 152153, 164
Kerensky, Alexander, 8485, 161
Kierkegaard and Existential Philosophy, 4,
121, 156
Kierkegaard, Sren, viii, xi, 35, 8, 1112,
1516, 24, 57, 72, 83, 9192, 99,
109113, 117, 121, 126137, 141, 145,
Piron, Genevive, viii, x, 26, 89, 161
Plato, 6, 13, 15, 28, 43, 61, 6465, 73, 82, 86,
97, 108, 127, 141
Plekhanov, Georgi, 20
Plotinus, 65, 89, 99, 102, 107108, 128, 151
Porus, V. N., 158
potestas clavium (power of the keys, con-
cept), 61, 65, 73
Potestas Clavium (work), 4, 5, 72, 78, 8081,
90, 94, 124
psychoanalysis, 25, 43
psychology, x, 39, 43, 5354, 57, 61, 8283,
150
Pushkin, Aleksandr, 19, 22, 2628, 72, 159
R
reason, ix, 2, 45, 710, 14, 16, 2930, 3839,
43, 5051, 59, 64, 68, 74, 7981, 83, 91,
9397, 102112, 116, 120127, 129,
131135, 138, 141, 146, 148, 153, 158,
160, 173
tyranny of, ix, 2, 97
religiosity, 1617, 35, 121
Remizov, 21, 4748
Revolt and Submission, 72, 9698
Rivire, Jacques, 8889
Rosanov, Vasily, 10, 47, 60
Rosenzweig, Franz, viii, 1718, 119120,
127, 136, 165, 167
Rules and Exceptions, 74
S
Sartre, Jean-Paul, viii-ix, 9, 148, 165166
Scheler, Max, 8890, 136
Schloezer, Boris de, 4, 85, 88, 90, 92, 109,
115, 143, 158159, 162163
Schopenhauer, 52, 144
Schwartzmann, Isaac Moiseievich (father),
2021, 2425
Second Dimension of the Tought, Te, 68, 109,
120, 155, 171
Shakespeare and His Critic Brandes, vii, 26,
30, 45
Mill, John Stuart, 13, 55
Milosz, Czeslaw, viii, x, 158, 162
Monas, Sidney, 11
Moses (Biblical gure), 58, 104, 163
N
Neo-Kantianism, 8283, 93
Neo-Platonism, 6566
Nietzsche, Friedrich, viii, 3, 1113, 1516,
26, 28, 3037, 3941, 4445, 49, 51,
5758, 6061, 63, 67, 7273, 80, 8990,
92, 98, 102, 106, 111112, 115, 122123,
125, 127128, 130133, 137, 143145,
152, 159, 164
nihilism, viii, 11
Nirenberg, Ricardo, xi
Nivat, Georges, 160161
Notes from the Underground,3738
O
Olsen, Regine, 110111
ontology, ix, 9, 16, 57, 80, 94, 131, 139, 146
Orpheus, 110
overman (Nietzschean concept), 15, 36, 125,
128
P
Parmenides in Chains, 5, 108
Pascal, Blaise, viii, 3, 7, 12, 1516, 57, 8889,
96, 101108, 126128, 151153, 173
Paul, Saint, 61, 63, 76, 103106, 141, 158,
169, 173
Pelagians, 6364, 68
Penultimate Words, 11, 40, 4758
Pharisees, 75
Philistines, 127
Philo of Alexandria, 106, 108, 119
Philonenko, Alexis, x
Philosophy of Tragedy, Te, 13, 37, 4748, 58,
75
Index 203
Tolstoy, Leo (Count Lev Nikolayevich Tol-
stoy), x, 3, 13, 24, 3039, 41, 45, 4950,
5758, 6063, 67, 7273, 7980, 89, 98,
122, 128, 133, 145, 159160, 164, 172
Tree of Knowledge, 6, 38, 5556, 79, 104,
139
truth, vii, 19, 1314, 22, 24, 27, 30, 35,
4244, 5057, 62, 6466, 68, 7374,
7778, 81, 83, 9093, 9799, 102103,
106108, 110113, 119, 123, 125, 127,
133154, 165
Tsvetaeva, Marina, 162
Turgenev, Ivan, 21, 30, 36, 4041, 57
U
bermensch, See: overman
Unamuno, Miguel de, 11, 89
Unhappy Consciousness, 145, 149
V
Valevicius, Andrius, x-xi, 12, 26
virtue, 28, 43, 66, 112
Voltaire (Franois Marie Arouet), 8, 45, 61,
81
W
Wahl, Jean, 89, 92, 94, 165
War and Peace, 32
World War I, 3, 14, 23, 124
Z
Zeitlin, Hillel, 115, 122128, 159
Zionism, 20, 75, 90, 151
Shakespeare, William, vii, 3, 22, 24, 2631,
34, 36, 45, 122, 172
Shestov Society, x
Shpet, Gustav, 61, 68, 82, 160
Socrates, 67, 1213, 15, 43, 64, 66, 69, 73,
82, 99, 108, 112113, 132, 136, 155, 169
Sola Fide, 14, 52, 6169, 7172, 8082, 84,
9596, 99, 103, 107
Solovyov, Vladimir, 10, 22, 26, 36, 50, 90, 92
soul, 12, 39, 52, 54, 77, 80, 107, 119
Spinoza, Baruch, 3, 1215, 52, 88, 9596, 99,
101, 103, 105107, 110113, 116117,
152153
Steiner, George, x, 158
Sternhartz, Rabbi Nathan, 126127
Shestov, Lev
as husband and father, 1926, 31, 40, 48, 60,
71, 75, 85, 88, 98
as Russian intellectual and literary gure,
viii, x, 1013, 21, 32, 36, 42, 45, 47, 66,
8789, 92, 118, 122, 158, 160
birth of, 3
exile in Paris, ix, 5, 48, 50, 55, 6061, 72, 83,
86115, 117, 143144, 160162, 171
Jewishness of, x, 10, 12, 17, 2021, 31, 40,
41, 44, 56, 58, 64, 7578, 90, 95, 103,
105, 108, 119124, 126127, 150153,
163165
kidnapping by anarchist group, 21, 24
marriage of, 2425, 44, 59
relationship with father, 2021, 2425, 31,
33, 40, 75
Stoicism, 28, 6467, 7374, 102103, 108,
162
Susm, 17, 9293
superman (Nietzschean concept), See: over-
man
Sursum Corda, 79
T
Taine, Hippolyte, 26, 30
Teboul, Margaret, x
Tertullian, xii, 79, 104, 127, 131, 173
Tousand and One Nights, A, 72

Michael Finkenthal Lev Shestov Existential Philosopher and Religious Thinker

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