The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoyevsky (reading an ebook TXT) 📗

the Church and nothing

else. So be it! So be it!”

 

“Well, I confess you’ve reassured me somewhat,” Miusov said

smiling, again crossing his legs. “So far as I understand, then, the

realisation of such an ideal is infinitely remote, at the second

coming of Christ. That’s as you please. It’s a beautiful Utopian dream

of the abolition of war, diplomacy, banks, and so on-something

after the fashion of socialism, indeed. But I imagined that it was all

meant seriously, and that the Church might be now going to try

criminals, and sentence them to beating, prison, and even death.”

 

“But if there were none but the ecclesiastical court, the Church

would not even now sentence a criminal to prison or to death. Crime

and the way of regarding it would inevitably change, not all at once

of course, but fairly soon,” Ivan replied calmly, without flinching.

 

“Are you serious?” Miusov glanced keenly at him.

 

“If everything became the Church, the Church would exclude all the

criminal and disobedient, and would not cut off their heads,” Ivan

went on. “I ask you, what would become of the excluded? He would be

cut off then not only from men, as now, but from Christ. By his

crime he would have transgressed not only against men but against

the Church of Christ. This is so even now, of course, strictly

speaking, but it is not clearly enunciated, and very, very often the

criminal of to-day compromises with his conscience: ‘I steal,’ he

says, ‘but I don’t go against the Church. I’m not an enemy of Christ.’

That’s what the criminal of to-day is continually saying to himself,

but when the Church takes the place of the State it will be

difficult for him, in opposition to the Church all over the world,

to say: ‘All men are mistaken, all in error, all mankind are the false

Church. I, a thief and murderer, am the only true Christian Church.’

It will be very difficult to say this to himself; it requires a rare

combination of unusual circumstances. Now, on the other side, take the

Church’s own view of crime: is it not bound to renounce the present

almost pagan attitude, and to change from a mechanical cutting off

of its tainted member for the preservation of society, as at

present, into completely and honestly adopting the idea of the

regeneration of the man, of his reformation and salvation?”

 

“What do you mean? I fail to understand again,” Miusov

interrupted. “Some sort of dream again. Something shapeless and even

incomprehensible. What is excommunication? What sort of exclusion? I

suspect you are simply amusing yourself, Ivan Fyodorovitch.”

 

“Yes, but you know, in reality it is so now,” said the elder

suddenly, and all turned to him at once. “If it were not for the

Church of Christ there would be nothing to restrain the criminal

from evildoing, no real chastisement for it afterwards; none, that

is, but the mechanical punishment spoken of just now, which in the

majority of cases only embitters the heart; and not the real

punishment, the only effectual one, the only deterrent and softening

one, which lies in the recognition of sin by conscience.”

 

“How is that, may one inquire?” asked Miusov, with lively

curiosity.

 

“Why,” began the elder, “all these sentences to exile with hard

labour, and formerly with flogging also, reform no one, and what’s

more, deter hardly a single criminal, and the number of crimes does

not diminish but is continually on the increase. You must admit

that. Consequently the security of society is not preserved, for,

although the obnoxious member is mechanically cut off and sent far

away out of sight, another criminal always comes to take his place

at once, and often two of them. If anything does preserve society,

even in our time, and does regenerate and transform the criminal, it

is only the law of Christ speaking in his conscience. It is only by

recognising his wrongdoing as a son of a Christian society-that is,

of the Church-that he recognises his sin against society-that is,

against the Church. So that it is only against the Church, and not

against the State, that the criminal of to-day can recognise that he

has sinned. If society, as a Church, had jurisdiction, then it would

know when to bring back from exclusion and to reunite to itself. Now

the Church having no real jurisdiction, but only the power of moral

condemnation, withdraws of her own accord from punishing the

criminal actively. She does not excommunicate him but simply

persists in motherly exhortation of him. What is more, the Church even

tries to preserve all Christian communion with the criminal. She

admits him to church services, to the holy sacrament, gives him

alms, and treats him more a captive than as a convict. And what

would become of the criminal, O Lord, if even the Christian society-that is, the Church-were to reject him even as the civil law

rejects him and cuts him off? What would become of him if the Church

punished him with her excommunication as the direct consequence of the

secular law? There could be no more terrible despair, at least for a

Russian criminal, for Russian criminals still have faith. Though,

who knows, perhaps then a fearful thing would happen, perhaps the

despairing heart of the criminal would lose its faith and then what

would become of him? But the Church, like a tender, loving mother,

holds aloof from active punishment herself, as the sinner is too

severely punished already by the civil law, and there must be at least

someone to have pity on him. The Church holds aloof, above all,

because its judgment is the only one that contains the truth, and

therefore cannot practically and morally be united to any other

judgment even as a temporary compromise. She can enter into no compact

about that. The foreign criminal, they say, rarely repents, for the

very doctrines of to-day confirm him in the idea that his crime is not

a crime, but only a reaction against an unjustly oppressive force.

Society cuts him off completely by a force that triumphs over him

mechanically and (so at least they say of themselves in Europe)

accompanies this exclusion with hatred, forgetfulness, and the most

profound indifference as to the ultimate fate of the erring brother.

In this way, it all takes place without the compassionate intervention

of the Church, for in many cases there are no churches there at all,

for though ecclesiastics and splendid church buildings remain, the

churches themselves have long ago striven to pass from Church into

State and to disappear in it completely. So it seems at least in

Lutheran countries. As for Rome, it was proclaimed a State instead

of a Church a thousand years ago. And so the criminal is no longer

conscious of being a member of the Church and sinks into despair. If

he returns to society, often it is with such hatred that society

itself instinctively cuts him off. You can judge for yourself how it

must end. In many cases it would seem to be the same with us, but

the difference is that besides the established law courts we have

the Church too, which always keeps up relations with the criminal as a

dear and still precious son. And besides that, there is still

preserved, though only in thought, the judgment of the Church, which

though no longer existing in practice is still living as a dream for

the future, and is, no doubt, instinctively recognised by the criminal

in his soul. What was said here just now is true too, that is, that if

the jurisdiction of the Church were introduced in practice in its full

force, that is, if the whole of the society were changed into the

Church, not only the judgment of the Church would have influence on

the reformation of the criminal such as it never has now, but possibly

also the crimes themselves would be incredibly diminished. And there

can be no doubt that the Church would look upon the criminal and the

crime of the future in many cases quite differently and would

succeed in restoring the excluded, in restraining those who plan evil,

and in regenerating the fallen. It is true,” said Father Zossima, with

a smile, “the Christian society now is not ready and is only resting

on some seven righteous men, but as they are never lacking, it will

continue still unshaken in expectation of its complete

transformation from a society almost heathen in character into a

single universal and all-powerful Church. So be it, so be it! Even

though at the end of the ages, for it is ordained to come to pass! And

there is no need to be troubled about times and seasons, for the

secret of the times and seasons is in the wisdom of God, in His

foresight, and His love. And what in human reckoning seems still

afar off, may by the Divine ordinance be close at hand, on the eve

of its appearance. And so be it, so be it!

 

“So be it, so be it!” Father Paissy repeated austerely and

reverently.

 

“Strange, extremely strange” Miusov pronounced, not so much with

heat as with latent indignation.

 

“What strikes you as so strange?” Father Iosif inquired

cautiously.

 

“Why, it’s beyond anything!” cried Miusov, suddenly breaking

out; “the State is eliminated and the Church is raised to the position

of the State. It’s not simply Ultramontanism, it’s

arch-Ultramontanism! It’s beyond the dreams of Pope Gregory the

Seventh!”

 

“You are completely misunderstanding it,” said Father Paissy

sternly. “Understand, the Church is not to be transformed into the

State. That is Rome and its dream. That is the third temptation of the

devil. On the contrary, the State is transformed into the Church, will

ascend and become a Church over the whole world-which is the complete

opposite of Ultramontanism and Rome, and your interpretation, and is

only the glorious destiny ordained for the Orthodox Church. This

star will arise in the east!”

 

Miusov was significantly silent. His whole figure expressed

extraordinary personal dignity. A supercilious and condescending smile

played on his lips. Alyosha watched it all with a throbbing heart. The

whole conversation stirred him profoundly. He glanced casually at

Rakitin, who was standing immovable in his place by the door listening

and watching intently though with downcast eyes. But from the colour

in his cheeks Alyosha guessed that Rakitin was probably no less

excited, and he knew what caused his excitement.

 

“Allow me to tell you one little anecdote, gentlemen,” Miusov said

impressively, with a peculiarly majestic air. “Some years ago, soon

after the coup d’etat of December, I happened to be calling in Paris

on an extremely influential personage in the Government, and I met a

very interesting man in his house. This individual was not precisely a

detective but was a sort of superintendent of a whole regiment of

political detectives-a rather powerful position in its own way. I was

prompted by curiosity to seize the opportunity of conversation with

him. And as he had not come as a visitor but as a subordinate official

bringing a special report, and as he saw the reception given me by his

chief, he deigned to speak with some openness, to a certain extent

only, of course. He was rather courteous than open, as Frenchmen

know how to be courteous, especially to a foreigner. But I

thoroughly understood him. The subject was the socialist

revolutionaries who were at that time persecuted. I will quote only

one most curious remark dropped by this person. ‘We are not

particularly afraid,’ said he, ‘of all these socialists, anarchists,

infidels, and revolutionists; we keep watch on them and know all their

goings on. But there are a few peculiar men among them who believe

in God and are Christians,