The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoyevsky [children's books read aloud TXT] 📗

Chapter 5

So Be It! So Be It!

 

THE elder’s absence from his cell had lasted for about twenty-five

minutes. It was more than half-past twelve, but Dmitri, on whose

account they had all met there, had still not appeared. But he

seemed almost to be forgotten, and when the elder entered the cell

again, he found his guests engaged in eager conversation. Ivan and the

two monks took the leading share in it. Miusov, too, was trying to

take a part, and apparently very eagerly, in the conversation. But

he was unsuccessful in this also. He was evidently in the

background, and his remarks were treated with neglect, which increased

his irritability. He had had intellectual encounters with Ivan

before and he could not endure a certain carelessness Ivan showed him.

 

“Hitherto at least I have stood in the front ranks of all that

is progressive in Europe, and here the new generation positively

ignores us,” he thought.

 

Fyodor Pavlovitch, who had given his word to sit still and be

quiet, had actually been quiet for some time, but he watched his

neighbour Miusov with an ironical little smile, obviously enjoying his

discomfiture. He had been waiting for some time to pay off old scores,

and now he could not let the opportunity slip. Bending over his

shoulder he began teasing him again in a whisper.

 

“Why didn’t you go away just now, after the ‘courteously kissing’?

Why did you consent to remain in such unseemly company? It was because

you felt insulted and aggrieved, and you remained to vindicate

yourself by showing off your intelligence. Now you won’t go till

you’ve displayed your intellect to them.”

 

“You again?… On the contrary, I’m just going.”

 

“You’ll be the last, the last of all to go!” Fyodor Pavlovitch

delivered him another thrust, almost at the moment of Father Zossima’s

return.

 

The discussion died down for a moment, but the elder, seating

himself in his former place, looked at them all as though cordially

inviting them to go on. Alyosha, who knew every expression of his

face, saw that he was fearfully exhausted and making a great effort.

Of late he had been liable to fainting fits from exhaustion. His

face had the pallor that was common before such attacks, and his

lips were white. But he evidently did not want to break up the

party. He seemed to have some special object of his own in keeping

them. What object? Alyosha watched him intently.

 

“We are discussing this gentleman’s most interesting article,”

said Father Iosif, the librarian, addressing the elder, and indicating

Ivan. “He brings forward much that is new, but I think the argument

cuts both ways. It is an article written in answer to a book by an

ecclesiastical authority on the question of the ecclesiastical

court, and the scope of its jurisdiction.”

 

“I’m sorry I have not read your article, but I’ve heard of it,”

said the elder, looking keenly and intently at Ivan.

 

“He takes up a most interesting position,” continued the Father

Librarian. “As far as Church jurisdiction is concerned he is

apparently quite opposed to the separation of Church from State.”

 

“That’s interesting. But in what sense?” Father Zossima asked

Ivan.

 

The latter, at last, answered him, not condescendingly, as Alyosha

had feared, but with modesty and reserve, with evident goodwill and

apparently without the slightest arrierepensee

 

“I start from the position that this confusion of elements, that

is, of the essential principles of Church and State, will, of

course, go on for ever, in spite of the fact that it is impossible for

them to mingle, and that the confusion of these elements cannot lead

to any consistent or even normal results, for there is falsity at

the very foundation of it. Compromise between the Church and State

in such questions as, for instance, jurisdiction, is, to my

thinking, impossible in any real sense. My clerical opponent maintains

that the Church holds a precise and defined position in the State. I

maintain, on the contrary, that the Church ought to include the

whole State, and not simply to occupy a corner in it, and, if this is,

for some reason, impossible at present, then it ought, in reality,

to be set up as the direct and chief aim of the future development

of Christian society!”

 

“Perfectly true,” Father Paissy, the silent and learned monk,

assented with fervour and decision.

 

“The purest Ultramontanism!” cried Miusov impatiently, crossing

and recrossing his legs.

 

“Oh, well, we have no mountains,” cried Father Iosif, and

turning to the elder he continued: “Observe the answer he makes to the

following ‘fundamental and essential’ propositions of his opponent,

who is, you must note, an ecclesiastic. First, that ‘no social

organisation can or ought to arrogate to itself power to dispose of

the civic and political rights of its members.’ Secondly, that

‘criminal and civil jurisdiction ought not to belong to the Church,

and is inconsistent with its nature, both as a divine institution

and as an organisation of men for religious objects,’ and, finally, in

the third place, ‘the Church is a kingdom not of this world.’

 

“A most unworthy play upon words for an ecclesiastic!” Father

Paissy could not refrain from breaking in again. “I have read the book

which you have answered,” he added, addressing Ivan, “and was

astounded at the words ‘The Church is a kingdom not of this world. ‘If

it is not of this world, then it cannot exist on earth at all. In

the Gospel, the words ‘not of this world’ are not used in that

sense. To play with such words is indefensible. Our Lord Jesus

Christ came to set up the Church upon earth. The Kingdom of Heaven, of

course, is not of this world, but in Heaven; but it is only entered

through the Church which has been founded and established upon

earth. And so a frivolous play upon words in such a connection is

unpardonable and improper. The Church is, in truth, a kingdom and

ordained to rule, and in the end must undoubtedly become the kingdom

ruling over all the earth. For that we have the divine promise.”

 

He ceased speaking suddenly, as though checking himself. After

listening attentively and respectfully Ivan went on, addressing the

elder with perfect composure and as before with ready cordiality:

 

“The whole point of my article lies in the fact that during the

first three centuries Christianity only existed on earth in the Church

and was nothing but the Church. When the pagan Roman Empire desired to

become Christian, it inevitably happened that, by becoming

Christian, it included the Church but remained a pagan State in very

many of its departments. In reality this was bound to happen. But Rome

as a State retained too much of the pagan civilisation and culture,

as, for example, in the very objects and fundamental principles of the

State. The Christian Church entering into the State could, of

course, surrender no part of its fundamental principles-the rock on

which it stands-and could pursue no other aims than those which

have been ordained and revealed by God Himself, and among them that of

drawing the whole world, and therefore the ancient pagan State itself,

into the Church. In that way (that is, with a view to the future) it

is not the Church that should seek a definite position in the State,

like ‘every social organisation,’ or as ‘an organisation of men for

religious purposes’ (as my opponent calls the Church), but, on the

contrary, every earthly State should be, in the end, completely

transformed into the Church and should become nothing else but a

Church, rejecting every purpose incongruous with the aims of the

Church. All this will not degrade it in any way or take from its

honour and glory as a great State, nor from the glory of its rulers,

but only turns it from a false, still pagan, and mistaken path to

the true and rightful path, which alone leads to the eternal goal.

This is why the author of the book On the Foundations of Church

Jurisdiction would have judged correctly if, in seeking and laying

down those foundations, he bad looked upon them as a temporary

compromise inevitable in our sinful and imperfect days. But as soon as

the author ventures to declare that the foundations which he

predicates now, part of which Father Iosif just enumerated, are the

permanent, essential, and eternal foundations, he is going directly

against the Church and its sacred and eternal vocation. That is the

gist of my article.”

 

“That is, in brief,” Father Paissy began again, laying stress on

each word, “according to certain theories only too clearly

formulated in the nineteenth century, the Church ought to be

transformed into the State, as though this would be an advance from

a lower to a higher form, so as to disappear into it, making way for

science, for the spirit of the age, and civilisation. And if the

Church resists and is unwilling, some corner will be set apart for her

in the State, and even that under control and this will be so

everywhere in all modern European countries. But Russian hopes and

conceptions demand not that the Church should pass as from a lower

into a higher type into the State, but, on the contrary, that the

State should end by being worthy to become only