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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 social-
ism, 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 inevi-
tably 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 ex-
clude all the criminal and disobedient, and would not cut
off their heads,’ Ivan went on. ‘I ask you, what would be-
come 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 of-
ten 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 opposi-
tion 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

The Brothers Karamazov