V. Буди, буди!

It was already past half past twelve, and Dmitri Fyodorovich, for whose sake they had all assembled, still had not appeared.

But they had almost as good as forgotten him, and when the elder stepped back into the cell he found the liveliest general conversation in progress among his guests.

Taking part in the conversation were, above all, Ivan Fyodorovich and the two hieromonks.

Miusov too kept breaking in, and apparently with great heat, but again he had no luck; he was plainly relegated to the second rank, and they hardly even answered him, so that this new circumstance only intensified the irritation that had been mounting in him all along.

The thing was that even before this he had crossed swords once or twice with Ivan Fyodorovich over matters of learning, and he could not coolly endure a certain offhandedness in the man toward him: "Up to now, at the very least, I have stood at the height of everything most advanced in Europe, and yet this new generation flatly ignores us," he thought to himself.

Fyodor Pavlovich, who had himself given his word to sit still on his chair and hold his tongue, did indeed keep silent for a while, but he watched his neighbor Pyotr Alexandrovich with a mocking little smile and was plainly delighted by his irritation.

He had long been meaning to pay him back for one thing and another, and now he had no wish to let the chance slip.

At last he could hold out no longer, leaned toward his neighbor's shoulder, and in an undertone needled him once again:

"Now why didn't you leave just now, after that 'and lovingly did kiss him,' and instead consented to remain in such unseemly company?"

It was because you felt humiliated and insulted, and you stayed in order to display your wit by way of revenge.

Now you won't leave until you have paraded your cleverness before them.

"You again?

On the contrary, I am leaving this instant."

"Later, you'll be the last of all to go!" Fyodor Pavlovich jabbed once more.

This was almost at the very moment of the elder's return.

The dispute died down for a minute, but the elder, having settled into his former place, looked round at them all as though cordially inviting them to continue.

Alyosha, who had studied almost every expression of his face, saw clearly that he was dreadfully worn out and was forcing himself.

Of late, in his illness, he had been subject to fainting fits brought on by exhaustion.

Almost the same pallor as before a fainting fit was spreading over his face even now, and his lips had turned white.

But he evidently did not wish to break up the gathering; it seemed, moreover, that he had some purpose of his own in this — but what could it be?

Alyosha watched him intently.

"We are discussing a most curious article of his," said the hieromonk Iosif, the librarian, turning to the elder and pointing to Ivan Fyodorovich.

"He draws a great deal that is new, but the idea, it seems, cuts both ways.

On the question of the ecclesiastical court and the scope of its jurisdiction, he answered in a journal article a certain churchman who had written a whole book on the matter..."

"Unfortunately I have not read your article, but I have heard of it," replied the elder, gazing keenly and intently at Ivan Fyodorovich.

"He stands on a most curious point," the father librarian went on, "in that, on the question of the ecclesiastical court, he apparently rejects altogether the separation of Church from State."

"That is curious, but in what sense?" the elder asked Ivan Fyodorovich.

At last the latter answered him, not with the condescending courtesy Alyosha had still been dreading the day before, but modestly and with restraint, with evident deference and, to all appearances, without the slightest ulterior motive.

"I proceed from the position that this blending of the elements — that is, of the essences of Church and State taken separately — will of course be everlasting, despite the fact that it is impossible and that it can never be brought into a state that is normal, or even in any degree reconcilable, because a lie lies at the very foundation of the matter.

A compromise between State and Church on questions such as, for example, that of jurisdiction, is in my view impossible in its perfect and pure essence.

The churchman with whom I was taking issue maintains that the Church occupies a precise and definite place within the State.

I objected to him that, on the contrary, the Church ought to contain the whole State within itself, and not merely occupy some corner of it, and that if at present this is for some reason impossible, then in the essence of things it must undoubtedly be set up as the direct and chief aim of all the further development of Christian society."

"Perfectly true!" said Father Paissy, the silent and learned hieromonk, firmly and nervously.

"The purest Ultramontanism!" cried Miusov, impatiently recrossing his legs.

"Eh, but we have no mountains!" exclaimed Father Iosif, and, turning to the elder, went on: "They answer, among other things, the following 'fundamental and essential' propositions of their opponent, the churchman, mark you.

First: that 'no social union can or ought to arrogate to itself the power to dispose of the civil and political rights of its members.'

Second: that 'criminal and civil-judicial authority ought not to belong to the Church and is incompatible with its nature, both as a divine institution and as a union of men for religious ends,' and finally, in the third place: that 'the Church is a kingdom not of this world.'"

"A most unworthy play on words for a churchman!" Father Paissy could not contain himself and broke in once more.

"I have read the book you were taking issue with," he said, turning to Ivan Fyodorovich, "and I was astonished by the churchman's words, that 'the Church is a kingdom not of this world.'

If it is not of this world, then it follows that it cannot exist on earth at all.

In the holy Gospel the words 'not of this world' are not used in that sense.

One cannot play with such words.

Our Lord Jesus Christ came precisely to establish the Church upon earth.

The Kingdom of Heaven, to be sure, is not of this world but in heaven, yet one enters it in no other way than through the Church, which is founded and established upon earth.

And therefore worldly puns in this sense are impossible and unworthy.

The Church is in very truth a kingdom and is ordained to reign, and at its end it must without doubt appear as a kingdom over all the earth — of which we have the promise..."

He suddenly fell silent, as though checking himself.

Ivan Fyodorovich, having heard him out respectfully and attentively, with extraordinary composure but as readily and openheartedly as before, continued, addressing the elder:

"The whole thought of my article is that in ancient times, in the first three centuries of Christianity, Christianity on earth appeared solely as the Church and was nothing but the Church.

But when the pagan Roman State desired to become Christian, it inevitably came about that, in becoming Christian, it merely took the Church into itself, while it continued itself to remain a pagan State as before, in an extraordinary number of its functions.

In essence this is undoubtedly how it was bound to happen.

But in Rome, as a State, far too much was left over from pagan civilization and wisdom — for example, the very aims and foundations of the State.

The Church of Christ, however, on entering into the State, could without doubt yield nothing of its own foundations, of that rock on which it stood, and could only pursue, in no other way, its own aims, once firmly set and appointed to it by the Lord himself — among them, to convert the whole world, and consequently the whole ancient pagan State as well, into the Church.

In this way (that is, with the future in view), it is not the Church that should seek a definite place for itself within the State, like 'any social union' or like 'a union of men for religious ends' (as the author I am disputing describes the Church), but, on the contrary, every earthly State should in the end be wholly transformed into the Church and become nothing else but the Church, having now cast off any of its own aims that are at variance with those of the Church.

None of this would in any way debase the State, would rob it of neither honor nor glory as a great State, nor of the glory of its rulers, but would only set it from the false, still pagan and mistaken road onto the right and true road, the only one leading to eternal ends.

That is why the author of the book On the Foundations of the Ecclesiastical Court would have judged rightly if, in seeking out and proposing these foundations, he had regarded them as a temporary compromise, still necessary in our sinful and unconsummated age — but no more than that.

But the moment the framer of these foundations ventures to declare that the foundations he now proposes, some of which Father Iosif has just enumerated, are unshakable, elemental, and everlasting, he goes straight against the Church and against its holy, everlasting, and unshakable destiny.

There you have my whole article, the full summary of it."

"That is to say, in two words," pronounced Father Paissy again, laying weight on every word, "according to certain theories that have grown all too plain in this nineteenth century of ours, the Church ought to be transformed into the State, as though from a lower into a higher species, so as then to vanish into it, giving way to science, the spirit of the age, and civilization.