Dostoevsky is one of those Russian novelists that come off as being prophetic. Here is portion of the novel “Brothers Karamazov”, which is an artifice in the novel in which Jesus is arrested during the inquisition and questioned. This is a remarkable passage – no crime – no sin.
“Nothing, observes the cardinal to the silent Jesus, has ever been more insufferable for man and for human society than freedom! But do you see these stones in this bare, scorching desert? Turn them into bread and mankind will run after you like sheep, grateful and obedient, though eternally trembling lest you withdraw your hand and our loaves cease for them. But you did not want to deprive man of freedom and rejected the offer, for what sort of freedom is it, you reasoned, if obedience is bought by loaves of bread? You objected that man does not live by bread alone, but do you not know that in the name of this very earthly bread, the spirit of the earth will rise against you and fight with you and defeat you, and everyone will follow him exclaiming: “Who can compare to this beast, for he has given us fire from heaven!” Do you know that centuries will pass and mankind will proclaim with the mouth of its wisdom and science that there is no crime, and therefore no sin, but only hungry men? “Feed them first, then ask virtue of them!”—that is what they will write on the banner they raise against you, and by which your temple will be destroyed. (Dostoevsky “The Grand Inquisitor,” can be found in the novel “The Brothers Karamazov”.
