Complications Of Crime And Punishment In A Theocracy

"If everything became the Church, then the Church would excommunicate the criminal and the disobedient and not cut off their heads," Ivan Fyodorovich continued. "Where, I ask you, would the excommunicated man go? He would then have to go away not only from men, as now, but also from Christ. For by his crime he would have rebelled not only against men but also against Christ's Church. That is so now, of course, strictly speaking, but it is not avowed, and the criminal of today all too often bargains with his conscience: 'I stole,' he says, 'but I have not gone against the Church, I am not an enemy of Christ.' Time and again that is what the criminal of today says to himself. Well, but when the Church takes the place of the state, it will be very difficult for him to say that, unless he means to reject the Church all over the earth, to say, 'All are mistaken, all are in error, all are a false Church, and I alone, a murderer and thief, am the true Christian Church.' It is very difficult to say this to oneself; it requires formidable conditions, circumstances that do not often occur. Now, on the other hand, take the Church's own view of crime: should it not change from the present, almost pagan view, and from the mechanical cutting off of the infected member, as is done now for the preservation of society, and transform, fully now and not falsely, into the idea of the regeneration of man anew, of his restoration and salvation...?"
"...But you know, in reality it is so even now," the elder suddenly spoke and everyone turned to him at once. "If it were not for Christ's Church, indeed there would be no restraint on the criminal in his evildoing, and no punishment for it later, real punishment, that is, not a mechanical one such as has just been mentioned, which only chafes the heart in most cases, but a real punishment, the only real, the only frightening and appeasing punishment, which lies in the acknowledgement of one's own conscience... The judgement of the Church is the only judgement that contains the truth, and for that reason it cannot, essentially and morally, be combined with any other judgement, even in a temporary compromise. Here it is not possible to strike any bargains."