Page:Ivan the Terrible - Kazimierz Waliszewski - tr. Mary Loyd (1904).djvu/393

 Rh about to deal others mightier still. His conscience is a heavy one indeed. But the repentance of which he makes such a show is as sincere as his claim to be a member of the Biélooziéro community, and thus to a right to interfere in its inner workings, is serious. Some years ago, when paying a visit to the monastery, he remembers having expressed a desire to enter the Order at some future date, and now, turning that intention into accomplished fact, for his own convenience, he arrives, taking this ingenious by-way, at the object of his endeavour, in other words, to lash his contradictors with the spiritual rods which, for the moment, are the chosen weapons of his fancy. And after this fashion he addresses them, sprinkling his discourse, as usual, with quotations and examples culled from the Fathers of the Church and from Scripture history, from Roman annals and Byzantine chronicles.

'Under your roof you have Haman and Caiaphas—Chérémétiév and Khabarov. You have Pilate—Varlaam Sobakine—and you have the Christ, nailed once more upon His Cross. … It is no longer Chérémétiév, it is no longer Khabarov, who have taken the monkish habit in your house—it is you who are their guests. They are a law to you. Go on! To-day some boïar will introduce one piece of license into your midst. To-morrow another will make you accept some fresh concession to your common weaknesses, and thus. little by little, the whole rule of the monastery will be broken down, and your way of life will become exactly the same as that of the rest of the world. … You began by giving Jehosaphat (Kolytchev) a pewter service, and allowing him to be served in his own cell. … Now Chérémétiév has his own table and his own kitchen. And the consequences are beginning to be manifest: all the monks live just as they please. … Tumult, disorder, noise, rebellion, frivolity! … Wherefore? For whom? For that rogue, that dog whose name is Sobakine' (a play on the word sobaka, dog), 'or for that son of the devil whose name is Chérémétiév, or for that idiot whose name is Khabarov! …'

This epistle has been published in the 'Historical Documents' (i., No. 204). Karamzine ('History of Russia,' ix., p. 37; note) believes it was written about 1578. But A. Barssoukov seems to me nearer the truth when he gives the date as having been somewhere between the spring of 1574 and that of 1575 ('The Chérémétiév Family,' i. 324). I must add that all Ivan did was to take and rearrange, to suit his own purpose, texts borrowed from old works on religious controversial subjects, current diatribes against the dissolute habits of the religious communities, with which the monks of Biéloo-