This text is a section from the novel The Brothers Karamazov. I recommend reading the whole book.
Dostoevsky, Fyodor. The Brothers Karamazov. United States: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2002.
Ivan is the intellectual brother and he starts to tell a story about Jesus returning to earth during the Spanish Inquisition.
He draws out a difference between the spirit of Christ and the goals of the Church as an Institution.
The text leads to a meditation on whether or not freedom and happiness are really compatible ideals.
This later comes to the fore when freedom is associated with dread, not happiness by the existentialists to follow.
See also Frederick Schiller’s play Don Carlos.Schiller, Friedrich. Don Carlos: Enriched Edition. A Play. Czechia: Good Press, 2019.
