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The Kingdom of God is Within You / Christianity and Patriotism / Miscellanies

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Title: The Kingdom of God is Within You / Christianity and Patriotism / Miscellanies

Author: graf Leo Tolstoy

Translator: Leo Wiener


        
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Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS WITHIN YOU / CHRISTIANITY AND PATRIOTISM / MISCELLANIES ***

  THE COMPLETE WORKS OF
  COUNT TOLSTÓY
  VOLUME XX.

  [Illustration: The Yellow Peril

  _Photogravure after Original Design by Emperor William II._]




  THE KINGDOM OF GOD
  IS WITHIN YOU
  CHRISTIANITY AND PATRIOTISM
  MISCELLANIES

  By COUNT LEV N. TOLSTÓY

  Translated from the Original Russian and Edited by
  LEO WIENER
  Assistant Professor of Slavic Languages at Harvard University

  [Illustration: Tolstoy]

  BOSTON--DANA ESTES &
  COMPANY--PUBLISHERS




  EDITION DE LUXE

  Limited to One Thousand Copies,
  of which this is
  No. ____

  _Copyright, 1905_
  BY DANA ESTES & COMPANY

  _Entered at Stationers' Hall_

  Colonial Press: Electrotyped and Printed by
  C. H. Simonds & Co., Boston, Mass., U. S. A.




CONTENTS


                                           PAGE

  THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS WITHIN YOU            1

  CHRISTIANITY AND PATRIOTISM               381

  REASON AND RELIGION                       459

  PATRIOTISM OR PEACE                       467

  LETTER TO ERNEST HOWARD CROSBY            481


  INTRODUCTIONS TO BOOKS

  A. STOCKHAM'S TOKOLOGY                    499

  AMIEL'S DIARY                             501

  S. T. SEMÉNOV'S PEASANT STORIES           506

  WORKS OF GUY DE MAUPASSANT                509




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS


                                                PAGE

  THE YELLOW PERIL (_p. 477_)         _Frontispiece_

  WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON                           6

  RUSSIAN PEASANTS AT MASS                        75

  CHURCH OF VASÍLI THE BLESSED, MOSCOW            85

  MALÉVANNIANS                                   395

  ALEXANDER III.                                 449




  THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS
  WITHIN YOU

  Or, Christianity Not as a Mystical Teaching but
  as a New Concept of Life

  1893




  THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS
  WITHIN YOU

  Or, Christianity Not as a Mystical Teaching but
  as a New Concept of Life

     And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free
     (John viii. 23).

     And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill
     the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul
     and body in hell (Matt. x. 28).

     Ye are bought with a price; be not ye the servants of men (1.
     Cor. vii. 23).


In the year 1884 I wrote a book under the title, _My Religion_. In
this book I really expounded what my religion is.

In expounding my belief in Christ's teaching, I could not help but
express the reason why I do not believe in the ecclesiastic faith,
which is generally called Christianity, and why I consider it to be
a delusion.

Among the many deviations of this teaching of Christ, I pointed
out the chief deviation, namely, the failure to acknowledge the
commandment of non-resistance to evil, which more obviously than
any other shows the distortion of Christ's teaching in the church
doctrine.

I knew very little, like the rest of us, as to what had been
done and preached and written in former days on this subject of
non-resistance to evil. I knew what had been said on this subject
by the fathers of the church, Origen, Tertullian, and others, and
I knew also that there have existed certain so-called sects of the
Mennonites, Herrnhuters, Quakers, who do not admit for a Christian
the use of weapons and who do not enter military service, but what
had been done by these so-called sects for the solution of this
question was quite unknown to me.

My book, as I expected, was held back by the Russian censor, but,
partly in consequence of my reputation as a writer, partly because
it interested people, this book was disseminated in manuscripts and
lithographic reprints in Russia and in translations abroad, and
called forth, on the one hand, on the part of men who shared my
views, a series of references to works written on the subject, and,
on the other, a series of criticisms on the thoughts expressed in
that book itself.

Both, together with the historical phenomena of recent times, have
made many things clear to me and have brought me to new deductions
and conclusions, which I wish to express.

First I shall tell of the information which I received concerning
the history of the question of non-resistance to evil, then of
the opinions on this subject which were expressed by ecclesiastic
critics, that is, such as profess the Christian religion, and also
by laymen, that is, such as do not profess the Christian religion;
and finally, those deductions to which I was brought by both and by
the historical events of recent times.


I.

Among the first answers to my book there came some letters from the
American Quakers. In these letters, which express their sympathy
with my views concerning the unlawfulness for Christianity of all
violence and war, the Quakers informed me of the details of their
so-called sect, which for more than two hundred years has in fact
professed Christ's teaching about non-resistance to evil, and which
has used no arms in order to defend itself. With their letters,
the Quakers sent me their pamphlets, periodicals, and books. From
these periodicals, pamphlets, and books which they sent me I
learned to what extent they had many years ago incontestably proved
the obligation for a Christian to fulfil the commandment about
non-resistance to evil and had laid bare the incorrectness of the
church teaching, which admitted executions and wars.

Having proved, by a whole series of considerations and texts, that
war, that is, the maiming and killing of men, is incompatible with
a religion which is based on love of peace and good-will to men,
the Quakers affirm and prove that nothing has so much contributed
to the obscuration of Christ's truth in the eyes of the pagans
and impeded the dissemination of Christianity in the world as the
non-acknowledgment of this commandment by men who called themselves
Christians,--as the permission granted to a Christian to wage war
and use violence.

"Christ's teaching, which entered into the consciousness of men,
not by means of the sword and of violence," they say, "but by means
of non-resistance to evil, can be disseminated in the world only
through humility, meekness, peace, concord, and love among its
followers.

"A Christian, according to the teaching of God Himself, can be
guided in his relations to men by peace only, and so there cannot
be such an authority as would compel a Christian to act contrary to
God's teaching and contrary to the chief property of a Christian in
relation to those who are near to him.

"The rule of state necessity," they say, "may compel those to become
untrue to God's law, who for the sake of worldly advantages try
to harmonize what cannot be harmonized, but for a Christian, who
sincerely believes in this, that the adherence to Christ's teaching
gives him salvation, this rule can have no meaning."

My acquaintance with the activity of the Quakers and with their
writings,--with Fox, Paine, and especially with Dymond's book
(1827),--showed me that not only had the impossibility of uniting
Christianity with violence and war been recognized long ago, but
that this incompatibility had long ago been proved so clearly and
so incontestably that one has only to marvel how this impossible
connection of the Christian teaching with violence, which has been
preached all this time by the churches, could have been continued.

Besides the information received by me from the Quakers, I, at about
the same time, received, again from America, information in regard
to the same subject from an entirely different source, which had
been quite unknown to me before.

The son of William Lloyd Garrison, the famous champion for the
liberation of the negroes, wrote to me that, when he read my book,
in which he found ideas resembling those expressed by his father in
1838, he, assuming that it might be interesting for me to know this,
sent me the "Declaration of Non-resistance," which his father had
made about fifty years ago.

[Illustration: William Lloyd Garrison

_Photogravure from Photograph_]

This declaration had its origin under the following conditions:
William Lloyd Garrison, in speaking before a society for the
establishment of peace among men, which existed in America in 1838,
about the measures for abolishing war, came to the conclusion that
the establishment of universal peace could be based only on the
obvious recognition of the commandment of non-resistance to evil
(Matt. v. 39) in all its significance, as this was understood by the
Quakers, with whom Garrison stood in friendly relations. When he
came to this conclusion, he formulated and proposed to the society
the following declaration, which was then, in 1838, signed by many
members.


DECLARATION OF SENTIMENTS ADOPTED BY THE PEACE CONVENTION, HELD IN
BOSTON IN 1838

"We, the undersigned, regard it as due to ourselves, to the cause
which we love, to the country in which we live, and to the world, to
publish a Declaration, expressive of the principles we cherish, the
purposes we aim to accomplish, and the measures we shall adopt to
carry forward the work of peaceful and universal reformation.

"We cannot acknowledge allegiance to any human government....
We recognize but one King and Lawgiver, one Judge and Ruler of
mankind....

"Our country is the world, our countrymen are all mankind. We love
the land of our nativity, only as we love all other lands. The
interests, rights, and liberties of American citizens are no more
dear to us than are those of the whole human race. Hence we can
allow no appeal to patriotism, to revenge any national insult or
injury....

"We conceive, that if a nation has no right to defend itself against
foreign enemies, or to punish its invaders, no individual possesses
that right in his own case. The unit cannot be of greater importance
than the aggregate.... But if a rapacious and bloodthirsty soldiery,
thronging these shores from abroad, with intent to commit rapine
and destroy life, may not be resisted by the people or magistracy,
then ought no resistance to be offered to domestic troublers of the
public peace, or of private security....

"The dogma, that all the governments of the world are approvingly
ordained of God, and that the powers that be in the United States,
in Russia, in Turkey, are in accordance with His will, is not less
absurd than impious. It makes the impartial Author of human freedom
and equality unequal and tyrannical. It cannot be affirmed that the
powers that be, in any nation, are actuated by the spirit, or guided
by the example of Christ, in the treatment of enemies: therefore,
they cannot be agreeable to the will of God: and, therefore, their
overthrow, by a spiritual regeneration of their subjects, is
inevitable.

"We register our testimony, not only against all wars, whether
offensive or defensive, but all preparations for war; against every
naval ship, every arsenal, every fortification; against the militia
system and a standing army; against all military chieftains and
soldiers; against all monuments commemorative of victory over a
foreign foe, all trophies won in battle, all celebrations in honour
of military or naval exploits: against all appropriations for the
defence of a nation by force and arms on the part of any legislative
body; against every edict of government, requiring of its subjects
military service. Hence, we deem it unlawful to bear arms, or to
hold a military office.

"As every human government is upheld by physical strength, and its
laws are enforced virtually at the point of the bayonet, we cannot
hold any office which imposes upon its incumbent the obligation to
do right, on pain of imprisonment or death. We therefore voluntarily
exclude ourselves from every legislative and judicial body, and
repudiate all human politics, worldly honours, and stations of
authority. If we cannot occupy a seat in the legislature, or on the
bench, neither can we elect others to act as our substitutes in any
such capacity.

"It follows that we cannot sue any man at law, to compel him by
force to restore anything which he may have wrongfully taken from us
or others; but, if he has seized our coat, we shall surrender up our
cloak, rather than subject him to punishment.

"We believe that the penal code of the old covenant, An eye for an
eye, and a tooth for a tooth, has been abrogated by Jesus Christ;
and that, under the new covenant, the forgiveness, instead of the
punishment of enemies, has been enjoined upon all His disciples, in
all cases whatsoever. To extort money from enemies, or set them upon
a pillory, or cast them into prison, or hang them upon a gallows, is
obviously not to forgive, but to take retribution....

"The history of mankind is crowded with evidences, proving that
physical coercion is not adapted to moral regeneration; that the
sinful disposition of man can be subdued only by love; that evil
can be exterminated from the earth only by goodness; that it is not
safe to rely upon an arm of flesh ... to preserve us from harm; that
there is great security in being gentle, harmless, long-suffering,
and abundant in mercy; that it is only the meek who shall inherit
the earth, for the violent, who resort to the sword, shall perish
with the sword. Hence, as a measure of sound policy, of safety
to property, life, and liberty, of public quietude, and private
enjoyment, as well as on the ground of allegiance to Him who is King
of kings, and Lord of lords, we cordially adopt the non-resistance
principle; being confident that it provides for all possible
consequences, will ensure all things needful to us, is armed with
omnipotent power, and must ultimately triumph over every assailing
foe.

"We advocate no jacobinical doctrines. The spirit of jacobinism
is the spirit of retaliation, violence, and murder. It neither
fears God, nor regards man. We would be filled with the spirit of
Christ. If we abide by our principles, it is impossible for us to
be disorderly, or plot treason, or participate in any evil work: we
shall submit to every ordinance of man, for the Lord's sake; obey
all the requirements of government, except such as we deem contrary
to the commands of the gospel; and in no wise resist the operation
of law, except by meekly submitting to the penalty of disobedience.

"But, while we shall adhere to the doctrines of non-resistance and
passive submission to enemies, we purpose, in a moral and spiritual
sense, to speak and act boldly in the cause of God; to assail
iniquity in high places and in low places; to apply our principles
to all existing civil, political, legal, and ecclesiastical
institutions; and to hasten the time when the kingdoms of this world
shall become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall
reign for ever.

"It appears to us as a self-evident truth, that, whatever the gospel
is designed to destroy, any period of the world, being contrary to
it, ought now to be abandoned. If, then, the time is predicted,
when swords shall be beaten into ploughshares, and spears into
pruning-hooks, and men shall not learn the art of war any more,
it follows that all who manufacture, sell, or wield these deadly
weapons do thus array themselves against the peaceful dominion of
the Son of God on earth.

"Having thus briefly, but frankly, stated our principles and
purposes, we proceed to specify the measures we propose to adopt, in
carrying our object into effect.

"We expect to prevail through the foolishness of preaching--striving
to commend ourselves unto every man's conscience, in the sight of
God. From the press, we shall promulgate our sentiments as widely
as practicable. We shall endeavour to secure the coöperation of
all persons, of whatever name or sect.... Hence we shall employ
lectures, circulate tracts and publications, form societies, and
petition our State and national governments in relation to the
subject of universal peace. It will be our leading object to
devise ways and means for effecting a radical change in the views,
feelings, and practices of society respecting the sinfulness of war,
and the treatment of enemies.

"In entering upon the great work before us, we are not unmindful
that, in its prosecution, we may be called to test our sincerity,
even as in a fiery ordeal. It may subject us to insult, outrage,
suffering, yea, even death itself. We anticipate no small amount of
misconception, misrepresentation, calumny. Tumults may arise against
us. The ungodly and the violent, the proud and pharisaical, the
ambitious and tyrannical, principalities and powers, and spiritual
wickedness in high places, may combine to crush us. So they treated
the Messiah, whose example we are humbly striving to imitate....
We shall not be afraid of their terror, neither be troubled. Our
confidence is in the Lord Almighty, not in man. Having withdrawn
from human protection, what can sustain us but that faith which
overcomes the world? We shall not think it strange concerning the
fiery ordeal which is to try us, as though some strange thing had
happened unto us; but rejoice, inasmuch as we are partakers of
Christ's sufferings. Wherefore, we commit the keeping of our souls
to God, in well-doing, as unto a faithful Creator. 'For every one
that forsakes houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother,
or wife, or children, or lands, for Christ's sake, shall receive an
hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life.'

"Firmly relying upon the certain and universal triumph of the
sentiments contained in this Declaration, however formidable may
be the opposition arrayed against them, in solemn testimony of our
faith in their divine origin, we hereby affix our signatures to
it; commending it to the reason and conscience of mankind, giving
ourselves no anxiety as to what may befall us, and resolving, in the
strength of the Lord God, calmly and meekly to abide the issue."

       *       *       *       *       *

Immediately after this declaration Garrison founded a society of
non-resistance, and a periodical, called _The Non-Resistant_,
in which was preached the doctrine of non-resistance in all its
significance and with all its consequences, as it had been expressed
in the "Declaration." The information as to the later fate of the
society and the periodical of non-resistance I received from the
beautiful biography of William Lloyd Garrison, written by his sons.

The society and the periodical did not exist long: the majority of
Garrison's collaborators in matters of freeing the slaves, fearing
lest the too radical demands, as expressed in _The Non-Resistant_,
might repel people from the practical work of the liberation of the
negroes, refused to profess the principle of non-resistance, as it
had been expressed in the "Declaration," and the society and the
periodical ceased to exist.

This "Declaration" by Garrison, which so powerfully and so
beautifully expressed such an important profession of faith, ought,
it seems, to have startled men and to have become universally known
and a subject of wide discussion. But nothing of the kind happened.
It is not only unknown in Europe, but even among the Americans,
who so highly esteem Garrison's memory, this declaration is almost
unknown.

The same ingloriousness has fallen to the share of another champion
of non-resistance to evil, the American Adin Ballou, who lately
died, and who preached this doctrine for fifty years. How little is
known of what refers to the question of non-resistance may be seen
from the fact that Garrison's son, who has written an excellent
biography of his father in four volumes, this son of Garrison, in
reply to my question whether the society of non-resistance was
still in existence, and whether there were any followers of it,
answered me that so far as he knew the society had fallen to pieces,
and there existed no followers of this doctrine, whereas at the time
of his writing, there lived in Hopedale, Massachusetts, Adin Ballou,
who had taken part in Garrison's labours and had devoted fifty years
of his life to the oral and printed propaganda of the doctrine of
non-resistance. Later on I received a letter from Wilson, a disciple
and assistant of Ballou, and entered into direct communication with
Ballou himself. I wrote to Ballou, and he answered me and sent me
his writings. Here are a few extracts from them:

"Jesus Christ is my Lord and Master," says Ballou in one of
the articles,[1] in which he arraigns the inconsistency of the
Christians who recognize the right of defence and war. "I have
covenanted to forsake all and follow Him, through good and evil
report, until death. But I am nevertheless a Democratic-Republican
citizen of the United States, implicitly sworn to bear true
allegiance to my country, and to support its Constitution, if need
be, with my life. Jesus Christ requires me to do unto others as I
would that others should do unto me. The Constitution of the United
States requires me to do unto twenty-seven hundred slaves" (there
were slaves then, now we may put the working people in their place)
"the very contrary of what I would have them do unto me, viz.,
assist to keep them in a grievous bondage.... But I am quite easy.
I vote on. I help govern on. I am willing to hold any office I may
be elected to under the Constitution. And I am still a Christian.
I profess on. I find no difficulty in keeping covenant both with
Christ and the Constitution....

  [1] In _The Non-Resistant_, Vol. i., No. 4, Hopedale, Milford,
  Mass., Feb. 15, 1845.

"Jesus Christ forbids me to resist evil-doers by taking 'eye for
eye, tooth for tooth, blood for blood, and life for life.' My
government requires the very reverse, and depends, for its own
self-preservation, on the halter, the musket, and the sword,
seasonably employed against its domestic and foreign enemies.
Accordingly, the land is well furnished with gibbets, prisons,
arsenals, train-bands, soldiers, and ships-of-war. In the
maintenance and use of this expensive life-destroying apparatus,
we can exemplify the virtues of forgiving our injurers, loving our
enemies, blessing them that curse us, and doing good to those that
hate us. For this reason, we have regular Christian chaplains to
pray for us, and call down the sins of God on our holy murderers....

"I see it all; and yet I insist that I am as good a Christian as
ever. I fellowship all; I vote on; I help govern on; I profess on;
and I glory in being at once a devoted Christian, and a no less
devoted adherent to the existing government. I will not give in
to those miserable non-resistant notions. I will not throw away
my political influence, and leave unprincipled men to carry on
government alone....

"The Constitution says, 'Congress shall have power to declare
war.'... I agree to this. I endorse it. I swear to help carry
it through.... What then, am I less a Christian? Is not war a
Christian service? Is it not perfectly Christian to murder hundreds
of thousands of fellow human beings; to ravish defenceless females,
sack and burn cities, and exact all the other cruelties of war? Out
upon these new-fangled scruples! This is the very way to forgive
injuries, and love our enemies! If we only do it all in true love,
nothing can be more Christian than wholesale murder!"

In another pamphlet, under the title, _How Many Does It Take?_[2]
he says, "How many does it take to metamorphose wickedness into
righteousness? One man must not kill. If he does, it is murder.
Two, ten, one hundred men, acting on their own responsibility, must
not kill. If they do, it is still murder. But a state or nation
may kill as many as they please, and it is no murder. It is just,
necessary, commendable, and right. Only get people enough to agree
to it, and the butchery of myriads of human beings is perfectly
innocent. But how many men does it take? This is the question. Just
so with theft, robbery, burglary, and all other crimes.... But a
whole nation can commit it.... But how many does it take?"[3]

  [2] Not a pamphlet, but an article in _The Non-Resistant_, Vol. i.
  No. 4, and very imperfectly quoted by Tolstóy.

  [3] To this Tolstóy adds, on his own responsibility: "Why must one,
  ten, one hundred men not violate God's law, while very many may?"

Here is Ballou's catechism, composed for his flock (_The Catechism
of Non-Resistance_[4]):

  [4] Translated freely, with some omissions.--_Author's Note._ I fail
  to find this _Catechism_ in any of Ballou's writings accessible
  in and about Boston. The nearest approach to these questions and
  answers is found scattered throughout his _Christian Non-Resistance,
  in Its Important Bearings, Illustrated and Defended_, Philadelphia,
  1846.

_Q._ Whence originated the term "non-resistance?"

_A._ From the injunction, "Resist not evil," Matt. v. 39.

_Q._ What does the term signify?

_A._ It expresses a high Christian virtue, prescribed by Christ.

_Q._ Is the word "resistance" to be taken in its widest meaning,
that is, as showing that no resistance whatever is to be shown to
evil?

_A._ No, it is to be taken in the strict sense of the Saviour's
injunction; that is, we are not to retaliate evil with evil. Evil is
to be resisted by all just means, but never with evil.

_Q._ From what can we see that Christ in such cases prescribed
non-resistance?

_A._ From the words which He then used. He said, "Ye have heard
that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.
But I say unto you that ye resist not evil; but whosoever shall
smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if
any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him
have thy cloak also."

_Q._ To whom does Jesus refer in the words, "It has been said?"

_A._ To the patriarchs and prophets, to what they said,--to what
is contained in the writings of the Old Testament, which the Jews
generally call the Law and the Prophets.

_Q._ What injunctions did Christ mean by "It hath been said?"

_A._ Those injunctions by which Noah, Moses, and other prophets
authorize men to inflict personal injury on injurers, in order to
punish and destroy evil.

_Q._ Quote these precepts.

_A._ Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for
in the image of God made He man (Gen. ix. 6). He that smiteth a man,
so that he die, shall be surely put to death, and if any mischief
follow, then thou shalt give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for
tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burning for burning, wound for
wound, stripe for stripe (Ex. xxi. 12, 23-25).

And he that killeth any man shall surely be put to death. And if a
man cause a blemish in his neighbour; as he hath done, so shall it
be done to him: breach for breach, eye for eye, tooth for tooth: as
he hath caused a blemish in a man, so shall it be done to him again
(Lev. xxiv. 17, 19, 20).

And the judges shall make diligent inquisition: and, behold, if the
witness be a false witness, and hath testified falsely against his
brother; then shall ye do unto him, as he had thought to have done
unto his brother: and thine eye shall not pity; but life shall go
for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for
foot (Deut. xix. 18, 19, 21). These are the precepts of which Jesus
is speaking.

Noah, Moses, and the prophets taught that he who kills, maims, and
tortures his neighbours does evil. To resist such evil and destroy
it, the doer of evil is to be punished by death or maiming or some
personal injury. Insult is to be opposed to insult, murder to
murder, torture to torture, evil to evil. Thus taught Noah, Moses,
and the prophets. But Christ denies it all. "But I say unto you," it
says in the Gospel, "that ye resist not evil, resist not an insult
with an insult, but rather bear the repeated insult from the doer
of evil." What was authorized is prohibited. If we understand what
kind of resistance they taught, we clearly see what we are taught by
Christ's non-resistance.

_Q._ Did the ancients authorize the resistance of insult with insult?

_A._ Yes; but Jesus prohibited this. A Christian has under no
condition the right to deprive of life or to subject to insult him
who does evil to his neighbour.

_Q._ May a man kill or maim another in self-defence?

_A._ No.

_Q._ May he enter a court with a complaint, to have his insulter
punished?

_A._ No; for what he is doing through others, he is in reality doing
in his own person.

_Q._ May he fight with an army against enemies, or against domestic
rebels?

_A._ Of course not. He cannot take any part in war or warlike
preparations. He cannot use death-dealing arms. He cannot resist
injury with injury, no matter whether he be alone or with others,
through himself or through others.

_Q._ May he choose or fit out military men for the government?

_A._ He can do nothing of the kind, if he wishes to be true to
Christ's law.

_Q._ May he voluntarily give money, to aid the government, which is
supported by military forces, capital punishment, and violence in
general?

_A._ No, if the money is not intended for some special object, just
in itself, where the aim and means are good.

_Q._ May he pay taxes to such a government?

_A._ No; he must not voluntarily pay the taxes, but he must also
not resist their collection. The taxes imposed by the government
are collected independently of the will of the subjects. It is
impossible to resist the collection, without having recourse to
violence; but a Christian must not use violence, and so he must give
up his property to the violence which is exerted by the powers.

_Q._ May a Christian vote at elections and take part in a court or
in the government?

_A._ No; the participation in elections, in the court, or in the
government, is a participation in governmental violence.

_Q._ In what does the chief significance of the doctrine of
non-resistance consist?

_A._ In that it alone makes it possible to tear the evil out by the
root, both out of one's own heart and out of the neighbour's heart.
This doctrine forbids doing that by which evil is perpetuated and
multiplied. He who attacks another and insults him, engenders in
another the sentiment of hatred, the root of all evil. To offend
another, because he offended us, for the specious reason of removing
an evil, means to repeat an evil deed, both against him and against
ourselves,--to beget, or at least to free, to encourage, the very
demon whom we claim we wish to expel. Satan cannot be driven out by
Satan, untruth cannot be cleansed by untruth, and evil cannot be
vanquished by evil.

True non-resistance is the one true resistance to evil. It kills and
finally destroys the evil sentiment.

_Q._ But, if the idea of the doctrine is right, is it practicable?

_A._ It is as practicable as any good prescribed by the Law of
God. The good cannot under all circumstances be executed without
self-renunciation, privation, suffering, and, in extreme cases,
without the loss of life itself. But he who values life more than
the fulfilment of God's will is already dead to the one true life.
Such a man, in trying to save his life, shall lose it. Besides,
in general, where non-resistance costs the sacrifice of one life,
or the sacrifice of some essential good of life, resistance costs
thousands of such sacrifices.

Non-resistance preserves, resistance destroys.

It is incomparably safer to act justly than unjustly; to bear
an insult than to resist it with violence,--it is safer even in
relation to the present life. If all men did not resist evil with
evil, the world would be blessed.

_Q._ But if only a few shall act thus, what will become of them?

_A._ If only one man acted thus, and all the others agreed to
crucify him, would it not be more glorious for him to die in the
triumph of non-resisting love, praying for his enemies, than to live
wearing the crown of Cæsar, bespattered with the blood of the slain?
But one or thousands who have firmly determined not to resist evil
with evil, whether among the enlightened or among savage neighbours,
are much safer from violence than those who rely on violence. A
robber, murderer, deceiver, will more quickly leave them alone than
those who resist with weapons. They who take the sword perish with
the sword, and those who seek peace, who act in a friendly manner,
inoffensively, who forget and forgive offences, for the most part
enjoy peace or, if they die, die blessed.

Thus, if all kept the commandment of non-resistance, it is evident
that there would be no offences, no evil deeds. If these formed a
majority, they would establish the reign of love and good-will, even
toward the ill-disposed, by never resisting evil with evil, never
using violence. If there were a considerable minority of these, they
would have such a corrective, moral effect upon society that every
cruel punishment would be abolished, and violence and enmity would
be changed to peace and love. If there were but a small minority of
them, they would rarely experience anything worse than the contempt
of the world, and the world would in the meantime, without noticing
it, and without feeling itself under obligation, become wiser and
better from this secret influence. And if, in the very worst case,
a few members of the minority should be persecuted to death, these
men, dying for the truth, would leave behind them their teaching,
which is already sanctified by their martyr's death.

Peace be with all who seek peace, and all-conquering love be the
imperishable inheritance of every soul, which voluntarily submits to
the Law of Christ: "Resist not evil." In the course of fifty years,
Ballou wrote and edited books dealing mainly with the question
of non-resistance to evil. In these works, which are beautiful
in their lucidity of thought and elegance of expression, the
question is discussed from every possible side. He establishes the
obligatoriness of this commandment for every Christian who professes
the Bible as a divine revelation. He adduces all the customary
retorts to the commandment of non-resistance, both from the Old
Testament and from the New, as, for example, the expulsion from
the temple, and so forth, and all these are overthrown; he shows,
independently of Scripture, the practical wisdom of this rule, and
adduces all the objections which are usually made to it, and meets
all these objections. Thus one chapter of a work of his treats of
non-resistance to evil in exclusive cases, and here he acknowledges
that, if there were cases when the application of non-resistance to
evil were impossible, this would prove that the rule is altogether
untenable. In adducing these special cases, he proves that it is
precisely in them that the application of this rule is necessary and
rational. There is not a single side of the question, either for his
followers or for his adversaries, which is not investigated in these
works. I say all this, in order to show the unquestionable interest
which such works ought to have for men who profess Christianity, and
that, therefore, one would think Ballou's activity ought to have
been known, and the thoughts expressed by him ought to have been
accepted or refuted; but there has been nothing of the kind.

The activity of Garrison the father, with his foundation of a
society of non-resistants and his declaration, convinced me even
more than my relations with the Quakers, that the departure of state
Christianity from Christ's law about non-resistance to evil is
something that has been observed and pointed out long ago, and that
men have without cessation worked to arraign it. Ballou's activity
still more confirmed this fact to me. But the fate of Garrison and
especially of Ballou, who is not known to any one, in spite of
his fifty years of stubborn and constant work in one and the same
direction, has also confirmed to me the other fact, that there
exists some kind of unexpressed but firm understanding as to passing
all such attempts in silence.

Ballou died in August, 1890, and his obituary was given
in an American periodical with a Christian tendency
(_Religio-Philosophical Journal_, August 23d).

In this eulogistic obituary it says that Ballou was a spiritual
guide of a community, that he delivered between eight and nine
thousand sermons, married one thousand pairs, and wrote about five
hundred articles, but not a word is said about the aim to which he
devoted all his life,--the word "non-resistance" is not even used.

Like all that which the Quakers have been preaching for two hundred
years, like the activity of Garrison the father, the foundation of
his society and periodical, and his declaration, so Ballou's whole
activity does not seem to have existed at all.

A striking example of such an ingloriousness of writings intended to
elucidate non-resistance to evil, and to arraign those who do not
recognize this commandment, is found in the fate of the book by the
Bohemian Chelcický, which has but lately become known and has so far
not yet been printed.

Soon after the publication of my book in German, I received a letter
from a professor of the Prague University, which informed me of the
existence of a still unpublished work by the Bohemian Chelcický, of
the fifteenth century, by the name of _The Drawnet of Faith_. In
this work, as the professor wrote me, Chelcický about four centuries
ago expressed the same view in regard to the true and the false
Christianity, which I had expressed in my work, _My Religion_. The
professor wrote to me that Chelcický's work was for the first time
to be published in Bohemian in the periodical of the St. Petersburg
Academy of Sciences. As I was unable to procure the work itself, I
tried to become acquainted with what was known of Chelcický, and
such information I got from a German book sent me by the same Prague
professor, and from Pýpin's "History of Bohemian Literature." This
is what Pýpin says:

"_The Drawnet of Faith_ is that teaching of Christ which is to draw
man out from the dark depths of the sea of life and its untruths.
True faith consists in believing in God's words; but now there has
come a time when men consider the true faith to be heresy, and so
reason must show wherein the true faith consists, if one does not
know it. Darkness has concealed it from men, and they do not know
Christ's true law.

"To explain this law, Chelcický points out the original structure of
Christian society, which, he says, is now regarded as rank heresy by
the Roman Church.

"This primitive church was his own ideal of a social structure,
based on equality, freedom, and brotherhood. Christianity, according
to Chelcický, still treasures these principles, and all that is
necessary is, that society should return to its pure teaching, and
then any other order, in which kings and popes are needed, would
seem superfluous: in everything the law of love alone is sufficient.

"Historically Chelcický refers the fall of Christianity to the
times of Constantine the Great, whom Pope Sylvester introduced into
Christianity with all the pagan customs and life. Constantine, in
his turn, invested the Pope with worldly wealth and power. Since
then both powers have been aiding one another and have striven after
external glory. Doctors and masters and the clergy have begun to
care only for the subjugation of the whole world to their dominion,
have armed men against one another for the purpose of murdering and
plundering, and have completely destroyed Christianity in faith
and in life. Chelcický absolutely denies the right to wage war and
administer capital punishment; every warrior and even 'knight' is
only an oppressor, malefactor, and murderer."

The same, except for some biographical details and excerpts from
Chelcický's correspondence, is said in the German book.

Having thus learned the essence of Chelcický's teaching, I with much
greater impatience waited for the appearance of _The Drawnet of
Faith_ in the journal of the Academy. But a year, two, three years
passed, and the book did not appear. Only in 1888 I learned that the
printing of the book, which had been begun, had come to a stop. I
got the proof-sheets of as much as had been printed, and I read the
book. The book is in every respect remarkable.

The contents are quite correctly rendered by Pýpin. Chelcický's
fundamental idea is this, that Christianity, having united with the
power in the time of Constantine and having continued to develop
under these conditions, has become absolutely corrupt and has ceased
to be Christianity. The title "The Drawnet of Faith," was given by
Chelcický to his work, because, taking for his motto the verse of
the Gospel about calling the disciples to become fishers of men,
Chelcický, continuing this comparison, says, "Christ by means of
His disciples caught in His drawnet of faith the whole world, but
the larger fish, tearing the net, jumped out of it, and through the
holes, which these larger fish had made, all the others went away,
and the net was left almost empty."

The large fish that broke through the net are the rulers, emperors,
popes, kings, who, in not renouncing their power, did not accept
Christianity, but its semblance only.

Chelcický taught what has been taught until the present by the
Mennonites and Quakers, and what in former years was taught by the
Bogomils, Paulicians, and many others. He teaches that Christianity,
which demands from its followers meekness, humility, kindness,
forgiveness of sins, the offering of the other cheek when one cheek
has been smitten, love of enemies, is incompatible with violence,
which forms an indispensable condition of power.

A Christian, according to Chelcický's interpretation, can not only
not be a chief or a soldier, but cannot even take part in the
government, be a merchant or even a landowner; he can be only an
artisan or an agriculturist.

This book is one of the extremely few that have survived the
auto-da-fés of books in which the official Christianity is
arraigned. All such books, which are called heretical, have been
burned together with the authors, so that there are very few ancient
works which arraign the departure of official Christianity, and so
this book is especially interesting.

But besides being interesting, no matter how we look upon it, this
book is one of the most remarkable productions of thoughts, as
judged by the depth of its contents, and the wonderful force and
beauty of the popular language, and its antiquity. And yet this book
has for more than four centuries remained unprinted, and continues
to be unknown, except to learned specialists.

One would think that all these kinds of works, by the Quakers, and
Garrison, and Ballou, and Chelcický, which assert and prove, on the
basis of the Gospel, that our world comprehends Christ's teaching
falsely, ought to rouse interest, agitation, discussions, in the
midst of the pastors and of the flock.

Works of this kind, which touch on the essence of the Christian
teaching, ought, it seems, to be analyzed and recognized as true, or
to be rejected and overthrown.

But nothing of the kind has happened. One and the same thing
is repeated with all these works. People of the most different
views, both those who believe and, what is most surprising, those
who are unbelieving liberals, seem to have an agreement to pass
them stubbornly in silence, and all that has been done by men to
elucidate the true meaning of Christ's teaching remains unknown or
forgotten.

But still more startling is the ingloriousness of two works, of
which I learned also in connection with the appearance of my book.
These are Dymond's book _On War_, published for the first time in
London, in 1824, and Daniel Musser's book _On Non-Resistance_,
written in 1864. The ignorance about these two books is particularly
remarkable, because, to say nothing of their worth, both books treat
not so much of the theory as of the practical application of the
theory to life, of the relation of Christianity to military service,
which is particularly important and interesting now, in connection
with the universal liability to do military service.

People will, perhaps, ask: "What are the duties of a subject, who
believes that war is incompatible with his religion, but of whom the
government demands a participation in military service?"

It seems that this is a very living question, one, the answer
to which is particularly important in connection with the
military service of the present time. All, or a vast majority of
men,--Christians,--all males, are called on to perform military
service. What must a man, as a Christian, answer in reply to this
demand? Dymond's answer is as follows:

"It is his duty, mildly and temperately, yet firmly, to refuse to
serve.

"There are some persons, who, without any determinate process of
reasoning, appear to conclude that responsibility for national
measures attaches solely to those who direct them; that it is the
business of governments to consider what is good for the community,
and that, in these cases, the duty of the subject is merged in the
will of the sovereign. Considerations like these are, I believe,
often voluntarily permitted to become opiates of the conscience. 'I
have no part,' it is said, 'in the councils of the government, and
am not therefore responsible for its crimes.' We are, indeed, not
responsible for the crimes of our rulers, but we are responsible for
our own; and the crimes of our rulers are our own, if, whilst we
believe them to be crimes, we promote them by our coöperation.

"But those who suppose that obedience in all things is required, or
that responsibility in political affairs is transferred from the
subject to the sovereign, reduce themselves to a great dilemma.

"It is to say that we must resign our conduct and our consciences to
the will of others, and act wickedly or well, as their good or evil
may preponderate, without merit for virtue, or responsibility for
crime."

What is remarkable is this, that precisely the same is expressed in
the instruction to the soldiers, which they are made to learn by
rote: it says there that only the general is responsible for the
consequences of his command. But this is not true. A man cannot
shift the responsibility for his acts. And this may be seen from
what follows:

"If the government direct you to fire your neighbour's property, or
to throw him over a precipice, will you obey?[5] If you will not,
there is an end of the argument, for if you may reject its authority
in one instance, where is the limit to rejection? There is no
rational limit but that which is assigned by Christianity, and that
is both rational and practicable.

  [5] Tolstóy's translation from the English, which is generally
  loose, here departs entirely from the text. Tolstóy writes: "If a
  chief direct you to kill your neighbour's child, or your father, or
  your mother, will you obey?"

"We think, then, that it is the business of every man, who believes
that war is inconsistent with our religion, respectfully, but
steadfastly, to refuse to engage in it. Let such as these remember
that an honourable and an awful duty is laid upon them. It is upon
their fidelity, so far as human agency is concerned, that the cause
of peace is suspended. Let them be willing to avow their opinions
and to defend them. Neither let them be contented with words, if
more than words, if suffering also, is required. If you believe
that Jesus Christ has prohibited slaughter, let not the opinion or
the commands of a world induce you to join in it. By this 'steady
and determinate pursuit of virtue,' the benediction which attaches
to those who hear the sayings of God and do them, will rest upon
you, and the time will come when even the world will honour you, as
contributors to the work of human reformation."

Musser's book is called _Non-Resistance Asserted; or, Kingdom of
Christ and Kingdom of This World Separated_, 1864.[6]

  [6] A thorough search through bibliographies, catalogues, and
  libraries has failed to reveal such a book or such an author, and as
  Tolstóy speaks above of the book as being written, it may be that
  Tolstóy had a manuscript before him.

The book is devoted to the same question, which it analyzes in
relation with the demand made by the government of the United States
on its citizens as regards military service during that Civil War,
and it has the same contemporary importance, in that it analyzes the
question as to how and under what conditions men must and can refuse
to do military service. In the introduction the author says:

"It is well known that in the United States there are many people
who consciously deny war. They are called 'non-resistant' or
'defenceless' Christians. These Christians refuse to defend their
country or to bear arms, or to engage, at the request of the
government, in war against its enemies. Until now this religious
cause has been respected by the government, and those who professed
it were excused from service. But with the beginning of our civil
war public opinion has been wrought up by this state of affairs.
Naturally, people who consider it their duty to bear all the burdens
and perils of a military life for the defence of their country feel
harsh toward those who for a long time have with them enjoyed the
protection and the advantages of the government, but in time of
necessity and danger do not wish to share in bearing the labours and
dangers in its defence. It is also natural for the condition of such
men to be considered irrational, monstrous, and suspicious.

"Many orators and writers," says the author, "have raised their
voice against this state and have tried to prove the injustice of
non-resistance from common sense and from Scripture; and this is
quite natural, and in many cases these authors are right,--they
are right in relation to those persons who, declining the labours
connected with military service, do not decline the advantages
which they receive from the governments,--but they are not right in
relation to the principle of non-resistance itself."

First of all the author proves the obligatoriness of the rule of
non-resistance for every Christian in that it is clear and that it
is given to a Christian beyond any possibility of misinterpretation.
"Judge yourselves whether it is right to obey man more than God,"
said Peter and John. Similarly every man who wants to be a Christian
must act in relation to the demand that he should go to war, since
Christ has told him, "Resist not evil with violence."

With this the author considers the question as to principle itself
completely solved. The author analyzes in detail the other question
as to whether persons, who do not decline the advantages which
are obtained through the violence of government, have a right to
refuse to do military service, and comes to the conclusion that a
Christian, who follows Christ's law and refuses to go to war, can
just as little take part in any governmental affairs,--either in
courts or in elections,--nor can he in private matters have recourse
to power, police or court. Then the book proceeds to analyze the
relation of the Old Testament to the New,--the significance of
government for non-Christians; there are offered objections to
the doctrine of non-resistance, and these are refuted. The author
concludes his book with the following:

"Christ chose His disciples in the world," he says. "They do not
expect any worldly goods or worldly happiness, but, on the contrary,
everlasting life. The spirit in which they live makes them satisfied
and happy in every situation. If the world tolerates them, they are
always satisfied. But if the world will not leave them in peace,
they will go elsewhere, since they are wanderers on the earth and
have no definite place of abode. They consider that the dead can
bury the dead,--they need but one thing, and that is to follow their
teacher."

Without touching the question whether the duty of a Christian in
relation to war, as established in these two books, is correct
or not, it is impossible not to see the practical importance and
urgency of the solution of this question.

There are some people,--hundreds of thousands of Quakers,--and
all our Spirit Wrestlers and Milkers, and people belonging to
no definite sects, who assert that violence--and so military
service--is not compatible with Christianity, and therefore every
year several recruits in Russia refuse to do military service on
the basis of their religious convictions. What does the government
do? Does it excuse them? No. Does it compel them to serve, and, in
case of a refusal, punish them? No. In 1818 the government acted as
follows. Here is an excerpt, which is almost unknown in Russia, from
a diary by N. N. Muravév-Kárski, which was not sanctioned by the
censor.


     "TIFLIS, October 2, 1818.

     "In the morning the commandant told me that lately five manorial
     peasants from the Government of Támbov had been sent to Georgia.
     These men had been sent to the army, but they refused to serve;
     they have been flogged several times and have been sent between
     the rows, but they gladly undergo the most cruel torments and
     are prepared for death, if only they can avoid serving. 'Send
     us away,' they say, 'and do not touch us; we shall not touch
     any one. All men are equal and the Tsar is just such a man as
     we are. Why should we pay him tribute? Why should I subject my
     life to danger in order to kill in war a man who has done me no
     wrong? You may cut us into small pieces, but we will not change
     our ideas, we will not put on the military cloak, and will
     not eat rations. He who will pity us will give us an alms, but
     we have nothing belonging to the Crown and we want nothing.'
     Such are the words of these peasants, who assert that there is
     a large number like them in Russia. They have four times been
     taken before the Committee of Ministers, and it was finally
     decided to refer the matter to the Tsar, who commanded that
     they be sent to Georgia to mend their ways, and ordered the
     commander-in-chief to report to him every month concerning the
     gradual success in turning these peasants to the proper ideas."

It is not known how this improvement ended, just as nothing is known
of the whole episode, which was kept a profound secret.

Thus the government acted seventy-five years ago,--thus it has acted
in the vast majority of cases, which are always cautiously concealed
from the people. Thus it acts even at present, except in relation to
the German Mennonites, who live in the Government of Khersón, for
their refusal to do military service is heeded and they are made to
serve their time in connection with forestry work.

In the late cases of refusal to do military service in consequence
of religious convictions, other than those of the Mennonites, the
authorities have acted as follows:

At first they use all means of violence employed in our time for
the purpose of "mending" them and bringing them back to "the proper
ideas," and the whole matter is kept a profound secret. I know that
in the case of one man in Moscow, who in 1884 refused to serve, they
wrote up voluminous documents two months after his refusal, and
these were kept in the ministry as the greatest secret.

They generally begin by sending the one who refuses to the priests,
who, to their shame be it said, always admonish the person refusing.
But since the admonition, in the name of Christ, to renounce Christ
is generally fruitless, the refusing person is after the admonition
by the clergy sent to the gendarmes. The gendarmes, finding nothing
of a political nature in the case, generally return him, and then
the refusing person is sent to the learned, to the physicians, and
into the insane asylum. In all these recommitments the refuser, who
is deprived of his liberty, undergoes all kinds of humiliations and
sufferings, like a condemned criminal. (This was repeated in four
cases.) The physicians dismiss the refuser from the insane asylum,
and then begin all kinds of secret, cunning measures, in order not
to dismiss the refuser and thus encourage others to refuse like him,
and at the same time not to leave him amidst the soldiers, lest the
soldiers might find out from him that the levy for military service
does not at all take place in accordance with God's law, as they are
assured, but contrary to it.

The most convenient thing for the government to do would be to
have the refuser executed, beaten to death with sticks, as they
used to do of old, or executed in some other manner. But it is
impossible openly to execute a man for being true to a teaching
which we all profess, and it is equally impossible to let a man
alone, who refuses to serve. And so the government tries either
through suffering to compel the man to renounce Christ, or in some
way imperceptibly to get rid of the man, without having him publicly
executed,--in some way to conceal this man's act and the man himself
from other people. And so there begin all kinds of devices and
cunning and tortures of this man. Either he is sent to some outlying
region, or he is provoked to commit some act of insubordination,
and then he is tried for breach of discipline and is locked up in
prison, in a disciplinary battalion, where he is freely tortured
in secret, or he is declared insane and is locked up in an insane
asylum. Thus one man was sent to Tashként, that is, as though he
were transferred to the Tashként army, another to Omsk, a third was
tried for insubordination and sent to prison, and a fourth was put
into a lunatic asylum.

Everywhere the same is repeated. Not only the government, but also
the majority of liberals, of freethinkers, as though by agreement,
carefully turn away from everything which has been said, written,
and done by men to show the incompatibility of violence in its most
terrible, rude, and lurid form, in the form of militarism, that
is, the readiness to kill anybody, with the teaching, not only of
Christianity, but even of humanitarianism, which society pretends to
be professing.

Thus the information which I received concerning the extent to which
the true significance of Christ's teaching has been elucidated and
is being elucidated more and more, and concerning the attitude which
the highest ruling classes, not only in Russia, but also in Europe
and in America, take toward this elucidation and execution of the
teaching, convinced me that in these ruling classes there existed a
consciously hostile relation toward true Christianity, which found
its expression mainly in the silence observed concerning all its
manifestations.


II.

The same impression of a desire to conceal, to pass in silence, what
I attempted so carefully to express in my book, has been produced on
me by the criticisms upon it.

When my book appeared, it was, as I had expected, prohibited, and
according to the law it ought to have been burned. But, instead of
being burned, it was distributed among the officials, and it was
disseminated in a large number of written copies and lithographic
reprints, and in translations printed abroad. Very soon there
appeared criticisms upon the book, not only by the clergy, but also
by the laity, which the government not only sanctioned, but even
encouraged, so that the refutation of the book, which was assumed to
be unknown to any one, was made a theme for theological essays in
the academies.

The critics upon my books, both the Russian and the foreign critics,
can be divided into two classes: into the religious critics,--people
who consider themselves to be believers,--and lay critics, who are
freethinkers.

I shall begin with the first:

In my book I accuse the church teachers of teaching contrary to
Christ's commandments, which are clearly and definitely expressed in
the Sermon on the Mount, and especially contrary to the commandment
about non-resistance to evil, thus depriving Christ's teaching
of all significance. The church teachers recognize the Sermon on
the Mount with the commandment about non-resistance to evil as a
divine revelation, and so, if they have found it necessary to write
about my book at all, they ought, it would seem, first of all to
answer this chief point of accusation and say outright whether
they consider the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount and of the
commandment about non-resistance to evil obligatory for a Christian,
or not,--and they must not answer it as this is generally done, that
is, by saying that, although on the one hand it cannot properly be
denied, on the other it cannot be affirmed, the more so that, and so
forth,--but must answer it just as the question is put by me in my
book: did Christ actually demand from His disciples the fulfilment
of what He taught in the Sermon on the Mount? and so, can a
Christian, remaining a Christian, go to court, taking part in it and
condemning people, or seeking in it defence by means of violence,
or can he not? Can a Christian, still remaining a Christian, take
part in the government, using violence against his neighbours, or
not? And the chief question, which now, with the universal military
service, stands before all men,--can a Christian, remaining a
Christian, contrary to Christ's injunction, make any promises as
to future acts, which are directly contrary to the teaching, and,
taking part in military service, prepare himself for the murder of
men and commit it?

The questions are put clearly and frankly, and, it would seem, they
ought to be answered clearly and frankly. But nothing of the kind
has been done in all the criticisms upon my book, just as nothing of
the kind has been done in the case of all those arraignments of the
church teachers for departing from Christ's law, with which history
is filled since the time of Constantine.

Very much has been said in reference to my book about how
incorrectly I interpret this or that passage in the Gospel, how
I err in not acknowledging the Trinity, the redemption, and the
immortality of the soul; very much has been said, but this one
thing, which for every Christian forms the chief, essential question
of life: how to harmonize what was clearly expressed in the
teacher's words and is clearly expressed in the heart of every one
of us,--the teaching about forgiveness, humility, renunciation, and
love of all men, of our neighbours and of our enemies,--with the
demand of military violence exerted against the men of one's own
nation or another nation.

Everything which may be called semblances of answers to this
question may be reduced to the five following divisions. I have
tried in this respect to collect everything I could, not only in
reference to the criticisms upon my book, but also in reference to
what has been written upon the subject in former times.

The first, the rudest way of answering, consists in the bold
assertion that violence does not contradict Christ's teaching, and
that it is permitted and even prescribed by the Old and the New
Testament.

Assertions of this kind issue for the most part from people
high up in the governmental or ecclesiastic hierarchy, who are,
therefore, quite convinced that no one will dare to contradict
their assertions, and that if one actually dared to do so, they
would not hear these objections. These men have, in consequence of
their intoxication with their power, for the most part to such an
extent lost the concept of what that Christianity is, in the name
of which they occupy their places, that everything of a Christian
nature in Christianity presents itself to them as sectarian; but
everything which in the writings of the Old and the New Testament
may be interpreted in an anti-Christian and pagan sense, they
consider to be the foundation of Christianity. In favour of their
assertion that Christianity does not contradict violence, these
men with the greatest boldness generally bring forward the most
offensive passages from the Old and the New Testament, and interpret
them in the most non-Christian manner: the execution of Ananias
and Sapphira, the execution of Simon Magus, and so forth. They
adduce all those words of Christ which may be interpreted as a
justification of cruelty, such as the expulsion from the temple, "It
shall be more tolerable on that day for Sodom, than for that city,"
and so forth.

According to the concepts of these men, the Christian government is
not in the least obliged to be guided by the spirit of humility,
forgiveness of offences, and love of our enemies.

It is useless to refute such an assertion, because the men who
assert this refute themselves, or rather, turn away from Christ,
inventing their own Christ and their own Christianity in place of
Him in whose name the church exists and also the position which
they occupy in it. If all men knew that the church preaches Christ
punishing, and not forgiving, and warring, no one would be believing
in this church, and there would be no one to prove what it is
proving.

The second method is a little less rude. It consists in asserting
that, although Christ really taught to offer one's cheek and give up
a shirt, and this is a very high moral demand, there are malefactors
in the world, and if these are not curbed by the exercise of
force, the whole world and all good men will perish. This proof I
found for the first time in John Chrysostom and I pointed out its
incorrectness in my book, _My Religion_.

This argument is ungrounded, because, in the first place, if we
allow ourselves to recognize any men as special malefactors (Raca),
we thus destroy the whole meaning of the Christian teaching,
according to which we are all equal and brothers, as the sons of
one heavenly Father; in the second place, because, even if God
permitted the exertion of violence against malefactors, it is
absolutely impossible to find that safe and indubitable sign by
which a malefactor may be unerringly told from one who is not,
and so every man, or society of men, would recognize another as a
malefactor, which is the case now; in the third place, because even
if it were possible unerringly to tell malefactors from those who
are not malefactors, it would still not be possible in a Christian
society to execute, or maim, or lock up these malefactors, because
in Christian society there would be no one to do this, because every
Christian, as a Christian, is enjoined not to use violence against a
malefactor.

The third method of answering is still shrewder than the previous
one. It consists in asserting that, although the commandment of
non-resistance to evil is obligatory for a Christian when the evil
is directed against him personally, it ceases to be obligatory
when the evil is directed against his neighbours, and that then a
Christian is not only not obliged to fulfil the commandments, but
is also obliged in the defence of his neighbours, contrary to the
commandment, to use violence against the violators.

This assertion is quite arbitrary, and in the whole of Christ's
teaching no confirmation of such an interpretation can be found.
Such an interpretation is not only a limitation of the commandment,
but a direct negation and annihilation of it. If any man has a right
to use violence when another is threatened by danger, then the
question as to the use of violence reduces itself to the question
of defining what constitutes a danger for another person. But if my
private judgment decides the question of danger for another, then
there does not exist such a case of violence that it could not be
explained on the basis of a danger with which another is threatened.
Wizards were executed and burned, aristocrats and Girondists were
executed, and so were their enemies, because those who were in power
considered them to be dangerous for others.

If this important limitation, which radically undermines the meaning
of the commandment, entered Christ's mind, there ought somewhere to
be mention made of it. But in all the preaching and the life of the
teacher there is not only no such limitation, but, on the contrary,
there is expressed a particular caution against such a false and
offensive limitation, which destroys the commandment. The mistake
and the blunder of such a limitation is with particular clearness
shown in the Gospel in connection with the judgment of Caiaphas, who
made this very limitation. He recognized that it was not good to
execute innocent Jesus, but he saw in Him danger, not for himself,
but for the whole nation, and so he said: "It is expedient for us
that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation
perish not." And more clearly still was the negation of such a
limitation expressed in the words said to Peter when he attempted
with violence to resist the evil which was directed against Jesus
(Matt. xxvi. 52). Peter was not defending himself, but his beloved
and divine teacher. And Christ directly forbade him to do so, saying
that he who takes the sword shall perish with the sword.

Besides, the justification of violence used against a neighbour
for the sake of defending another man against worse violence is
always incorrect, because in using violence against an evil which is
not yet accomplished, it is impossible to know which evil will be
greater,--whether the evil of my violence or of that against which
I wish to defend my neighbour. We execute a criminal, thus freeing
society from him, and we are positively unable to tell whether
the criminal would not have changed on the morrow and whether our
execution is not a useless cruelty. We lock up a man whom we suppose
to be a dangerous member of society, but beginning with to-morrow
this man may cease to be dangerous, and his incarceration is futile.
I see that a man whom I know to be a robber is pursuing a girl, and
I have a gun in my hand,--I kill the robber and save the girl; the
robber has certainly been killed or wounded, but it is unknown to
me what would happen if that were not the case. What an enormous
amount of evil must take place, as it actually does, as the result
of arrogating to ourselves the right to prevent an evil that may
occur! Ninety-nine hundredths of the evil of the world, from the
Inquisition to dynamite bombs and the executions and sufferings of
tens of thousands of so-called political criminals, are based on
this reflection.

The fourth, still more refined answer to the question as to how a
Christian should act toward Christ's commandment of non-resistance
to evil consists in asserting that the commandment of non-resistance
to evil is not denied by them, but is accepted like any other; but
that they do not ascribe to this commandment any special exclusive
significance, as the sectarians do. To ascribe to this commandment
an invariable condition of Christian life, as do Garrison, Ballou,
Dymond, the Quakers, the Mennonites, the Shakers, and as did the
Moravian brothers, the Waldenses, Albigenses, Bogomils, Paulicians,
is one-sided sectarianism. This commandment has neither more nor
less significance than all the others, and a man who in his weakness
transgresses any one of the commandments about non-resistance
does not cease to be a Christian, provided he believes correctly.
This subterfuge is very clever, and men who wish to be deceived
are easily deceived by it. The subterfuge consists in reducing
the direct conscious negation of the commandment to an accidental
violation of the same. But we need only compare the relation of
the church teachers to this commandment and to others, which they
actually recognize, in order that we may convince ourselves that
the relation of the church teachers to the commandments which they
recognize is quite different from their relation to this one.

They actually recognize the commandment against fornication, and so
never, under any condition, admit that fornication is not an evil.
The preachers of the church never point out any cases when the
commandment against fornication ought to be broken, and they always
teach that we must avoid the offences which lead to the temptation
of fornication. But this is not the case with the commandment about
non-resistance. All the church preachers know cases when this
commandment may be broken. And thus they teach men. And they not
only do not teach how to avoid these offences, of which the chief
one is the oath, but themselves commit them. The church preachers
never and under no condition preach the violation of any other
commandment; but in relation to the commandment of non-resistance
they teach outright that this prohibition must not be understood in
too direct a sense, and not only that this commandment must not be
carried out at all times, but that there are conditions, situations,
when directly the opposite should be done, that is, that we should
judge, wage war, execute. Thus, in reference to the commandment
about non-resistance to evil, they in the majority of cases preach
how not to fulfil it. The fulfilment of this commandment, they
say, is very difficult and is characteristic only of perfection.
But how can it help but be difficult, when its breach is not
only not prohibited, but is also directly encouraged, when they
directly bless the courts, prisons, guns, cannon, armies, battles?
Consequently it is not true that this commandment is recognized
by the church preachers as of equal significance with the other
commandments. The church preachers simply do not recognize it, and
only because they do not dare to confess it, try to conceal their
failure to recognize it.

Such is the fourth method of answers.

The fifth method, the most refined, most popular, and most powerful
one, consists in begging the question, in making it appear as though
the question had long ago been decided by some one in an absolutely
clear and satisfactory manner, and as though it were not worth while
to speak of it. This method is employed by more or less cultivated
ecclesiastic writers, that is, such as feel the laws of logic to be
obligatory for them. Knowing that the contradiction which exists
between Christ's teaching, which we profess in words, and the whole
structure of our life cannot be solved with words, and that, by
touching it, we can only make it more obvious, they with greater or
lesser agility get around it, making it appear that the question
about the connection of Christianity with violence has been decided
or does not exist at all.[7]

  [7] I know but one piece of writing, not a criticism in the strict
  sense of the word, but an article which treats the same subject,
  and which has my book in view, that departs from this common
  definition. It is Tróitski's pamphlet (Kazán) _The Sermon on the
  Mount_. The author obviously recognizes Christ's teaching in its
  real significance. He says that the commandment about non-resistance
  to evil means what it does, and the same is true of the commandment
  about swearing; he does not deny, as others do, the significance
  of Christ's teaching, but unfortunately he does not make from this
  recognition those inevitable deductions, which in our life beg for
  recognition in connection with such a comprehension of Christ's
  teaching. If it is not right to resist evil and to swear, every
  man will naturally ask: "How about military service?" And to this
  question the author gives no answer, though an answer is demanded.
  And if it cannot be answered, it is best not to speak at all,
  because silence produces error.--_Author's Note._

The majority of the ecclesiastic critics of my book employ this
method. I could adduce dozens of such criticisms, in which without
exception one and the same thing is repeated: they speak of
everything but the chief subject of the book. As a characteristic
example of such criticisms, I shall quote an article by the famous,
refined English writer and preacher, Farrar, a great master, like
many learned theologians, of evasions and reticence. This article
was printed in the American periodical, _Forum_, in October, 1888.

Having conscientiously given a short review of my book, Farrar says:

"Tolstóy came to the conclusion that a coarse deceit was palmed
upon the world when these words were held by civil society to
be compatible with war, courts of justice, capital punishment,
divorce, oaths, national prejudice, and indeed with most of the
institutions of civil and social life. He now believes that the
kingdom of God would come if all men kept these five commandments,
... (1) Live in peace with all men; (2) be pure; (3) take no oaths;
(4) never resist evil; (5) renounce national distinctions.

"Tolstóy," he says, "rejects the divine inspiration of the Old
Testament and of the epistles; he rejects all the dogmas of the
church, that of the atonement by blood, that of the Trinity, that of
the descent of the Holy Ghost upon the apostles ... and recognizes
only the words and commandments of Christ.

"Is this interpretation of Christ a true one?" he asks. "Are all men
bound, or is any man bound, to act as Tolstóy has taught, that is,
to fulfil the five commandments of Christ?"

One just hopes that in reply to this essential question, which
alone could have urged the man to write an article on the book, he
will say that this interpretation of Christ's teaching is correct,
or that it is not correct, and so will prove why, and will give
another, a correct interpretation to the words which I interpret
incorrectly. But nothing of the kind is done. Farrar only expresses
his conviction that, "though actuated by the noblest sincerity,
Tolstóy has been misled by partial and one-sided interpretations of
the meaning of the Gospel and the mind and will of Christ."

No explanation is given as to what this error consists in, but all
there is said, is:

"To enter into the proof of this is impossible in this article, for
I have already exceeded the space at my command."

And he concludes with an easy mind:

"Meanwhile the reader who feels troubled lest it should be his duty
also to forsake all conditions of his life, and to take up the
position and work of a common labourer, may rest for the present
on the principle, _Securus judicat orbis terrarum_. With few and
rare exceptions," he continues, "the whole of Christendom, from
the days of the apostles down to our own, has come to the firm
conclusion that it was the object of Christ to lay down great
eternal principles, but not disturb the bases and revolutionize the
institutions of all human society, which themselves rest on divine
sanction as well as on inevitable conditions. Were it my object to
prove how untenable is the doctrine of communism, based by Tolstóy
upon the divine paradoxes (_sic!_), which can be interpreted on only
historical principles in accordance with the whole method of the
teaching of Jesus, it would require an ampler canvas than I have
here at my disposal."

What a misfortune,--he has not any space! And, strange to say, space
has been lacking for fifteen centuries, to prove that Christ, whom
we profess, said something different from what He said. They could
prove it, if they only wanted to. However, it does not pay to prove
what everybody knows. It is enough to say: "_Securus judicat orbis
terrarum_."

And such are, without exception, all the criticisms of the
cultivated believers, who, therefore, do not understand the
perilousness of their position. The only way out for them is the
hope that, by using the authority of the church, of antiquity,
of holiness, they may be able to confuse the reader and draw him
away from the thought of reading the Gospel for himself and of
considering the question with his own mind. And in this they are
successful. To whom, indeed, will it occur that all that which
with such assurance and solemnity is repeated from century to
century by all these archdeacons, bishops, archbishops, most
holy synods, and Popes, is a base lie and calumny, which they
foist on Christ in order to secure the money which they need for
the purpose of leading a life of pleasure, while sitting on
the backs of others,--a lie and a calumny, which is so obvious,
especially now that the only possibility of continuing this lie
consists in frightening men into belief by their assurance, their
unscrupulousness? It is precisely the same that of late years has
taken place in the Recruiting Sessions: at the head of the table,
with the Mirror of Laws upon it, and beneath the full-sized portrait
of the emperor, sit dignified old officials in their regalia,
conversing freely and unreservedly, noting down, commanding,
calling out. Here also, with the cross over his breast and in
silk vestments, with his gray hair falling down straight over his
scapulary, stands an imposing old man, the priest, in front of the
pulpit, on which lies a gold cross and a gold-trimmed Gospel.

Iván Petróv is called out. A young man steps out. He is poorly
and dirtily dressed and looks frightened, and the muscles of his
face tremble, and his fugitive eyes sparkle, and in a faltering
voice, almost in a whisper, he says: "I--according to the law I, a
Christian--I cannot--"

"What is he muttering there?" impatiently asks the presiding
officer, half-closing his eyes and listening, as he raises his head
from the book.

"Speak louder!" shouts to him the colonel with the shining
shoulder-straps.

"I--I--I--as a Christian--"

It finally turns out that the young man refuses to do military
service, because he is a Christian.

"Talk no nonsense! Get your measure! Doctor, be so kind as to take
his measure. Is he fit for the army?"

"He is."

"Reverend father, have him sworn in."

No one is confused; no one even pays any attention to what this
frightened, pitiable young man is muttering.

"They all mutter something, but we have no time: we have to receive
so many recruits."

The recruit wants to say something again.

"This is against Christ's law."

"Go, go, we know without you what is according to the law,--but
you get out of here. Reverend father, admonish him. Next: Vasíli
Nikítin."

And the trembling youth is taken away. And to whom--whether the
janitor, or Vasíli Nikítin, who is being brought in, or any one else
who witnessed this scene from the side--will it occur that those
indistinct, short words of the youth, which were at once put out
of court by the authorities, contain the truth, while those loud,
solemn speeches of the self-possessed, calm officials and of the
priest are a lie, a deception?

A similar impression is produced, not only by the articles of a
Farrar but by all those solemn sermons, articles, and books, which
appear on all sides, the moment the truth peeps out and arraigns
the ruling lie. Immediately there begin long, clever, elegant
conversations or writings about questions which touch closely upon
the subject with a shrewd reticence concerning the question itself.

In this consists the fifth and most effective means for removing
the contradiction in which the ecclesiastic Christianity has placed
itself by professing Christ in words and denying His teaching in
life, and teaching the same to others.

Those who justify themselves by the first method, asserting
outright and rudely that Christ has permitted violence,--wars,
murder,--withdraw themselves from Christ's teaching; those who
defend themselves according to the second, the third, and the fourth
methods get themselves entangled, and it is easy to point out their
untruth; but these last, who do not discuss, who do not condescend
to discuss, but hide themselves behind their greatness and make
it appear that all this has been decided long ago by them, or by
somebody else, and that it no longer is subject to any doubt, seem
invulnerable, and they will be invulnerable so long as people will
remain under the influence of hypnotic suggestion, which is induced
in them by governments and churches, and will not shake it off.

Such was the attitude which the ecclesiastics, that is, those who
profess Christ's faith, assumed toward me. Nor could they have
acted otherwise: they are bound by the contradiction in which they
live,--the faith in the divinity of the teacher and the unbelief
in His clearest words,--from which they must in some way extricate
themselves, and so it was not possible to expect from them any free
opinion concerning the essence of the question, concerning that
change in the lives of men which results from the application of
Christ's teaching to the existing order. Such opinions I expected
from the freethinking lay critics, who are in no way bound to
Christ's teaching and who can look upon it without restraint. I
expected that the freethinking writers would look upon Christ not
only as the establisher of a religion of worship and personal
salvation (as which the ecclesiastics understand him), but, to
express myself in their language, as a reformer, who destroys the
old, and gives the new foundations of life, the reform of which is
not yet accomplished, but continues until the present.

Such a view of Christ and His teaching results from my book, but,
to my surprise, out of the large number of criticisms upon my book,
there was _not one_, either Russian or foreign, which treated the
subject from the same side from which it is expounded in my book,
that is, which looked upon Christ's teaching as a philosophical,
moral, and social doctrine (again to speak in the language of the
learned). This was not the case in a single criticism.

The Russian lay critics, who understood my book in such a way
that all its contents reduced themselves to non-resistance to
evil, and who understood the teaching about non-resistance to evil
itself (apparently for convenience of refutal) as meaning that
it prohibited any struggle against evil, furiously attacked this
teaching and very successfully proved for the period of several
years that Christ's teaching was incorrect, since it taught us
not to resist evil. Their refutals of this supposed teaching of
Christ were the more successful, since they knew in advance that
their views could neither be overthrown nor corrected, because the
censorship, having failed to sanction the book itself, did not
sanction the articles in its defence either.

What is remarkable in connection with the matter is this, that
with us, where not a word may be said about the Holy Scripture
without a prohibition by the censorship, the clearly and directly
expressed commandment of Matt. v. 39 has for several years been
openly contorted, criticized, condemned, and ridiculed in all the
periodicals.

The Russian lay critics, who evidently did not know all that had
been done in the development of the question as to non-resistance
to evil, and who at times even seemed to assume that I personally
invented the rule of not resisting evil with violence, attacked the
idea itself, rejecting and contorting it, and with much fervour
advancing arguments which have long ago been analyzed from every
side and rejected, proved that a man is obliged (with violence) to
defend all the insulted and the oppressed, and that, therefore, the
doctrine about not resisting evil with violence is immoral.

The whole significance of Christ's preaching presented itself to the
Russian critics as though maliciously interfering with a certain
activity, which was directed against what they at a given moment
considered to be an evil, so that it turned out that the principle
of not resisting evil with violence was attacked by two opposite
camps,--by the conservatives, because this principle interfered
with their activity of resisting the evil which was produced by the
revolutionists, and with their persecutions and executions; and
by the revolutionists, because this principle interfered with the
resistance to the evil which was produced by the conservatives, and
with the overthrow of the conservatives. The conservatives were
provoked, because the doctrine of non-resistance to evil interfered
with the energetic suppression of the revolutionary elements,
who are likely to ruin the welfare of the nation; while the
revolutionists were provoked, because the doctrine of non-resistance
to evil interfered with the overthrow of the conservatives, who were
ruining the well-being of the nation.

What is remarkable is, that the revolutionists attacked the
principle of non-resistance, although it is most terrible and most
dangerous for every despotism, because ever since the beginning of
the world the opposite principle of the necessity of resisting evil
with violence has been lying at the basis of all violence, from the
Inquisition to the Schlüsselburg Fortress.

Besides, the Russian critics pointed out that the application to
life of the commandment about non-resistance to evil would turn
humanity away from the path of civilization, on which it was
marching now; but the path of civilization, on which the European
civilization is marching, is, in their opinion, the one on which all
humanity must always march.

Such was the chief character of the Russian criticisms.

The foreign critics proceeded from the same bases, but their reviews
of my book differed from those of the Russian critics not only in a
lesser degree of irritability and a greater degree of culture, but
also in the essence of the matter.

In discussing my book and the Gospel teaching in general, as it is
expressed in the Sermon on the Mount, the foreign critics asserted
that such a teaching is really not Christian (Christian in their
opinion is Catholicism and Protestantism), and that the doctrine
of the Sermon on the Mount is only a series of very charming,
impracticable reveries "_du charmant docteur_," as Renan used to
say, which were good enough for the naïve and half-wild inhabitants
of Galilee, who lived eighteen hundred years ago, and for the
Russian peasants, Syutáev and Bondarév, and the Russian mystic,
Tolstóy, but can in no way be applied to the high degree of European
culture.

The foreign lay critics tried, in a refined manner, without giving
me any offence, to let me know that my opinion that humanity can
be guided by such a naïve teaching as the Sermon on the Mount is
due partly to my ignorance, lack of acquaintance with history,
lack of knowledge of all those vain attempts to realize in life
the principles of the Sermon on the Mount, which have been made in
history, and have led to nothing, thanks to ignorance concerning the
whole significance of that high degree of culture on which European
civilization now stands, with its Krupp guns, smokeless powder, the
colonization of Africa, the government of Ireland, parliaments,
journalism, strikes, constitutions, and Eiffel Tower.

Thus wrote Vogüé, and Leroy Beaulieu, and Matthew Arnold, and the
American writer Savage, and Ingersoll, a popular American preacher
of free thought, and many others.

"Christ's teaching is no good, because it does not harmonize with
our industrial age," naïvely says Ingersoll, thus expressing with
absolute precision and naïveté what the refined and cultured men
of our time think about Christ's teaching. The teaching is no good
for our industrial age, as though the existence of the industrial
age is something sacred which must not and cannot be changed. It is
something like what drunkards would do, if, in response to advice
about how to get themselves into a sober state, they should reply
that the advice is out of place in connection with their present
alcoholic state.

The discussions of all the lay writers, both Russian and foreign, no
matter how different their tone and the manner of their arguments
may be, in reality reduce themselves to one and the same strange
misunderstanding, namely, that Christ's teaching, one of the
consequences of which is non-resistance to evil, is useless to us,
because it demands that our life be changed.

Christ's teaching is useless, because, if it were put into practice,
our life could not continue; in other words,--if we began to live
well, as Christ has taught us, we could not continue to live
badly, as we live and are accustomed to live. The question of
non-resistance to evil is not discussed, and the very mention of the
fact that the demand for non-resistance to evil enters into Christ's
teaching is considered a sufficient proof of the inapplicability of
the whole teaching.

And yet, it would seem, it is indispensable to point out some kind
of a solution to this question, because it lies at the foundation of
nearly all affairs which interest us.

The question consists in this: how are we to harmonize the conflicts
of men, when some consider an evil what others consider to be good,
and vice versa? And so, to consider that an evil which I consider
an evil, although my adversary may consider it good, is no answer.
There can be but two answers: either we have to find a true and
indisputable criterion of what an evil is, or we must not resist
evil with violence.

The first solution has been tried since the beginning of historical
times, and, as we all know, has so far led to no satisfactory
results.

The second answer, not to resist with violence what we consider
evil, so long as we have found no common criterion, was proposed by
Christ.

It may be found that Christ's answer is not correct: it may be
possible to put in its place another, better answer, by finding
a criterion which would indubitably and simultaneously for all
define the evil; we may simply not recognize the essence of the
question, as it is not recognized by the savage nations,--but it is
impossible, as the learned critics of the Christian teaching do, to
make it appear that such a question does not at all exist, or that
the relegation of the right to determine the evil and resist it with
violence to certain persons or assemblies of men (much less, if we
are these men), solves the question; whereas we all know that such
a relegation does not at all solve the question, since there are
some people who do not recognize this right as belonging to certain
people or to assemblies of men.

But it is this recognition that what to us appears evil is evil,
or an absolute failure to comprehend the question, which serves as
a foundation for the judgment of the lay critics concerning the
Christian teaching, so that the opinions concerning my book, both of
the ecclesiastic and the lay critics, showed me that the majority of
men absolutely fail to comprehend, not only Christ's very teaching,
but even those questions to which it serves as an answer.


III.

Thus, both the information received by me after the publication of
my book, as to how the Christian teaching in its direct and true
sense has without interruption been understood by the minority of
men, and the criticisms upon it, both the ecclesiastic and the lay
criticisms, which denied the possibility of understanding Christ's
teaching in the direct sense, convinced me that, while, on the one
hand, the true comprehension of this teaching never ceased for the
minority, and became clearer and clearer to them, on the other hand,
for the majority, its meaning became more and more obscure, finally
reaching such a degree of obscuration that men no longer comprehend
the simplest propositions, which are expressed in the Gospel in the
simplest words.

The failure to comprehend Christ's teaching in its true, simple,
and direct sense in our time, when the light of this teaching has
penetrated all the darkest corners of human consciousness; when,
as Christ has said, that which He has spoken in the ear, they now
proclaim upon the housetops; when this teaching permeates all the
sides of human life,--the domestic, the economic, the civil, the
political, and the international,--this failure to comprehend would
be incomprehensible, if there were no causes for it.

One of these causes is this, that both the believers and the
unbelievers are firmly convinced that Christ's teaching has been
comprehended by them long ago, and so completely, indubitably, and
finally, that there can be no other meaning in it than the one they
ascribe to it. This cause is due to the duration of the tradition
of the false comprehension, and so of the failure to understand the
true teaching.

The most powerful stream of water cannot add a drop to a vessel that
is full.

It is possible to explain the most intricate matters to a man of
very hard comprehension, so long as he has not formed any idea about
them; but it is impossible to explain the simplest thing to a very
clever man, if he is firmly convinced that he knows, and, besides,
incontestably knows, what has been transmitted to him.

The Christian teaching presents itself to the men of our world
precisely as such a teaching, which has for a long time and in a
most indubitable manner been known in its minutest details, and
which cannot be comprehended in any other manner than it now is.

Christianity is now understood by those who profess the church
doctrines as a supernatural, miraculous revelation concerning
everything which is given in the symbol of faith, and by those
who do not believe, as an obsolete manifestation of humanity's
need of believing in something supernatural, as a historical
phenomenon, which is completely expressed in Catholicism, Orthodoxy,
Protestantism, and which has no longer any vital meaning for us.
For the believers the meaning of the teaching is concealed by the
church, for unbelievers by science.

I shall begin with the first:

Eighteen hundred years ago there appeared in the pagan Roman world
a strange, new teaching, which resembled nothing which preceded it,
and which was ascribed to the man Christ.

This new teaching was absolutely new, both in form and in contents,
for the European world, in the midst of which it arose, and
especially in the Roman world, where it was preached and became
diffused.

Amidst the elaborateness of the religious rules of Judaism,
where, according to Isaiah, there was rule upon rule, and amidst
the Roman legislation, which was worked out to a great degree of
perfection, there appeared a teaching which not only denied all
the divinities,--every fear of them, every divination and faith
in them,--but also all human institutions and every necessity
for them. In the place of all the rules of former faiths, this
teaching advanced only the model of an inner perfection of truth
and of love in the person of Christ, and the consequences of this
inner perfection, attainable by men,--the external perfection, as
predicted by the prophets,--the kingdom of God, in which all men
will stop warring, and all will be taught by God and united in love,
and the lion will lie with the lamb. In place of the threats of
punishments for the non-compliance with the rules, which were made
by the former laws, both religious and political, in place of the
enticement of rewards for fulfilling them, this teaching called men
to itself only by its being the truth. John vii. 17: "If any man
wants to know of this doctrine, whether it be of God, let him fulfil
it." John viii. 46: "If I say the truth, why do ye not believe me?"
Why do you seek to kill a man who has told you the truth? The truth
alone will free you. God must be professed in truth only. The whole
teaching will be revealed and will be made clear by the spirit of
truth. Do what I say, and you will know whether what I say is true.

No proofs were given of the teaching, except the truth, except the
correspondence of the teaching with the truth. The whole teaching
consisted in the knowledge of the truth and in following it, in a
greater and ever greater approximation to it, in matters of life.
According to this teaching, there are no acts which can justify a
man, make him righteous; there is only the model of truth which
attracts all hearts, for the inner perfection--in the person of
Christ, and for the outer--in the realization of the kingdom of
God. The fulfilment of the teaching is only in the motion along a
given path, in the approximation to perfection,--the inner,--the
imitation of Christ, and the outer,--the establishment of the
kingdom of God. A man's greater or lesser good, according to this
teaching, depends, not on the degree of perfection which he attains,
but on the greater or lesser acceleration of motion.

The motion toward perfection of the publican, of Zacchæus, of the
harlot, of the robber on the cross, is, according to this teaching,
a greater good than the immovable righteousness of the Pharisee.
A sheep gone astray is more precious than ninety-nine who have
not. The prodigal son, the lost coin which is found again, is more
precious, more loved by God than those who were not lost.

Every condition is, according to this teaching, only a certain step
on the road toward the unattainable inner and outer perfection, and
so has no meaning. The good is only in the motion toward perfection;
but the stopping at any stage whatsoever is only a cessation of the
good.

"Let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth," and "No man,
having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the
kingdom of God." "Rejoice not, that the spirits are subject unto
you; but rather rejoice, because your names are written in heaven."

"Be ye perfect as your Father which is in Heaven is perfect." "Seek
the kingdom of God and His righteousness."

The fulfilment of the teaching is only in unceasing motion,--in the
attainment of a higher and ever higher truth, and in an ever greater
realization of the same in oneself by means of an ever increasing
love, and outside of oneself by an ever greater realization of the
kingdom of God.

It is evident that, having appeared in the midst of the Jewish and
the pagan world, this teaching could not have been accepted by
the majority of men, who lived a life entirely different from the
one which this teaching demanded; and that it could not even be
comprehended in its full significance by those who accepted it, as
it was diametrically opposed to their former views.

Only by a series of misconceptions, blunders, one-sided
explanations, corrected and supplemented by generations of men,
was the meaning of the Christian teaching made more and more clear
to men. The Christian world-conception affected the Jewish and the
pagan conceptions, and the Jewish and pagan conceptions affected
the Christian world-conception. And the Christian, as being vital,
penetrated the reviving Jewish and pagan conceptions more and more,
and stood forth more and more clearly, freeing itself from the false
admixture, which was imposed upon it. Men came to comprehend the
meaning better and better, and more and more realized it in life.

The longer humanity lived, the more and more was the meaning of
Christianity made clear to it, as indeed it could not and cannot be
otherwise with any teaching about life.

The subsequent generations corrected the mistakes of their
predecessors, and more and more approached the comprehension of
its true meaning. Thus it has been since the earliest times of
Christianity. And here, in the earliest times, there appeared men,
who began to assert that the meaning which they ascribed to the
teaching was the only true one, and that as a proof of it served
the supernatural phenomena which confirmed the correctness of their
comprehension.

It was this that was the chief cause, at first, of the failure to
comprehend the teaching, and later, of its complete corruption.

It was assumed that Christ's teaching was not transmitted to men
like any other truth, but in a special, supernatural manner, so
that the truth of the comprehension of the teaching was not proved
by the correspondence of what was transmitted with the demands of
reason and of the whole human nature, but by the miraculousness of
the transmission, which served as an incontrovertible proof of the
correctness of the comprehension. This proposition arose from a
lack of comprehension, and its consequence was an impossibility of
comprehending.

This began with the very first times, when the teaching was still
understood incompletely and often perversely, as we may see from the
gospels and from the Acts. The less the teaching was understood, the
more obscurely did it present itself, and the more necessary were
the external proofs of its veracity. The proposition about not doing
unto another what one does not wish to have done to oneself did
not need any proof by means of miracles, and there was no need for
demanding belief in this proposition, because it is convincing in
itself, in that it corresponds to both man's reason and nature, but
the proposition as to Christ being God had to be proved by means of
miracles, which are absolutely incomprehensible.

The more obscure the comprehension of Christ's teaching was, the
more miraculous elements were mixed in with it; and the more
miraculous elements were mixed in, the more did the teaching deviate
from its meaning and become obscure; and the more it deviated from
its meaning and became obscure, the more strongly it was necessary
to assert one's infallibility, and the less did the teaching become
comprehensible.

We can see from the gospels, the Acts, the epistles, how from the
earliest times the failure to comprehend the teaching called forth
the necessity of proving its truth by means of the miraculous and
the incomprehensible.

According to the Acts, this began with the meeting of the disciples
at Jerusalem, who assembled to settle the question which had arisen
as to baptizing or not baptizing the uncircumcised who were still
eating meats offered to idols.

The very putting of the question showed that those who were
discussing it did not understand the teaching of Christ, who
rejected all external rites--ablutions, purifications, fasts,
Sabbaths. It says directly that not the things which enter a man's
mouth, but those which come out of his heart, defile him, and so the
question as to the baptism of the uncircumcised could have arisen
only among men who loved their teacher, dimly felt His greatness,
but still very obscurely comprehended the teaching itself. And so it
was.

In proportion as the members of the assembly did not understand
the teaching, they needed an external confirmation of their
incomplete understanding. And so, to solve the question, the very
putting of which shows the failure to comprehend the teaching,
the strange words, "It has seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to
us," which were in an external manner to confirm the justice of
certain establishments, and which have caused so much evil, were,
as described in the Book of Acts, for the first time pronounced at
this meeting, that is, it was asserted that the justice of what they
decreed was testified to by the miraculous participation of the Holy
Ghost, that is, of God, in this solution. But the assertion that
the Holy Ghost, that is, God, spoke through the apostles, had again
to be proved. And for this it was necessary to assert that on the
day of Pentecost the Holy Ghost came down in the shape of tongues
of fire on those who asserted this. (In the description the descent
of the Holy Ghost precedes the assembly, but the Acts were written
down much later than either.) But the descent of the Holy Ghost
had to be confirmed for those who had not seen the tongues of fire
(though it is incomprehensible why a tongue of fire burning above
a man's head should prove that what a man says is an indisputable
truth), and there were needed new miracles, cures, resurrections,
putting to death, and all those offensive miracles, with which the
Acts are filled, and which not only can never convince a man of the
truth of the Christian teaching, but can only repel him from it. The
consequence of such a method of confirmation was this, that the more
these confirmations of the truth by means of stories of miracles
heaped up upon one another, the more did the teaching itself depart
from its original meaning, and the less comprehensible did it become.

Thus it has been since the earliest times, and it has been
increasingly so all the time, until it logically reached in our
time the dogmas of the transubstantiation and of the infallibility
of the Pope, or of the bishops, or of the writings, that is,
something absolutely incomprehensible, which has reached the point
of absurdity and the demand for a blind faith, not in God, not in
Christ, not even in the teaching, but in a person, as is the case in
Catholicism, or in several persons, as in Orthodoxy, or in a book,
as in Protestantism. The more Christianity became diffused, and the
greater was the crowd of unprepared men which it embraced, the less
it was understood, the more definitely was the infallibility of
the comprehension asserted, and the less did it become possible to
understand the true meaning of the teaching. As early as the time of
Constantine the whole comprehension of the teaching was reduced to a
résumé, confirmed by the worldly power,--a résumé of disputes which
took place in a council,--to a symbol of faith, in which it says, I
believe in so and so, and so and so, and finally, in the one, holy,
catholic, and apostolic church, that is, in the infallibility of
those persons who call themselves the church, so that everything
was reduced to this, that a man no longer believes in God, nor in
Christ, as they have been revealed to him, but in what the church
commands him to believe.

But the church is holy,--the church was founded by Christ. God
could not have left it to men to give an arbitrary interpretation
to His teaching,--and so He established the church. All these
expositions are to such an extent unjust and bold that one feels
some compunction in overthrowing them.

There is nothing but the assertion of the churches to show that God
or Christ founded anything resembling what the churchmen understand
by church.

In the Gospel there is an indication against the church, as an
external authority, and this indication is most obvious and clear in
that place where it says that Christ's disciples should not call any
one teachers and fathers. But nowhere is there anything said about
the establishment of what the churchmen call a church.

In the gospels the word "church" is used twice,--once, in the
sense of an assembly of men deciding a dispute; the other time, in
connection with the obscure words about the rock, Peter, and the
gates of hell. From these two mentions of the word "church," which
has the meaning of nothing but an assembly, they deduce what we now
understand by the word "church."

But Christ could certainly not have founded a church, that is,
what we now understand by the word, because neither in Christ's
words, nor in the conceptions of the men of that time, was there
anything resembling the concept of a church, as we know it now, with
its sacraments, its hierarchy, and, above all, its assertion of
infallibility.

The fact that men named what was formed later by the same word
which Christ had used in respect to something else, does in no way
give them the right to assert that Christ established the one, true
church.

Besides, if Christ had really founded such an institution as
the church, on which the whole doctrine and the whole faith are
based, He would most likely have expressed this establishment in
such definite and clear words, and would have given the one, true
church, outside of the stories about the miracles, which are used
in connection with every superstition, such signs as to leave no
doubts concerning its authenticity; there is nothing of the kind,
but there are now, as there have been, all kinds of institutions
which, each of them, call themselves the one, true church.

The Catholic catechism says: "_L'église est la société de fidèles
établie par notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ, répandue sur toute la terre
et soumise à l'autorité des pasteurs légitimes, principalement notre
Saint Père--le Pape_," meaning by "_pasteurs légitimes_" a human
institution, which has the Pope at its head and which is composed
of certain persons who are connected among themselves by a certain
organization.

The Orthodox catechism says: "The church is a society, established
by Jesus Christ upon earth, united among themselves into one whole
by the one, divine teaching and the sacraments, under the guidance
and management of the God-established hierarchy," meaning by
"God-established hierarchy" the Greek hierarchy, which is composed
of such and such persons, who are to be found in such and such
places.

The Lutheran catechism says: "The church is holy Christianity,
or an assembly of all believers, under Christ, their chief, in
which the Holy Ghost through the Gospel and the sacraments offers,
communicates, and secures divine salvation," meaning, by this, that
the Catholic Church has gone astray and has fallen away, and that
the true tradition is preserved in Lutheranism.

For the Catholics the divine church coincides with the Roman
hierarchy and the Pope. For the Greek Orthodox the divine church
coincides with the establishment of the Eastern and the Russian
Church.[8] For the Lutherans the divine church coincides with the
assembly of men who recognize the Bible and Luther's catechism.

  [8] Khomyakóv's definition of the church, which has some currency
  among Russians, does not mend matters, if we recognize with
  Khomyakóv that the Orthodox is the one true church. Khomyakóv
  asserts that the church is an assembly of men (of all, both the
  clergy and the congregation) united in love, and that the truth
  is revealed only to those who are united in love (Let us love one
  another, so that in agreement of thought, and so forth), and that
  such a church is the one which, in the first place, recognizes
  the Nicene symbol, and, in the second, after the division of the
  churches, does not recognize the Pope and the new dogmas. But with
  such a definition of the church there appears a still greater
  difficulty in harmonizing, as Khomyakóv wants to, the church which
  is united in love with the church which recognizes the Nicene symbol
  and the justice of Photius. Thus Khomyakóv's assertion that this
  church, which is united in love and so is holy, is the church as
  professed by the Greek hierarchy, is still more arbitrary than the
  assertions of the Catholics and of the ancient Orthodox. If we admit
  the concept of the church in the sense which Khomyakóv gives to it,
  that is, as an assembly of men united in love and in truth, then
  everything a man can say in relation to this assembly is, that it is
  very desirable to be a member of such an assembly, if such exists,
  that is, to be in love and truth; but there are no external signs
  by which it would be possible to count oneself or another in with
  this holy assembly, or to exclude oneself from it, as no external
  institution can correspond to this concept.--_Author's Note._

Speaking of the origin of Christianity, men who belong to one or the
other of the existing churches generally use the word "church" in
the singular, as though there has been but one church. But this is
quite untrue. The church, as an institution which asserts of itself
that it is in possession of the unquestionable truth, appeared only
when it was not alone, but there were at least two of them.

So long as the believers agreed among themselves, and the assembly
was one, it had no need of asserting that it was the church. Only
when the believers divided into opposite parties, which denied one
another, did there appear the necessity for each side to assert its
authenticity, ascribing infallibility to itself. The concept of the
one church arose only from this, that, when two sides disagreed and
quarrelled, each of them, calling the other a heresy, recognized
only its own as the infallible church.

If we know that there was a church, which in the year 51 decided
to receive the uncircumcised, this church made its appearance only
because there was another church, that of the Judaizing, which had
decided not to receive the uncircumcised.

If there now is a Catholic Church, which asserts its infallibility,
it does this only because there are the Græco-Russian, Orthodox,
Lutheran Churches, each of which asserts its own infallibility, and
thus rejects all the other churches. Thus the one church is only a
fantastic conception, which has not the slightest sign of reality.

As an actual, historical phenomenon there have existed only many
assemblies of men, each of which has asserted that it is the one
church, established by Christ, and that all the others, which call
themselves churches, are heresies and schisms.

The catechisms of the most widely diffused churches, the Catholic,
the Orthodox, and the Lutheran, say so outright.

In the Catholic catechism it says: "_Quels sont ceux, qui sont hors
de l'église? Les infidèles, les hérétiques, les schismatiques._"
As schismatics are regarded the so-called Orthodox. The Lutherans
are considered to be heretics; thus, according to the Catholic
catechism, the Catholics alone are in the church.

In the so-called Orthodox catechism it says: "By the one church of
Christ is meant nothing but the Orthodox, which remains in complete
agreement with the œcumenical church. But as to the Roman Church
and the other confessions" (the church does not even mention the
Lutherans and others), "they cannot be referred to the one, true
church, since they have themselves separated from it."

According to this definition the Catholics and Lutherans are outside
the church, and in the church are only the Orthodox.

But the Lutheran catechism runs as follows: "_Die wahre Kirche wird
daran erkannt, dass in ihr das Wort Gottes lauter und rein ohne
Menschenzusätze gelehrt und die Sacramente treu nach Christi
Einsetzung gewahrt werden_."

According to this definition, all those who have added anything to
the teaching of Christ and the apostles, as the Catholic and Greek
Churches have done, are outside the church. And in the church are
only the Protestants.

The Catholics assert that the Holy Ghost has uninterruptedly
operated in their hierarchy; the Orthodox assert that the same Holy
Ghost has operated in their hierarchy; the Arians asserted that the
Holy Ghost operated in their hierarchy (this they asserted with as
much right as the now ruling churches assert it); the Protestants of
every description, Lutherans, Reformers, Presbyterians, Methodists,
Swedenborgians, Mormons, assert that the Holy Ghost operates only in
their assemblies.

If the Catholics assert that the Holy Ghost during the division of
the Arian and of the Greek Churches left the apostatizing churches
and remained only in the one, true church, the Protestants of
every denomination can with the same right assert that during the
separation of their church from the Catholic the Holy Ghost left the
Catholic Church and passed over to the one which they recognize. And
so they do.

Every church deduces its profession through an uninterrupted
tradition from Christ and the apostles. And, indeed, every Christian
confession, arising from Christ, must have inevitably reached the
present generation through a certain tradition. But this does not
prove that any one of these traditions, excluding all the others, is
indubitably the correct one.

Every twig on the tree goes uninterruptedly back to the root; but
the fact that every twig comes from the same root does in no way
prove that there is but one twig. The same is true of the churches.
Every church offers precisely the same proofs of its succession
and even of the miracles in favour of its own authenticity; thus
there is but one strict and precise definition of what the church
is (not as something fantastic, which we should like it to be, but
as something which in reality exists), and this is: the church is
an assembly of men, who assert that they, and they only, are in the
full possession of the truth.

It was these assemblies, which later on, with the aid of the support
of the temporal power, passed into mighty institutions, that were
the chief impediments in the dissemination of the true comprehension
of Christ's teaching.

Nor could it be otherwise: the chief peculiarity of Christ's
teaching, as distinguished from all the former teachings, consisted
in this, that the men who accepted it tried more and more to
understand and fulfil the teaching, whereas the church doctrine
asserted the full and final comprehension and fulfilment of this
teaching.

However strange it may seem to us people educated in the false
doctrine about the church as a Christian institution, and in the
contempt for heresy, it was only in what is called heresy that there
was true motion, that is, true Christianity, and it ceased to be
such when it stopped its motion in these heresies and became itself
arrested in the immovable forms of the church.

Indeed, what is a heresy? Read all the theological works which treat
about heresies, a subject which is the first to present itself for
definition, since every theology speaks of the true teaching amidst
the surrounding false teachings, that is, heresies, and you will
nowhere find anything resembling a definition of heresy.

As a specimen of that complete absence of any semblance of a
definition of what is understood by the word "heresy" may serve
the opinion on this subject expressed by the learned historian
of Christianity, E. de Pressensé, in his _Histoire du Dogme_,
with the epigraph, "_Ubi Christus, ibi Ecclesia_" (Paris, 1869).
This is what he says in his introduction: "_Je sais que l'on nous
conteste le droit de califier ainsi_," that is, to call heresies
"_les tendances qui furent si vivement combattues par les premiers
Pères. La désignation même d'hérésie semble une atteinte portée à
la liberté de conscience et de pensée. Nous ne pouvons partager
ces scrupules, car ils n'iraient à rien moins qu'à enlever au
christianisme tout caractère distinctif._"

And after saying that after Constantine the church actually misused
its power in defining the dissenters as heretics and persecuting
them, he passes judgment on the early times and says:

"_L'église est une libre association; il y a tout profit à se
séparer d'elle. La polémique contre l'erreur n'a d'autres resources
que la pensée et le sentiment. Un type doctrinal uniforme n'a pas
encore été élaboré; les divergences secondaires se produisent en
Orient et en Occident avec une entière liberté, la théologie n'est
point liée à d'invariables formules. Si au sein de cette diversité
apparait un fond commun de croyances, n'est-on pas en droit d'y
voir non pas un système formulé et composé par les représentants
d'une autorité d'école, mais la foi elle même, dans son instinct
le plus sûr et sa manifestation la plus spontanée? Si cette même
unanimité qui se revèle dans les croyances essentielles, se retrouve
pour repousser telles ou telles tendances, ne seront-nous pas en
droit de conclure que ces tendances étaient en désaccord flagrant
avec les principes fondamentaux du christianisme? Cette présomption
ne se transformera-t-elle pas en certitude si nous reconnaissons
dans la doctrine universellement repoussée par l'église les traits
caractéristiques de l'une des religions du passé? Pour dire que
le gnosticisme ou l'ebionitisme sont les formes légitimes de la
pensée chrétienne, il faut dire hardiment qu'il n'y a pas de pensée
chrétienne, ni de caractère specifique qui la fasse reconnaître.
Sous prétexte de l'élargir on la dissent. Personne, au temps de
Platon, n'eut osé de couvrir de son nom, une doctrine qui n'eut pas
fait place à la théorie des idées, et l'on eut excité les justes
moqueries de la Grèce, en voulant faire d'Epicure ou de Zénon un
disciple de l'Académie. Reconnaissons donc que s'il existe une
religion et une doctrine qui s'appelle le christianisme elle peut
avoir ses hérésies._"

The whole discussion of the author reduces itself to this, that
every opinion which is not in agreement with a code of dogmas
professed by us at a given time is a heresy; but at a given time and
in a given place people profess something, and this profession of
something in some place cannot be a criterion of the truth.

Everything reduces itself to this, that "_Ubi Christus, ibi
Ecclesia_;" but Christ is where we are. Every so-called heresy, by
recognizing as the truth what it professes, can in a similar manner
find in the history of the churches a consistent explanation of what
it professes, using for itself all the arguments of De Pressensé and
calling only its own confession truly Christian, precisely what all
the heresies have been doing.

The only definition of heresy (the word ἁίρεσις means
_part_) is the name given by an assembly of men to every judgment
which rejects part of the teaching, as professed by the assembly.
A more particular meaning, which more frequently than any other is
ascribed to heresy, is that of an opinion which rejects the church
doctrine, as established and supported by the worldly power.

There is a remarkable, little known, very large work
(_Unpartheyische Kirchen und Ketzer-Historia_, 1729), by Gottfried
Arnold, which treats directly on this subject and which shows all
the illegality, arbitrariness, senselessness, and cruelty of using
the word "heresy" in the sense of rejection. This book is an attempt
at describing the history of Christianity in the form of a history
of the heresies.

In the introduction the author puts a number of questions: (1)
regarding those who make heretics (_von den Ketzermachern selbst_);
(2) concerning those who were made heretics; (3) concerning the
subjects of heresy; (4) concerning the method of making heretics,
and (5) concerning the aims and consequences of making heretics.

In connection with each of these points he puts dozens of questions,
answers to which he later gives from the works of well-known
theologians, but he chiefly leaves it to the reader himself to
make the deduction from the exposition of the whole book. I shall
quote the following as samples of these questions, which partly
contain the answers. In reference to the fourth point, as to how
heretics are made, he says in one of his questions (the seventh):
"Does not all history show that the greatest makers of heretics and
the masters of this work were those same wise men from whom the
Father has hidden His secrets, that is, the hypocrites, Pharisees,
and lawyers, or entirely godless and corrupt people?" Questions 20
and 21: "And did not, in the most corrupt times of Christianity,
the hypocrites and envious people reject those very men who were
particularly endowed by God with great gifts, and who in the time
of pure Christianity would have been highly esteemed? And, on
the contrary, would not these men, who during the decadence of
Christianity elevated themselves above everything and recognized
themselves to be the teachers of the purest Christianity, have
been recognized, in apostolic times, as the basest heretics and
antichristians?"

Expressing in these questions this thought, among others, that the
verbal expression of the essence of faith, which was demanded by the
church, and a departure from which was considered a heresy, could
never completely cover the world-conception of the believer, and
that, therefore, the demand for an expression of faith by means of
particular words was the cause of heresy, he says, in Questions 21
and 33:

"And if the divine acts and thoughts present themselves to a man as
so great and profound that he does not find corresponding words in
which to express them, must he be recognized as a heretic, if he is
not able precisely to express his ideas? And is not this true, that
in the early times there was no heresy, because the Christians did
not judge one another according to verbal expressions, but according
to the heart and acts, in connection with a complete liberty of
expression, without fear of being recognized as a heretic? Was it
not a very common and easy method with the church," he says in
Question 21, "when the clergy wanted to get rid of a person or ruin
him, to make him suspected as regards his doctrine and to throw over
him the cloak of heresy, and thus to condemn and remove him?

"Though it is true that amidst the so-called heretics there were
errors and sins, yet it is not less true and obvious from the
numberless examples here adduced" (that is, in the history of the
church and of heresy), he says farther on, "that there has not been
a single sincere and conscientious man with some standing who has
not been ruined by the churchmen out of envy or for other causes."

Thus, nearly two hundred years ago, was the significance of heresy
understood, and yet this conception continues to exist until the
present time. Nor can it fail to exist, so long as there is a
concept of the church. Heresy is the reverse of the church. Where
there is the church, there is also heresy. The church is an assembly
of men asserting that they are in possession of the indisputable
truth. Heresy is the opinion of people who do not recognize the
indisputableness of the church truth.

Heresy is a manifestation of motion in the church, an attempt at
destroying the ossified assertion of the church, an attempt at a
living comprehension of the teaching. Every step of moving forward,
of comprehending and fulfilling the teaching has been accomplished
by the heretics: such heretics were Tertullian, and Origen, and
Augustine, and Luther, and Huss, and Savonarola, and Chelcický, and
others. Nor could it be otherwise.

A disciple of Christ, whose teaching consists in an eternally
greater and greater comprehension of the teaching and in a greater
and greater fulfilment of it, in a motion toward perfection,
cannot, for the very reason that he is a disciple of Christ, assert
concerning himself or concerning any one else, that he fully
understands Christ's teaching and fulfils it; still less can he
assert this concerning any assembly.

No matter at what stage of comprehension and perfection a disciple
of Christ may be, he always feels the insufficiency of his
comprehension and of his fulfilment, and always strives after a
greater comprehension and fulfilment. And so the assertion about
myself or about an assembly, that I, or we, possess the complete
comprehension of Christ's teaching, and completely fulfil it, is a
renunciation of the spirit of Christ's teaching.

No matter how strange this may seem, the churches, as churches, have
always been, and cannot help but be, institutions that are not only
foreign, but even directly hostile, to Christ's teaching. With good
reason Voltaire called the church "_l'infâme_;" with good reason
all, or nearly all, the Christian so-called sects have recognized
the church to be that whore of whom Revelation prophesies; with good
reason the history of the church is the history of the greatest
cruelties and horrors.

The churches, as churches, are not certain institutions which have
at their base the Christian principle, though slightly deviated
from the straight path, as some think; the churches, as churches,
as assemblies, which assert their infallibility, are antichristian
institutions. Between the churches, as churches, and Christianity
there is not only nothing in common but the name, but they are
two absolutely divergent and mutually hostile principles. One is
pride, violence, self-assertion, immobility, and death; the other is
meekness, repentance, humility, motion, and life.

It is impossible at the same time to serve both masters,--one or the
other has to be chosen.

The servants of the churches of all denominations have tried,
especially of late, to appear as advocates of motion in
Christianity; they make concessions, wish to mend the abuses which
have stolen into the church, and say that for the sake of the
abuses we ought not to deny the principle of the Christian church
itself, which alone can unite all men and be a mediator between
men and God. But all this is not true. The churches have not only
never united, but have always been one of the chief causes of the
disunion of men, of the hatred of one another, of wars, slaughters,
inquisitions, nights of St. Bartholomew, and so forth, and the
churches never serve as mediators between men and God, which is,
indeed, unnecessary and is directly forbidden by Christ, who has
revealed the teaching directly to every man, and they put up dead
forms in the place of God, and not only fail to reveal God to man,
but even conceal Him from them. Churches which have arisen from the
failure to comprehend, and which maintain this lack of comprehension
by their immobility, cannot help persecuting and oppressing every
comprehension of the teaching. They try to conceal this, but this is
impossible, because every motion forward along the path indicated by
Christ destroys their existence.

As one hears and reads the articles and sermons, in which the church
writers of modern times of all denominations speak of Christian
truths and virtues, as one hears and reads these clever discussions,
admonitions, confessions, which have been worked out by the ages,
and which sometimes look very much as though they were sincere,
one is prepared to doubt that the churches could be hostile to
Christianity: "It certainly cannot be that these people, who
have produced such men as Chrysostom, Fénelon, Butler, and other
preachers of Christianity, should be hostile to it." One feels like
saying: "The churches may have deviated from Christianity, may be in
error, but cannot be hostile to it." But as one looks at the fruits,
in order to judge the tree, as Christ has taught us to do, and sees
that their fruits have been evil, that the consequence of their
activity has been the distortion of Christianity, one cannot help
but feel that, no matter how good the men have been, the cause of
the churches in which they have taken part has not been Christian.
The goodness and the deserts of all these men, who served the
churches, were the goodness and the deserts of men, but not of the
cause which they served. All these good men--like Francis d'Assisi
and Francis de Lobes, our Tíkhon Zadónski, Thomas à Kempis, and
others--were good men, in spite of their having served a cause which
is hostile to Christianity, and they would have been better and more
deserving still, if they had not succumbed to the error which they
served.

But why speak of the past, judge of the past, which may have been
falsely represented to us? The churches with their foundations and
with their activity are not a work of the past: the churches are now
before us, and we can judge of them directly, by their activity,
their influence upon men.

In what does the activity of the churches now consist? How do they
act upon men? What do the churches do in our country, among the
Catholics, among the Protestants of every denomination? In what
does their activity consist, and what are the consequences of their
activity?

The activity of our Russian, so-called Orthodox, Church is in full
sight. It is a vast fact, which cannot be concealed, and about which
there can be no dispute.

In what consists the activity of this Russian Church, this
enormous, tensely active institution, which consists of an army of
half a million, costing the nation tens of millions?

The activity of this church consists in using every possible means
for the purpose of instilling in the one hundred millions of the
Russian population those obsolete, backward faiths, which now have
no justification whatsoever, and which sometime in the past were
professed by people that are alien to our nation, and in which
hardly any one now believes, frequently even not those whose duty it
is to disseminate these false doctrines.

The inculcation of these alien, obsolete formulas of the Byzantine
clergy, which no longer have any meaning for the men of our time,
about the Trinity, the Holy Virgin, the sacraments, grace, and
so forth, forms one part of the activity of the Russian Church;
another part of its activity consists in the activity of maintaining
idolatry in the direct sense of the word,--worshipping holy relics
and images, bringing sacrifices to them, and expecting from them
the fulfilment of their wishes. I shall not speak of what is spoken
and written by the clergy with a shade of learning and liberalism
in the clerical periodicals, but of what actually is done by the
clergy over the breadth of the Russian land among a population of
one hundred million people. What do they carefully, persistently,
tensely, everywhere without exception, teach the people? What is
demanded of them on the strength of the so-called Christian faith?

[Illustration: Russian Peasants at Mass

_Photogravure from Drawing by Carl Buddeus_]

I will begin with the beginning, with the birth of a child: at
the birth of a child, the clergy teaches that a prayer has to be
read over the mother and the child, in order to purify them, since
without this prayer the mother who has given birth to a child
is accursed. For this purpose the priest takes the child in his
hands in front of the representations of the saints, which the
masses simply call gods, and pronounces exorcising words, and
thus purifies the mother. Then it is impressed on the parents,
and even demanded of them under threat of punishment in case of
non-fulfilment, that the child shall be baptized, that is, dipped
three times in water by the priest, in connection with which
incomprehensible words are pronounced and even less comprehensible
acts performed,--the smearing of various parts of the body with
oil, the shearing of the hair, and the blowing and spitting of the
sponsors on the imaginary devil. All this is supposed to cleanse
the child and make him a Christian. Then the parents are impressed
with the necessity of giving the holy sacrament to the child, that
is, of giving him under the form of bread and wine a particle of
Christ's body to eat, in consequence of which the child will receive
the grace of Christ, and so forth. Then it is demanded that this
child, according to his age, shall learn to pray. To pray means to
stand straight in front of the boards on which the faces of Christ,
the Virgin, the saints, are represented, and incline his head and
his whole body, and with his right hand, with fingers put together
in a certain form, to touch his brow, shoulders, and stomach,
and pronounce Church-Slavic words, of which all the children are
particularly enjoined to repeat, "Mother of God, Virgin, rejoice!"
etc. Then the pupil is impressed with the necessity of doing the
same, that is, crossing himself, in presence of any church or image;
then he is told that on holidays (holidays are days on which Christ
was born, though no one knows when that was, and circumcised, on
which the Mother of God died, the cross was brought, the image was
carried in, a saintly fool saw a vision, etc.,) he must put on his
best clothes and go to church, buy tapers there and place them in
front of images of saints, hand in little notes and commemorations
and loaves, that triangles may be cut in them, and then pray many
times for the health and welfare of the Tsar and the bishops, and
for himself and his acts, and then kiss the cross and the priest's
hand.

Besides this prayer he is enjoined to prepare himself at least
once a year for the holy sacrament. To prepare himself for the
holy sacrament means to go to church and tell the priest his sins,
on the supposition that his imparting his sins to a stranger will
completely cleanse him of his sins, and then to eat from a spoon a
bit of bread with wine, which purifies him even more. Then it is
impressed upon a man and a woman, who want their carnal intercourse
to be sacred, that they must come to church, put on metallic crowns,
drink potions, to the sound of singing walk three times around a
table, and that then their carnal intercourse will become sacred and
quite distinct from any other carnal intercourse.

In life people are impressed with the necessity of observing the
following rules: not to eat meat or milk food on certain days, on
other certain days to celebrate masses for the dead, on holidays to
receive the priest and give him money, and several times a year to
take the boards with the representations out of the church and carry
them on sashes over fields and through houses. Before death a man is
enjoined to eat from a spoon bread with wine, and still better, if
he has time, to have himself smeared with oil. This secures for him
happiness in the next world. After a man's death, his relatives are
enjoined, for the purpose of saving the soul of the defunct, to put
into his hands a printed sheet with a prayer; it is also useful to
have a certain book read over the dead body and the name of the dead
man pronounced several times in church.

All this is considered an obligatory faith for everybody.

But if one wants to care for his soul, he is taught, according to
this faith, that the greatest amount of blessedness is secured for
the soul in the world to come by contributing money for churches and
monasteries, by putting holy men thus under obligation to pray for
him. Other soul-saving measures, according to this faith, are the
visiting of monasteries and the kissing of miracle-working images
and relics.

According to this faith, miracle-working images and relics
concentrate in themselves particular holiness, strength, and grace,
and nearness to these objects--touching, kissing them, placing
tapers before them, crawling up to them--contributes very much to a
man's salvation, and so do masses, which are ordered before these
sacred objects.

It is this faith, and no other, which is called Orthodox, that is,
the right faith, and which has, under the guise of Christianity,
been impressed upon the people for many centuries by the exercise
of all kinds of force, and is now being impressed with particular
effort.

And let it not be said that the Orthodox teachers place the essence
of the teaching in something else, and that these are only ancient
forms which it is not considered right to destroy. That is not true:
throughout all of Russia, nothing but this faith has of late been
impressed upon the people with particular effort. There is nothing
else. Of something else they talk and write in the capitals, but
only this is being impressed on one hundred million of people, and
nothing else. The churchmen talk of other things, but they enjoin
only this with every means at their command.

All this, and the worship of persons and images, is introduced
into theologies, into catechisms; the masses are carefully taught
this theoretically, and, being hypnotized practically, with every
means of solemnity, splendour, authority, and violence, are made to
believe in this, and are jealously guarded against every endeavour
to be freed from these savage superstitions.

In my very presence, as I said in reference to my book, Christ's
teaching and his own words concerning non-resistance to evil were
a subject of ridicule and circus jokes, and the churchmen not only
did not oppose this, but even encouraged the blasphemy; but allow
yourself to say a disrespectful word concerning the monstrous idol,
which is blasphemously carried about in Moscow by drunken persons
under the name of the Iberian Virgin, and a groan of indignation
will be raised by these same churchmen. All that is preached is the
external cult of idolatry. Let no one say that one thing does not
interfere with the other, that "these ought ye to have done, and not
to have left the other undone," that "all, therefore, whatsoever
they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their
works: for they say, and do not" (Matt. xxiii. 23, 3). This is
said of the Pharisees, who fulfilled all the external injunctions
of the law, and so the words, "whatsoever they bid you observe,
that observe," refer to works of charity and of goodness, and the
words, "but do ye not after their works, for they say, and do not,"
refer to the execution of ceremonies and to the omission of good
works, and have precisely the opposite meaning to what the churchmen
want to ascribe to this passage, when they interpret it as meaning
that ceremonies are to be observed. An external cult and serving
charity and truth are hard to harmonize; for the most part one thing
excludes the other. Thus it was with the Pharisees, and thus it is
now with the church Christians.

If a man can save himself through redemption, sacraments, prayer, he
no longer needs any good deeds.

The Sermon on the Mount, or the symbol of faith: it is impossible
to believe in both. And the churchmen have chosen the latter: the
symbol of faith is taught and read as a prayer in the churches; and
the Sermon on the Mount is excluded even from the Gospel teachings
in the churches, so that in the churches the parishioners never hear
it, except on the days when the whole Gospel is read. Nor can it
be otherwise: men who believe in a bad and senseless God, who has
cursed the human race and who has doomed His son to be a victim, and
has doomed a part of humanity to everlasting torment, cannot believe
in a God of love. A man who believes in God-Christ, who will come
again in glory to judge and punish the living and the dead, cannot
believe in Christ, who commands a man to offer his cheek to the
offender, not to judge, but to forgive, and to love our enemies. A
man who believes in the divine inspiration of the Old Testament and
the holiness of David, who on his death-bed orders the killing of
an old man who has offended him and whom he could not kill himself,
because he was bound by an oath (Book of Kings, ii. 3), and similar
abominations, of which the Old Testament is full, cannot believe
in Christ's moral law; a man who believes in the doctrine and the
preaching of the church about the compatibility of executions and
wars with Christianity, cannot believe in the brotherhood of men.

Above all else, a man who believes in the salvation of men through
faith, in redemption, or in the sacraments, can no longer employ
all his strength in the fulfilment in life of the moral teaching of
Christ.

A man who is taught by the church the blasphemous doctrine about his
not being able to be saved by his own efforts, but that there is
another means, will inevitably have recourse to this means, and not
to his efforts, on which he is assured it is a sin to depend. The
church doctrine, any church doctrine, with its redemption and its
sacraments, excludes Christ's teaching, and the Orthodox doctrine,
with its idolatry, does so especially.

"But the masses have always believed so themselves, and believe so
now," people will say to this. "The whole history of the Russian
masses proves this. It is not right to deprive the masses of their
tradition." In this does the deception consist. The masses at one
time, indeed, professed something like what the church professes
now, though it was far from being the same (among the masses,
there has existed, not only this superstition of the images, house
spirits, relics, and the seventh Thursday after Easter, with its
wreaths and birches, but also a deep moral, vital comprehension
of Christianity, which has never existed in the whole church, and
was met with only in its best representatives); but the masses, in
spite of all the obstacles, which the government and the church
have opposed to them, have long ago in their best representatives
outlived this coarse stage of comprehension, which is proved by
the spontaneous birth of rationalistic sects, with which one meets
everywhere, with which Russia swarms at the present time, and with
which the churchmen struggle in vain. The masses move on in the
consciousness of the moral, vital side of Christianity. And it is
here that the church appears with its failure to support, and with
its intensified inculcation of an obsolete paganism in its ossified
form, with its tendency to push the masses back into that darkness,
from which they are struggling with so much effort to get out.

"We do not teach the masses anything new, but only what they believe
in, and that in a more perfect form," say the churchmen.

This is the same as tying up a growing chick and pushing it back
into the shell from which it has come.

I have often been struck by this observation, which would be
comical, if its consequences were not so terrible, that men, taking
hold of each other in a circle, deceive one another, without being
able to get out of the enchanted circle.

The first question, the first doubt of a Russian who is beginning
to think, is the question about the miracle-working images and,
above all, the relics: "Is it true that they are imperishable, and
that they work miracles?" Hundreds and thousands of men put these
questions to themselves and are troubled about their solution,
especially because the bishops, metropolitans, and all the
dignitaries kiss the relics and the miracle-working images. Ask the
bishops and the dignitaries why they do so, and they will tell you
that they do so for the sake of the masses, and the masses worship
the images and relics, because the bishops and dignitaries do so.

The activity of the Russian Church, in spite of its external
veneer of modernness, learning, spirituality, which its members
are beginning to assume in their writings, articles, clerical
periodicals, and sermons, consists not only in keeping the masses
in that consciousness of rude and savage idolatry, in which they
are, but also in intensifying and disseminating superstition
and religious ignorance, by pushing out of the masses the vital
comprehension of Christianity, which has been living in them by the
side of the idolatry.

I remember, I was once present in the monastery bookstore of Óptin
Cloister, when an old peasant was choosing some religious books for
his grandson, who could read. The monk kept pushing the description
of relics, holidays, miraculous images, psalters, etc., into his
hands. I asked the old man if he had the Gospel. "No." "Give him the
Russian Gospel," I said to the monk. "That is not proper for him,"
said the monk.

This is in compressed form the activity of our church.

"But this is only true in barbarous Russia," a European or American
reader will say. And such an opinion will be correct, but only in
the measure in which it refers to the government which aids the
church in accomplishing its stultifying and corrupting influence in
Russia.

It is true that nowhere in Europe is there such a despotic
government and one to such a degree in accord with the ruling
church, and so the participation of the power in the corruption of
the masses in Russia is very strong; but it is not true that the
Russian Church in its influence upon the masses in any way differs
from any other church.

The churches are everything the same, and if the Catholic, the
Anglican, and the Lutheran Churches have not in hand such an
obedient government as is the Russian, this is not due to the
absence of any desire to make use of the same.

The church, as a church, no matter what it may be, Catholic,
Anglican, Lutheran, Presbyterian,--every church, insomuch as it
is a church, cannot help but tend toward the same as the Russian
Church,--toward concealing the true meaning of Christ's teaching
and substituting in its place its own doctrine, which does not
put a person under any obligations, excludes the possibility of
understanding the true activity of Christ's teaching, and, above
all else, justifies the existence of priests who are living at the
expense of the nation.

Has Catholicism been doing anything else with its prohibition of the
reading of the Gospel, and with its demand for unreasoning obedience
to the ecclesiastic guides and the infallible Pope? Does Catholicism
preach anything different from what the Russian Church preaches?
We have here the same external cult, the same relics, miracles,
and statues, the miracle-working Notre-Dames, and processions. The
same elatedly misty judgments concerning Christianity in books and
sermons, and, when it comes to facts, the same maintenance of a
coarse idolatry.

And is not the same being done in Anglicanism, Lutheranism, and in
every Protestantism which has formed itself into a church? The same
demands from the congregation for a belief in dogmas which were
expressed in the fourth century and have lost all meaning for the
men of our time, and the same demand for idolatry, if not before
relics and images, at least before the Sabbath and the letter of
the Bible. It is still the same activity, which is directed upon
concealing the real demands of Christianity and substituting for
them externals, which do not put a man under any obligations, and
"cant," as the English beautifully define the occupation to which
they are particularly subject. Among the Protestants this activity
is particularly noticeable, since they do not even have the excuse
of antiquity. And does not the same take place in the modern
Revivalism,--the renovated Calvinism, Evangelism,--out of which has
grown up the Salvation Army? Just as the condition of all the church
doctrines is the same in reference to Christ's teaching, so are also
their methods.

Their condition is such that they cannot help but strain all their
efforts, in order to conceal the teaching of Christ, whose name they
use.

The incompatibility of all the church confessions with Christ's
teaching is such that it takes especial efforts to conceal this
incompatibility from men. Indeed, we need but stop and think of
the condition of any adult, not only cultured, but even simple,
man of our time, who has filled himself with conceptions, which
are in the air, from the fields of geology, physics, chemistry,
cosmography, history, when he for the first time looks consciously
at the beliefs, instilled in him in childhood and supported by the
churches, that God created the world in six days; that there was
light before the sun; that Noah stuck all the animals into his ark,
and so forth; that Jesus is the same God, the son, who created
everything before this; that this God descended upon earth for
Adam's sin; that He rose from the dead, ascended to heaven, and sits
on the right of the Father, and will come in the clouds to judge the
world, and so forth.

All these propositions, which were worked out by the men of the
fourth century and had a certain meaning for the men of that time,
have no meaning for the men of the present. The men of our time may
repeat these words with their lips, but they cannot believe, because
these words, like the statements that God lives in heaven, that the
heavens opened and a voice said something from there, that Christ
rose from the dead and flew somewhere to heaven and will again come
from somewhere in the clouds, and so forth, have no meaning for us.

It was possible for a man, who regarded the heaven as a finite, firm
vault, to believe, or not, that God created the heaven, that heaven
was opened, that Christ flew to heaven; but for us these words have
no meaning whatsoever. Men of our time can only believe that they
must believe so; but they cannot believe in what has no meaning for
them.

But if all these expressions are to have a figurative meaning and
are emblems, we know that, in the first place, not all churchmen
agree in this, but that, on the contrary, the majority insist on
understanding Holy Scripture in a direct sense, and, secondly, that
these interpretations are varied and not confirmed by anything.

But even if a man wishes to make himself believe in the doctrine
of the churches, as it is imparted,--the general diffusion of
knowledge and of the Gospels, and the intercourse of men of various
denominations among themselves, form for this another, even more
insuperable obstacle.

A man of our time need but buy himself a Gospel for three kopeks
and read Christ's clear words to the woman of Samaria, which are
not subject to any other interpretation, about the Father needing
no worshippers in Jerusalem, neither in this mountain, nor in that,
worshippers in spirit and in truth, or the words about a Christian's
being obliged to pray, not in temples, as the pagans do, and in
the sight of all, but in secret, that is, in his closet, or that a
disciple of Christ must not call any one father or teacher,--a man
needs but read these words, to become convinced that no ecclesiastic
pastors, who call themselves teachers in opposition to Christ's
teaching, and who quarrel among themselves, form an authority,
and that that which the churchmen teach us is not Christianity.
But more than that: if a man of our time continues to believe in
miracles and does not read the Gospel, his mere intercourse with men
of other denominations and faiths, which has become so easy in our
time, will make him doubt in the authenticity of his faith. It was
all very well for a man who never saw any men of another faith than
his own to believe that his own faith was the correct one; but a
thinking man need only come in contact, as he now does all the time,
with equally good and equally bad men of various denominations,
which condemn the doctrines of one another, in order to lose faith
in the truth of the religion which he professes. In our time only a
very ignorant man or one who is quite indifferent to the questions
of life, which are sanctified by religion, can stay in the church
faith.

[Illustration: Church of Vasili the Blessed, Moscow

_Photogravure from Drawing by E. Thérond_]

What cunning and what effort must be exerted by the churches, if, in
spite of all these conditions which are subversive of faith, they
are to continue building churches, celebrating masses, preaching,
teaching, converting, and, above all, receiving for it a fat income,
like all these priests, pastors, intendants, superintendents,
abbots, archdeacons, bishops, and archbishops.

Especial, supernatural efforts are needed. And such efforts, which
are strained more and more, are used by the churches. With us,
in Russia, they use (in addition to all other means) the simple,
coarse violence of the civil power, which is obedient to the church.
Persons who depart from the external expression of faith and who
give expression to it are either directly punished or deprived of
their rights; while persons who strictly adhere to the external
forms of faith are rewarded and given rights.

Thus do the Orthodox; but even all other churches, without
exception, use for this all such means, of which the chief is what
now is called hypnotization.

All the arts, from architecture to poetry, are put into action,
to affect the souls of men and to stultify them, and this action
takes place without interruption. Particularly evident is this
necessity of the hypnotizing action upon men, in order to bring them
to a state of stupefaction, in the activity of the Salvation Army,
which uses new, unfamiliar methods of horns, drums, songs, banners,
uniforms, processions, dances, tears, and dramatic attitudes.

But we are startled by them only because they are new methods. Are
not the old methods of the temples, with especial illumination,
with gold, splendour, candles, choirs, organs, bells, vestments,
lackadaisical sermons, and so forth, the same?

But, no matter how strong this action of hypnotization may be,
the chief and most deleterious activity of the churches does not
lie in this. The chief, most pernicious activity of the church
is the one which is directed to the deception of the children,
those very children of whom Christ said that it will be woe to him
who shall offend one of these little ones. With the very first
awakening of the child, they begin to deceive him and to impress
upon him with solemnity what those who impress do not believe in
themselves, and they continue to impress him, until the deception,
becoming a habit, is engrafted on the child's nature. The child is
methodically deceived in the most important matter of life, and when
the deception has so grown up with his life that it is difficult to
tear it away, there is revealed to him the whole world of science
and of reality, which can in no way harmonize with the beliefs
instilled in him, and he is left to make the best he can out of
these contradictions.

If we should set ourselves the task of entangling a man in such a
way that he should not be able with his sound reason to get away
from the two opposite world-conceptions, which have been instilled
in him since his childhood, we could not invent anything more
powerful than what is accomplished in the case of every young man
who is educated in our so-called Christian society.

What the churches do to people is terrible, but if we reflect
on their condition, we shall find that those men who form the
institution of the churches cannot act otherwise. The churches are
confronted with a dilemma,--the Sermon on the Mount, or the Nicene
Creed,--one excludes the other: if a man sincerely believes in the
Sermon on the Mount, the Nicene Creed, and with it the church and
its representatives, inevitably lose all meaning and significance
for him; but if a man believes in the Nicene Creed, that is, in the
church, that is, in those who call themselves its representatives,
the Sermon on the Mount will become superfluous to him. And so the
churches cannot help but use every possible effort to obscure the
meaning of the Sermon on the Mount and to attract people toward
itself. Only thanks to the tense activity of the churches in this
direction has the influence of the churches held itself until now.
Let a church for the shortest time arrest this action upon the
masses by means of hypnotizing them and deceiving the children, and
people will understand Christ's teaching. But the comprehension
of the teaching destroys the churches and their significance. And
so the churches do not for a moment interrupt the tense activity
and hypnotization of the adults and the deception of the children.
And it is this activity of the churches, which instils a false
comprehension of Christ's teaching in men, and serves as an obstacle
in its comprehension for the majority of so-called believers.


IV.

Now I will speak of another putative comprehension of Christianity,
which interferes with the correct comprehension of it,--the
scientific comprehension.

The churchmen regard as Christianity that conception of it which
they have formed, and this comprehension of Christianity they regard
as the one indubitably true one.

The men of science regard as Christianity only what the different
churches have been professing, and, assuming that these professions
exhaust the whole significance of Christianity, they recognize it as
a religious teaching which has outlived its time.

To have it made clear how impossible it is with such a view to
understand the Christian teaching, we must form an idea of the place
which the religions in general and Christianity in particular have
in reality occupied in the life of humanity, and of the significance
which is ascribed to religion by science.

As an individual man cannot live without having a definite idea of
the meaning of his life, and always, though often unconsciously,
conforms his acts to this meaning which he ascribes to his life,
even so aggregates of men living under the same conditions,--nations
cannot help but have a conception about the meaning of their
collective life and the activity resulting therefrom. And as
an individual, entering into a new age, invariably changes his
comprehension of life, and a grown man sees its meaning in something
else than in what a child sees it, so an aggregate of people, a
nation, inevitably, according to its age, changes its comprehension
of life and the activity which results from it.

The difference between the individual and the whole of humanity in
this respect consists in this, that while the individual in the
determination of the comprehension of life, proper to the new stage
of life into which he enters, and in the activity which arises from
it, makes use of the indications of men who have lived before him
and who have already passed through the period of life upon which
he is entering, humanity cannot have these indications, because it
all moves along an untrodden path, and there is no one who can tell
how life is to be understood, and how one is to act under the new
conditions into which it is entering, and in which no one has lived
before.

And yet, as a married man with children cannot continue to
understand life as he understood it when he was a child, so
humanity cannot in connection with all the various changes
which have taken place,--the density of the population, and the
established intercourse between the nations, and the improvement of
the means for struggling against Nature, and the accumulation of
science,--continue to understand life as before, but must establish
a new concept of life, from which should result the activity which
corresponds to that new condition into which it has entered or is
about to enter.

To this demand responds the peculiar ability of humanity to
segregate certain people who give a new meaning to the whole of
human life,--a meaning from which results the whole new activity
which is different from the preceding one. The establishment of the
new life-conception, which is proper for humanity under the new
conditions into which it is entering, and of the activity resulting
from it, is what is called religion.

And so religion, in the first place, is not, as science thinks, a
phenomenon which at one time accompanied the evolution of humanity,
and later became obsolete, but is a phenomenon always inherent in
the life of humanity, and is in our time as inevitably inherent in
humanity as at any other time. In the second place, religion is
always a determination of the activity of the future, and not of the
past, and so it is obvious that the investigation of past phenomena
can in no way include the essence of religion.

The essence of every religious teaching does not consist in the
desire to express the forces of Nature symbolically, or in the fear
of them, or in the demand for the miraculous, or in the external
forms of its manifestation, as the men of science imagine. The
essence of religion lies in the property of men prophetically to
foresee and point out the path of life, over which humanity must
travel, in a new definition of the meaning of life, from which also
results a new, the whole future activity of humanity.

This property of foreseeing the path on which humanity must travel
is in a greater or lesser degree common to all men, but there have
always, at all times, been men, in whom this quality has been
manifested with particular force, and these men expressed clearly
and precisely what was dimly felt by all men, and established a new
comprehension of life, from which resulted an entirely new activity,
for hundreds and thousands of years.

We know three such conceptions of life: two of them humanity has
already outlived, and the third is the one through which we are
now passing in Christianity. There are three, and only three, such
conceptions, not because we have arbitrarily united all kinds of
life-conceptions into these three, but because the acts of men
always have for their base one of these three life-conceptions,
because we cannot understand life in any other way than by one of
these three means.

The three life-conceptions are these: the first--the personal, or
animal; the second--the social, or the pagan; and the third--the
universal, or the divine.

According to the first life-conception, man's life is contained
in nothing but his personality; the aim of his life is the
gratification of the will of this personality. According to
the second life-conception, man's life is not contained in
his personality alone, but in the aggregate and sequence of
personalities,--in the tribe, the family, the race, the state;
the aim of life consists in the gratification of the will of this
aggregate of personalities. According to the third life-conception,
man's life is contained neither in his personality, nor in the
aggregate and sequence of personalities, but in the beginning and
source of life, in God.

These three life-conceptions serve as the foundation of all past and
present religions.

The savage recognizes life only in himself, in his personal desires.
The good of his life is centred in himself alone. The highest
good for him is the greatest gratification of his lust. The prime
mover of his life is his personal enjoyment. His religion consists
in appeasing the divinity in his favour, and in the worship of
imaginary personalities of gods, who live only for personal ends.

A pagan, a social man, no longer recognizes life in himself alone,
but in the aggregate of personalities,--in the tribe, the family,
the race, the state,--and sacrifices his personal good for these
aggregates. The prime mover of his life is glory. His religion
consists in the glorification of the heads of unions,--of eponyms,
ancestors, kings, and in the worship of gods, the exclusive
protectors of his family, his race, his nation, his state.[9]

  [9] The unity of this life-conception is not impaired by the
  fact that so many various forms of life, as that of the tribe,
  the family, the race, the state, and even the life of humanity,
  according to the theoretical speculations of the positivists, are
  based on this social, or pagan, life-conception. All these various
  forms of life are based on the same concept that the life of the
  personality is not a sufficient aim of life and that the meaning of
  life can be found only in the aggregate of personalities.--_Author's
  Note._

The man with the divine life-conception no longer recognizes life to
consist in his personality, or in the aggregate of personalities (in
the family, the race, the people, the country, or the state), but
in the source of the everlasting, immortal life, in God; and to do
God's will he sacrifices his personal and domestic and social good.
The prime mover of his religion is love. And his religion is the
worship in deed and in truth of the beginning of everything, of God.

The whole historical life of humanity is nothing but a gradual
transition from the personal, the animal life-conception, to the
social, and from the social to the divine. The whole history of the
ancient nations, which lasted for thousands of years and which came
to a conclusion with the history of Rome, is the history of the
substitution of the social and the political life-conception for the
animal, the personal. The whole history since the time of imperial
Rome and the appearance of Christianity has been the history of the
substitution of the divine life-conception for the political, and we
are passing through it even now.

It is this last life-conception, and the Christian teaching which
is based upon it and which governs our whole life and lies at
the foundation of our whole activity, both the practical and the
theoretical, that the men of so-called science, considering it
in reference to its external signs only, recognize as something
obsolete and meaningless for us.

This teaching, which, according to the men of science, is contained
only in its dogmatic part,--in the doctrine of the Trinity, the
redemption, the miracles, the church, the sacraments, and so
forth,--is only one out of a vast number of religions which have
arisen in humanity, and now, having played its part in history, is
outliving its usefulness, melting in the light of science and true
culture.

What is taking place is what in the majority of cases serves as
a source of the coarsest human errors,--men who are standing on a
lower level of comprehension, coming in contact with phenomena of a
higher order, instead of making efforts to understand them, instead
of rising to the point of view from which they ought to look upon
a subject, judge it from their lower point of view, and that, too,
with greater daring and determination the less they understand what
they are talking about.

For the majority of scientific men, who view Christ's vital,
moral teaching from the lower point of the social conception of
life, this teaching is only a very indefinite, clumsy combination
of Hindoo asceticism, Stoical and Neo-platonic teachings, and
Utopian antisocial reveries, which have no serious significance
for our time, and its whole meaning is centred in its external
manifestations,--in Catholicism, Protestantism, the dogmas, the
struggle with the worldly power. In defining the significance of
Christianity according to these phenomena, they are like deaf
persons who should judge of the meaning and the worth of music
according to the appearance of the motions which the musicians make.

The result of it is this, that all these men, beginning with Comte,
Strauss, Spencer, and Renan, who do not understand the meaning of
Christ's sermons, who do not understand why they are uttered and
for what purpose, who do not even understand the question to which
they serve as an answer, who do not even take the trouble to grasp
their meaning, if they are inimically inclined, deny outright the
rationality of the teaching; but if they wish to be condescending to
it, they correct it from the height of their grandeur, assuming that
Christ wanted to say precisely what they have in mind, but did not
know how to say it. They treat his teaching as, in correcting the
words of an interlocutor, self-confident men generally speak to one
whom they regard as standing below them, "Yes, what you mean to say
is this." This correction is always made in the sense of reducing
the higher, divine life-conception to the lower, social conception.

People generally say that the moral teaching of Christianity is
good, but exaggerated,--that, in order that it should be absolutely
good, we must reject from it what is superfluous, what does not fit
in with our structure of life. "For otherwise the teaching, which
demands too much, which cannot be carried out, is worse than one
which demands from men what is possible and in conformity with their
strength," think and assert the wise interpreters of Christianity,
repeating what was long ago affirmed and still is affirmed, and
could not help but be affirmed, in relation to the Christian
teaching, by those who, having failed to comprehend the teacher of
it, crucified Him,--by the Jews.

It turns out that before the judgment of the learned of our time,
the Jewish law, A tooth for a tooth, and an eye for an eye,--the
law of just retaliation, which was known to humanity five thousand
years ago,--is more useful than the law of love which eighteen
hundred years ago was preached by Christ in place of this very law
of justice.

It turns out that everything which has been done by the men who
comprehended Christ's teaching in a direct manner and lived in
conformity with such a comprehension, everything which all true
Christians, all Christian champions, have done, everything which now
transforms the world under the guise of socialism and communism,--is
exaggeration, of which it is not worth while to speak.

Men who have been educated in Christianity for eighteen centuries
have convinced themselves in the persons of their foremost men,
the scholars, that the Christian teaching is a teaching of dogmas,
that the vital teaching is a misconception, an exaggeration, which
violates the true legitimate demands of morality, which correspond
to man's nature, and that the doctrine of justice, which Christ
rejected and in the place of which he put his own teaching, is much
more profitable for us.

The learned consider the commandment of non-resistance to evil an
exaggeration and even madness. If it be rejected, it would be much
better, they think, without observing that they are not talking of
Christ's teaching at all, but of what presents itself to them as
such.

They do not notice that to say that Christ's commandment about
non-resistance to evil is an exaggeration is the same as saying
that in the theory of the circle the statement about the equality
of the radii of a circle is an exaggeration. And those who say so
do precisely what a man, who did not have any conception as to
what a circle is, would do if he asserted that the demand that all
the points on the circumference should be equally distant from the
centre is an exaggeration. To advise that the statement concerning
the equality of the radii in a circle be rejected or moderated is
the same as not understanding what a circle is. To advise that the
commandment about non-resistance to evil in the vital teaching of
Christ be rejected or moderated means not to understand the teaching.

And those who do so actually do not understand it at all. They do
not understand that this teaching is the establishment of a new
comprehension of life, which corresponds to the new condition into
which men have been entering for these eighteen hundred years, and
the determination of the new activity which results from it. They
do not believe that Christ wanted to say what he did; or it seems
to them that what he said in the Sermon on the Mount and in other
passages He said from infatuation, from lack of comprehension, from
insufficient development.[10]

  [10] Here, for example, is a characteristic judgment of the kind
  in an article of an American periodical, _Arena_, October, 1890.
  The article is entitled "A New Basis of Church Life." In discussing
  the significance of the Sermon on the Mount, and especially its
  non-resistance to evil, the author, who is not obliged, like the
  ecclesiastic writers, to conceal its meaning, says: "Christ actually
  preached complete communism and anarchy; but we must know how to
  look upon Christ in His historical and psychologic significance."
  [This sentence is not in the English article.--_Tr._] "Devout common
  sense must gradually come to look upon Christ as a philanthropic
  teacher who, like every enthusiast who ever taught, went to an
  Utopian extreme of His own philosophy. Every great agitation for the
  betterment of the world has been led by men who beheld their own
  mission with such absorbing intensity that they could see little
  else. It is no reproach to Christ to say that He had the typical
  reformer's temperament; that His precepts cannot be literally
  accepted as a complete philosophy of life; and that men are to
  analyze them reverently, but, at the same time, in the spirit of
  ordinary, truth-seeking criticism," and so forth. Christ would have
  liked to speak well, but He did not know how to express Himself as
  precisely and clearly as we, in the spirit of criticism, and so we
  will correct him. Everything He said about meekness, sacrifice,
  poverty, the thoughtlessness for the morrow, He said by chance,
  having been unable to express himself scientifically.--_Author's
  Note._

Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye
shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye
shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than
raiment? Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do
they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth
them. Are ye not much better than they? Which of you by taking
thought can add one cubit unto his stature? And why take ye thought
for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow;
they toil not, neither do they spin: and yet I say unto you, That
even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is,
and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall He not much more clothe
you, O ye of little faith? Therefore take no thought, saying, What
shall we eat? or, What shall we drink, or, Wherewithal shall we be
clothed? (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for
your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.
But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and
all these things shall be added unto you. Take therefore no thought
for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things
of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof (Matt. vi.
25-34).

Sell that ye have, and give alms; provide yourselves bags which wax
not old, a treasure in the heavens that faileth not, where no thief
approacheth, neither moth corrupteth. For where your treasure is
there will your heart be also (Luke xii. 33-34).

Go and sell that thou hast, and follow me, and who hath not forsaken
father or mother, or children, or brethren, or fields, or house,
cannot be my disciple.

Turn away from thyself, take thy cross for every day, and come after
me. My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me, and to do His
work. Not my will be done, but Thine; not what I want, but what Thou
wantest, and not as I want, but as Thou wantest. The life is in
this, not to do one's will, but the will of God.

All these propositions seem to men who are standing on a lower
life-conception to be an expression of an ecstatic transport, which
has no direct applicability to life. And yet these propositions
just as strictly result from the Christian conception of life as
the tenet about giving up one's labour for the common good, about
sacrificing one's life in the defence of one's country, results from
the social conception.

Just as a man of the social life-conception says to a savage, "Come
to your senses, bethink yourself! The life of your personality
cannot be the true life, because it is wretched and transitory. Only
the life of the aggregate and of the sequence of personalities,
of the tribe, the family, the race, the state, is continued and
lives, and so a man must sacrifice his personality for the life of
the family, the state." Precisely the same the Christian teaching
says to a man of the aggregate, of the social conception of life.
"Repent, μετανοεῖτε, that is, bethink yourselves, or
else you will perish. Remember that this carnal, personal life,
which originated to-day and will be destroyed to-morrow, cannot be
made secure in any way, that no external measures, no arrangement of
it, can add firmness and rationality to it. Bethink yourselves and
understand that the life which you live is not the true life: the
life of the family, the life of society, the life of the state will
not save you from ruin." The true, rational life is possible for man
only in proportion as he can be a participant, not in the family or
the state, but in the source of life, the Father; in proportion as
he can blend his life with the life of the Father. Such indubitably
is the Christian life-comprehension, which may be seen in every
utterance of the Gospel.

It is possible not to share this life-conception; it is possible to
reject it; it is possible to prove its inexactness and irregularity;
but it is impossible to judge of the teaching, without having
first grasped the life-conception from which it results; still
less possible is it to judge about a subject of a higher order
from a lower point of view, to judge of the tower by looking at
the foundation. But it is precisely this that the learned men of
our time are doing. They do so because they abide in an error,
which is like the one of the churchmen, the belief that they are
in possession of such methods of the study of the subject that, as
soon as these methods, called scientific, are used, there can be no
longer any doubt as to the correctness of the comprehension of the
subject under advisement.

It is this possession of an instrument of cognition, which
they deem infallible, that serves as the chief obstacle in the
comprehension of the Christian teaching by unbelievers and so-called
scientific men, by whose opinion the vast majority of unbelievers,
the so-called cultured men, are guided. From this imaginary
comprehension of theirs arise all the errors of the scientific
men in respect to the Christian teaching, and especially two
strange misconceptions which more than any other impede the correct
comprehension of it.

One of these misconceptions is this, that the Christian vital
teaching is impracticable, and so is either entirely unobligatory,
that is, need not be taken for a guide, or else must be modified
and moderated to such an extent as to make it practicable in our
society. Another misunderstanding is this, that the Christian
teaching of love of God, and so the service of Him, is an obscure,
mystical demand, which has no definite object of love, and so must
give way to a more precise and comprehensible teaching about loving
men and serving humanity.

The first misconception about the impracticableness of the teaching
consists in this, that the men of the social comprehension of
life, being unable to comprehend the method by means of which the
Christian teaching guides men, and taking the Christian indications
of perfection to be rules which determine life, think and say that
it is impossible to follow Christ's teaching, because a complete
fulfilment of this teaching destroys life.

"If a man fulfilled what was preached by Christ, he would destroy
his life; and if all men should fulfil it, the whole human race
would come to an end," they say.

"If we care not for the morrow, for what we shall eat and drink and
be clothed in; if we do not defend our lives; if we do not resist
evil with force; if we give our lives for our friends, and observe
absolute chastity, no man, nor the whole human race, can exist,"
they think and say.

And they are quite correct, if we take the indications of
perfection, as given by Christ, for rules, which every man is
obliged to carry out, just as in the social teaching everybody is
obliged to carry out the rule about paying the taxes, about taking
part in court, etc.

The misconception consists in this, that Christ's teaching guides
men in a different way from the way those teachings guide which
are based on a lower life-conception. The teachings of the social
life-conception guide only by demanding a precise execution of the
rules or laws. Christ's teaching guides men by indicating to them
that infinite perfection of the Father in heaven, toward which it is
proper for each man to strive voluntarily, no matter at what stage
of perfection he may be.

The misconception of people who judge about the Christian teaching
from the social point of view consists in this, that they,
assuming that the perfection pointed out by Christ may be attained
completely, ask themselves (even as they question themselves,
assuming that the social laws will be fulfilled) what will happen
when all this shall be fulfilled. This assumption is false, because
the perfection pointed out by Christ is infinite and can never be
attained; and Christ gives His teaching with this in view, that
complete perfection will never be attained, but that the striving
toward complete, infinite perfection will constantly increase
the good of men, and that this good can, therefore, be increased
infinitely.

Christ does not teach angels, but men, who live an animal life,
who are moved by it. And it is to this animal force of motion that
Christ seems to apply a new, a different force of the consciousness
of divine perfection, and with this He directs the motion of life
along the resultant of two forces.

To assume that human life will go in the direction indicated by
Christ is the same as assuming that a boatman, in crossing a rapid
river and directing his boat almost against the current, will move
in that direction.

Christ recognizes the existence of both sides of the parallelogram,
of both the eternal, indestructible forces, of which man's life
is composed,--the force of the animal nature and the force of the
consciousness of a filial relation to God. Without saying anything
of the animal force, which, asserting itself, always remains equal
to itself and exists outside of man's power, Christ speaks only of
the divine force, calling man to recognize it in the highest degree,
to free it as much as possible from what is retarding it, and to
bring it to the highest degree of tension.

In this liberation and increase of the force does man's true life,
according to Christ's teaching, consist. The true life, according
to the previous conditions, consisted in the execution of rules, of
the law; according to Christ's teaching, it consists in the greatest
approach to the divine perfection, as pointed out to every man and
inwardly felt by him, in a greater and ever greater approach toward
blending our will with the will of God, a blending toward which a
man strives, and which would be a destruction of life as we know it.

Divine perfection is the asymptote of the human life, toward which
it always tends and approaches, and which can be attained by it only
at infinity.

The Christian teaching seems to exclude the possibility of life only
when men take the indication of the ideal to be a rule. It is only
then that the demands put forth by Christ's teaching appear to be
destructive of life. Without these demands the true life would be
impossible.

"Too much should not be demanded," people generally say, in
discussing the demands of the Christian teaching. "It is impossible
to demand that we should not care for the future, as it says in
the Gospel; all that we should do is not to care too much. It is
impossible to give everything to the poor; but we should give a
certain, definite part to them. It is not necessary to strive after
chastity; but debauchery should be avoided. We must not leave our
wives and children; but we should not be too much attached to them,"
and so forth.

But to speak in this manner is the same as telling a man who is
crossing a rapid river, and who is directing his course against the
current, that it is impossible to cross the river by going against
the current, but that to cross it he should row in the direction he
wishes to go.

Christ's teaching differs from previous teachings in that it guides
men, not by external rules, but by the internal consciousness of
the possibility of attaining divine perfection. And in man's soul
there are not moderated rules of justice and of philanthropy, but
the ideal of the complete, infinite, divine perfection. Only the
striving after this perfection deflects the direction of man's life
from the animal condition toward the divine, to the extent to which
this is possible in this life.

In order to land where you wish, you must direct your course much
higher up.

To lower the demands of the ideal means not only to diminish the
possibility of perfection, but to destroy the ideal itself. The
ideal which operates upon people is not an invented one, but one
which is borne in the soul of every man. Only this ideal of the
complete, infinite perfection acts upon people and moves them to
activity. A moderated perfection loses its power to act upon men's
souls.

Christ's teaching only then has force, when it demands full
perfection, that is, the blending of God's essence, which abides in
the soul of every man, with the will of God,--the union of the son
and the Father. Only this liberation of the son of God, who lives in
every man, from the animal, and his approximation to the Father form
life according to Christ's teaching.

The existence of the animal in man, of nothing but the animal, is
not the human life. Life according to the will of God alone is also
not the human life. The human life is the resultant from the animal
and the divine lives, and the more this resultant approaches the
divine life, the more there is of life.

Life, according to the Christian teaching, is a motion toward
divine perfection. No condition, according to this teaching, can
be higher or lower than another. Every condition, according to this
teaching, is only a certain step, indifferent in itself, toward the
unattainable perfection, and so in itself forms neither a greater
nor a lesser degree of life. The increase of life, according to
this teaching, is only an acceleration of motion toward perfection,
and so the motion toward perfection of the publican Zacchæus, of
the harlot, of the robber on the cross, forms a higher degree of
life than the immovable righteousness of the Pharisee. And so there
can be no obligatory rules for this teaching. A man who stands on
a lower step, in moving toward perfection, lives more morally and
better, and better performs the teaching, than a man who stands
on a much higher stage of morality, but who does not move toward
perfection.

In this sense the lost sheep is dearer to the Father than one which
is not lost. The prodigal son, the lost coin which is found again,
are dearer than those which were not lost.

The fulfilment of the teaching consists in the motion from oneself
toward God. It is evident that for such a fulfilment of the teaching
there can be no definite laws and rules. All degrees of perfection
and all degrees of imperfection are equal before this teaching; no
fulfilment of the laws constitutes a fulfilment of the teaching; and
so, for this teaching there are, and there can be, no rules and no
laws.

From this radical distinction of Christ's teaching as compared
with previous teachings, which are based on the social conception
of life, there results the difference between the social and the
Christian commandments. The social commandments are for the most
part positive, prescribing certain acts, justifying men, giving
them righteousness. But the Christian commandments (the commandment
of love is not a commandment in the strict sense of the word, but
an expression of the very essence of the teaching)--the five
commandments of the Sermon on the Mount--are all negative, and
they all show only what men may not do at a certain stage of human
development. These commandments are, as it were, signals on the
infinite road to perfection, toward which humanity walks, signals of
that stage of perfection which is possible at a given period of the
development of humanity.

In the Sermon on the Mount Christ has expressed the eternal ideal
toward which it is proper for men to tend, and that degree of its
attainment which can be reached even in our time.

The ideal consists in having no ill-will against any one, in calling
forth no ill-will, in loving all; but the commandment, below which,
in the attainment of this ideal, it is absolutely possible not to
descend, consists in not offending any one with a word. And this
forms the first commandment.

The ideal is complete chastity, even in thought; the commandment
which points out the degree of attainment, below which, in the
attainment of this ideal, it is absolutely possible not to descend,
is the purity of the marital life, the abstaining from fornication.
And this forms the second commandment.

The ideal is not to care for the future, to live only in the
present; the commandment which points out the degree of the
attainment, below which it is absolutely possible not to descend is
not to swear, not to promise anything to men. And this is the third
commandment.

The ideal is never, under any condition, to make use of violence;
the commandment which points out the degree below which it is
absolutely possible not to descend is not to repay evil with evil,
but to suffer insult, to give up one's cloak. And this is the fourth
commandment.

The ideal is to love our enemies, who hate us; the commandment which
points out the degree of the attainment, below which it is possible
not to descend, is to do no evil to our enemies, to speak well of
them, to make no distinction between them and our fellow citizens.

All these commandments are indications of what we are fully able not
to do on the path of striving after perfection, of what we ought to
work over now, of what we must by degrees transfer into the sphere
of habit, into the sphere of the unconscious. But these commandments
fail to form a teaching, and do not exhaust it, and form only one of
the endless steps in the approximation toward perfection.

After these commandments there must and will follow higher and
higher ones on the path to perfection, which is indicated by the
teaching.

And so it is the peculiarity of the Christian teaching that it makes
higher demands than those which are expressed in these commandments,
but under no condition minimizes the demands, either of the ideal
itself, or of these commandments, as is done by people who judge
the teaching of Christianity free from the standpoint of the social
conception of life.

Such is one misconception of the scientific men concerning the
meaning and significance of Christ's teaching; the other, which
flows from the same source, consists in the substitution of the love
and service of men, of humanity, for the Christian demand for loving
God and serving Him.

The Christian teaching of loving God and serving Him, and (only in
consequence of this love and this service) of the love and service
of our neighbour, appears obscure, mystical, and arbitrary to the
men of science, and they completely exclude the demand of love of
God and of serving Him, assuming that the teaching about this love
of men, of humanity, is much more intelligible and firm and better
grounded.

The men of science teach theoretically that the good and sensible
life is only the life of serving the whole of humanity, and in this
alone do they see the meaning of the Christian teaching; to this
teaching do they reduce the Christian teaching; for this their
teaching do they seek a confirmation in the Christian teaching,
assuming that their teaching and the Christian teaching are one and
the same.

This opinion is quite faulty. The Christian teaching, and that of
the positivists, communists, and all the preachers of a universal
brotherhood of men, which is based on the profitableness of such a
brotherhood, have nothing in common among themselves, and differ
from one another more especially in this, that the Christian
teaching has firm, clear foundations in the human soul, while the
teaching of the love of humanity is only a theoretical deduction
from analogy.

The teaching of the love of humanity alone has for its basis the
social conception of life.

The essence of the social conception of life consists in the
transference of the meaning of our personal lives into the life of
the aggregate of personalities,--the tribe, the family, the race,
the state. This transference has taken place easily and naturally in
its first forms, in the transference of the meaning of life from the
personality to the tribe, the family. But the transference to the
race or nation is more difficult and demands a special education for
it; and the transference of the consciousness to the state forms the
limit of such a transference.

It is natural for any one to love himself, and every person loves
himself without any special incitement; to love my tribe, which
supports and defends me, to love my wife, the joy and helpmate of my
life, my children, the pleasure and hope of my life, and my parents,
who have given me life and an education, is natural: and this kind
of love, though far from being as strong as the love of self, is met
with quite frequently.

To love one's race, one's nation, for the sake of oneself, of one's
pride, though not so natural, is still to be met with. The love of
one's nation, which is of the same race, tongue, and faith with
one, is still possible, though this sentiment is far from being as
strong as the love of self, or even of family and race; but the
love of a country, like Turkey, Germany, England, Austria, R

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