"The Kingdom of God Is Within You"
by graf Leo Tolstoy · English · Gutenberg #4602 · 742,892 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: "The Kingdom of God Is Within You"
Author: graf Leo Tolstoy
Translator: Constance Garnett
Release date: November 1, 2003 [eBook #4602]
Most recently updated: May 27, 2019
Language: English
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"THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS WITHIN YOU"
CHRISTIANITY NOT AS A MYSTIC RELIGION
BUT AS A NEW THEORY OF LIFE
TRANSLATED FROM THE RUSSIAN OF COUNT LEO TOLSTOI
BY CONSTANCE GARNETT
New York, 1894
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.
The book I have had the privilege of translating is, undoubtedly,
one of the most remarkable studies of the social and psychological
condition of the modern world which has appeared in Europe for
many years, and its influence is sure to be lasting and far
reaching. Tolstoi's genius is beyond dispute. The verdict of the
civilized world has pronounced him as perhaps the greatest
novelist of our generation. But the philosophical and religious
works of his later years have met with a somewhat indifferent
reception. They have been much talked about, simply because they
were his work, but, as Tolstoi himself complains, they have never
been seriously discussed. I hardly think that he will have to
repeat the complaint in regard to the present volume. One may
disagree with his views, but no one can seriously deny the
originality, boldness, and depth of the social conception which he
develops with such powerful logic. The novelist has shown in this
book the religious fervor and spiritual insight of the prophet;
yet one is pleased to recognize that the artist is not wholly lost
in the thinker. The subtle intuitive perception of the
psychological basis of the social position, the analysis of the
frame of mind of oppressors and oppressed, and of the intoxication
of Authority and Servility, as well as the purely descriptive
passages in the last chapter--these could only have come from the
author of "War and Peace."
The book will surely give all classes of readers much to think of,
and must call forth much criticism. It must be refuted by those
who disapprove of its teaching, if they do not want it to have
great influence.
One cannot of course anticipate that English people, slow as they
are to be influenced by ideas, and instinctively distrustful of
all that is logical, will take a leap in the dark and attempt to
put Tolstoi's theory of life into practice. But one may at least
be sure that his destructive criticism of the present social and
political RÉGIME will become a powerful force in the work of
disintegration and social reconstruction which is going on around
us. Many earnest thinkers who, like Tolstoi, are struggling to
find their way out of the contradictions of our social order will
hail him as their spiritual guide. The individuality of the
author is felt in every line of his work, and even the most
prejudiced cannot resist the fascination of his genuineness,
sincerity, and profound earnestness. Whatever comes from a heart
such as his, swelling with anger and pity at the sufferings of
humanity, cannot fail to reach the hearts of others. No reader
can put down the book without feeling himself better and more
truth-loving for having read it.
Many readers may be disappointed with the opening chapters of the
book. Tolstoi disdains all attempt to captivate the reader. He
begins by laying what he considers to be the logical foundation of
his doctrines, stringing together quotations from little-known
theological writers, and he keeps his own incisive logic for the
later part of the book.
One word as to the translation. Tolstoi's style in his religious
and philosophical works differs considerably from that of his
novels. He no longer cares about the form of his work, and his
style is often slipshod, involved, and diffuse. It has been my
aim to give a faithful reproduction of the original.
CONSTANCE GARNETT.
January, 1894
PREFACE.
In the year 1884 I wrote a book under the title "What I Believe,"
in which I did in fact make a sincere statement of my beliefs.
In affirming my belief in Christ's teaching, I could not help
explaining why I do not believe, and consider as mistaken, the
Church's doctrine, which is usually called Christianity.
Among the many points in which this doctrine falls short of the
doctrine of Christ I pointed out as the principal one the absence
of any commandment of non-resistance to evil by force. The
perversion of Christ's teaching by the teaching of the Church is
more clearly apparent in this than in any other point of
difference.
I know--as we all do--very little of the practice and the spoken and
written doctrine of former times on the subject of non-resistance to
evil. I knew what had been said on the subject by the fathers of the
Church--Origen, Tertullian, and others--I knew too of the existence of
some so-called sects of Mennonites, Herrnhuters, and Quakers, who do not
allow a Christian the use of weapons, and do not enter military service;
but I knew little of what had been done by these so-called sects toward
expounding the question.
My book was, as I had anticipated, suppressed by the Russian
censorship; but partly owing to my literary reputation, partly
because the book had excited people's curiosity, it circulated in
manuscript and in lithographed copies in Russia and through
translations abroad, and it evolved, on one side, from those who
shared my convictions, a series of essays with a great deal of
information on the subject, on the other side a series of
criticisms on the principles laid down in my book.
A great deal was made clear to me by both hostile and sympathetic
criticism, and also by the historical events of late years; and I
was led to fresh results and conclusions, which I wish now to
expound.
First I will speak of the information I received on the history of
the question of non-resistance to evil; then of the views of this
question maintained by spiritual critics, that is, by professed
believers in the Christian religion, and also by temporal ones,
that is, those who do not profess the Christian religion; and
lastly I will speak of the conclusions to which I have been
brought by all this in the light of the historical events of late
years.
L. TOLSTOI.
YASNAÏA POLIANA,
May 14/26, 1893.
CONTENTS.
I. THE DOCTRINE OF NON-RESISTANCE TO EVIL BY FORCE
HAS BEEN PROFESSED BY A MINORITY OF MEN FROM
THE VERY FOUNDATION OF CHRISTIANITY
II. CRITICISMS OF THE DOCTRINE OF NON-RESISTANCE TO
EVIL BY FORCE ON THE PART OF BELIEVERS AND OF UNBELIEVERS
III. CHRISTIANITY MISUNDERSTOOD BY BELIEVERS
IV. CHRISTIANITY MISUNDERSTOOD BY MEN OF SCIENCE
V. CONTRADICTION BETWEEN OUR LIFE AND OUR CHRISTIAN
CONSCIENCE
VI. ATTITUDE OF MEN OF THE PRESENT DAY TO WAR
VII. SIGNIFICANCE OF COMPULSORY SERVICE
VIII. DOCTRINE OF NON-RESISTANCE TO EVIL BY FORCE MUST
INEVITABLY BE ACCEPTED BY MEN OF THE PRESENT DAY
IX. THE ACCEPTANCE OF THE CHRISTIAN CONCEPTION OF
LIFE WILL EMANCIPATE MEN FROM THE MISERIES OF OUR PAGAN
LIFE
X. EVIL CANNOT BE SUPRESSED BY THE PHYSICAL FORCE OF THE
GOVERNMENT--THE MORAL PROGRESS OF HUMANITY IS BROUGHT ABOUT
NOT ONLY BY INDIVIDUAL RECOGNITION OF THE TRUTH BUT ALSO
THROUGH THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A PUBLIC OPINION
XI. THE CHRISTIAN CONCEPTION OF LIFE HAS ALREADY
ARISEN IN OUR SOCIETY, AND WILL INFALLIBLY PUT
AN END TO THE PRESENT ORGANIZATION OF OUR LIFE
BASED ON FORCE--WHEN THAT WILL BE
XII. CONCLUSION--REPENT YE, FOR THE KINGDOM OF
HEAVEN IS AT HAND
"Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you
free. "--John viii. 32.
"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 have been bought with a price; be not ye the servants
of men."--I COR. vii. 23.
"THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS WITHIN YOU."
CHAPTER I.
THE DOCTRINE OF NON-RESISTANCE TO EVIL BY FORCE HAS BEEN PROFESSED
BY A MINORITY OF MEN FROM THE VERY FOUNDATION OF CHRISTIANITY.
Of the Book "What I Believe"--The Correspondence Evoked by it--Letters
from Quakers--Garrison's Declaration--Adin Ballou, his Works, his
Catechism--Helchitsky's "Net of Faith"--The Attitude of the World to
Works Elucidating Christ's Teaching--Dymond's Book "On War"--Musser's
"Non-resistance Asserted"--Attitude of the Government in 1818 to Men who
Refused to Serve in the Army--Hostile Attitude of Governments Generally
and of Liberals to Those who Refuse to Assist in Acts of State Violence,
and their Conscious Efforts to Silence and Suppress these Manifestations
of Christian Non-resistance.
Among the first responses called forth by my book were some letters from
American Quakers. In these letters, expressing their sympathy with my
views on the unlawfulness for a Christian of war and the use of force of
any kind, the Quakers gave me details of their own so-called sect, which
for more than two hundred years has actually professed the teaching of
Christ on non-resistance to evil by force, and does not make use of
weapons in self-defense. The Quakers sent me books, from which I learnt
how they had, years ago, established beyond doubt the duty for a
Christian of fulfilling the command of non-resistance to evil by force,
and had exposed the error of the Church's teaching in allowing war and
capital punishment.
In a whole series of arguments and texts showing that war--that
is, the wounding and killing of men--is inconsistent with a
religion founded on peace and good will toward men, the Quakers
maintain and prove that nothing has contributed so much to the
obscuring of Christian truth in the eyes of the heathen, and has
hindered so much the diffusion of Christianity through the world,
as the disregard of this command by men calling themselves
Christians, and the permission of war and violence to Christians.
"Christ's teaching, which came to be known to men, not by means of
violence and the sword," they say, "but by means of non-resistance
to evil, gentleness, meekness, and peaceableness, can only be
diffused through the world by the example of peace, harmony, and
love among its followers."
"A Christian, according to the teaching of God himself, can act
only peaceably toward all men, and therefore there can be no
authority able to force the Christian to act in opposition to the
teaching of God and to the principal virtue of the Christian in
his relation with his neighbors."
"The law of state necessity," they say, "can force only those to
change the law of God who, for the sake of earthly gains, try to
reconcile the irreconcilable; but for a Christian who sincerely
believes that following Christ's teaching will give him salvation,
such considerations of state can have no force."
Further acquaintance with the labors of the Quakers and their
works--with Fox, Penn, and especially the work of Dymond
(published in 1827)--showed me not only that the impossibility of
reconciling Christianity with force and war had been recognized
long, long ago, but that this irreconcilability had been long ago
proved so clearly and so indubitably that one could only wonder
how this impossible reconciliation of Christian teaching with the
use of force, which has been, and is still, preached in the
churches, could have been maintained in spite of it.
In addition to what I learned from the Quakers I received about
the same time, also from America, some information on the subject
from a source perfectly distinct and previously unknown to me.
The son of William Lloyd Garrison, the famous champion of the
emancipation of the negroes, wrote to me that he had read my book, in
which he found ideas similar to those expressed by his father in the
year 1838, and that, thinking it would be interesting to me to know
this, he sent me a declaration or proclamation of "non-resistance" drawn
up by his father nearly fifty years ago.
This declaration came about under the following circumstances:
William Lloyd Garrison took part in a discussion on the means of
suppressing war in the Society for the Establishment of Peace
among Men, which existed in 1838 in America. He came to the
conclusion that the establishment of universal peace can only be
founded on the open profession of the doctrine of non-resistance
to evil by violence (Matt. v. 39), in its full significance, as
understood by the Quakers, with whom Garrison happened to be on
friendly relations. Having come to this conclusion, Garrison
thereupon composed and laid before the society a declaration,
which was signed at the time--in 1838--by many members.
"DECLARATION OF SENTIMENTS ADOPTED BY PEACE CONVENTION.
"Boston, 1838.
"We the undersigned, regard it as due to ourselves, to the
cause which we love, to the country in which we live, to
publish a declaration expressive of the purposes we aim to
accomplish and the measures we shall adopt to carry forward the
work of peaceful universal reformation.
"We do not 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 and rights of American citizens are
not dearer to us than those of the whole human race. Hence we
can allow no appeal to patriotism to revenge any national
insult or injury...
"We conceive that a nation has no right to defend itself
against foreign enemies or to punish its invaders, and no
individual possesses that right in his own case, and the unit
cannot be of greater importance than the aggregate. If
soldiers thronging from abroad with intent to commit rapine and
destroy life may not be resisted by the people or the
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 no less absurd than impious. It makes the impartial
Author of our existence 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 regard as unchristian and unlawful not only all wars,
whether offensive or defensive, but all preparations for war;
every naval ship, every arsenal, every fortification, we regard
as unchristian and unlawful; the existence of any kind of
standing army, all military chieftains, all monuments
commemorative of victory over a fallen foe, all trophies won in
battle, all celebrations in honor of military exploits, all
appropriations for defense by arms; we regard as unchristian
and unlawful every edict of government requiring of its
subjects military service.
"Hence we deem it unlawful to bear arms, and we cannot hold any
office which imposes on its incumbent the obligation to compel
men 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
honors, 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 force him to return
anything he may have wrongly taken from us; if he has seized
our coat, we shall surrender him our cloak also 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 on all his
disciples in all cases whatsoever. To extort money from
enemies, cast them into prison, exile or execute them, 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, and
that the sinful dispositions of men can be subdued only by
love; that evil can be exterminated only by good; that it is
not safe to rely upon the strength of an arm to preserve us
from harm; that there is great security in being gentle,
long-suffering, and abundant in mercy; that it is only the meek
who shall inherit the earth; for those who take up the sword
shall perish by 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, is armed with omnipotent power, and must
ultimately triumph over every assailing force.
"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 evil by our fundamental
principle of not opposing evil by evil we cannot participate in
sedition, treason, or violence. We shall submit to every
ordinance and every requirement of government, except such as
are contrary to the commands of the Gospel, and in no case
resist the operation of law, except by meekly submitting to the
penalty of disobedience.
"But while we shall adhere to the doctrine of non-resistance
and passive submission to enemies, we purpose, in a moral and
spiritual sense, to assail iniquity in high places and in low
places, to apply our principles to all existing evil,
political, legal, and ecclesiastical institutions, and to
hasten the time when the kingdoms of this world will have
become the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ. It appears to us
a self-evident truth that whatever the Gospel is designed to
destroy at 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 plowshares 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 stated our principles, 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. We
shall endeavor to promulgate our views among all persons, to
whatever nation, sect, or grade of society they may belong.
Hence we shall organize public lectures, circulate tracts and
publications, form societies, and petition every governing
body. 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,
and calumny. Tumults may arise against us. The proud and
pharisaical, the ambitious and tyrannical, principalities and
powers, 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. Our confidence is in the Lord
Almighty and 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
trial which is to try us, but rejoice inasmuch as we are
partakers of Christ's sufferings.
"Wherefore we commit the keeping of our souls to God. 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 a 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, we hereby affix our
signatures to it; commending it to the reason and conscience of
mankind, and resolving, in the strength of the Lord God, to
calmly and meekly abide the issue."
Immediately after this declaration a Society for Non-resistance was
founded by Garrison, and a journal called the NON-RESISTANT, in
which the doctrine of non-resistance was advocated in its full
significance and in all its consequences, as it had been expounded
in the declaration. Further information as to the ultimate
destiny of the society and the journal I gained from the excellent
biography of W. L. Garrison, the work of his son.
The society and the journal did not exist for long. The
greater number of Garrison's fellow-workers in the movement for
the liberation of the slaves, fearing that the too radical
programme of the journal, the NON-RESISTANT, might keep people
away from the practical work of negro-emancipation, gave up the
profession of the principle of non-resistance as it had been
expressed in the declaration, and both society and journal ceased
to exist.
This declaration of Garrison's gave so powerful and eloquent an
expression of a confession of faith of such importance to men,
that one would have thought it must have produced a strong
impression on people, and have become known throughout the world
and the subject of discussion on every side. But nothing of the
kind occurred. Not only was it unknown in Europe, even the
Americans, who have such a high opinion of Garrison, hardly knew
of the declaration.
Another champion of non-resistance has been overlooked in the same
way--the American Adin Ballou, who lately died, after spending fifty
years in preaching this doctrine. Lord God, to calmly and meekly abide
the doctrine. How great the ignorance is of everything relating to the
question of non-resistance may be seen from the fact that Garrison the
son, who has written an excellent biography of his father in four great
volumes, in answer to my inquiry whether there are existing now
societies for non-resistance, and adherents of the doctrine, told me
that as far as he knew that society had broken up, and that there were
no adherents of that doctrine, while at the very time when he was
writing to me there was living, at Hopedale in Massachusetts, Adin
Ballou, who had taken part in the labors of Garrison the father, and had
devoted fifty years of his life to advocating, both orally and in print,
the doctrine of non-resistance. Later on I received a letter from Wilson,
a pupil and colleague of Ballou's, and entered into correspondence with
Ballou himself. I wrote to Ballou, and he answered me and sent me his
works. Here is the summary of some extracts from them:
"Jesus Christ is my Lord and teacher," says Ballou in one of
his essays exposing the inconsistency of Christians who allowed
a right of self-defense and of warfare. "I have promised
leaving all else, to follow good and through evil, to death
itself. But I am a citizen of the democratic republic of the
United States; and in allegiance to it I have sworn to defend
the Constitution of my country, if need be, with my life.
Christ requires of me to do unto others as I would they should
do unto me. The Constitution of the United States requires of
me to do unto two millions of slaves [at that time there were
slaves; now one might venture to substitute the word
'laborers'] the very opposite of what I would they should do
unto me--that is to help to keep them in their present
condition of slavery. And, in spite of this, I continue to
elect or be elected, I propose to vote, I am even ready to be
appointed to any office under government. That will not hinder
me from being a Christian. I shall still profess Christianity,
and shall find no difficulty in carrying out my covenant
with Christ and with the government.
"Jesus Christ forbids me to resist evil doers, and to take from
them an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, bloodshed for
bloodshed, and life for life.
"My government demands from me quite the opposite, and bases a
system of self-defense on gallows, musket, and sword, to be
used against its foreign and domestic foes. And the land is
filled accordingly with gibbets, prisons, arsenals, ships of
war, and soldiers.
"In the maintenance and use of these expensive appliances for
murder, we can very suitably exercise to the full the virtues
of forgiveness to those who injure us, love toward our enemies,
blessings to those who curse us, and doing good to those who
hate us.
"For this we have a succession of Christian priests to pray for
us and beseech the blessing of Heaven on the holy work of
slaughter.
"I see all this (i. e., the contradiction between profession and
practice), and I continue to profess religion and take part in
government, and pride myself on being at the same time a devout
Christian and a devoted servant of the government. I do not
want to agree with these senseless notions of non-resistance.
I cannot renounce my authority and leave only immoral men in
control of the government. The Constitution says the
government has the right to declare war, and I assent to this
and support it, and swear that I will support it. And I do not
for that cease to be a Christian. War, too, is a Christian
duty. Is it not a Christian duty to kill hundreds of thousands
of one's fellow-men, to outrage women, to raze and burn towns,
and to practice every possible cruelty? It is time to dismiss
all these false sentimentalities. It is the truest means of
forgiving injuries and loving enemies. If we only do it in the
spirit of love, nothing can be more Christian than such
murder."
In another pamphlet, entitled "How many Men are Necessary to
Change a Crime into a Virtue?" he says: "One man may not kill. If
he kills a fellow-creature, he is a murderer. If two, ten, a
hundred men do so, they, too, are murderers. But a government or
a nation may kill as many men as it chooses, and that will not be
murder, but a great and noble action. Only gather the people
together on a large scale, and a battle of ten thousand men
becomes an innocent action. But precisely how many people must
there be to make it so?--that is the question. One man cannot
plunder and pillage, but a whole nation can. But precisely how
many are needed to make it permissible? Why is it that one man,
ten, a hundred, may not break the law of God, but a great number
may?"
And here is a version of Ballou's catechism composed for his
flock:
CATECHISM OF NON-RESISTANCE.
Q. Whence is the word "non-resistance" derived?
A. From the command, "Resist not evil." (M. v. 39.)
Q. What does this word express?
A. It expresses a lofty Christian virtue enjoined on us by
Christ.
Q. Ought the word "non-resistance" to be taken in its widest
sense--that is to say, as intending that we should not offer
any resistance of any kind to evil?
A. No; it ought to be taken in the exact sense of our Saviour's
teaching--that is, not repaying evil for evil. We ought to
oppose evil by every righteous means in our power, but not by
evil.
Q. What is there to show that Christ enjoined non-resistance in
that sense?
A. It is shown by the words he uttered at the same time. He
said: "Ye have heard, it was said of old, An eye for an eye,
and a tooth for a tooth. But I say unto you Resist not evil.
But if one smites thee on the right cheek, turn him the other
also; and if one will go to law with thee to take thy coat from
thee, give him thy cloak also."
Q. Of whom was he speaking in the words, "Ye have heard it was
said of old"?
A. Of the patriarchs and the prophets, contained in the Old
Testament, which the Hebrews ordinarily call the Law and the
Prophets.
Q. What utterances did Christ refer to in the words, "It was
said of old"?
A. The utterances of Noah, Moses, and the other prophets, in
which they admit the right of doing bodily harm to those who
inflict harm, so as to punish and prevent evil deeds.
Q. Quote such utterances.
A. "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be
shed."--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 and 23-25.
"He that killeth any man shall surely be put to death. And if
a man cause a blemish in his neighbor, as he hath done, so
shall it be done unto him: breach for breach, eye for eye,
tooth for tooth."--LEV. xxiv. 17, 19, 20.
"Then 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, 21.
Noah, Moses, and the Prophets taught that he who kills, maims,
or injures his neighbors does evil. To resist such evil, and
to prevent it, the evil doer must be punished with death, or
maiming, or some physical injury. Wrong must be opposed by
wrong, murder by murder, injury by injury, evil by evil. Thus
taught Noah, Moses, and the Prophets. But Christ rejects all
this. "I say unto you," is written in the Gospel, "resist not
evil," do not oppose injury with injury, but rather bear
repeated injury from the evil doer. What was permitted is
forbidden. When we understand what kind of resistance they
taught, we know exactly what resistance Christ forbade.
Q. Then the ancients allowed the resistance of injury by
injury?
A. Yes. But Jesus forbids it. The Christian has in no case the
right to put to death his neighbor who has done him evil, or to
do him injury in return.
Q. May he kill or maim him in self-defense?
A. No.
Q. May he go with a complaint to the judge that he who has
wronged him may be punished?
A. No. What he does through others, he is in reality doing
himself.
Q. Can he fight in conflict with foreign enemies or disturbers
of the peace?
A. Certainly not. He cannot take any part in war or in
preparations for war. He cannot make use of a deadly weapon.
He cannot oppose injury to injury, whether he is alone or with
others, either in person or through other people.
Q. Can he voluntarily vote or furnish soldiers for the
government?
A. He can do nothing of that kind if he wishes to be faithful
to Christ's law.
Q. Can he voluntarily give money to aid a government resting on
military force, capital punishment, and violence in general?
A. No, unless the money is destined for some special object,
right in itself, and good both in aim and means.
Q. Can he pay taxes to such a government?
A. No; he ought not voluntarily to pay taxes, but he ought not
to resist the collecting of taxes. A tax is levied by the
government, and is exacted independently of the will of the
subject. It is impossible to resist it without having recourse
to violence of some kind. Since the Christian cannot employ
violence, he is obliged to offer his property at once to the
loss by violence inflicted on it by the authorities.
Q. Can a Christian give a vote at elections, or take part in
government or law business?
A. No; participation in election, government, or law business
is participation in government by force.
Q. Wherein lies the chief significance of the doctrine of
non-resistance?
A. In the fact that it alone allows of the possibility of
eradicating evil from one's own heart, and also from one's
neighbor's. This doctrine forbids doing that whereby evil has
endured for ages and multiplied in the world. He who attacks
another and injures him, kindles in the other a feeling of
hatred, the root of every evil. To injure another because he
has injured us, even with the aim of overcoming evil, is
doubling the harm for him and for oneself; it is begetting, or
at least setting free and inciting, that evil spirit which we
should wish to drive out. Satan can never be driven out by
Satan. Error can never be corrected by error, and evil cannot
be vanquished by evil.
True non-resistance is the only real resistance to evil. It is
crushing the serpent's head. It destroys and in the end
extirpates the evil feeling.
Q. But if that is the true meaning of the rule of non-resistance,
can it always put into practice?
A. It can be put into practice like every virtue enjoined by
the law of God. A virtue cannot be practiced in all
circumstances without self-sacrifice, privation, suffering, and
in extreme cases loss of life itself. But he who esteems life
more than fulfilling the will of God is already dead to the
only true life. Trying to save his life he loses it. Besides,
generally speaking, where non-resistance costs the sacrifice of
a single life or of some material welfare, resistance costs a
thousand such sacrifices.
Non-resistance is Salvation; Resistance is Ruin.
It is incomparably less dangerous to act justly than unjustly,
to submit to injuries than to resist them with violence, less
dangerous even in one's relations to the present life. If all
men refused to resist evil by evil our world would be happy.
Q. But so long as only a few act thus, what will happen to
them?
A. If only one man acted thus, and all the rest agreed
to crucify him, would it not be nobler for him to die in the
glory of non-resisting love, praying for his enemies, than to
live to wear the crown of Caesar stained with the blood of the
slain? However, one man, or a thousand men, firmly resolved
not to oppose evil by evil are far more free from danger by
violence than those who resort to violence, whether among
civilized or savage neighbors. The robber, the murderer, and
the cheat will leave them in peace, sooner than those who
oppose them with arms, and those who take up the sword shall
perish by the sword, but those who seek after peace, and behave
kindly and harmlessly, forgiving and forgetting injuries, for
the most part enjoy peace, or, if they die, they die blessed.
In this way, if all kept the ordinance of non-resistance, there
would obviously be no evil nor crime. If the majority acted
thus they would establish the rule of love and good will even
over evil doers, never opposing evil with evil, and never
resorting to force. If there were a moderately large minority
of such men, they would exercise such a salutary moral
influence on society that every cruel punishment would be
abolished, and violence and feud would be replaced by peace and
love. Even if there were only a small minority of them, they
would rarely experience anything worse than the world's
contempt, and meantime the world, though unconscious of it, and
not grateful for it, would be continually becoming wiser and
better for their unseen action on it. And if in the worst case
some members of the minority were persecuted to death, in dying
for the truth they would have left behind them their doctrine,
sanctified by the blood of their martyrdom. Peace, then, to
all who seek peace, and may overruling love be the imperishable
heritage of every soul who obeys willingly Christ's word,
"Resist not evil."
ADIN BALLOU.
For fifty years Ballou wrote and published books dealing
principally with the question of non-resistance to evil by force.
In these works, which are distinguished by the clearness of their
thought and eloquence of exposition, the question is looked at
from every possible side, and the binding nature of this command
on every Christian who acknowledges the Bible as the revelation of
God is firmly established. All the ordinary objections to the
doctrine of non-resistance from the Old and New Testaments are
brought forward, such as the expulsion of the moneychangers from
the Temple, and so on, and arguments follow in disproof of them
all. The practical reasonableness of this rule of conduct is
shown independently of Scripture, and all the objections
ordinarily made against its practicability are stated and refuted.
Thus one chapter in a book of his treats of non-resistance in
exceptional cases, and he owns in this connection that if there
were cases in which the rule of non-resistance were impossible of
application, it would prove that the law was not universally
authoritative. Quoting these cases, he shows that it is precisely
in them that the application of the rule is both necessary and
reasonable. There is no aspect of the question, either on his
side or on his opponents', which he has not followed up in his
writings. I mention all this to show the unmistakable interest
which such works ought to have for men who make a profession of
Christianity, and because one would have thought Ballou's work
would have been well known, and the ideas expressed by him would
lave been either accepted or refuted; but such has not been the
case.
The work of Garrison, the father, in his foundation of the Society
of Non-resistants and his Declaration, even more than my
correspondence with the Quakers, convinced me of the fact that the
departure of the ruling form of Christianity from the law of
Christ on non-resistance by force is an error that has long been
observed and pointed out, and that men have labored, and are still
laboring, to correct. Ballou's work confirmed me still more in
this view. But the fate of Garrison, still more that of Ballou,
in being completely unrecognized in spite of fifty years of
obstinate and persistent work in the same direction, confirmed me
in the idea that there exists a kind of tacit but steadfast
conspiracy of silence about all such efforts.
Ballou died in August, 1890, and there was as obituary notice of him in
an American journal of Christian views (RELIGIO-PHILOSOPHICAL JOURNAL,
August 23). In this laudatory notice it is recorded that Ballou was the
spiritual director of a parish, that he delivered from eight to nine
thousand sermons, married one thousand couples, and wrote about five
hundred articles; but there is not a single word said of the object to
which he devoted his life; even the word "non-resistance" is not
mentioned. Precisely as it was with all the preaching of the Quakers for
two hundred years and, too, with the efforts of Garrison the father, the
foundation of his society and journal, and his Declaration, so it is
with the life-work of Ballou. It seems just as though it did not exist
and never had existed.
We have an astounding example of the obscurity of works which aim
at expounding the doctrine of non-resistance to evil by force, and
at confuting those who do not recognize this commandment, in the
book of the Tsech Helchitsky, which has only lately been noticed
and has not hitherto been printed.
Soon after the appearance of my book in German, I received a
letter from Prague, from a professor of the university there,
informing me of the existence of a work, never yet printed, by
Helchitsky, a Tsech of the fifteenth century, entitled "The Net of
Faith." In this work, the professor told me, Helchitsky expressed
precisely the same view as to true and false Christianity as I had
expressed in my book "What I Believe." The professor wrote to me
that Helchitsky's work was to be published for the first time in
the Tsech language in the JOURNAL OF THE PETERSBURG ACADEMY OF
SILENCE. Since I could not obtain the book itself, I tried to
make myself acquainted with what was known of Helchitsky, and I
gained the following information from a German book sent me by the
Prague professor and from Pypin's history of Tsech literature.
This was Pypin's account:
"'The Net of Faith' is Christ's teaching, which ought to draw
man up out of the dark depths of the sea of worldliness and his
own iniquity. True faith consists in believing God's Word; but
now a time has come when men mistake the true faith for heresy,
and therefore it is for the reason to point out what the true
faith consists in, if anyone does not know this. It is hidden
in darkness from men, and they do not recognize the true law of
Christ.
"To make this law plain, Helchitsky points to the primitive
organization of Christian society--the organization which, he
says, is now regarded in the Roman Church as an abominable
heresy. This Primitive Church was his special ideal of social
organization, founded on equality, liberty, and fraternity.
Christianity, in Helchitsky's view, still preserves these
elements, and it is only necessary for society to return to its
pure doctrine to render unnecessary every other form of social
order in which kings and popes are essential; the law of love
would alone be sufficient in every case.
"Historically, Helchitsky attributes the degeneration of
Christianity to the times of Constantine the Great, whom he
Pope Sylvester admitted into the Christian Church with all his
heathen morals and life. Constantine, in his turn, endowed the
Pope with worldly riches and power. From that time forward
these two ruling powers were constantly aiding one another to
strive for nothing but outward glory. Divines and
ecclesiastical dignitaries began to concern themselves only
about subduing the whole world to their authority, incited men
against one another to murder and plunder, and in creed and
life reduced Christianity to a nullity. Helchitsky denies
completely the right to make war and to inflict the punishment
of death; every soldier, even the 'knight,' is only a violent
evil doer--a murderer."
The same account is given by the German book, with the addition of
a few biographical details and some extracts from Helchitsky's
writings.
Having learnt the drift of Helchitsky's teaching in this way, I
awaited all the more impatiently the appearance of "The Net of
Faith" in the journal of the Academy. But one year passed, then
two and three, and still the book did not appear. It was only in 1888
that I learned that the printing of the book, which had been
begun, was stopped. I obtained the proofs of what had been
printed and read them through. It is a marvelous book from every
point of view.
Its general tenor is given with perfect accuracy by Pypin.
Helchitsky's fundamental idea is that Christianity, by allying
itself with temporal power in the days of Constantine, and by
continuing to develop in such conditions, has become completely
distorted, and has ceased to be Christian altogether. Helchitsky
gave the title "The Net of Faith" to his book, taking as his motto
the verse of the Gospel about the calling of the disciples to be
fishers of men; and, developing this metaphor, he says:
"Christ, by means of his disciples, would have caught all the
world in his net of faith, but the greater fishes broke the net
and escaped out of it, and all the rest have slipped through
the holes made by the greater fishes, so that the net has
remained quite empty. The greater fishes who broke the net are
the rulers, emperors, popes, kings, who have not renounced
power, and instead of true Christianity have put on what is
simply a mask of it."
Helchitsky teaches precisely what has been and is taught in these
days by the non-resistant Mennonites and Quakers, and in former
tunes by the Bogomilites, Paulicians, and many others. He teaches
that Christianity, expecting from its adherents gentleness,
meekness, peaceableness, forgiveness of injuries, turning the
other cheek when one is struck, and love for enemies, is
inconsistent with the use of force, which is an indispensable
condition of authority.
The Christian, according to Helchitsky's reasoning, not only
cannot be a ruler or a soldier; he cannot take any part in
government nor in trade, or even be a landowner; he can only be an
artisan or a husbandman.
This book is one of the few works attacking official Christianity
which has escaped being burned. All such so-called heretical
works were burned at the stake, together with their authors, so
that there are few ancient works exposing the errors of official
Christianity. The book has a special interest for this reason
alone. But apart from its interest from every point of view, it
is one of the most remarkable products of thought for its depth of
aim, for the astounding strength and beauty of the national
language in which it is written, and for its antiquity. And yet
for more than four centuries it has remained unprinted, and is
still unknown, except to a few learned specialists.
One would have thought that all such works, whether of the
Quakers, of Garrison, of Ballou, or of Helchitsky, asserting and
proving as they do, on the principles of the Gospel, that our
modern world takes a false view of Christ's teaching, would have
awakened interest, excitement, talk, and discussion among
spiritual teachers and their flocks alike.
Works of this kind, dealing with the very essence of Christian
doctrine, ought, one would have thought, to have been examined and
accepted as true, or refuted and rejected. But nothing of the
kind has occurred, and the same fate has been repeated with all
those works. Men of the most diverse views, believers, and, what
is surprising, unbelieving liberals also, as though by agreement,
all preserve the same persistent silence about them, and all that
has been done by people to explain the true meaning of Christ's
doctrine remains either ignored or forgotten.
But it is still more astonishing that two other books, of
which I heard on the appearance of my book, should be so little
known, I mean 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. It is particularly astonishing that these books
should be unknown, because, apart from their intrinsic merits,
both books treat not so much of the theory as of the practical
application of the theory to life, of the attitude of Christianity
to military service, which is especially important and interesting
now in these clays of universal conscription.
People will ask, perhaps: How ought a subject to behave who
believes that war is inconsistent with his religion while the
government demands from him that he should enter military service?
This question is, I think, a most vital one, and the answer to it
is specially important in these days of universal conscription.
All--or at least the great majority of the people--are Christians,
and all men are called upon for military service. How ought a
man, as a Christian, to meet this demand? This is the gist of
Dymond's answer:
"His duty is humbly but steadfastly to refuse to serve."
There are some people, who, without any definite reasoning about
it, conclude straightway that the responsibility of government
measures rests entirely on those who resolve on them, or that the
governments and sovereigns decide the question of what is good or
bad for their subjects, and the duty of the subjects is merely to
obey. I think that arguments of this kind only obscure men's
conscience. I cannot take part in the councils of government, and
therefore I am not responsible for its misdeeds.. Indeed, but we
are responsible for our own misdeeds. And the misdeeds of our
rulers become our own, if we, knowing that they are misdeeds,
assist in carrying, them out. Those who suppose that they are
bound to obey the government, and that the responsibility for the
misdeeds they commit is transferred from them to their rulers,
deceive themselves. They say: "We give our acts up to the will
of others, and our acts cannot be good or bad; there is no merit
in what is good nor responsibility for what is evil in our
actions, since they are not done of our own will."
It is remarkable that the very same thing is said in the
instructions to soldiers which they make them learn--that is, that
the officer is alone responsible for the consequences of his
command. But this is not right. A man cannot get rid of the
responsibility, for his own actions. And that is clear from the
following example. If your officer commands you to kill your
neighbor's child, to kill your father or your mother, would you
obey? If you would not obey, the whole argument falls to the
ground, for if you can disobey the governors in one case, where do
you draw the line up to which you can obey them? There is no line
other than that laid down by Christianity, and that line is both
reasonable and practicable.
And therefore we consider it the duty of every man who thinks war
inconsistent with Christianity, meekly but firmly to refuse to
serve in the army. And let those whose lot it is to act thus,
remember that the fulfillment of a great duty rests with them.
The destiny of humanity in the world depends, so far as it depends
on men at all, on their fidelity to their religion. Let them
confess their conviction, and stand up for it, and not in words
alone, but in sufferings too, if need be. If you believe that
Christ forbade murder, pay no heed to the arguments nor to the
commands of those who call on you to bear a hand in it. By such a
steadfast refusal to make use of force, you call down on
yourselves the blessing promised to those "who hear these sayings
and do them," and the time will come when the world will recognize
you as having aided in the reformation of mankind.
Musser's book is called "Non-resistance Asserted," or "Kingdom of
Christ and Kingdoms of this World Separated." This book is
devoted to the same question, and was written when the American
Government was exacting military service from its citizens at the
time of the Civil War. And it has, too, a value for all time,
dealing with the question how, in such circumstances, people
should and can refuse to enter military service. Here is the tenor
of the author's introductory remarks:
"It is well known that there are many persons in the United
States who refuse to fight on grounds of conscience. They are
called the 'defenseless,' or 'non-resistant' Christians. These
Christians refuse to defend their country, to bear arms, or at
the call of government to make war on its enemies. Till lately
this religious scruple seemed a valid excuse to the government,
and those who urged it were let off service. But at the
beginning of our Civil War public opinion was agitated on this
subject. It was natural that persons who considered it their
duty to bear all the hardships and dangers of war in defense of
their country should feel resentment against those persons who
had for long shared with them the advantages of the protection
of government, and who now in time of need and danger would not
share in bearing the labors and dangers of its defense. It was
even natural that they should declare the attitude of such men
monstrous, irrational, and suspicious."
A host of orators and writers, our author tells us, arose to oppose this
attitude, and tried to prove the sinfulness of non-resistance, both from
Scripture and on common-sense grounds. And this was perfectly natural,
and in many cases the authors were right--right, that is, in regard to
persons who did not renounce the benefits they received from the
government and tried to avoid the hardships of military service, but not
right in regard to the principle of non-resistance itself. Above all,
our author proves the binding nature of the rule of non-resistance for a
Christian, pointing out that this command is perfectly clear, and is
enjoined upon every Christian by Christ without possibility of
misinterpretation. "Bethink yourselves whether it is righteous to obey
man more than God," said Peter and John. And this is precisely what
ought to be the attitude to every man who wishes to be Christian to the
claim on him for military service, when Christ has said, "Resist not
evil by force." As for the question of the principle itself, the author
regards that as decided. As to the second question, whether people have
the right to refuse to serve in the army who have not refused the
benefits conferred by a government resting on force, the author
considers it in detail, and arrives at the conclusion that a Christian
following the law of Christ, since he does not go to war, ought not
either to take advantage of any institutions of government, courts of
law, or elections, and that in his private concerns he must not have
recourse to the authorities, the police, or the law. Further on in the
book he treats of the relation of the Old Testament to the New, the
value of government for those who are Christians, and makes some
observations on the doctrine of non-resistance and the attacks made on
it. The author concludes his book by saying: "Christians do not need
government, and therefore they cannot either obey it in what is contrary
to Christ's teaching nor, still less, take part in it." Christ took his
disciples out of the world, he says. They do not expect worldly
blessings and worldly happiness, but they expect eternal life. The
Spirit in whom they live makes them contented and happy in every
position. If the world tolerates them, they are always happy. If the
world will not leave them in peace, they will go elsewhere, since they
are pilgrims on the earth and they have no fixed place of habitation.
They believe that "the dead may bury their dead." One thing only is
needful for them, "to follow their Master."
Even putting aside the question as to the principle laid down in these
two books as to the Christian's duty in his attitude to war, one cannot
help perceiving the practical importance and the urgent need of deciding
the question.
There are people, hundreds of thousands of Quakers, Mennonites,
all our Douhobortsi, Molokani, and others who do not belong to any
definite sect, who consider that the use of force--and,
consequently, military service--is inconsistent with Christianity.
Consequently there are every year among us in Russia some men
called upon for military service who refuse to serve on the ground
of their religious convictions. Does the government let them off
then? No. Does it compel them to go, and in case of disobedience
punish them? No. This was how the government treated them in
1818. Here is an extract from the diary of Nicholas Myravyov of
Kars, which was not passed by the censor, and is not known in
Russia:
"Tiflis, October 2, 1818.
"In the morning the commandant told me that five peasants
belonging to a landowner in the Tamboff government had lately
been sent to Georgia. These men had been sent for soldiers,
but they would not serve; they had been several times flogged
and made to run the gauntlet, but they would submit readily to
the cruelest tortures, and even to death, rather than serve.
'Let us go,' they said, 'and leave us alone; we will not hurt
anyone; all men are equal, and the Tzar is a man like us; why
should we pay him tribute; why should I expose my life to
danger to kill in battle some man who has done me no harm? You
can cut us to pieces and we will not be soldiers. He who has
compassion on us will give us charity, but as for the
government rations, we have not had them and we do not want to
have them.' These were the words of those peasants, who declare
that there are numbers like them Russia. They brought them
four times before the Committee of Ministers, and at last
decided to lay the matter before the Tzar who gave orders that
they should be taken to Georgia for correction, and commanded
the commander-in-chief to send him a report every month of
their gradual success in bringing these peasants to a better
mind."
How the correction ended is not known, as the whole episode indeed
was unknown, having been kept in profound secrecy.
This was how the government behaved seventy-five years ago--this
is how it has behaved in a great cumber of cases, studiously
concealed from the people. And this is how the government behaves
now, except in the case of the German Mennonites, living in the
province of Kherson, whose plea against military service is
considered well grounded. They are made to work off their term of
service in labor in the forests.
But in the recent cases of refusal on the part of Mennonites to
serve in the army on religious grounds, the government authorities
have acted in the following manner:
To begin with, they have recourse to every means of coercion used
in our times to "correct" the culprit and bring him to "a better
mind," and these measures are carried out with the greatest
secrecy. I know that in the case of one man who declined to serve
in 1884 in Moscow, the official correspondence on the subject had
two months after his refusal accumulated into a big folio, and was
kept absolutely secret among the Ministry.
They usually begin by sending the culprit to the priests, and the
latter, to their shame be it said, always exhort him to obedience.
But since the exhortation in Christ's name to forswear Christ is
for the most part unsuccessful, after he has received the
admonitions of the spiritual authorities, they send him to the
gendarmes, and the latter, finding, as a rule, no political cause
for offense in him, dispatch him back again, and then he is sent
to the learned men, to the doctors, and to the madhouse. During
all these vicissitudes he is deprived of liberty and has to endure
every kind of humiliation and suffering as a convicted criminal.
(All this has been repeated in four cases.) The doctors let him
out of the madhouse, and then every kind of secret shift is
employed to prevent him from going free--whereby others would be
encouraged to refuse to serve as he has done--and at the same time
to avoid leaving him among the soldiers, for fear they too should
learn from him that military service is not at all their duty by
the law of God, as they are assured, but quite contrary to it.
The most convenient thing for the government would be to kill the
non-resistant by flogging him to death or some other means, as was
done in former days. But to put a man openly to death because he
believes in the creed we all confess is impossible. To let a man
alone who has refused obedience is also impossible. And so the
government tries either to compel the man by ill-treatment to
renounce Christ, or in some way or other to get rid of him
unobserved, without openly putting him to death, and to hide
somehow both the action and the man himself from other people.
And so all kinds of shifts and wiles and cruelties are set on foot
against him. They either send him to the frontier or provoke him
to insubordination, and then try him for breach of discipline and
shut him up in the prison of the disciplinary battalion, where
they can ill treat him freely unseen by anyone, or they declare
him mad, and lock him up in a lunatic asylum. They sent one man
in this way to Tashkend--that is, they pretended to transfer to
the Tashkend army; another to Omsk; a third him they convicted of
insubordination and shut up in prison; a fourth they sent to a
lunatic asylum.
Everywhere the same story is repeated. Not only the government,
but the great majority of liberal, advanced people, as they are
called, studiously turn away from everything that has been said,
written, or done, or is being done by men to prove the
incompatibility of force in its most awful, gross, and glaring
form--in the form, that is, of an army of soldiers prepared to
murder anyone, whoever it may be--with the teachings of
Christianity, or even of the humanity which society professes as
its creed.
So that the information I have gained of the attitude of the
higher ruling classes, not only in Russia but in Europe and
America, toward the elucidation of this question has convinced me
that there exists in these ruling classes a consciously hostile
attitude to true Christianity, which is shown pre-eminently in
their reticence in regard to all manifestations of it.
CHAPTER II.
CRITICISMS OF THE DOCTRINE OF NON-RESISTANCE TO EVIL BY FORCE ON
THE PART OF BELIEVERS AND OF UNBELIEVERS.
Fate of the Book "What I Believe"--Evasive Character of Religious
Criticisms of Principles of my Book--1st Reply: Use of Force
not Opposed to Christianity--2d Reply: Use of Force Necessary
to Restrain Evil Doers--3d Reply: Duty of Using Force in
Defense of One's Neighbor--4th Reply: The Breach of the Command
of Non-resistance to be Regarded Simply as a Weakness--5th
Reply: Reply Evaded by Making Believe that the Question has
long been Decided--To Devise such Subterfuges and to take
Refuge Behind the Authority of the Church, of Antiquity, and of
Religion is all that Ecclesiastical Critics can do to get out
of the Contradiction between Use of Force and Christianity in
Theory and in Practice--General Attitude of the Ecclesiastical
World and of the Authorities to Profession of True
Christianity--General Character of Russian Freethinking
Critics--Foreign Freethinking Critics--Mistaken Arguments of
these Critics the Result of Misunderstanding the True Meaning
of Christ's Teaching.
The impression I gained of a desire to conceal, to hush up, what I
had tried to express in my book, led me to judge the book itself
afresh.
On its appearance it had, as I had anticipated, been forbidden,
and ought therefore by law to have been burnt. But, at the same
time, it was discussed among officials, and circulated in a great
number of manuscript and lithograph copies, and in translations
printed abroad.
And very quickly after the book, criticisms, both religious and
secular in character, made their appearance, and these the
government tolerated, and even encouraged. So that the refutation
of a book which no one was supposed to know anything about was
even chosen as the subject for theological dissertations in the
academies.
The criticisms of my book, Russian and foreign alike, fall under
two general divisions--the religious criticisms of men who regard
themselves as believers, and secular criticisms, that is, those of
freethinkers.
I will begin with the first class. In my book I made it an
accusation against the teachers of the Church that their teaching
is opposed to Christ's commands clearly and definitely expressed
in the Sermon on the Mount, and opposed in especial to his command
in regard to resistance to evil, and that in this way they deprive
Christ's teaching of all value. The Church authorities accept the
teaching of the Sermon on the Mount on non-resistance to evil by
force as divine revelation; and therefore one would have thought
that if they felt called upon to write about my book at all, they
would have found it inevitable before everything else to reply to
the principal point of my charge against them, and to say plainly,
do they or do they not admit the teaching of the Sermon on the
Mount and the commandment of non-resistance to evil as binding on
a Christian. And they were bound to answer this question, not
after the usual fashion (i. e., "that although on the one side one
cannot absolutely deny, yet on the other side one cannot main
fully assent, all the more seeing that," etc., etc.). No; they
should have answered the question as plainly as it was put
in my book--Did Christ really demand from his disciples
that they should carry out what he taught them in the Sermon on
the Mount? And can a Christian, then, or can he not, always
remaining a Christian, go to law or make any use of the law, or
seek his own protection in the law? And can the Christian, or can
he not, remaining a Christian, take part in the administration of
government, using compulsion against his neighbors? And--the most
important question hanging over the heads of all of us in these
days of universal military service--can the Christian, or can he
not, remaining a Christian, against Christ's direct prohibition,
promise obedience in future actions directly opposed to his
teaching? And can he, by taking his share of service in the army,
prepare himself to murder men, and even actually murder them?
These questions were put plainly and directly, and seemed to
require a plain and direct answer; but in all the criticisms of my
book there was no such plain and direct answer. No; my book
received precisely the same treatment as all the attacks upon the
teachers of the Church for their defection from the Law of Christ
of which history from the days of Constantine is full.
A very great deal was said in connection with my book of my having
incorrectly interpreted this and other passages of the Gospel, of
my being in error in not recognizing the Trinity, the redemption,
and the immortality of the soul. A very great deal was said, but
not a word about the one thing which for every Christian is the
most essential question in life--how to reconcile the duty of
forgiveness, meekness, patience, and love for all, neighbors and
enemies alike, which is so clearly expressed in the words of our
teacher, and in the heart of each of us--how to reconcile this
duty with the obligation of using force in war upon men of our own
or a foreign people.
All that are worth calling answers to this question can be brought
under the following five heads. I have tried to bring together in
this connection all I could, not only from the criticisms on my
book, but from what has been written in past times on this theme.
The first and crudest form of reply consists in the bold assertion
that the use of force is not opposed by the teaching of Christ;
that it is permitted, and even enjoined, on the Christian by the
Old and New Testaments.
Assertions of this kind proceed, for the most part, from men who
have attained the highest ranks in the governing or ecclesiastical
hierarchy, and who are consequently perfectly assured that no one
will dare to contradict their assertion, and that if anyone does
contradict it they will hear nothing of the contradiction. These
men have, for the most part, through the intoxication of power, so
lost the right idea of what that Christianity is in the name of
which they hold their position that what is Christian in
Christianity presents itself to them as heresy, while everything
in the Old and New Testaments which can be distorted into an
antichristian and heathen meaning they regard as the foundation of
Christianity. In support of their assertion that Christianity is
not opposed to the use of force, these men usually, with the
greatest audacity, bring together all the most obscure passages
from the Old and New Testaments, interpreting them in the most
unchristian way--the punishment of Ananias and Sapphira, of Simon
the Sorcerer, etc. They quote all those sayings of Christ's which
can possibly be interpreted as justification of cruelty: the
expulsion from the Temple; "It shall be more tolerable for the
land of Sodom than for this city," etc., etc. According to these
people's notions, a Christian government is not in the least bound
to be guided by the spirit of peace, forgiveness of injuries, and
love for enemies.
To refute such an assertion is useless, because the very
people who make this assertion refute themselves, or, rather,
renounce Christ, inventing a Christianity and a Christ of their
own in the place of him in whose name the Church itself exists, as
well as their office in it. If all men were to learn that the
Church professes to believe in a Christ of punishment and warfare,
not of forgiveness, no one would believe in the Church and it
could not prove to anyone what it is trying to prove.
The second, somewhat less gross, form of argument consists in
declaring that, though Christ did indeed preach that we should
turn the left cheek, and give the cloak also, and this is the
highest moral duty, yet that there are wicked men in the world,
and if these wicked men mere not restrained by force, the whole
world and all good men would come to ruin through them. This
argument I found for the first time in John Chrysostom, and I show
how he is mistaken in my book "What I believe."
This argument is ill grounded, because if we allow ourselves to
regard any men as intrinsically wicked men, then in the first
place we annul, by so doing, the whole idea of the Christian
teaching, according to which we are all equals and brothers, as
sons of one father in heaven. Secondly, it is ill founded,
because even if to use force against wicked men had been permitted
by God, since it is impossible to find a perfect and unfailing
distinction by which one could positively know the wicked from the
good, so it would come to all individual men and societies of men
mutually regarding each other as wicked men, as is the case now.
Thirdly, even if it were possible to distinguish the wicked from
the good unfailingly, even then it would be impossible to kill or
injure or shut up in prison these wicked men, because there would
be no one in a Christian society to carry out such punishment,
since every Christian, as a Christian, has been commanded to use
no force against the wicked.
The third kind of answer, still more subtle than the preceding,
consists in asserting that though the command of non-resistance to
evil by force is binding on the Christian when the evil is
directed against himself personally, it ceases to be binding when
the evil is directed against his neighbors, and that then the
Christian is not only not bound to fulfill the commandment, but is
even bound to act in opposition to it in defense of his neighbors,
and to use force against transgressors by force. This assertion
is an absolute assumption, and one cannot find in all Christ's
teaching any confirmation of such an argument. Such an argument
is not only a limitation, but a direct contradiction and negation
of the commandment. If every man has the right to have recourse
to force in face of a danger threatening an other, the question of
the use of force is reduced to a question of the definition of
danger for another. If my private judgment is to decide the
question of what is danger for another, there is no occasion for
the use of force which could not be justified on the ground of
danger threatening some other man. They killed and burnt witches,
they killed aristocrats and girondists, they killed their enemies
because those who were in authority regarded them as dangerous for
the people.
If this important limitation, which fundamentally undermines the
whole value of the commandment, had entered into Christ's meaning,
there must have been mention of it somewhere. This restriction is
made nowhere in our Saviour's life or preaching. On the contrary,
warning is given precisely against this treacherous and scandalous
restriction which nullifies the commandment. The error and
impossibility of such a limitation is shown in the Gospel with
special clearness in the account of the judgment of Caiaphas, who
makes precisely this distinction. He acknowledged that it was
wrong to punish the innocent Jesus, but he saw in him a source of
danger not for himself, but for the whole people, and therefore he
said: It is better for one man to die, that the whole people
perish not. And the erroneousness of such a limitation is still
more clearly expressed in the words spoken to Peter when he tried
to resist by force evil directed against Jesus (Matt. xxvi. 52).
Peter was not defending himself, but his beloved and heavenly
Master. And Christ at once reproved him for this, saying, that he
who takes up the sword shall perish by the sword.
Besides, apologies for violence used against one's neighbor in defense
of another neighbor from greater violence are always untrustworthy,
because when force is used against one who has not yet carried out his
evil intent, I can never know which would be greater--the evil of my act
of violence or of the act I want to prevent. We kill the criminal that
society may be rid of him, and we never know whether the criminal of
to-day would not have been a changed man tomorrow, and whether our
punishment of him is not useless cruelty. We shut up the dangerous--as
we think--member of society, but the next day this man might cease to be
dangerous and his imprisonment might be for nothing. I see that a man I
know to be a ruffian is pursuing a young girl. I have a gun in my
hand--I kill the ruffian and save the girl. But the death or the
wounding of the ruffian has positively taken place, while what would
have happened if this had not been I cannot know. And what an immense
mass of evil must result, and indeed does result, from allowing men to
assume the right of anticipating what may happen. Ninety-nine per cent
of the evil of the world is founded on this reasoning--from the
Inquisition to dynamite bombs, and the executions or punishments of tens
of thousands of political criminals.
A fourth, still more refined, reply to the question, What ought to
be the Christian's attitude to Christ's command of non-resistance
to evil by force? consists in declaring that they do not deny the
command of non-resisting evil, but recognize it; but they only do
not ascribe to this command the special exclusive value attached
to it by sectarians. To regard this command as the indispensable
condition of Christian life, as Garrison, Ballou, Dymond, the
Quakers, the Mennonites and the Shakers do now, and as the
Moravian brothers, the Waldenses, the Albigenses, the Bogomilites,
and the Paulicians did in the past, is a one-sided heresy. This
command has neither more nor less value than all the other
commands, and the man who through weakness transgresses any
command whatever, the command of non-resistance included, does not
cease to be a Christian if he hold the true faith. This is a very
skillful device, and many people who wish to be deceived are
easily deceived by it. The device consists in reducing a direct
conscious denial of a command to a casual breach of it. But one
need only compare the attitude of the teachers of the Church to
this and to other commands which they really do recognize, to be
convinced that their attitude to this is completely different from
their attitude to other duties.
The command against fornication they do really recognize, and
consequently they do not admit that in any case fornication can
cease to be wrong. The Church preachers never point out cases in
which the command against fornication can be broken, and always
teach that we must avoid seductions which lead to temptation to
fornication. But not so with the command of non-resistance. All
church preachers recognize cases in which that command can be
broken, and teach the people accordingly. And they not only do
not teach teat we should avoid temptations to break it, chief of
which is the military oath, but they themselves administer it.
The preachers of the Church never in any other case advocate the
breaking of any other commandment. But in connection with the
commandment of non-resistance they openly teach that we must not
understand it too literally, but that there are conditions and
circumstances in which we must do the direct opposite, that is, go
to law, fight, punish. So that occasions for fulfilling the
commandment of non-resistance to evil by force are taught for the
most part as occasions for not fulfilling it. The fulfillment of
this command, they say, is very difficult and pertains only to
perfection. And how can it not be difficult, when the breach of
it is not only not forbidden, but law courts, prisons, cannons,
guns, armies, and wars are under the immediate sanction of the
Church? It cannot be true, then, that this command is recognized
by the preachers of the Church as on a level with other commands.
The preachers of the Church clearly, do not recognize it; only not
daring to acknowledge this, they try to conceal their not
recognizing it.
So much for the fourth reply.
The fifth kind of answer, which is the subtlest, the most often
used, and the most effective, consists in avoiding answering, in
making believe that this question is one which has long ago been
decided perfectly clearly and satisfactorily, and that it is not
worth while to talk about it. This method of reply is employed by
all the more or less cultivated religious writers, that is to say,
those who feel the laws of Christ binding for themselves. Knowing
that the contradiction existing between the teaching of Christ
which we profess with our lips and the whole order of our lives
cannot be removed by words, and that touching upon it can only
make it more obvious, they, with more or less ingenuity, evade it,
pretending that the question of reconciling Christianity with the
use of force has been decided already, or does not exist at all.
[Footnote: I only know one work which differs somewhat from
this general definition, and that is not a criticism in the
precise meaning of the word, but an article treating of the
same subject and having my book in view. I mean the pamphlet
of Mr. Troizky (published at Kazan), "A Sermon for the
People." The author obviously accepts Christ's teaching in
its true meaning. He says that the prohibition of resistance
to evil by force means exactly what it does mean; and the same
with the prohibition of swearing. He does not, as others do,
deny the meaning of Christ's teaching, but unfortunately he
does not draw from this admission the inevitable deductions
which present themselves spontaneously in our life when we
understand Christ's teaching in that way. If we must not
oppose evil by force, nor swear, everyone naturally asks,
"How, then, about military service? and the oath of
obedience?" To this question the author gives no reply; but
it must be answered. And if he cannot answer, then he would
do better no to speak on the subject at all, as such silence
leads to error.]
The majority of religious critics of my book use this fifth method
of replying to it. I could quote dozens of such critics, in all of
whom, without exception, we find the same thing repeated:
everything is discussed except what constitutes the principal
subject of the book. As a characteristic example of such
criticisms, I will quote the article of a well-known and ingenious
English writer and preacher--Farrar--who, like many learned
theologians, is a great master of the art of circuitously evading
a question. The article was published in an American journal, the
FORUM, in October, 1888.
After conscientiously explaining in brief the contents of my book,
Farrar says:
"Tolstoy came to the conclusion that a coarse deceit had been
palmed upon the world when these words 'Resist not evil,' 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 of Christ, viz.:
1. Live in peace with all men. 2. Be pure. 3. Take no oaths.
4. Resist not evil. 5. Renounce national distinctions.
"Tolstoy," he says, "rejects the inspiration of the Old
Testament; hence he rejects the chief doctrines of the Church--that
of the Atonement by blood, the Trinity, the descent of the
Holy Ghost on the Apostles, and his transmission through the
priesthood." And he recognizes only the words and commands of
Christ. "But is this interpretation of Christ a true one?" he
says. "Are all men bound to act as Tolstoy teaches--i. e., to
carry out these five commandments of Christ?"
You expect, then, that in answer to this essential question, which
is the only one that could induce a man to write an article about
the book, he will say either that this interpretation of Christ's
teaching is true and we ought to follow it, or he will say that
such an interpretation is untrue, will show why, and will give
some other correct interpretation of those words which I interpret
incorrectly. But nothing of this kind is done. Farrar only
expresses his "belief" that,
"although actuated by the noblest sincerity, Count Tolstoy has
been misled by partial and one-sided interpretations of the
meaning of the Gospel and the mind and will of Christ." What
this error consists in is not made clear; it is only said:
"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 in a tranquil spirit:
"Meanwhile, the reader who feels troubled lest it should be his
duty also to forsake all the conditions of his life and to take
up the position and work of a common laborer, 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 to disturb the bases
and revolutionize the institutions of all human society, which
themselves rest on divine sanctions as well as on inevitable
conditions. Were it my object to prove how untenable is the
doctrine of communism, based by Count Tolstoy upon the divine
paradoxes [sic], which can be interpreted only on 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 pity he has not an "ampler canvas at his disposal"! And what a
strange thing it is that for all these last fifteen centuries no one has
had a "canvas ample enough" to prove that Christ, whom we profess to
believe in, says something utterly unlike what he does say! Still, they
could prove it if they wanted to. But it is not worth while to prove
what everyone knows; it is enough to say "SECURUS JUDICAT ORBIS
TERRARUM."
And of this kind, without exception, are all the criticisms of educated
believers, who must, as such, understand the danger of their position.
The sole escape from it for them lies in their hope that they may be
able, by using the authority of the Church, of antiquity, and of their
sacred office, to overawe the reader and draw him away from the idea of
reading the Gospel for himself and thinking out the question in his own
mind for himself. And in this they are successful; for, indeed, how
could the notion occur to any one that all that has been repeated from
century to century with such earnestness and solemnity by all those
archdeacons, bishops, archbishops, holy synods, and popes, is all of it
a base lie and a calumny foisted upon Christ by them for the sake of
keeping safe the money they must have to live luxuriously on the necks
of other men? And it is a lie and a calumny so transparent that the only
way of keeping it up consists in overawing people by their earnestness,
their conscientiousness. It is just what has taken place of late years
at recruiting sessions; at a table before the zertzal--the symbol of the
Tzars authority--in the seat of honor under the life-size portrait of
the Tzar, sit dignified old officials, wearing decorations, conversing
freely and easily, writing notes, summoning men before them, and giving
orders. Here, wearing a cross on his breast, near them, is
prosperous-looking old Priest in a silken cassock, with long gray hair
flowing on to his cope; before a lectern who wears the golden cross and
has a Gospel bound in gold.
They summon Iran Petroff. A young man comes in, wretchedly,
shabbily dressed, and in terror, the muscles of his face working,
his eyes bright and restless; and in a broken voice, hardly above
a whisper, he says: "I--by Christ's law--as a Christian--I
cannot." "What is he muttering?" asks the president, frowning
impatiently and raising his eyes from his book to listen. "Speak
louder," the colonel with shining epaulets shouts to him. "I--I as
a Christian--" And at last it appears that the young man refuses
to serve in the army because he is a Christian. "Don't talk
nonsense. Stand to be measured. Doctor, may I trouble you to
measure him. He is all right?" "Yes." "Reverend father,
administer the oath to him."
No one is the least disturbed by what the poor scared young man is
muttering. They do not even pay attention to it. "They all mutter
something, but we've no time to listen to it, we have to enroll so
many."
The recruit tries to say something still. "It's opposed to the
law of Christ." "Go along, go along; we know without your help
what is opposed to the law and what's not; and you soothe his
mind, reverend father, soothe him. Next: Vassily Nikitin." And
they lead the trembling youth away. And it does not strike anyone
--the guards, or Vassily Nikitin, whom they are bringing in, or
any of the spectators of this scene--that these inarticulate words
of the young man, at once suppressed by the authorities, contain
the truth, and that the loud, solemnly uttered sentences of the
calm, self-confident official and the priest are a lie and a
deception.
Such is the impression produced not only by Farrar's article, but
by all those solemn sermons, articles, and books which make their
appearance from all sides directly there is anywhere a glimpse of
truth exposing a predominant falsehood. At once begins the series
of long, clever, ingenious, and solemn speeches and writings,
which deal with questions nearly related to the subject, but
skillfully avoid touching the subject itself.
That is the essence of the fifth and most effective means of
getting out of the contradictions in which Church Christianity has
placed itself, by professing its faith in Christ's teaching in
words, while it denies it in its life, and teaches
people to do the same.
Those who justify themselves by the first method, directly,
crudely asserting that Christ sanctioned violence, wars, and
murder, repudiate Christ's doctrine directly; those who find their
defense in the second, the third, or the fourth method are
confused and can easily be convicted of error; but this last
class, who do not argue, who do not condescend to argue about it,
but take shelter behind their own grandeur, and make a show of all
this having been decided by them or at least by someone long ago,
and no longer offering a possibility of doubt to anyone--they seem
safe from attack, and will be beyond attack till men come to
realize that they are under the narcotic influence exerted on them
by governments and churches, and are no longer affected by it.
Such was the attitude of the spiritual critics--i. e., those
professing faith in Christ--to my book. And their attitude could
not have been different. They are bound to take up this attitude
by the contradictory position in which they find themselves
between belief in the divinity of their Master and disbelief in
his clearest utterances, and they want to escape from this
contradiction. So that one cannot expect from them free
discussion of the very essence of the question--that is, of the
change in men's life which must result from applying Christ's
teaching to the existing order of the world. Such free discussion
I only expected from worldly, freethinking critics who are not
bound to Christ's teaching in any way, and can therefore take an
independent view of it. I had anticipated that freethinking
writers would look at Christ, not merely, like the Churchmen, as
the founder of a religion of personal salvation, but, to express
it in their language, as a reformer who laid down new principles
of life and destroyed the old, and whose reforms are not yet
complete, but are still in progress even now.
Such a view of Christ and his teaching follows from my book. But to my
astonishment, out of the great number of critics of my book there was
not one, either Russian or foreign, who treated the subject from the
side from which it was approached in the book--that is, who criticised
Christ's doctrines as philosophical, moral, and social principles, to
use their scientific expressions. This was not done in a single
criticism. The freethinking Russian critics taking my book as though its
whole contents could be reduced to non-resistance to evil, and
understanding the doctrine of non-resistance to evil itself (no doubt
for greater convenience in refuting it) as though it would prohibit
every kind of conflict with evil, fell vehemently upon this doctrine,
and for some years past have been very successfully proving that
Christ's teaching is mistaken in so far as it forbids resistance to
evil. Their refutations of this hypothetical doctrine of Christ were all
the more successful since they knew beforehand that their arguments
could not be contested or corrected, for the censorship, not having
passed the book, did not pass articles in its defense.
It is a remarkable thing that among us, where one cannot say a
word about the Holy Scriptures without the prohibition of the
censorship, for some years past there have been in all the
journals constant attacks and criticisms on the command of Christ
simply and directly stated in Matt. v. 39. The Russian advanced
critics, obviously unaware of all that has been done to elucidate
the question of non-resistance, and sometimes even imagining
apparently that the rule of non-resistance to evil had been
invented by me personally, fell foul of the very idea of it. They
opposed it and attacked it, and advancing with great heat
arguments which had long ago been analyzed and refuted from every
point of view, they demonstrated that a man ought invariably to
defend (with violence) all the injured and oppressed, and that
thus the doctrine of non-resistance to evil is an immoral
doctrine.
To all Russian critics the whole import of Christ's command seemed
reducible to the fact that it would hinder them from the active
opposition to evil to which they are accustomed. So that the
principle of non-resistance to evil by force has been attacked by
two opposing camps: the conservatives, because this principle
would hinder their activity in resistance to evil as applied to
the revolutionists, in persecution and punishment of them; the
revolutionists, too, because this principle would hinder their
resistance to evil as applied to the conservatives and the
overthrowing of them. The conservatives were indignant at the
doctrine of non-resistance to evil by force hindering the
energetic destruction of the revolutionary elements, which may
ruin the national prosperity; the revolutionists were indignant at
the doctrine of non-resistance to evil by force hindering the
overthrow of the conservatives, who are ruining the national
prosperity. It is worthy of remark in this connection that the
revolutionists have attacked the principle of non-resistance to
evil by force, in spite of the fact that it is the greatest terror
and danger for every despotism. For ever since the beginning of
the world, the use of violence of every kind, from the Inquisition
to the Schlüsselburg fortress, has rested and still rests on the
opposite principle of the necessity of resisting evil by force.
Besides this, the Russian critics have pointed out the fact that
the application of the command of non-resistance to practical life
would turn mankind aside out of the path of civilization along
which it is moving. The path of civilization on which mankind in
Europe is moving is in their opinion the one along which all
mankind ought always to move.
So much for the general character of the Russian critics.
Foreign critics started from the same premises, but their
discussions of my book were somewhat different from those of
Russian critics, not only in being less bitter, and in showing
more culture, but even in the subject-matter.
In discussing my book and the Gospel teaching generally, as it is
expressed in the Sermon on the Mount, the foreign critics
maintained that such doctrine is not peculiarly Christian
(Christian doctrine is either Catholicism or Protestantism
according to their views)--the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount
is only a string of very pretty impracticable dreams DU CHARMANT
DOCTEUR, as Reran says, fit for the simple and half-savage
inhabitants of Galilee who lived eighteen hundred years ago, and
for the half-savage Russian peasants--Sutaev and Bondarev--and the
Russian mystic Tolstoy, but not at all consistent with a high
degree of European culture.
The foreign freethinking critics have tried in a delicate manner,
without being offensive to me, to give the impression that my
conviction that mankind could be guided by such a naïve doctrine
as that of the Sermon on the Mount proceeds from two causes: that
such a conviction is partly due to my want of knowledge, my
ignorance of history, my ignorance of all the vain attempts to
apply the principles of the Sermon on the Mount to life, which
have been made in history and have led to nothing; and partly it
is due to my failing to appreciate the full value of the lofty
civilization to which mankind has attained at present, with its
Krupp cannons, smokeless powder, colonization of Africa, Irish
Coercion Bill, parliamentary government, journalism, strikes, and
the Eiffel Tower.
So wrote de Vogüé and Leroy Beaulieu and Matthew Arnold; so wrote
the American author Savage, and Ingersoll, the popular
freethinking American preacher, and many others.
"Christ's teaching is no use, because it is inconsistent with our
industrial age," says Ingersoll naïvely, expressing in this
utterance, with perfect directness and simplicity, the exact
notion of Christ's teaching held by persons of refinement and
culture of our times. The teaching is no use for our industrial
age, precisely as though the existence of this industrial age were
a sacred fact which ought not to and could not be changed. It is
just as though drunkards when advised how they could be brought to
habits of sobriety should answer that the advice is incompatible
with their habit of taking alcohol.
The arguments of all the freethinking critics, Russian and foreign
alike, different as they may be in tone and manner of
presentation, all amount essentially to the same strange
misapprehension--namely, that Christ's teaching, one of the
consequences of which is non-resistance to evil, is of no use to
us because it requires a change of our life.
Christ's teaching is useless because, if it were carried into practice,
life could not go on as at present; we must add: if we have begun by
living sinfully, as we do live and are accustomed to live. Not only is
the question of non-resistance to evil not discussed; the very mention
of the fact that the duty of non-resistance enters into Christ's
teaching is regarded as satisfactory proof of the impracticability of
the whole teaching.
Meanwhile one would have thought it was necessary to point out at
least some kind of solution of the following question, since it is
at the root of almost everything that interests us.
The question amounts to this: In what way are we to decide men's
disputes, when some men consider evil what others consider good,
and VICE VERSA? And to reply that that is evil which I think
evil, in spite of the fact that my opponent thinks it good, is not
a solution of the difficulty. There can only be two solutions:
either to find a real unquestionable criterion of what is evil or
not to resist evil by force.
The first course has been tried ever since the beginning of
historical times, and, as we all know, it has not hitherto led to
any successful results.
The second solution--not forcibly to resist what we consider evil
until we have found a universal criterion--that is the solution
given by Christ.
We may consider the answer given by Christ unsatisfactory; we may
replace it by another and better, by finding a criterion by which
evil could be defined for all men unanimously and simultaneously;
we may simply, like savage nations, not recognize the existence of
the question. But we cannot treat the question as the learned
critics of Christianity do. They pretend either that no such
question exists at all or that the question is solved by granting
to certain persons or assemblies of persons the right to define
evil and to resist it by force. But we know all the while that
granting such a right to certain persons does not decide the
question (still less so when we are ourselves the certain
persons), since there are always people who do not recognize this
right in the authorized persons or assemblies.
But this assumption, that what seems evil to us is really evil,
shows a complete misunderstanding of the question, and lies at the
root of the argument of freethinking critics about the Christian
religion. In this way, then, the discussions of my book on the
part of Churchmen and freethinking critics alike showed me that
the majority of men simply do not understand either Christ's
teaching or the questions which Christ's teaching solves.
CHAPTER III.
CHRISTIANITY MISUNDERSTOOD BY BELIEVERS.
Meaning of Christian Doctrine, Understood by a Minority, has Become
Completely Incomprehensible for the Majority of Men--Reason of this to
be Found in Misinterpretation of Christianity and Mistaken Conviction of
Believers and Unbelievers Alike that they Understand it--The Meaning of
Christianity Obscured for Believers by the Church--The First Appearance
of Christ's Teaching--Its Essence and Difference from Heathen
Religions--Christianity not Fully Comprehended at the Beginning, Became
More and More Clear to those who Accepted it from its Correspondence
with Truth--Simultaneously with this Arose the Claim to Possession of
the Authentic Meaning of the Doctrine Based on the Miraculous Nature of
its Transmission--Assembly of Disciples as Described in the Acts--The
Authoritative Claim to the Sole Possession of the True Meaning of
Christ's Teaching Supported by Miraculous Evidence has Led by Logical
Development to the Creeds of the Churches--A Church Could Not be Founded
by Christ--Definitions of a Church According to the Catechisms--The
Churches have Always been Several in Number and Hostile to One
Another--What is Heresy--The Work of G. Arnold on Heresies--Heresies the
Manifestations of Progress in the Churches--Churches Cause Dissension
among Men, and are Always Hostile to Christianity--Account of the Work
Done by the Russian Church--Matt. xxiii. 23--The Sermon on the Mount or
the Creed--The Orthodox Church Conceals from the People the True Meaning
of Christianity--The Same Thing is Done by the Other Churches--All the
External Conditions of Modern Life are such as to Destroy the Doctrine
of the Church, and therefore the Churches use Every Effort to Support
their Doctrines.
Thus the information I received, after my book came out, went to
show that the Christian doctrine, in its direct and simple sense,
was understood, and had always been understood, by a minority of
men, while the critics, ecclesiastical and freethinking alike,
denied the possibility of taking Christ's teaching in its direct
sense. All this convinced me that while on one hand the true
understanding of this doctrine had never been lost to a minority,
but had been established more and more clearly, on the other hand
the meaning of it had been more and more obscured for the
majority. So that at last such a depth of obscurity has been
reached that men do not take in their direct sense even the
simplest precepts, expressed in the simplest words, in the Gospel.
Christ's teaching is not generally understood in its true, simple,
and direct sense even in these days, when the light of the Gospel
has penetrated even to the darkest recesses of human
consciousness; when, in the words of Christ, that which was spoken
in the ear is proclaimed from the housetops; and when the Gospel
is influencing every side of human life--domestic, economic,
civic, legislative, and international. This lack of true
understanding of Christ's words at such a time would be
inexplicable, if there were not causes to account for it.
One of these causes is the fact that believers and unbelievers
alike are firmly persuaded that they have understood Christ's
teaching a long time, and that they understand it so fully,
indubitably, and conclusively that it can have no other
significance than the one they attribute to it. And the reason of
this conviction is that the false interpretation and consequent
misapprehension of the Gospel is an error of such long standing.
Even the strongest current of water cannot add a drop to a cup
which is already full.
The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man
if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing
cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly
persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid
before him.
The Christian doctrine is presented to the men of our world to-day
as a doctrine which everyone has known so long and accepted so
unhesitatingly in all its minutest details that it cannot be
understood in any other way than it is understood now.
Christianity is understood now by all who profess the doctrines of
the Church as a supernatural miraculous revelation of everything
which is repeated in the Creed. By unbelievers it is regarded as
an illustration of man's craving for a belief in the supernatural,
which mankind has now outgrown, as an historical phenomenon which
has received full expression in Catholicism, Greek Orthodoxy, and
Protestantism, and has no longer any living significance for us.
The significance of the Gospel is hidden from believers by the
Church, from unbelievers by Science.
I will speak first of the former. Eighteen hundred years ago
there appeared in the midst of the heathen Roman world a strange
new doctrine, unlike any of the old religions, and attributed to a
man, Christ.
This new doctrine was in both form and content absolutely new to
the Jewish world in which it originated, and still more to the
Roman world in which it was preached and diffused.
In the midst of the elaborate religious observances of Judaism, in
which, in the words of Isaiah, law was laid upon law, and in the midst
of the Roman legal system worked out to the highest point of perfection,
a new doctrine appeared, which denied not only every deity, and all fear
and worship of them, but even all human institutions and all necessity
for them. In place of all the rules of the old religions, this doctrine
sets up only a type of inward perfection, truth, and love in the person
of Christ, and--as a result of this inward perfection being attained by
men--also the outward perfection foretold by the Prophets--the kingdom
of God, when all men will cease to learn to make war, when all shall be
taught of God and united in love, and the lion will lie down with the
lamb. Instead of the threats of punishment which all the old laws of
religions and governments alike laid down for non-fulfillment of their
rules, instead of promises of rewards for fulfillment of them, this
doctrine called men to it only because it was the truth. John vii. 17:
"If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine whether it
be of God." John viii. 46: "If I say the truth, why do ye not believe
me? But ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth. Ye shall
know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. God is a spirit, and
they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. Keep my
sayings, and ye shall know of my sayings whether they be true." No
proofs of this doctrine were offered except its truth, the
correspondence of the doctrine with the truth. The whole teaching
consisted in the recognition of truth and following it, in a greater and
greater attainment of truth, and a closer and closer following of it in
the acts of life. There are no acts in this doctrine which could justify
a man and make him saved. There is only the image of truth to guide-him,
for inward perfection in the person of Christ, and for outward
perfection in the establishment of the kingdom of God. The fulfillment
of this teaching consists only in walking in the chosen way, in getting
nearer to inward perfection in the imitation of Christ, and outward
perfection in the establishment of the kingdom of God. The greater or
less blessedness of a man depends, according to this doctrine, not on
the degree of perfection to which he has attained, but on the greater or
less swiftness with which he is pursuing it.
The progress toward perfection of the publican Zaccheus, of the woman
that was a sinner, of the robber on the cross, is a greater state of
blessedness, according to this doctrine, than the stationary
righteousness of the Pharisee. The lost sheep is dearer than ninety-nine
that were not lost. The prodigal son, the piece of money that was lost
and found again, are dearer, more precious to God than those which have
not been lost.
Every condition, according to this doctrine, is only a particular
step in the attainment of inward and outward perfection, and
therefore has no significance of itself. Blessedness consists in
progress toward perfection; to stand still in any condition
whatever means the cessation of this blessedness.
"Let not thy left hand know what they right hand doeth." "No man
having put his hand to the plow and looking back is fit for the
Kingdom of God." "Rejoice not that the spirits are subject to
you, but seek rather that your names be written in heaven." "Be
ye perfect even as your Father in heaven is perfect." "Seek ye
first the kingdom of heaven and its righteousness."
The fulfillment of this precept is only to be found in
uninterrupted progress toward the attainment of ever higher truth,
toward establishing more and more firmly an ever greater love
within oneself, and establishing more and more widely the kingdom
of God outside oneself.
It is obvious that, appearing as it did in the midst of the Jewish
and heathen world, such teaching could not be accepted by the
majority of men, who were living a life absolutely different from
what was required by it. It is obvious, too, that even for those
by whom it was accepted, it was so absolutely opposed to all their
old views that it could not be comprehensible in its full
significance.
It has been only by a succession of misunderstandings, errors,
partial explanations, and the corrections and additions of
generations that the meaning of the Christian doctrine has grown
continually more and more clear to men. The Christian view of
life has exerted an influence on the Jewish and heathen, and the
heathen and Jewish view of life has, too, exerted an influence on
the Christian. And Christianity, as the living force, has gained
more and more upon the extinct Judaism and heathenism, and has
grown continually clearer and clearer, as it freed itself from the
admixture of falsehood which had overlaid it. Men went further
and further in the attainment of the meaning of Christianity, and
realized it more and more in life.
The longer mankind lived, the clearer and clearer became the
meaning of Christianity, as must always be the case with every
theory of life.
Succeeding generations corrected the errors of their predecessors,
and grew ever nearer and nearer to a comprehension of the true
meaning. It was thus from the very earliest times of
Christianity. And so, too, from the earliest times of
Christianity there were men who began to assert on their own
authority that the meaning they attribute to the doctrine is the
only true one, and as proof bring forward supernatural occurrences
in support of the correctness of their interpretation.
This was the principal cause at first of the misunderstanding of
the doctrine, and afterward of the complete distortion of it.
It was supposed that Christ's teaching was transmitted to men not
like every other truth, but in a special miraculous way. Thus the
truth of the teaching was not proved by its correspondence with
the needs of the mind and the whole nature of man, but by the
miraculous manner of its transmission, which was advanced as an
irrefutable proof of the truth of the interpretation put on it.
This hypothesis originated from misunderstanding of the teaching,
and its result was to make it impossible to understand it rightly.
And this happened first in the earliest times, when the doctrine
was still not so fully understood and often interpreted wrongly,
as we see by the Gospels and the Acts. The less the doctrine was
understood, the more obscure it appeared and the more necessary
were external proofs of its truth. The proposition that we ought
not to do unto others as we would not they should do unto us, did
not need to be proved by miracles and needed no exercise of faith,
because this proposition is in itself convincing and in harmony
with man's mind and nature; but the proposition that Christ was
God had to be proved by miracles completely beyond our
comprehension.
The more the understanding of Christ's teaching was obscured, the
more the miraculous was introduced into it; and the more the
miraculous was introduced into it, the more the doctrine was
strained from its meaning and the more obscure it became; and the
more it was strained from its meaning and the more obscure it
became, the more strongly its infallibility had to be asserted,
and the less comprehensible the doctrine became.
One can see by the Gospels, the Acts, and the Epistles how from
the earliest times the non-comprehension of the doctrine called
forth the need for proofs through the miraculous and
incomprehensible.
The first example in the book of Acts is the assembly which
gathered together in Jerusalem to decide the question which had
arisen, whether to baptize or not the uncircumcised and those who
had eaten of food sacrificed to idols.
The very fact of this question being raised showed that
those who discussed it did not understand the teaching of Christ,
who rejected all outward observances--ablutions, purifications,
fasts, and sabbaths. It was plainly said, "Not that which goeth
into a man's mouth, but that which cometh out of a man's mouth,
defileth him," and therefore the question of baptizing the
uncircumcised could only have arisen among men who, though they
loved their Master and dimly felt the grandeur of his teaching,
still did not understand the teaching itself very clearly. And
this was the fact.
Just in proportion to the failure of the members of the assembly
to understand the doctrine was their need of external confirmation
of their incomplete interpretation of it. And then to settle this
question, the very asking of which proved their misunderstanding
of the doctrine, there was uttered in this assembly, as is
described in the Acts, that strange phrase, which was for the
first time found necessary to give external confirmation to
certain assertions, and which has been productive of so much evil.
That is, it was asserted that the correctness of what they had
decided was guaranteed by the miraculous participation of the Holy
Ghost, that is, of God, in their decision. But the assertion that
the Holy Ghost, that is, God, spoke through the Apostles, in its
turn wanted proof. And thus it was necessary, to confirm this,
that the Holy Ghost should descend at Pentecost in tongues of fire
upon those who made this assertion. (In the account of it, the
descent of the Holy Ghost precedes the assembly, but the book of
Acts was written much later than both events.) But the descent of
the Holy Ghost too had to be proved for those who had not seen the
tongues of fire (though it is not easy to understand why a tongue
of fire burning above a man's head should prove that what that man
is going to say will be infallibly the truth). And so arose the
necessity for still more miracles and changes, raisings of the
dead to life, and strikings of the living dead, and all those
marvels which have been a stumbling-block to men, of which the
Acts is full, and which, far from ever convincing one of the truth
of the Christian doctrine, can only repel men from it. The result
of such a means of confirming the truth was that the more these
confirmations of truth by tales of miracles were heaped up one
after another, the more the doctrine was distorted from its
original meaning, aid the more incomprehensible it became.
Thus it was from the earliest times, and so it went on, constantly
increasing, till it reached in our day the logical climax of the dogmas
of transubstantiation and the infallibility of the Pope, or of the
bishops, or of Scripture, and of requiring a blind faith rendered
incomprehensible and utterly meaningless, not in God, but in Christ, not
in a doctrine, but in a person, as in Catholicism, or in persons, as in
Greek Orthodoxy, or in a book, as in Protestantism. The more widely
Christianity was diffused, and the greater the number of people
unprepared for it who were brought under its sway, the less it was
understood, the more absolutely was its infallibility insisted on, and
the less possible it became to understand the true meaning of the
doctrine. In the times of Constantine the whole interpretation of the
doctrine had been already reduced to a RÉSUMÉ--supported by the temporal
authority--of the disputes that had taken place in the Council--to a
creed which reckoned off--I believe in so and so, and so and so, and so
and so to the end--to one holy, Apostolic Church, which means the
infallibility of those persons who call themselves the Church. So that
it all amounts to a man no longer believing in God nor Christ, as they
are revealed to him, but believing in what the Church orders him to
believe in.
But the Church is holy; the Church was founded by Christ. God
could not leave men to interpret his teaching at random--therefore
he founded the Church. All those statements are so utterly untrue
and unfounded that one is ashamed to refute them. Nowhere nor in
anything, except in the assertion of the Church, can we find that
God or Christ founded anything like what Churchmen understand by
the Church. In the Gospels there is a warning against the Church,
as it is an external authority, a warning most clear and obvious
in the passage where it is said that Christ's followers should
"call no man master." But nowhere is anything said of the
foundation of what Churchmen call the Church.
The word church is used twice in the Gospels--once in the sense of
an assembly of men to decide a dispute, the other time in
connection with the obscure utterance about a stone--Peter, and
the gates of hell. From these two passages in which the word
church is used, in the signification merely of an assembly, has
been deduced all that we now understand by the Church.
But Christ could not have founded the Church, that is, what we now
understand by that word. For nothing like the idea of the Church
as we know it now, with its sacraments, miracles, and above all
its claim to infallibility, is to be found either in Christ's
words or in the ideas of the men of that time.
The fact that men called what was formed afterward by the same
word as Christ used for something totally different, does not give
them the right to assert that Christ founded the one, true Church.
Besides, if Christ had really founded such an institution as the
Church for the foundation of all his teaching and the whole faith,
he would certainly have described this institution clearly and
definitely, and would have given the only true Church, besides
tales of miracles, which are used to support every kind of
superstition, some tokens so unmistakable that no doubt of its
genuineness could ever have arisen. But nothing of the sort was
done by him. And there have been and still are different
institutions, each calling itself the true Church.
The Catholic catechism says: "L'Église est la société des fidéles
établie par notre Seigneur Jésus Christ, répandue sur toute la
terre et soumise à l'authorité des pasteurs légitimes,
principalement notre Saint Père le Pape," [see Footnote]
understanding by the words "pasteurs légitimes" an association of
men having the Pope at its head, and consisting of certain
individuals bound together by a certain organization.
[Footnote: "The Church is the society of the faithful,
established by our Lord Jesus Christ, spread over the
whole earth, and subject to the authority of its lawful
pastors, and chief of them our Holy Father the Pope."]
The Greek Orthodox catechism says: "The Church is a society
founded upon earth by Jesus Christ, which is united into one
whole, by one divine doctrine and by sacraments, under the rule
and guidance of a priesthood appointed by God," meaning by the
"priesthood appointed by God" the Greek Orthodox priesthood,
consisting of certain individuals who happen to be in such or such
positions.
The Lutheran catechism says: "The Church is holy Christianity, or
the collection of all believers under Christ, their head, to whom
the Holy Ghost through the Gospels and sacraments promises,
communicates, and administers heavenly salvation," meaning that
the Catholic Church is lost in error, and that the true means of
salvation is in Lutheranism.
For Catholics the Church of God coincides with the Roman
priesthood and the Pope. For the Greek Orthodox believer the
Church of God coincides with the establishment and priesthood of
Russia. [See Footnote]
[Footnote: Homyakov's definition of the Church, which
was received with some favor among Russians, does not
improve matters, if we are to agree with Homyakov in
considering the Greek Orthodox Church as the one true
Church. Homyakov asserts that a church is a collection
of men (all without distinction of clergy and laymen)
united together by love, and that only to men united by
love is the truth revealed (let us love each other, that
in the unity of thought, etc.), and that such a church
is the church which, in the first place, recognizes the
Nicene Creed, and in the second place does not, after
the division of the churches, recognize the popes and
new dogmas. But with such a definition of the church,
there is still more difficulty in reconciling, as
Homyakov tries to do, the church united by love with
the church that recognizes the Nicene Creed and the
doctrine of Photius. So that Homyakov's assertion that
this church, united by love, and consequently holy,
is the same church as the Greek Orthodox priesthood
profess faith in, is even more arbitrary than the
assertions of the Catholics or the Orthodox. If we
admit the idea of a church in the sense Homyakov
gives to it--that is, a body of men bound together
by love and truth--then all that any man can predicate
in regard to this body, if such an one exists, is
its love and truth, but there can be no outer signs
by which one could reckon oneself or another as a
member of this holy body, nor by which one could put
anyone outside it; so that no institution having
an external existence can correspond to this idea.]
For Lutherans the Church of God coincides with a body of men who
recognize the authority of the Bible and Luther's catechism.
Ordinarily, when speaking of the rise of Christianity, men
belonging to one of the existing churches use the word church in
the singular, as though there were and had been only one church.
But this is absolutely incorrect. The Church, as an institution
which asserted that it possessed infallible truth, did not make
its appearance singly; there were at least two churches directly
this claim was made.
While believers were agreed among themselves and the body was one,
it had no need to declare itself as a church. It was only when
believers were split up into opposing parties, renouncing one
another, that it seemed necessary to each party to confirm their
own truth by ascribing to themselves infallibility. The
conception of one church only arose when there were two sides
divided and disputing, who each called the other side heresy, and
recognized their own side only as the infallible church.
If we knew that there was a church which decided in the year 51 to
receive the uncircumcised, it is only so because there was another
church--of the Judaists--who decided to keep the uncircumcised
out.
If there is a Catholic Church now which asserts its own infallibility,
that is only because there are churches--Greco-Russian, Old Orthodox,
and Lutheran--each asserting its own infallibility and denying that of
all other churches. So that the one Church is only a fantastic
imagination which has not the least trace of reality about it.
As a real historical fact there has existed, and still exist,
several bodies of men, each asserting that it is the one Church,
founded by Christ, and that all the others who call themselves
churches are only sects and heresies.
The catechisms of the churches of the most world-wide influence--the
Catholic, the Old Orthodox, and the Lutheran--openly assert this.
In the Catholic catechism it is said: "Quels sont ceux qui sont
hors de l'église? Les infidèles, les hérétiques, les
schismatiques." [Footnote: "Who are those who are outside the
Church? Infidels, heretics, and schismatics."] The so-called
Greek Orthodox are regarded as schismatics, the Lutherans as
heretics; so that according to the Catholic catechism the only
people in the Church are Catholics.
In the so-called Orthodox catechism it is said: By the one
Christian Church is understood the Orthodox, which remains fully
in accord with the Universal Church. As for the Roman Church and
other sects (the Lutherans and the rest they do not even dignify
by the name of church), they cannot be included in the one true
Church, since they have themselves separated from it.
According to this definition the Catholics and Lutherans are
outside the Church, and there are only Orthodox in the Church.
The Lutheran catechism says: "Die wahre kirche wird darein
erkannt, dass in ihr das Wort Gottes lauter und rein ohne
Menschenzusätze gelehrt and die Sacramente treu nach Christi
Einsetzung gewahret werden." [Footnote: "The true Church will be
known by the Word of God being studied clear and unmixed with
man's additions and the sacraments being maintained faithful to
Christ's teaching."]
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
there are only Protestants.
The Catholics assert that the Holy Ghost has been transmitted
without a break in their priesthood. The Orthodox assert that the
same Holy Ghost has been transmitted without a break in their
priesthood. The Arians asserted that the Holy Ghost was
transmitted in their priesthood (they asserted this with just as
much right as the churches in authority now). The Protestants of
every kind--Lutherans, Reformed Church, Presbyterians, Methodists,
Swedenborgians, Mormons--assert that the Holy Ghost is only
present in their communities. If the Catholics assert that the
Holy Ghost, at the time of the division of the Church into Arian
and Greek, left the Church that fell away and remained in the one
true Church, with precisely the same right the Protestants of
every denomination can assert that at the time of the separation
of their Church from the Catholic the Holy Ghost left the Catholic
and passed into the Church they professed. And this is just what
they do.
Every church traces its creed through an uninterrupted
transmission from Christ and the Apostles. And truly every
Christian creed that has been derived from Christ must have come
down to the present generation through a certain transmission.
But that does not prove that it alone of all that has been
transmuted, excluding all the rest, can be the sole truth,
admitting of no doubt.
Every branch in a tree comes from the root in unbroken connection;
but the fact that each branch comes from the one root, does not
prove at all that each branch was the only one. It is precisely
the same with the Church. Every church presents exactly the same
proofs of the succession, and even the same miracles, in support
of its authenticity, as every other. So that there is but one
strict and exact definition of what is a church (not of something
fantastic which we would wish it to be, but of what it is and has
been in reality)--a church is a body of men who claim for
themselves that they are in complete and sole possession of the
truth. And these bodies, having in course of time, aided by the
support of the temporal authorities, developed into powerful
institutions, have been the principal obstacles to the diffusion
of a true comprehension of the teaching of Christ.
It could not be otherwise. The chief peculiarity which
distinguished Christ's teaching from previous religions consisted
in the fact that those who accepted it strove ever more and more
to comprehend and realize its teaching. But the Church doctrine
asserted its own complete and final comprehension and realization
of it.
Strange though it may seem to us who have been brought up in the
erroneous view of the Church as a Christian institution, and in
contempt for heresy, yet the fact is that only in what was called
heresy was there any true movement, that is, true Christianity,
and that it only ceased to be so when those heresies stopped short
in their movement and also petrified into the fixed forms of a
church.
And, indeed what is a heresy? Read all the theological works one
after another. In all of them heresy is the subject which first
presents itself for definition; since every theological work deals
with the true doctrine of Christ as distinguished from the
erroneous doctrines which surround it, that is, heresies. Yet you
will not find anywhere anything like a definition of heresy.
The treatment of this subject by the learned historian of
Christianity, E. de Pressensé, in his "Histoire du Dogme" (Paris,
1869), under the heading "Ubi Christus, ibi Ecclesia," may serve
as an illustration of the complete absence of anything like a
definition of what is understood by the word heresy. Here is what
he says in his introduction (p. 3):
"Je sais que l'on nous conteste le droit de qualifier 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 ce scrupule,
car il n'irait à rien moins qu'à enlever au Christianisme tout
caractère distinctif." [see Footnote]
[Footnote: "I know that our right to qualify thus the
tendencies which were so actively opposed by the early
Fathers is contested. The very use of the word heresy
seems an attack upon liberty of conscience and thought.
We cannot share this scruple; for it would amount to
nothing less than depriving Christianity of all
distinctive character."]
And though he tells us that after Constantine's time the Church
did actually abuse its power by designating those who dissented
from it as heretics and persecuting them, yet he says, when
speaking of early times:
"L'église est une libre association; il y a tout profit a se
séparer d'elle. La polémique contre l'erreur n'a d'autres
ressources 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 a d'invariables
formules. Si au sein de cette diversité apparait un fonds
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 dons son instinct le
plus sûr et sa manifestation la plus spontanée? Si cette même
unanimité qui se révèle dans les croyances essentielles, se
retrouve pour repousser telles ou telles tendances ne serons
nous pas en droit de conclure que ces tendances étaient en
désacord flagrant avec les principes fondamentaux du
christianisme? Cette présomption ne se transformerait-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'ébionitisme sont les formes légitimes
de la pensée chrétienne il faut dire hardiment qu'il n'y a pas
de pensée chrétienne, ni de caractère spécifique qui la fasse
reconnaître. Sous prétexte de l'élargir, on la dissout.
Personne au temps de Platon n'eût osé couvrir de son nom une
doctrine qui n'eut pas fait place à la théorie des idées; et
l'on eût 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 ou une
doctrine qui s'appelle christianisme, elle peut avoir ses
hérésies." [see Footnote]
[Footnote: "The Church is a free association; there is much to
be gained by separation from it. Conflict with error has no
weapons other than thought and feeling. One uniform type of
doctrine has not yet been elaborated; divergencies in
secondary matters arise freely in East and West; theology is
not wedded to invariable formulas. If in the midst of this
diversity a mass of beliefs common to all is apparent, is one
not justified in seeing in it, not a formulated system, framed
by the representatives of pedantic authority, but faith itself
in its surest instinct and its most spontaneous manifestation?
If the same unanimity which is revealed in essential points of
belief is found also in rejecting certain tendencies, are we
not justified in concluding that these tendencies were in
flagrant opposition to the fundamental principles of
Christianity? And will not this presumption be transformed
into certainty if we recognize in the doctrine universally
rejected by the Church the characteristic features of one of
the religions of the past? To say that gnosticism or
ebionitism are legitimate forms of Christian thought, one must
boldly deny the existence of Christian thought at all, or any
specific character by which it could be recognized. While
ostensibly widening its realm, one undermines it. No one in
the time of Plato would have ventured to give his name to a
doctrine in which the theory of ideas had no place, and one
would deservedly have excited the ridicule of Greece by trying
to pass off Epicurus or Zeno as a disciple of the Academy.
Let us recognize, then, that if a religion or a doctrine
exists which is called Christianity, it may have its
heresies."]
The author's whole argument amounts to this: that every opinion
which differs from the code of dogmas we believe in at a given
time, is heresy. But of course at any given time and place men
always believe in something or other; and this belief in
something, indefinite at any place, at some time, cannot be a
criterion of truth.
It all amounts to this: since ubi Christus ibi Ecclesia, then
Christus is where we are.
Every so-called heresy, regarding, as it does, its own creed as
the truth, can just as easily find in Church history a series of
illustrations of its own creed, can use all Pressensé's arguments
on its own behalf, and can call its own creed the one truly
Christian creed. And that is just what all heresies do and have
always done.
The only definition of heresy (the word [GREEK WORD], means a
part) is this: the name given by a body of men to any opinion
which rejects a part of the Creed professed by that body. The
more frequent meaning, more often ascribed to the word heresy, is
--that of an opinion which rejects the Church doctrine founded and
supported by the temporal authorities.
[TRANSCRIBIST'S NOTE: The GREEK WORD above used Greek letters,
spelled: alpha(followed by an apostrophe)-iota(with accent)-
rho-epsilon-sigma-iota-zeta]
There is a remarkable and voluminous work, very little known,
"Unpartheyische Kirchen- und Ketzer-Historie," 1729, by Gottfried
Arnold, which deals with precisely this subject, and points out
all the unlawfulness, the arbitrariness, the senselessness, and
the cruelty of using the word heretic in the sense of reprobate.
This book is an attempt to write the history of Christianity in
the form of a history of heresy.
In the introduction the author propounds a series of questions:
(1) Of those who make heretics; (2) Of those whom they made
heretics; (3) Of heretical subjects themselves; (4) Of the method
of making heretics; and (5) Of the object and result of making
heretics.
On each of these points he propounds ten more questions, the
answers to which he gives later on from the works of well-known
theologians. But he leaves the reader to draw for himself the
principal conclusion from the expositions in the whole book. As
examples of these questions, in which the answers are to some
extent included also, I will quote the following. Under the 4th
head, of the manner in which heretics are made, he says, in one of
the questions (in the 7th):
"Does not all history show that the greatest makers of
heretics and masters of that craft were just these wise men,
from whom the Father hid his secrets, that is, the hypocrites,
the Pharisees, and lawyers, men utterly godless and perverted
(Question 20-21)? And in the corrupt times of Christianity
were not these very men cast out, denounced by the hypocrites
and envious, who were endowed by God with great gifts and who
would in the days of pure Christianity have been held in high
honor? And, on the other hand, would not the men who, in the
decline of Christianity raised themselves above all, and
regarded themselves as the teachers of the purest Christianity,
would not these very men, in the times of the apostles and
disciples of Christ, have been regarded as the most shameless
heretics and anti-Christians?"
He expounds, among other things in these questions, the theory
that any verbal expression of faith, such as was demanded by the
Church, and the departure from which was reckoned as heresy, could
never fully cover the exact religious ideas of a believer, and
that therefore the demand for an expression of faith in certain
words was ever productive of heresy, and he says, in Question 21:
"And if heavenly things and thoughts present themselves to a
man's mind as so great and so profound that he does not find
corresponding words to express them, ought one to call him a
heretic, because he cannot express his idea with perfect
exactness?"
And in Question 33:
"And is not the fact that there was no heresy in the earliest
days due to the fact that the Christians did not judge one
another by verbal expressions, but by deed and by heart, since
they had perfect liberty to express their ideas without the
dread of being called heretics; was it not the easiest and most
ordinary ecclesiastical proceeding, if the clergy wanted to get
rid of or to ruin anyone, for them to cast suspicion on the
person's belief, and to throw a cloak of heresy upon him, and
by this means to procure his condemnation and removal?
"True though it may be that there were sins and errors among
the so-called heretics, it is no less true and evident," he
says farther on, "from the innumerable examples quoted here
(i. e., in the history of the Church and of heresy), that there
was not a single sincere and conscientious man of any
importance whom the Churchmen would not from envy or other
causes have ruined."
Thus, almost two hundred years ago, the real meaning of heresy was
understood. And notwithstanding that, the same conception of it
has gone on existing up to now. And it cannot fail to exist so
long as the conception of a church exists. Heresy is the obverse
side of the Church. Wherever there is a church, there must be the
conception of heresy. A church is a body of men who assert that
they are in possession of infallible truth. Heresy is the opinion
of the men who do not admit the infallibility of the Church's
truth.
Heresy makes its appearance in the Church. It is the effort to
break through the petrified authority of the Church. All effort
after a living comprehension of the doctrine has been made by
heretics. Tertullian, Origen, Augustine, Luther, Huss,
Savonarola, Helchitsky, and the rest were heretics. It could not
be otherwise.
The follower of Christ, whose service means an ever-growing
understanding of his teaching, and an ever-closer fulfillment of
it, in progress toward perfection, cannot, just because he is a
follower, of Christ, claim for himself or any other that he
understands Christ's teaching fully and fulfills it. Still less
can he claim this for any body of men.
To whatever degree of understanding and perfection the follower of
Christ may have attained, he always feels the insufficiency of his
understanding and fulfillment of it, and is always striving toward
a fuller understanding and fulfillment. And therefore, to assert
of one's self or of any body of men, that one is or they are in
possession of perfect understanding and fulfillment of Christ's
word, is to renounce the very spirit of Christ's teaching.
Strange as it may seem, the churches as churches have always been,
and cannot but be, institutions not only alien in spirit to
Christ's teaching, but even directly antagonistic to it. With
good reason Voltaire calls the Church l'infâme; with good reason
have all or almost all so-called sects of Christians recognized
the Church as the scarlet woman foretold in the Apocalypse; with
good reason is the history of the Church the history of the
greatest cruelties and horrors.
The churches as churches are not, as many people suppose,
institutions which have Christian principles for their basis, even
though they may have strayed a little away from the straight path.
The churches as churches, as bodies which assert their own
infallibility, are institutions opposed to Christianity. There is
not only nothing in common between the churches as such and
Christianity, except the name, but they represent two principles
fundamentally opposed and antagonistic to one another. One
represents pride, violence, self-assertion, stagnation, and death;
the other, meekness, penitence, humility, progress, and life.
We cannot serve these two masters; we have to choose between
them.
The servants of the churches of all denominations, especially of
later times, try to show themselves champions of progress in
Christianity. They make concessions, wish to correct the abuses
that have slipped into the Church, and maintain that one cannot,
on account of these abuses, deny the principle itself of a
Christian church, which alone can bind all men together in unity
and be a mediator between men and God. But this is all a mistake.
Not only have churches never bound men together in unity; they
have always been one of the principal causes of division between
men, of their hatred of one another, of wars, battles,
inquisitions, massacres of St. Bartholomew, and so on. And the
churches have never served as mediators between men and God. Such
mediation is not wanted, and was directly forbidden by Christ, who
has revealed his teaching directly and immediately to each man.
But the churches set up dead forms in the place of God, and far
from revealing God, they obscure him from men's sight. The
churches, which originated from misunderstanding of Christ's
teaching and have maintained this misunderstanding by their
immovability, cannot but persecute and refuse to recognize all
true understanding of Christ's words. They try to conceal this,
but in vain; for every step forward along the path pointed out for
us by Christ is a step toward their destruction.
To hear and to read the sermons and articles in which Church writers of
later times of all denominations speak of Christian truths and virtues;
to hear or read these skillful arguments that have been elaborated
during centuries, and exhortations and professions, which sometimes seem
like sincere professions, one is ready to doubt whether the churches can
be antagonistic to Christianity. "It cannot be," one says, "that these
people who can point to such men as Chrysostom, Fénelon, Butler, and
others professing the Christian faith, were antagonistic to
Christianity." One is tempted to say, "The churches may have strayed
away from Christianity, they may be in error, but they cannot be hostile
to it." But we must look to the fruit to judge the tree, as Christ
taught us. And if we see that their fruits were evil, that the results
of their activity were antagonistic to Christianity, we cannot but admit
that however good the men were--the work of the Church in which these
men took part was not Christian. The goodness and worth of these men who
served the churches was the goodness and worth of the men, and not of
the institution they served. All the good men, such as Francis of
Assisi, and Francis of Sales, our Tihon Zadonsky, Thomas à Kempis, and
others, were good men in spite of their serving an institution hostile
to Christianity, and they would have been still better if they had not
been under the influence of the error which they were serving.
But why should we speak of the past and judge from the past, which
may have been misrepresented and misunderstood by us? The
churches, with their principles and their practice, are not a
thing of the past. The churches are before us to-day, and we can
judge of them to some purpose by their practical activity, their
influence on men.
What is the practical work of the churches to-day? What is their
influence upon men? What is done by the churches among us, among
the Catholics and the Protestants of all denominations--what is
their practical work? and what are the results of their practical
work?
The practice of our Russian so-called Orthodox Church is plain to
all. It is an enormous fact which there is no possibility of
hiding and about which there can be no disputing.
What constitutes the practical work of this Russian Church, this
immense, intensely active institution, which consists of a
regiment of half a million men and costs the people tens of
millions of rubles?
The practical business of the Church consists in instilling by
every conceivable means into the mass of one hundred millions of
the Russian people those extinct relics of beliefs for which there
is nowadays no kind of justification, "in which scarcely anyone
now believes, and often not even those whose duty it is to diffuse
these false beliefs." To instill into the people the formulas of
Byzantine theology, of the Trinity, of the Mother of God, of
Sacraments, of Grace, and so on, extinct conceptions, foreign to
us, and having no kind of meaning for men of our times,
forms only one part of the work of the Russian Church. Another
part of its practice consists in the maintenance of idol-worship
in the most literal meaning of the word; in the veneration of holy
relics, and of ikons, the offering of sacrifices to them, and the
expectation of their answers to prayer. I am not going to speak
of what is preached and what is written by clergy of scientific or
liberal tendencies in the theological journals. I am going to
speak of what is actually done by the clergy through the wide
expanse of the Russian land among a people of one hundred
millions. What do they, diligently, assiduously, everywhere
alike, without intermission, teach the people? What do they
demand from the people in virtue of their (so-called) Christian
faith?
I will begin from the beginning with the birth of a child. At the
birth of a child they teach them that they must recite a prayer
over the child and mother to purify them, as though without this
prayer the mother of a newborn child were unclean. To do this the
priest holds the child in his arms before the images of the saints
(called by the people plainly gods) and reads words of exorcizing
power, and this purifies the mother. Then it is suggested to the
parents, and even exacted of them, under fear of punishment for
non-fulfillment, that the child must be baptized; that is, be
dipped by the priest three times into the water, while certain
words, understood by no one, are read aloud, and certain actions,
still less understood, are performed; various parts of the body
are rubbed with oil, and the hair is cut, while the sponsors blow
and spit at an imaginary devil. All this is necessary to purify
the child and to make him a Christian. Then it is instilled into
the parents that they ought to administer the sacrament to the
child, that is, give him, in the guise of bread and wine, a
portion of Christ's body to eat, as a result of which the child
receives the grace of God within it, and so on. Then it is
suggested that the child as it grows up must be taught to pray.
To pray means to place himself directly before the wooden boards
on which are painted the faces of Christ, the Mother of God, and
the saints, to bow his head and his whole body, and to touch his
forehead, his shoulders and his stomach with his right hand,
holding his fingers in a certain position, and to utter some words
of Slavonic, the most usual of which as taught to all children
are: Mother of God, virgin, rejoice thee, etc., etc.
Then it is instilled into the child as it is brought up that at
the sight of any church or ikon he must repeat the same action--i. e.,
cross himself. Then it is instilled into him that on holidays
(holidays are the days on which Christ was born, though no one
knows when that was, on which he was circumcised, on which the
Mother of God died, on which the cross was carried in procession,
on which ikons have been set up, on which a lunatic saw a vision,
and so on)--on holidays he must dress himself in his best clothes
and go to church, and must buy candles and place them there before
the images of the saints. Then he must give offerings and prayers
for the dead, and little loaves to be cut up into three-cornered
pieces, and must pray many times for the health and prosperity of
the Tzar and the bishops, and for himself and his own affairs, and
then kiss the cross and the hand of the priest.
Besides these observances, it is instilled into him that at
least once a year he must confess. To confess means to go to the
church and to tell the priest his sins, on the theory that this
informing a stranger of his sins completely purifies him from
them. And after that he must eat with a little spoon a morsel of
bread with wine, which will purify him still more. Next it is
instilled into him that if a man and woman want their physical
union to be sanctified they must go to church, put on metal
crowns, drink certain potions, walk three times round a table to
the sound of singing, and that then the physical union of a man
and woman becomes sacred and altogether different from all other
such unions.
Further it is instilled into him in his life that he must observe
the following rules: not to eat butter or milk on certain days,
and on certain other days to sing Te Deums and requiems for the
dead, on holidays to entertain the priest and give him money, and
several times in the year to bring the ikons from the church, and
to carry them slung on his shoulders through the fields and
houses. It is instilled into him that on his death-bed a man must
not fail to eat bread and wine with a spoon, and that it will be
still better if he has time to be rubbed with sacred oil. This
will guarantee his welfare in the future life. After his death it
is instilled into his relatives that it is a good thing for the
salvation of the dead man to place a printed paper of prayers in
his hands; it is a good thing further to read aloud a certain book
over the dead body, and to pronounce the dead man's name in church
at a certain time. All this is regarded as faith obligatory on
everyone.
But if anyone wants to take particular care of his soul, then
according to this faith he is instructed that the greatest
security of the salvation of the soul in the world is attained by
offering money to the churches and monasteries, and engaging the
holy men by this means to pray for him. Entering monasteries too
and kissing relics and miraculous ikons, are further means of
salvation for the soul.
According to this faith ikons and relics communicate a special
sanctity, power, and grace, and even proximity to these objects,
touching them, kissing them, putting candles before them, crawling
under them while they are being carried along, are all efficacious
for salvation, as well as Te Deums repeated before these holy
things.
So this, and nothing else, is the faith called Orthodox, that is
the actual faith which, under the guise of Christianity, has been
with all the forces of the Church, and is now with especial zeal,
instilled into the people.
And let no one say that the Orthodox teachers place the essential
part of their teaching in something else, and that all these are
only ancient forms, which it is not thought necessary to do away
with. That is false. This, and nothing but this, is the faith
taught through the whole of Russia by the whole of the Russian
clergy, and of late years with especial zeal. There is nothing
else taught. Something different may be talked of and written of
in the capitals; but among the hundred millions of the people this
is what is done, this is what is taught, and nothing more.
Churchmen may talk of something else, but this is what they teach
by every means in their power.
All this, and the worship of relics and of ikons, has been
introduced into works of theology and into the catechisms. Thus
they teach it to the people in theory and in practice, using every
resource of authority, solemnity, pomp, and violence to impress
them. They compel the people, by overawing them, to believe in
this, and jealously guard this faith from any attempt to free the
people from these barbarous superstitions.
As I said when I published my book, Christ's teaching and his very
words about non-resistance to evil were for many years a subject
for ridicule and low jesting in my eyes, and Churchmen, far from
opposing it, even encouraged this scoffing at sacred things. But
try the experiment of saying a disrespectful word about a hideous
idol which is carried sacrilegiously about Moscow by drunken men
under the name of the ikon of the Iversky virgin, and you will
raise a groan of indignation from these same Churchmen. All that
they preach is an external observance of the rites of idolatry.
And let it not be said that the one does not hinder the other,
that "These ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other
undone." "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 was spoken of the Pharisees, who fulfilled all the external
observances prescribed by the law, and therefore the words
"whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do," refer to
works of mercy and goodness, and the words "do not ye after their
works, for they say and do not," refer to their observance of
ceremonies and their neglect of good works, and have exactly the
opposite meaning to that which the Churchmen try to give to the
passage, interpreting it as an injunction to observe ceremonies.
External observances and the service of truth and goodness are for
the most part difficult to combine; the one excludes the other.
So it was with the Pharisees, so it is now with Church Christians.
If a man can be saved by the redemption, by sacraments, and by
prayer, then he does not need good works.
The Sermon on the Mount, or the Creed. One cannot believe in both. And
Churchmen have chosen the latter. The Creed is taught and is read as a
prayer in the churches, but the Sermon on the Mount is excluded even
from the Gospel passages read in the churches, so that the congregation
never hears it in church, except on those days when the whole of the
Gospel is read. Indeed, it could not be otherwise. People who believe in
a wicked and senseless God--who has cursed the human race and devoted
his own Son to sacrifice, and a part of mankind to eternal
torment--cannot believe in the God of love. The man who believes in a
God, in a Christ coming again in glory to judge and to punish the quick
and the dead, cannot believe in the Christ who bade us turn the left
cheek, judge not, forgive these that wrong us, and love our enemies. The
man who believes in the inspiration of the Old Testament and the sacred
character of David, who commanded on his deathbed the murder of an old
man who had cursed him, and whom he could not kill himself because he
was bound by an oath to him, and the similar atrocities of which the Old
Testament is full, cannot believe in the holy love of Christ. The man
who believes in the Church's doctrine of the compatibility of warfare
and capital punishment with Christianity cannot believe in the
brotherhood of all men.
And what is most important of all--the man who believes in
salvation through faith in the redemption or the sacraments,
cannot devote all his powers to realizing Christ's moral teaching
in his life.
The man who has been instructed by the Church in the profane
doctrine that a man cannot be saved by his own powers, but that
there is another means of salvation, will infallibly rely upon
this means and not on his own powers, which, they assure him, it
is sinful to trust in.
The teaching of every Church, with its redemption and sacraments,
excludes the teaching of Christ; most of all the teaching of the
Orthodox Church with its idolatrous observances.
"But the people have always believed of their own accord as they
believe now," will be said in answer to this. "The whole history
of the Russian people proves it. One cannot deprive the people of
their traditions." This statement, too, is misleading. The
people did certainly at one time believe in something like what
the Church believes in now, though it was far from being the same
thing. In spite of their superstitious regard for ikons,
housespirits, relics, and festivals with wreaths of birch leaves,
there has still always been in the people a profound moral and
living understanding of Christianity, which there has never been
in the Church as a whole, and which is only met with in its best
representatives. But the people, notwithstanding all the
prejudices instilled into them by the government and the Church,
have in their best representatives long outgrown that crude stage
of understanding, a fact which is proved by the springing up
everywhere of the rationalist sects with which Russia is swarming
to-day, and on which Churchmen are now carrying on an ineffectual
warfare. The people are advancing to a consciousness of the
moral, living side of Christianity. And then the Church
comes forward, not borrowing from the people, but zealously
instilling into them the petrified formalities of an extinct
paganism, and striving to thrust them back again into the
darkness from which they are emerging with such effort.
"We teach the people nothing new, nothing but what they believe,
only in a more perfect form," say the Churchmen. This is just
what the man did who tied up the full-grown chicken and thrust it
back into the shell it had come out of.
I have often been irritated, though it would be comic if the
consequences were not so awful, by observing how men shut one
another in a delusion and cannot get out of this magic circle.
The first question, the first doubt of a Russian who is beginning
to think, is a question about the ikons, and still more the
miraculous relics: Is it true that they are genuine, and that
miracles are worked through them? Hundreds of thousands of men
put this question to themselves, and their principal difficulty in
answering it is the fact that bishops, metropolitans, and all men
in positions of authority kiss the relics and wonder-working
ikons. Ask the bishops and men in positions of authority why they
do so, and they will say they do it for the sake of the people,
while the people kiss them because the bishops and men in
authority do so.
In spite of all the external varnish of modernity, learning, and
spirituality which the members of the Church begin nowadays to
assume in their works, their articles, their theological journals,
and their sermons, the practical work of the Russian Church
consists of nothing more than keeping the people in their present
condition of coarse and savage idolatry, and worse still,
strengthening and diffusing superstition and religious ignorance,
and suppressing that living understanding of Christianity which
exists in the people side by side with idolatry.
I remember once being present in the monks' bookshop of the Optchy
Hermitage while an old peasant was choosing books for his
grandson, who could read. A monk pressed on him accounts of
relics, holidays, miraculous ikons, a psalter, etc. I asked the
old man, "Has he the Gospel?" "No." "Give him the Gospel in
Russian," I said to the monk. "That will not do for him,"
answered the monk. There you have an epitome of the work of our
Church.
But this is only in barbarous Russia, the European and American
reader will observe. And such an observation is just, but only so
far as it refers to the government, which aids the Church in its
task of stultification and corruption in Russia.
It is true that there is nowhere in Europe a government so
despotic and so closely allied with the ruling Church. And
therefore the share of the temporal power in the corruption of the
people is greatest in Russia. But it is untrue that the Russian
Church in its influence on the people is in any respect different
from any other church.
The churches are everywhere the same, and if the Catholic, the
Anglican, or the Lutheran Church has not at hand a government as
compliant as the Russian, it is not due to any indisposition to
profit by such a government.
The Church as a church, whatever it may be--Catholic, Anglican,
Lutheran, Presbyterian--every church, in so far as it is a church,
cannot but strive for the same object as the Russian Church.
That object is to conceal the real meaning of Christ's teaching
and to replace it by their own, which lays no obligation on them,
excludes the possibility of understanding the true teaching of
Christ, and what is the chief consideration, justifies the
existence of priests supported at the people's expense.
What else has Catholicism done, what else is it doing in its
prohibition of reading the Gospel, and in its demand for
unreasoning submission to Church authorities and to an infallible
Pope? Is the religion of Catholicism any other than that of the
Russian Church? There is the same external ritual, the same
relics, miracles, and wonder-working images of Notre Dame, and the
same processions; the same loftily vague discussions of
Christianity in books and sermons, and when it comes to practice,
the same supporting of the present idolatry. And is not the same
thing done in Anglicanism, Lutheranism, and every denomination of
Protestantism which has been formed into a church? There is the
same duty laid on their congregations to believe in the dogmas
expressed in the fourth century, which have lost all meaning for
men of our times, and the same duty of idolatrous worship, if not
of relics and ikons, then of the Sabbath Day and the letter of the
Bible. There is always the same activity directed to concealing
the real duties of Christianity, and to putting in their place an
external respectability and cant, as it is so well described by
the English, who are peculiarly oppressed by it. In Protestantism
this tendency is specially remarkable because it has not the
excuse of antiquity. And does not exactly the same thing show
itself even in contemporary revivalism--the revived Calvinism and
Evangelicalism, to which the Salvation Army owes its origin?
Uniform is the attitude of all the churches to the teaching of
Christ, whose name they assume for their own advantage.
The inconsistency of all church forms of religion with the
teaching of Christ is, of course, the reason why special efforts
are necessary to conceal this inconsistency from people. Truly,
we need only imagine ourselves in the position of any grown-up
man, not necessarily educated, even the simplest man of the
present day, who has picked up the ideas that are everywhere in
the air nowadays of geology, physics, chemistry, cosmography, or
history, when he, for the first time, consciously compares them
with the articles of belief instilled into him in childhood, and
maintained by the churches--that God created the world in six
days, and light before the sun; that Noah shut up all the animals
in his ark, and so on; that Jesus is also God the Son, who created
all before time was; that this God came down upon earth to atone
for Adam's sin; that he rose again, ascended into heaven, and
sitteth on the right hand of the Father, and will come in the
clouds to judge the world, and so on. All these propositions,
elaborated by men of the fourth century, had a certain meaning for
men of that time, but for men of to-day they have no meaning
whatever. Men of the present day can repeat these words with
their lips, but believe them they cannot. For such sentences as
that God lives in heaven, that the heavens opened and a voice from
somewhere said something, that Christ rose again, and ascended
somewhere in heaven, and again will come from somewhere on the
clouds, and so on, have no meaning for us.
A man who regarded the heavens as a solid, finite vault could
believe or disbelieve that God created the heavens, that the
heavens opened, that Christ ascended into heaven, but for us all
these phrases have no sense whatever. Men of the present can only
believe, as indeed they do, that they ought to believe in this;
but believe it they cannot, because it has no meaning for them.
Even if all these phrases ought to be interpreted in a figurative
sense and are allegories, we know that in the first place all
Churchmen are not agreed about it, but, on the contrary, the
majority stick to understanding the Holy Scripture in its literal
sense; and secondly, that these allegorical interpretations are
very varied and are not supported by any evidence.
But even if a man wants to force himself to believe in the
doctrines of the Church just as they are taught to him, the
universal diffusion of education and of the Gospel and of
communication between people of different forms of religion
presents a still more insurmountable obstacle to his doing so.
A man of the present day need only buy a Gospel for three copecks and
read through the plain words, admitting of no misinterpretation, that
Christ said to the Samaritan woman "that the Father seeketh not
worshipers at Jerusalem, nor in this mountain nor in that, but
worshipers in spirit and in truth," or the saying that "the Christian
must not pray like the heathen, nor for show, but secretly, that is, in
his closet," or that Christ's follower must call no man master or
father--he need only read these words to be thoroughly convinced that
the Church pastors, who call themselves teachers in opposition to
Christ's precept, and dispute among themselves, constitute no kind of
authority, and that what the Churchmen teach us is not Christianity.
Less even than that is necessary. Even if a man nowadays did continue to
believe in miracles and did not read the Gospel, mere association with
people of different forms of religion and faith, which happens so easily
in these days, compels him to doubt of the truth of his own faith. It
was all very well when a man did not see men of any other form of
religion than his own; he believed that his form of religion was the one
true one. But a thinking man has only to come into contact--as
constantly happens in these days--with people, equally good and bad, of
different denominations, who condemn each other's beliefs, to doubt of
the truth of the belief he professes himself. In these days only a man
who is absolutely ignorant or absolutely indifferent to the vital
questions with which religion deals, can remain in the faith of the
Church.
What deceptions and what strenuous efforts the churches must
employ to continue, in spite of all these tendencies subversive of
the faith, to build churches, to perform masses, to preach, to
teach, to convert, and, most of all, to receive for it all immense
emoluments, as do all these priests, pastors, incumbents,
superintendents, abbots, archdeacons, bishops, and archbishops.
They need special supernatural efforts. And the churches do, with
ever-increasing intensity and zeal, make such efforts. With us in
Russia, besides other means, they employ, simple brute force, as
there the temporal power is willing to obey the Church. Men who
refuse an external assent to the faith, and say so openly, are
either directly punished or deprived of their rights; men who
strictly keep the external forms of religion are rewarded and
given privileges.
That is how the Orthodox clergy proceed; but indeed all churches
without exception avail themselves of every means for the purpose
--one of the most important of which is what is now called
hypnotism.
Every art, from architecture to poetry, is brought into
requisition to work its effect on men's souls and to reduce them
to a state of stupefaction, and this effect is constantly
produced. This use of hypnotizing influence on men to bring them
to a state of stupefaction is especially apparent in the
proceedings of the Salvation Army, who employ new practices to
which we are unaccustomed: trumpets, drums, songs, flags,
costumes, marching, dancing, tears, and dramatic performances.
But this only displeases us because these are new practices. Were
not the old practices in churches essentially the same, with their
special lighting, gold, splendor, candles, choirs, organ, bells,
vestments, intoning, etc.?
But however powerful this hypnotic influence may be, it is not the
chief nor the most pernicious activity of the
Church. The chief and most pernicious work of the Church is that
which is directed to the deception of children--these very
children of whom Christ said: "Woe to him that offendeth one of
these little ones." From the very first awakening of the
consciousness of the child they begin to deceive him, to instill
into him with the utmost solemnity what they do not themselves
believe in, and they continue to instill it into him till the
deception has by habit grown into the child's nature. They
studiously deceive the child on the most important subject in
life, and when the deception has so grown into his life that it
would be difficult to uproot it, then they reveal to him the whole
world of science and reality, which cannot by any means be
reconciled with the beliefs that have been instilled into him,
leaving it to him to find his way as best he can out of these
contradictions.
If one set oneself the task of trying to confuse a man so that he
could not think clearly nor free himself from the perplexity of
two opposing theories of life which had been instilled into him
from childhood, one could not invent any means more effectual than
the treatment of every young man educated in our so-called
Christian society.
It is terrible to think what the churches do to men. But
if one imagines oneself in the position of the men who constitute
the Church, we see they could not act differently. The churches
are placed in a dilemma: the Sermon on the Mount or the Nicene
Creed--the one excludes the other. If a man sincerely believes in
the Sermon on the Mount, the Nicene Creed must inevitably lose all
meaning and significance for him, and the Church and its
representatives together with it. 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 becomes
superfluous for him. And therefore the churches cannot but make
every possible effort to obscure the meaning of the Sermon on the
Mount, and to attract men to themselves. It is only due to the
intense zeal of the churches in this direction that the influence
of the churches has lasted hitherto.
Let the Church stop its work of hypnotizing the masses, and
deceiving children even for the briefest interval of time, and men
would begin to understand Christ's teaching. But this
understanding will be the end of the churches and all their
influence. And therefore the churches will not for an instant
relax their zeal in the business of hypnotizing grown-up people
and deceiving children. This, then, is the work of the churches:
to instill a false interpretation of Christ's teaching into men,
and to prevent a true interpretation of it for the majority of
so-called believers.
CHAPTER IV.
CHRISTIANITY MISUNDERSTOOD BY MEN OF SCIENCE.
Attitude of Men of Science to Religions in General--What Religion is,
and What is its Significance for the Life of Humanity--Three Conceptions
of Life--Christian Religion the Expression of the Divine Conception of
Life--Misinterpretation of Christianity by Men of Science, who Study it
in its External Manifestations Due to their Criticising it from
Standpoint of Social Conception of Life--Opinion, Resulting from this
Misinterpretation, that Christ's Moral Teaching is Exaggerated and
Cannot be put into Practice--Expression of Divine Conception of Life in
the Gospel--False Ideas of Men of Science on Christianity Proceed from
their Conviction that they have an Infallible Method of Criticism--From
which come Two Misconceptions in Regard to Christian Doctrine--First
Misconception, that the Teaching Cannot be put into Practice, Due to the
Christian Religion Directing Life in a Way Different from that of the
Social Theory of Life--Christianity holds up Ideal, does not lay down
Rules--To the Animal Force of Man Christ Adds the Consciousness of a
Divine Force--Christianity Seems to Destroy Possibility of Life only
when the Ideal held up is Mistaken for Rule--Ideal Must Not be
Lowered--Life, According to Christ's Teaching, is Movement--The Ideal
and the Precepts--Second Misconception Shown in Replacing Love and
Service of God by Love and Service of Humanity--Men of Science Imagine
their Doctrine of Service of Humanity and Christianity are
Identical--Doctrine of Service of Humanity Based on Social Conception of
Life--Love for Humanity, Logically Deduced from Love of Self, has No
Meaning because Humanity is a Fiction--Christian Love Deduced from Love
of God, Finds its Object in the whole World, not in Humanity
Alone--Christianity Teaches Man to Live in Accordance with his Divine
Nature--It Shows that the Essence of the Soul of Man is Love, and that
his Happiness Ensues from Love of God, whom he Recognizes as Love within
himself.
Now I will speak of the other view of Christianity which hinders
the true understanding of it--the scientific view.
Churchmen substitute for Christianity the version they have framed
of it for themselves, and this view of Christianity they regard as
the one infallibly true one.
Men of science regard as Christianity only the tenets held by the
different churches in the past and present; and finding that these
tenets have lost all the significance of Christianity, they accept
it as a religion which has outlived its age.
To see clearly how impossible it is to understand the Christian
teaching from such a point of view, one must form for oneself an
idea of the place actually held by religions in general, by the
Christian religion in particular, in the life of mankind, and of
the significance attributed to them by science.
Just as the individual man cannot live without having some theory
of the meaning of his life, and is always, though often
unconsciously, framing his conduct in accordance with the meaning
he attributes to his life, so too associations of men living in
similar conditions--nations--cannot but have theories of the
meaning of their associated life and conduct ensuing from those
theories. And as the individual man, when he attains a fresh
stage of growth, inevitably changes his philosophy of life, and
the grown-up man sees a different meaning in it from the child, so
too associations of men--nations--are bound to change their
philosophy of life and the conduct ensuing from their philosophy,
to correspond with their development.
The difference, as regards this, between the individual man and
humanity as a whole, lies in the fact that the individual, in
forming the view of life proper to the new period of life on which
he is entering and the conduct resulting from it, benefits by the
experience of men who have lived before him, who have already
passed through the stage of growth upon which he is entering. But
humanity cannot have this aid, because it is always moving along a
hitherto untrodden track, and has no one to ask how to understand
life, and to act in the conditions on which it is entering and
through which no one has ever passed before.
Nevertheless, just as a man with wife and children cannot continue
to look at life as he looked at it when he was a child, so too in
the face of the various changes that are taking place, the greater
density of population, the establishment of communication between
different peoples, the improvements of the methods of the struggle
with nature, and the accumulation of knowledge, humanity cannot
continue to look at life as of old, and it must frame a new
theory of life, from which conduct may follow adapted to the new
conditions on which it has entered and is entering.
To meet this need humanity has the special power of producing men
who give a new meaning to the whole of human life--a theory of
life from which follow new forms of activity quite different from
all preceding them. The formation of this philosophy of life
appropriate to humanity in the new conditions on which it is
entering, and of the practice resulting from it, is what is called
religion.
And therefore, in the first place, religion is not, as science
imagines, a manifestation which at one time corresponded with the
development of humanity, but is afterward outgrown by it. It is a
manifestation always inherent in the life of humanity, and is as
indispensable, as inherent in humanity at the present time as at
any other. Secondly, religion is always the theory of the
practice of the future and not of the past, and therefore it is
clear that investigation of past manifestations cannot in any case
grasp the essence of religion.
The essence of every religious teaching lies not in the desire for
a symbolic expression of the forces of nature, nor in the dread of
these forces, nor in the craving for the marvelous, nor in the
external forms in which it is manifested, as men of science
imagine; the essence of religion lies in the faculty of men of
foreseeing and pointing out the path of life along which humanity
must move in the discovery of a new theory of life, as a result of
which the whole future conduct of humanity is changed and
different from all that has been before.
This faculty of foreseeing the path along which humanity must
move, is common in a greater or less degree to all men. But in
all times there have been men in whom this faculty was especially
strong, and these men have given clear and definite expression to
what all men felt vaguely, and formed a new philosophy of life
from which new lines of action followed for hundreds and thousands
of years.
Of such philosophies of life we know three; two have already been
passed through by humanity, and the third is that we are passing
through now in Christianity. These philosophies of life are three
in number, and only three, not because we have arbitrarily brought
the various theories of life together under these three heads, but
because all men's actions are always based on one of these three
views of life--because we cannot view life otherwise than in these
three ways.
These three views of life are as follows: First, embracing the
individual, or the animal view of life; second, embracing the
society, or the pagan view of life; third, embracing the whole
world, or the divine view of life.
In the first theory of life a man's life is limited to his one
individuality; the aim of life is the satisfaction of the will of
this individuality. In the second theory of life a man's life is
limited not to his own individuality, but to certain societies and
classes of individuals: to the tribe, the family, the clan, the
nation; the aim of life is limited to the satisfaction of the will
of those associations of individuals. In the third theory of life
a man's life is limited not to societies and classes of
individuals, but extends to the principle and source of life--to
God.
These three conceptions of life form the foundation of all the
religious that exist or have existed.
The savage recognizes life only in himself and his personal
desires. His interest in life is concentrated on himself alone.
The highest happiness for him is the fullest satisfaction of his
desires. The motive power of his life is personal enjoyment. His
religion consists in propitiating his deity and in worshiping his
gods, whom he imagines as persons living only for their personal
aims.
The civilized pagan recognizes life not in himself alone, but in
societies of men--in the tribe, the clan, the family, the kingdom
--and sacrifices his personal good for these societies. The
motive power of his life is glory. His religion consists in the
exaltation of the glory of those who are allied to him--the
founders of his family, his ancestors, his rulers--and in
worshiping gods who are exclusively protectors of his clan, his
family, his nation, his government [see Footnote].
[Footnote: The fact that so many varied forms of
existence, as the life of the family, of the tribe,
of the clan, of the state, and even the life of
humanity theoretically conceived by the Positivists,
are founded on this social or pagan theory of life,
does not destroy the unity of this theory of life.
All these varied forms of life are founded on the
same conception, that the life of the individual is
not a sufficient aim of life--that the meaning of
life can be found only in societies of individuals.]
The man who holds the divine theory of life recognizes life not in
his own individuality, and not in societies of individualities (in
the family, the clan, the nation, the tribe, or the government),
but in the eternal undying source of life--in God; and to fulfill
the will of God he is ready to sacrifice his individual and family
and social welfare. The motor power of his life is love. And his
religion is the worship in deed and in truth of the principle of
the whole--God.
The whole historic existence of mankind is nothing else than the
gradual transition from the personal, animal conception of life to
the social conception of life, and from the social conception of
life to the divine conception of life. The whole history of the
ancient peoples, lasting through thousands of years and ending
with the history of Rome, is the history of the transition from
the animal, personal view of life to the social view of life. The
whole of history from the time of the Roman Empire and the
appearance of Christianity is the history of the transition,
through which we are still passing now, from the social view of
life to the divine view of life.
This view of life is the last, and founded upon it is the
Christian teaching, which is a guide for the whole of our life and
lies at the root of all our activity, practical and theoretic.
Yet men of what is falsely called science, pseudo-scientific men,
looking at it only in its externals, regard it as something
outgrown and having no value for us.
Reducing it to its dogmatic side only--to the doctrines of the
Trinity, the redemption, the miracles, the Church, the sacraments,
and so on--men of science regard it as only one of an immense
number of religions which have arisen among mankind, and now, they
say, having played out its part in history, it is outliving its
own age and fading away before the light of science and of true
enlightenment.
We come here upon what, in a large proportion of cases, forms the
source of the grossest errors of mankind. Men on a lower level of
understanding, when brought into contact with phenomena of a
higher order, instead of making efforts to understand them, to
raise themselves up to the point of view from which they must look
at the subject, judge it from their lower standpoint, and the less
they understand what they are talking about, the more confidently
and unhesitatingly they pass judgment on it.
To the majority of learned then, looking at the living, moral teaching
of Christ from the lower standpoint of the conception of life, this
doctrine appears as nothing but very indefinite and incongruous
combination of Indian asceticism, Stoic and Neoplatonic philosophy, and
insubstantial anti-social visions, which have no serious significance
for our times. Its whole meaning is concentrated for them in its
external manifestations--in Catholicism, Protestantism, in certain
dogmas, or in the conflict with the temporal power. Estimating the value
of Christianity by these phenomena is like a deaf man's judging of the
character and quality of music by seeing the movements of the musicians.
The result of this is that all these scientific men, from Kant,
Strauss, Spencer, and Renan down, do not understand the meaning of
Christ's sayings, do not understand the significance, the object,
or the reason of their utterance, do not understand even the
question to which they form the answer. Yet, without even taking
the pains to enter into their meaning, they refuse, if unfavorably
disposed, to recognize any reasonableness in his doctrines; or if
they want to treat them indulgently, they condescend, from the
height of their superiority, to correct them, on the supposition
that Christ meant to express precisely their own ideas, but did
not succeed in doing so. They behave to his teaching much as
self-assertive people talk to those whom they consider beneath
them, often supplying their companions' words: "Yes, you mean to
say this and that." This correction is always with the aim of
reducing the teaching of the higher, divine conception of life to
the level of the lower, state conception of life.
They usually say that the moral teaching of Christianity is very
fine, but overexaggerated; that to make it quite right we must
reject all in it that is superfluous and unnecessary to our manner
of life. "And the doctrine that asks too much, and requires what
cannot be performed, is worse than that which requires of men what
is possible and consistent with their powers," these learned
interpreters of Christianity maintain, repeating what was long ago
asserted, and could not but be asserted, by those who crucified
the Teacher because they did not understand him--the Jews.
It seems that in the judgment of the learned men of our
time the Hebrew law--a tooth for a tooth, and an eye for
an eye--is a law of just retaliation, known to mankind five
thousand years before the law of holiness which Christ
taught in its place.
It seems that all that has been done by those men who understood
Christ's teaching literally and lived in accordance with such an
understanding of it, all that has been said and done by all true
Christians, by all the Christian saints, all that is now reforming
the world in the shape of socialism and communism--is simply
exaggeration, not worth talking about.
After eighteen hundred years of education in Christianity the
civilized world, as represented by its most advanced thinkers,
holds the conviction that the Christian religion is a religion of
dogmas; that its teaching in relation to life is unreasonable, and
is an exaggeration, subversive of the real lawful obligations of
morality consistent with the nature of man; and that very doctrine
of retribution which Christ rejected, and in place of which he put
his teaching, is more practically useful for us.
To learned men the doctrine of non-resistance to evil by force is
exaggerated and even irrational. Christianity is much better
without it, they think, not observing closely what Christianity,
as represented by them, amounts to.
They do not see that to say that the doctrine of non-resistance to
evil is an exaggeration in Christ's teaching is just like saying
that the statement of the equality of the radii of a circle is an
exaggeration in the definition of a circle. And those who speak
thus are acting precisely like a man who, having no idea of what a
circle is, should declare that this requirement, that every point
of the circumference should be an equal distance from the center,
is exaggerated. To advocate the rejection of Christ's command of
non-resistance to evil, or its adaptation to the needs of life,
implies a misunderstanding of the teaching of Christ.
And those who do so certainly do not understand it. They do not
understand that this teaching is the institution of a new theory
of life, corresponding to the new conditions on which men have
entered now for eighteen hundred years, and also the definition of
the new conduct of life which results from it. They do not
believe that Christ meant to say what he said; or he seems to them
to have said what he said in the Sermon on the Mount and in other
places accidentally, or through his lack of intelligence or of
cultivation.
[Footnote: Here, for example, is a characteristic
view of that kind from the American journal the ARENA
(October, 1890): "New Basis of Church Life." Treating
of the significance of the Sermon on the Mount and
non-resistance to evil in particular, the author,
being under no necessity, like the Churchmen, to
hide its significance, says:
"Christ in fact preached complete communism and
anarchy; but one must learn to regard Christ always
in his historical and psychological significance.
Like every advocate of the love of humanity, Christ
went to the furthest extreme in his teaching. Every
step forward toward the moral perfection of humanity
is always guided by men who see nothing but their
vocation. Christ, in no disparaging sense be it
said, had the typical temperament of such a reformer.
And therefore we must remember that his precepts
cannot be understood literally as a complete
philosophy of life. We ought to analyze his words
with respect for them, but in the spirit of criticism,
accepting what is true," etc.
Christ would have been happy to say what he ought, but
he was not able to express himself as exactly and
clearly as we can in the spirit of criticism, and
therefore let us correct him. All that he said about
meekness, sacrifice, lowliness, not caring for the
morrow, was said by accident, through lack of knowing
how to express himself scientifically.]
Matt. vi. 25-34: "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 rainment? Behold the fouls 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 onto his stature?
And why take ye thought for rainment? 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." Luke xii. 33-34: "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." Sell all thou hast and follow me;
and he who will not leave father, or mother, or children, or
brothers, or fields, or house, he cannot be my disciple. Deny
thyself, take up thy cross each day and follow me. My meat is to
do the will of him that sent me, and to perform his works. Not my
will, but thine be done; not what I will, but as thou wilt. Life
is to do not one's will, but the will of God.
All these principles appear to men who regard them from the
standpoint of a lower conception of life as the expression of an
impulsive enthusiasm, having no direct application to life. These
principles, however, follow from the Christian theory of life,
just as logically as the principles of paying a part of one's
private gains to the commonwealth and of sacrificing one's life in
defense of one's country follow from the state theory of life.
As the man of the stale conception of life said to the savage: Reflect,
bethink yourself! The life of your individuality cannot be true life,
because that life is pitiful and passing. But the life of a society and
succession of individuals, family, clan, tribe, or state, goes on
living, and therefore a man must sacrifice his own individuality for the
life of the family or the state. In exactly the same way the Christian
doctrine says to the man of the social, state conception of life, Repent
ye--[GREEK WORD]-i. e., bethink yourself, or you will be ruined.
Understand that this casual, personal life which now comes into being
and to-morrow is no more can have no permanence, that no external means,
no construction of it can give it consecutiveness and permanence. Take
thought and understand that the life you are living is not real
life--the life of the family, of society, of the state will not save you
from annihilation. The true, the rational life is only possible for man
according to the measure in which he can participate, not in the family
or the state, but in the source of life--the Father; according to the
measure in which he can merge his life in the life of the Father. Such
is undoubtedly the Christian conception of life, visible in every
utterance of the Gospel.
[TRANSCRIBIST'S NOTE: The GREEK WORD above used Greek letters,
spelled: mu-epsilon-tau-alpha-nu-omicron-zeta-epsilon-tau-
epsilon]
One may not share this view of life, one may reject it, one may show its
inaccuracy and its erroneousness, but we cannot judge of the Christian
teaching without mastering this view of life. Still less can one
criticise a subject on a higher plane from a lower point of view. From
the basement one cannot judge of the effect of the spire. But this is
just what the learned critics of the day try to do. For they share the
erroneous idea of the orthodox believers that they are in possession of
certain infallible means for investigating a subject. They fancy if they
apply their so-called scientific methods of criticism, there can be no
doubt of their conclusion being correct.
This testing the subject by the fancied infallible method of
science is the principal obstacle to understanding the Christian
religion for unbelievers, for so-called educated people. From
this follow all the mistakes made by scientific men about the
Christian religion, and especially two strange misconceptions
which, more than everything else, hinder them from a correct
understanding of it. One of these misconceptions is that the
Christian moral teaching cannot be carried out, and that therefore
it has either no force at all--that is, it should not be accepted
as the rule of conduct--or it must be transformed, adapted to the
limits within which its fulfillment is possible in our society.
Another misconception is that the Christian doctrine of love of
God, and therefore of his service, is an obscure, mystic
principle, which gives no definite object for love, and should
therefore be replaced by the more exact and comprehensible
principles of love for men and the service of humanity.
The first misconception in regard to the impossibility of
following the principle is the result of men of the state
conception of life unconsciously taking that conception as the
standard by which the Christian religion directs men, and taking
the Christian principle of perfection as the rule by which that
life is to be ordered; they think and say that to follow Christ's
teaching is impossible, because the complete fulfillment of all
that is required by this teaching would put an end to life. "If a
man were to carry out all that Christ teaches, he would destroy
his own life; and if all men carried it out, then the human race
would come to an end," they say.
"If we take no thought for the morrow, what we shall eat and what
we shall drink, and wherewithal we shall be clothed, do not defend
our life, nor resist evil by force, lay down our life for others,
and observe perfect chastity, the human race cannot exist," they
say.
And they are perfectly right if they take the principle of
perfection given by Christ's teaching as a rule which everyone is
bound to fulfill, just as in the state principles of life everyone
is bound to carry out the rule of paying taxes, supporting the
law, and so on.
The misconception is based precisely on the fact that the teaching
of Christ guides men differently from the way in which the
precepts founded on the lower conception of life guide men. The
precepts of the state conception of life only guide men by
requiring of them an exact fulfillment of rules or laws. Christ's
teaching guides men by pointing them to the infinite perfection of
their heavenly Father, to which every man independently and
voluntarily struggles, whatever the degree of his imperfection in
the present.
The misunderstanding of men who judge of the Christian principle
from the point of view of the state principle, consists in the
fact that on the supposition that the perfection which Christ
points to, can be fully attained, they ask themselves (just as
they ask the same question on the supposition that state laws will
be carried out) what will be the result of all this being carried
out? This supposition cannot be made, because the perfection held
up to Christians is infinite and can never be attained; and Christ
lays down his principle, having in view the fact that absolute
perfection can never be attained, but that striving toward
absolute, infinite perfection will continually increase the
blessedness of men, and that this blessedness may be increased to
infinity thereby.
Christ is teaching not angels, but men, living and moving in the animal
life. And so to this animal force of movement Christ, as it were,
applies the new force-the recognition of Divine perfection-and thereby
directs the movement by the resultant of these two forces..
To suppose that human life is going in the direction to which
Christ pointed it, is just like supposing that a little boat
afloat on a rabid river, and directing its course almost exactly
against the current, will progress in that direction.
Christ recognizes the existence of both sides of the
parallelogram, of both eternal indestructible forces of which the
life of man is compounded: the force of his animal nature and the
force of the consciousness of Kinship to God. Saying nothing of
the animal force which asserts itself, remains always the same,
and is therefore independent of human will, Christ speaks only of
the Divine force, calling upon a man to know it more closely, to
set it more free from all that retards it, and to carry it to a
higher degree of intensity.
In the process of liberating, of strengthening this force, the
true life of man, according to Christ's teaching, consists. The
true life, according to preceding religions, consists in carrying
out rules, the law; according to Christ's teaching it consists in
an ever closer approximation to the divine perfection held up
before every man, and recognized within himself by every man, in
an ever closer and closer approach to the perfect fusion of his
will in the will of God, that fusion toward which man strives, and
the attainment of which would be the destruction of the life me
know.
The divine perfection is the asymptote of human life to which it
is always striving, and always approaching, though it can only be
reached in infinity.
The Christian religion seems to exclude the possibility of life only
when men mistake the pointing to an ideal as the laying down of a
rule. It is only then that the principles presented in Christ's
teaching appear to be destructive of life. These principles, on
the contrary, are the only ones that make true life p
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