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 Tolstoy, Leo, 1828-1910 
 Christ's Christianity 
 
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CHRIST'S CHRISTIANITY 
 
CHRIST'S Christianity 
 
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 COUNT LEO TOLSTOI 
 
 TRANSLATED FROM THE RUSSIAN 
 
 LONDON 
 KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH & CO., i, PATERNOSTER SQUARE 
 
 i88s 
 
(Л// i-!ghis reserved.) 
 
EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Count Leo Tolstoi was born in 1829, in Russia, in 
 the county of Toula, on his mother's hereditary estate. 
 His father, Count Nicolas Tolstoi, had taken part in the 
 campaigns of 18 12 and 18 13, and was the direct 
 descendant in the fifth generation of Count Peter Tolstoi, 
 the friend and comrade of Peter the Great. His mother 
 belonged to the family of the Princess Volkonsky, but 
 she died before he was two years old, and he was en- 
 trusted to the care of a distant relative, and was educated 
 at first by his aunts. 
 
 In 1837 the family removed to Moscow, where his 
 father died suddenly, and Leo, with his aunt, a brother, 
 and sister, went to live, for the sake of economy, on his 
 mother's estate, which had become impoverished by 
 want of care. 
 
 In 1841 the guardianship of the children passed into 
 the hands of another aunt, who lived at Kazan, and 
 thither the family removed. The boys there received 
 
 a ^ 
 
VI EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION. 
 
 the usual course of training from Russian and foreign 
 tutors, in preparation for the university, Leo entering the 
 faculty of Eastern languages, and a year later that of 
 law. Before the close of the second year's course, Leo 
 left the university and Kazan with his two elder 
 brothers, and, his mother's estate having fallen to him 
 in the division of the family property, he lived there 
 until, in 185 1, he accompanied his eldest brother, 
 Nicholas, on a journey in the Caucasus. The life there 
 pleased him so much that he joined his brother's battery. 
 In the Caucasus he first began to write. 
 
 In 1852 his "Childhood" appeared in the Con- 
 temporary^ and the two sequent parts, " Boyhood " and 
 " Manhood," were begun. About this time were also 
 written "A Landowner's Morning" and "The Cozaks." 
 
 From 185 1 to 1853 he shared in the summer campaigns 
 in the Caucasus, and in the latter year was transferred, at 
 his own request, to the army of the Danube, where, on 
 the staff of Count Michael Gortchakoff, he took part in 
 the campaign of 1854 ; and on the retreat of the Russian 
 army to Yassy, went to Sebastopol, and was attached to 
 a field battery, being appointed in 1855 to the command 
 of a mountain battery, and was present at the battle of 
 the Black River on the 4th of August, and at the storm- 
 ing of Sebastopol on the 8th. After this, he was sent 
 with despatches to St. Petersburg, and joined the rocket 
 battery. 
 
 Between 1853 and 1855 his " Sebastopol in Septem- 
 ber," " Sebastopol in May," and " A Forest " were written ; 
 
EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION. VII 
 
 and in the latter year he left the army, and lived during 
 the winter at St. Petersburg and Moscow, and in 
 summer, with the exception of two journeys abroad, on 
 his estate, until 1861, after which year he gave himself 
 up entirely to a country life, writing in his retirement 
 " Sebastopol in August," " The Two Hussars," "Albert," 
 " Lucerne," " Three Deaths," " Family Happiness," and 
 " Polikoushka." 
 
 In 1 86 1 he became a country magistrate, and also 
 occupied himself with the peasant schools, for the im- 
 provement of which he edited an educational magazine, 
 which bore the name of his estate, " Yasnaya Poliana," 
 and to which he contributed articles, founded upon 
 practical acquaintance acquired amongst the children, 
 which form by themselves a most important and original 
 contribution to the question of education, and are re- 
 markable from the novelty and success of the system, 
 or rather absence of system, he advocated ; which was 
 based on the most unrestrained and friendly relation of 
 pupil to teacher, and was directed and limited intel- 
 lectually more by the pupil's wish for instruction, and 
 the necessities of his surrounding life, than by a precon- 
 ceived notion on the part of the classes in power as to a 
 uniform and invariable scale of oftentimes unnecessary 
 acquirement. 
 
 In 1862 Count Tolstoi married, and, staying in the 
 country, occupied himself with the education of his 
 children. 
 
 During this period he wrote his " Alphabet " and 
 
Vlii EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION. 
 
 " Reading Primers," which are considered by many to be 
 the best of their kind in Russian Hterature, and are 
 extensively used, yearly becoming more popular. It 
 was also at this time that he wrote " War and Peace," 
 and " Anna Karenina," his two most important literary 
 works. 
 
 Since the publication of the latter, Count Tolstoi's 
 life has undergone a complete change. He has entirely 
 devoted himself to Christ's teaching. He has studied it 
 searchingly and indefatigably, the literary result being 
 four works, containing : — 
 
 1. An account of that development of his life and 
 thoughts which ended in the conviction that the truth 
 of life is contained in the teaching of Christ. 
 
 2. An investigation into the interpretation of this 
 teaching according to the Orthodox Greek Church and 
 according to the Church in general. 
 
 3. An independent study of the Gospel, and a 
 summary of the author's way of understanding it. 
 
 4. An exposition of the true meaning of Christ's 
 message, the reasons of its distortion, and what \vill be 
 the results of its real promulgation. 
 
 He is now writing an article in examination of his 
 own former life and of social life in general, which, in 
 common with these four works, are not allowed to be 
 published in Russia, although extensively read in manu- 
 script copies. The only works of his which have been 
 published, since his change of views of life, have been 
 short tales, which, making the reader the moralist, 
 
EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION. ix 
 
 illustrate simply and powerfully the action of mutual 
 Christian love. 
 
 Many of Count Tolstoi's previous literary works 
 have been, and are being, translated into other languages, 
 and foreign critics have confirmed the verdict of his own 
 countrymen, who class him among the ablest authors of 
 any time and country. 
 
 The present translation does not, however, concern 
 those previous writings, and is taken from the first and 
 fourth of the manuscripts above referred to, a few 
 passages dealing with the more abstract side of religion 
 being omitted. " The Spirit of Christ's Teaching " is 
 only a condensed summary of the author's reading of 
 Christ's teaching, drawn from two manuscripts not here 
 translated, and, although the outcome of two volumes 
 of deep and conscientious investigation, it will naturally 
 appear to many entirely unfounded in so condensed 
 a form. 
 
 This volume is published with the hope of obtaining 
 the opinion of those who are seriously interested in the 
 subject of Christ's teaching, who feel that Truth is many- 
 sided, and must be seen by men in many ways, and who 
 are ready from any point of view to examine, not in 
 angry denial, but with honest love and patience, a faith 
 that has helped and is helping men out of the saddest 
 depths of distrust and violence into the only way of 
 following Christ's light they are able to understand, and 
 which they are endeavouring, however feebly, to realize 
 in practical life. 
 
X EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The translation of all works of this kind is extremely 
 difficult, the passages most powerful in the original 
 becoming in the process the most confused ; and, without 
 entire recasting, involving much expenditure of time, 
 the present translation could not have been radically 
 improved. 
 
 The Editor has hesitated to delay the publication of 
 a work concerning so vital a subject, and offers it in its 
 present form only to those who are more in search of 
 truth than of style. 
 
 Note. — The Editor will be grateful for any kind of criticism upon the 
 work by any one who is in earnest, which may be sent to H. F. Battersby, 
 Ashburne, Ealing. 
 
PART I. 
 
 HOW I CAME TO BELIEVE. 
 
CHRIST'S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 AN INTRODUCTION TO AN UNPUBLISHED 
 WORK BY COUNT L. TOLSTOI. 
 
 I WAS christened and educated in the faith of the 
 Orthodox Greek Church ; I was taught it in my child- 
 hood, and I learned it in my youth. Nevertheless, at 
 eighteen years of age, when I quitted the university, I 
 had discarded all belief in anything that I had been 
 taught. To judge by what I can now remember, I could 
 never have had a very serious belief ; it must have been 
 a kind of trust in this teaching, based on one in my 
 teachers and elders, and, moreover, a trust not very 
 firmly grounded. 
 
 I remember once in my twelfth year, a boy, now long 
 
 since dead, Vladimir M , a pupil in a gymnasium, 
 
 spent a Sunday with us, and brought us the news of 
 the last discovery in the gymnasium, namely, that there 
 was no God, and that all we were taught on the subject 
 was a mere invention (this was in 1838). I remember 
 well how interested my elder brothers were in this 
 
4 CHRIST'S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 news ; I was admitted to their deliberations, and we all 
 eagerly accepted the theory as something particularly 
 attractive and possibly quite true. I remember, also, 
 that when my elder brother, Demetry, then at the univer- 
 sity, with the impulsiveness natural to his character, gave 
 himself up to a passionate faith, began to attend the 
 Church services regularly, to fast, and to lead a pure and 
 moral life, we all of us, and some older than ourselves, 
 never ceased to hold him up to ridicule, and for some 
 incomprehensible reason gave him the nickname of 
 Noah, I remember that Moussin-Poushkin, the then 
 curator of the University of Kazan, having invited us 
 to a ball, tried to persuade my brother, who had refused 
 the invitation, by the jeering argument that even David 
 danced before the Ark. 
 
 I sympathized then with these jokes of my elders, 
 and drew from them this conclusion, that I was bound 
 to learn my catechism, and go to church, but that it 
 was not necessary to think of my religious duties 
 more seriously. I also remember that I read Voltaire 
 when I was very young, and that his tone of mockery 
 amused without disgusting me. The gradual estrange- 
 ment from all belief went on in me, as it does, and 
 always has done, in those of the same social position 
 and culture. This falling off, as it seems to me, for the 
 most part goes on as follows : — people live as others live, 
 and their lives are guided, not by the principles of the 
 faith which is taught them, but by their very opposite ; 
 belief has no influence on life, nor on the relations be- 
 tween men — it is relegated to some other sphere where 
 life is not ; if the two ever come into contact at all, belief 
 
но IV I CAME TO BELIEVE. 5 
 
 is only one of the outward phenomena, and not one of 
 the constituent parts of life. 
 
 By a man's life, by his acts, it was then, as it is now, 
 impossible to know whether he was a believer or not. 
 If there be a difference between one who openly pro- 
 fesses the doctrines of the Orthodox Church, and one 
 who denies them, the difference is to the advantage 
 of the former. The open profession of the Orthodox 
 doctrines is mostly found among persons of dull intel- 
 lects, of stern character, and who think much of their 
 own importance. Intelligence, honesty, frankness, a 
 good heart, and moral conduct are oftener met with 
 among those who are disbelievers. The schoolboy is 
 taught his catechism and sent to church ; from the grown 
 man is required a certificate of his having taken the 
 Holy Communion. A man, however, belonging to our 
 class, neither goes to school nor is bound by the regula- 
 tions affecting those in the public service, and may now 
 live through long years — still more was this the case 
 formerly — without being once reminded of the fact that 
 he lives among Christians, and calls himself a member of 
 the Orthodox Church. 
 
 Thus it happens that now, as formerly, the influence 
 of early religious teaching, accepted merely on trust 
 and upheld by authority, gradually fades away under 
 the knowledge and practical experience of later life, 
 which is opposed to all its principles, and that a man 
 often believes for years that his early faith is still intact, 
 while all the time not a particle of it remains in him. 
 
 A certain S , a clever and veracious man, once 
 
 related to me how he came to cease to believe. 
 
б CIJRISrS CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 Twenty-six years ago, being on a hunting party, before 
 he lay down to rest, according to a habit of his from 
 childhood, he knelt down to pray. His elder brother, who 
 was of the party, lay on some straw and watched him. 
 
 When S had finished, and was preparing to lie down, 
 
 his brother said to him, "Ah, you still keep that up?" 
 Nothing more passed between them, but from that day 
 
 S ceased to pray and to go to church. For thirty 
 
 years S has not said a prayer, has not taken the 
 
 Communion, has not been in a church, not because he 
 shared the convictions of his brother, or even knew them, 
 not because he had come to any conclusions of his own, 
 but because his brother's words were like the push of a 
 linger against a wall ready to tumble over with its own 
 weight ; they proved to him that what he had taken for 
 belief was an empty form, and that consequently every 
 word he uttered, every sign of the cross he made, every 
 time he bowed his head during his prayers, his act was 
 an unmeaning one. When he once admitted to himself 
 that such acts had no meaning in them, he could not but 
 discontinue them. Thus it has been, and is, I believe, 
 with the large majority of men. 
 
 I speak of men of our class, of men who are true 
 to themselves, and not of those who make of religion 
 a means of obtaining some temporal advantage. (These 
 men are truly absolute unbelievers, for if faith be to 
 them a means of obtaining any worldly end, it is most 
 certainly no faith at all.) Such men of our own class 
 are in the following position, the knowledge and ex- 
 perience of active life has shattered the artificially con- 
 structed building of belief within, and they have either 
 
HOW I CAME TO BELIEVE. 7 
 
 observed that and cleared away the superincumbent 
 ruins, or they have remained unconscious of the destruc- 
 tion worked. 
 
 The belief instilled from childhood, in me, as in so 
 many others, gradually disappeared, but with this differ- 
 ence, that as from fifteen years of age I had begun to 
 read philosophical works, I was conscious of my own 
 disbelief. From the age of sixteen I ceased to pray, 
 and ceased, from conviction, to attend the services of the 
 Church and to fast, I no longer accepted the faith of 
 my childhood, but I had a vague belief in something, 
 though I do not think I could exactly explain in what 
 I believed in a God, or rather, I did not deny the exist- 
 ence of God, but anything relating to the nature of that 
 godhead I could not have described ; I denied neither 
 Christ nor his teaching, but in what that teaching con- 
 sisted I could not have said. 
 
 Now, when I think over that time I see clearly, that 
 all the faith I had, the only belief which, apart from mere 
 animal instinct, swayed my life, was a belief in a possi- 
 bility of perfection, though what it was in itself, or what 
 would be its results, I was unable to say. I endeavoured 
 to reach perfection in intellectual attainments ; my 
 studies were extended in every direction of which my life 
 afforded me a chance ; I strove to strengthen my will, 
 forming for myself rules which I forced myself to follow ; 
 I did my best to develop my physical powers by every 
 exercise calculated to give strength and agility, and by 
 way of accustoming myself to patient endurance I sub- 
 jected myself to many voluntary hardships and trials of 
 privation. All this I looked upon as necessary to obtain 
 
8 CHRIST'S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 the perfection at which I aimed. At first, of course, 
 moral perfection seemed to me the main end, but I soon 
 found myself contemplating in its stead an ideal of 
 general perfectibility ; in other words, I wished to be 
 better, not in my own eyes nor in those of God, but in 
 the sight of other men. This feeling again soon ended 
 in another, the desire to have more power than others, 
 to secure for myself a greater share of fame, of social 
 distinction, and of wealth. 
 
 II. 
 
 At some future time I may relate the story of my life, 
 and dwell in detail on the pathetic and instructive 
 incidents of my youth. Many others must have passed 
 through the same as I did. I honestly desired to make 
 myself a good and virtuous man ; but I was young, I 
 had passions, and I stood alone, altogether alone, in my 
 search after virtue. Every time I tried to express the 
 longings of my heart for a truly virtuous life, I was met 
 with contempt and derisive laughter, but directly I gave 
 way to the lowest of my passions, I was praised and 
 encouraged. I found ambition, love of power, love of 
 gain, lechery, pride, anger, vengeance, held in high 
 esteem. I gave way to these passions, and becoming 
 like unto my elders, I felt that the place which I filled 
 in the world satisfied those around me. My kind- 
 hearted aunt, a really good woman, used to say to me, 
 that there was one thing above all others which she 
 wished for me — an intrigue with a married woman : 
 
I/OW I CAME TO BELIEVE. 9 
 
 " Rien ne forme un jeune homme, comme une liaison 
 avec une femme comme il faut." Another of her wishes 
 for my happiness was, that I should become an adjutant, 
 and, if possible, to the Emperor ; the greatest happiness 
 of all for me she thought would be, that I should find a 
 wealthy bride, who would bring me as her dowry an 
 enormous number of slaves. 
 
 I cannot now recall those years without a painful 
 feeling of horror and loathing. 
 
 I put men to death in war, I fought duels to slay 
 others, I lost at cards, wasted my substance wrung from 
 the sweat of peasants, punished the latter cruelly, rioted 
 with loose women, and deceived men. Lying, robbery, 
 adultery of all kinds, drunkenness, violence, and murder, 
 all committed by me, not one crime omitted, and yet 
 I was not the less considered by my equals a com- 
 paratively moral man. Such was my life during ten 
 years. 
 
 During that time I began to write, out of vanity, 
 love of gain, and pride. I followed as a writer the same 
 path which I had chosen as a man. In order to obtain 
 the fame and the money for which I wrote, I was obliged 
 to hide what was good and bow down before what was 
 evil. How often while writing have I cudgelled my 
 brains to conceal under the mask of indifference or 
 pleasantry those yearnings for something better which 
 formed the real problem of my life ! I succeeded in 
 my object, and was praised. At twenty-six years of age, 
 on the close of the war, I came to St. Petersburg and 
 made the acquaintance of the authors of the day. 
 
 I met with a hearty reception and much flattery. 
 
10 CHRIST S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 Before I had time to look around, the prejudices and 
 views of hfe common to the writers of the class with 
 which I associated became my own, and completely put 
 an end to all my former struggles after a better life. 
 These views, under the influence of the dissipation into 
 which I plunged, issued in a theory of life which justi- 
 fied it. The view of life taken by these my fellow- 
 writers was, that life is a development, and the principal 
 part in that development is played by ourselves, the 
 thinkers, while among the thinkers the chief influence 
 is again due to ourselves, the poets. Our vocation is 
 to teach mankind. 
 
 In order to avoid answering the very natural ques- 
 tion, " What do I know, and what can I teach ? " the 
 theory in question is made to contain the formula, that 
 such is not required to be known, but that the thinker 
 and the poet teach unconsciously, I was myself con- 
 sidered a marvellous litterateur and poet, and I there- 
 fore very naturally adopted this theory. Meanwhile, 
 thinker and poet though I was, I wrote and taught I 
 knew not what. For doing this I received large sums 
 of money ; I kept a splendid table, had an excellent 
 lodging, associated with loose women, and received my 
 friends handsomely ; moreover, I had fame. It would 
 seem, then, that what I taught must have been good ; 
 the faith in poetry and the development of life was a 
 true faith, and I was one of its high priests, a post of 
 great importance, and of profit, I long remained in this 
 belief, and never once doubted its truth. 
 
 In the second, however, and especially in the third 
 year of this way of life, I began to doubt the infallibility 
 
HOW I CAME TO BELIEVE. IT 
 
 of the doctrine, and to examine it more closely. The 
 first doubtful fact which attracted my attention was, that 
 the apostles of this belief did not agree among them- 
 selves. Some proclaimed that they alone were good 
 and useful teachers, and all others worthless ; while 
 those opposed to them said the same of themselves. 
 They disputed, quarrelled, abused, deceived, and cheated 
 one another. 
 
 Moreover, there were many among us who, quite 
 indififerent to right or wrong, only cared for their own 
 private interests. All this forced on me doubts as to 
 the truth of our belief. Again, when I doubted this 
 faith in the influence of literary men, I began to examine 
 more closely into the character and conduct of its chief 
 professors, and I convinced myself that these writers 
 were men who led immoral lives, most of them worthless 
 and insignificant individuals, and far beneath the moral 
 level of those with whom I had associated during my 
 former dissipated and military career ; these men, how- 
 ever, had none the less an amount of self-confidence only 
 to be expected in those who are conscious of being 
 saints, or in those for whom holiness is an empty 
 name. 
 
 I grew disgusted with mankind and with myself, and 
 I understood that this belief which I had accepted was 
 a delusion. The strangest thing in all this was that, 
 though I soon saw the falseness of this belief and 
 renounced it, I did not renounce the position I had 
 gained by it ; I still called myself a thinker, a poet, and 
 a teacher. I was simple enough to imagine that I, the 
 poet and thinker, was able to teach other men without 
 
12 CffAVSrS CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 knowing myself what it was that I attempted to teach. 
 I had only gained a new vice by my companionship 
 with these men ; it had developed pride in me to a 
 morbid extreme, and my self-confidence in teaching 
 what I did not know amounted almost to insanity. 
 When I now think over that time, and remember my 
 own state of mind and that of these men (a state of 
 mind common enough among thousands still), it seems 
 to me pitiful, terrible, and ridiculous ; it excites the 
 feelings which overcome us as we pass through a mad- 
 house. We were all then convinced that it behoved 
 us to speak, to write, and to print as fast as we could, 
 as much as we could, and that on this depended the 
 welfare of the human race. Hundreds of us wrote, 
 printed, and taught, and all the while confuted and 
 abused each other. Quite unconscious that we ourselves 
 knew nothing, that to the simplest of all problems in 
 life — what is right, and what is wrong — we had no 
 answer, we all went on talking together without one 
 to listen, at times abetting and praising one another on 
 condition that we were abetted and praised in turn, and 
 again turning upon each other in wrath — in short, we 
 reproduced the scenes in a madhouse. 
 
 Hundreds of exhausted labourers worked day and 
 night, putting up the type and printing millions of pages 
 to be spread by the post all over Russia, and still we 
 continued to teach, unable to teach enough, angrily 
 complaining the while that we were not listened to. A 
 strange state of things indeed, but now it is clear 
 enough. The real motive that inspired all our reasoning 
 was the desire for money and praise, to obtain which 
 
HOW I CAME TO BELIEVE. I3 
 
 we knew of no other means than writing books and 
 newspapers. In order, however, while thus uselessly 
 employed, to hold fast to the conviction that we were 
 really of importance to society, it was necessary to 
 justify our occupation to ourselves by another theory, 
 and the following was the one we adopted : Whatever 
 is, is right ; everything that is, is due to development, 
 and the latter again to civilization ; the measure of 
 civilization is the figure to which the publication of books 
 and newspapers reaches ; we are paid and honoured for 
 the books and newspapers which we write, and we are 
 therefore the most useful and best of all citizens. 
 
 This reasoning might have been conclusive, had we 
 all been agreed ; but, as for every opinion expressed by 
 one of us there instantly appeared from another, one 
 diametrically opposite, we had to hesitate before accept- 
 ing it. But this we passed over ; we received money, 
 and were praised by those who agreed with us, conse- 
 quently we were in the right. It is now clear to me 
 that between ourselves and the inhabitants of a mad- 
 house there was no difference : at the time I only 
 vaguely suspected this, and, like all madmen, thought all 
 were mad except myself. 
 
 •^'^ ^ III. 
 
 I LIVED in this senseless manner another six years, up 
 to the time of my marriage. During the interval I had 
 been abroad. My life in Europe, and my acquaintance 
 with man}' eminent and learned foreigners, confirmed my 
 
14 CHRIST S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 belief in the doctrine of general perfectibility, as I found 
 the same theory prevailed among them. This belief 
 took the form which is common among most cultivated 
 men of the day. It may be summed up in the word 
 "progress." It then appeared to me this word had a 
 real meaning. I did not understand that, tormented like 
 other men by the question, " How was I to better my 
 life ? " when I answered that I must live for progress, I 
 was only repeating the answer of a man, carried away 
 in a boat by the waves and the wind, who to the one 
 important question for him, " Where are we to steer ? " 
 should answer, saying, "We are being carried some- 
 where." 
 
 This I then did not see ; it was only at rare intervals 
 that my feelings, and not my reason, were roused against 
 the common superstition of our age, which leads men to 
 ignore their own ignorance of life. 
 
 Thus, during my stay in Paris, the sight of a public 
 execution revealed to me the weakness of my superstitious 
 belief in progress. When I saw the head divided from 
 the body, and heard the sound with which they fell 
 separately into the box, I understood, not with my 
 reason, but with my whole being, that no theory of the 
 wisdom of all established things, nor of progress, could 
 justify such an act ; and that, if all the men in the world 
 from the day of creation, by whatever theory, had found 
 this thing necessary, it was not so ; it was a bad thing, 
 and that therefore I must judge of what was right and 
 necessary, not by what men said and did, not by pro- 
 gress, but what I felt to be true in my heart. 
 
 Another instance of the insufficiency of this supersti- 
 
HOW I CAME TO BELIEVE. I 5 
 
 tion of progress as a rule for life was the death of my 
 brother. He fell ill while still young, suffered much 
 during a whole year, and died in great pain. He was a 
 man of good abilities, of a kind heart, and of a serious 
 temper, but he died without understanding why he had 
 lived, or what his death meant for him. No theories 
 could give an answer to these questions, either to him 
 or to me, during the whole period of his long and painful 
 lingering. Then occasions for doubt, however, were few 
 and far between ; on the whole, I continued to live in 
 the profession of the faith of progress. " Everything 
 develops, and I myself develop as well ; and why this is 
 so will one day be apparent," was the formula I was 
 obliged to adopt. 
 
 On my return from abroad I settled in the country, 
 and occupied myself with the organization of schools 
 for the peasantry. This occupation was especially 
 grateful to me, because it was free from the spirit of 
 falseness so evident to me in the career of a literary 
 teacher. 
 
 Here again I acted in the name of progress, but 
 this time I brought a spirit of critical inquiry to the 
 system on which the progress rested. I said to myself 
 that progress was often attempted in an irrational 
 manner, and that it was necessary to leave a primitive 
 people and the children of peasants perfectly free to 
 choose the way of progress which they thought best. 
 In reality I was still bent on the solution of the same 
 impossible problem, how to teach without knowing what 
 I had to teach. In the highest sphere of literature 
 I had understood that it was impossible to do this 
 
I б CHRIST S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 because I had seen that each taught differently, and that 
 the teachers quarrelled among themselves, and scarcely- 
 succeeded in concealing their ignorance. Having now 
 to deal with peasants' children, I thought that I could 
 get over this difficulty by allowing the children to learn 
 what they liked. It seems now absurd when I re- 
 member the expedients by which I carried out this 
 whim of mine to teach, though I knew in my heart that 
 I could teach nothing useful, because I myself did not 
 know what was necessary. 
 
 After a year spent in this employment with the 
 schools, I again went abroad, for the purpose of finding 
 out how I was to teach under these conditions. 
 
 I believed that I had found a solution abroad, and 
 armed with that conviction, I returned to Russia, the same 
 year in which the peasants were freed from serfdom, and 
 accepting the office of a country magistrate or arbitrator, 
 I began to teach the uneducated people in the schools, 
 and the educated classes in the journals which I pub- 
 lished. Things seemed to be going on well, but I felt 
 that my mind was not in a normal state and that a 
 change was near. I might then, perhaps, have come to 
 that state of absolute despair to which I was brought 
 fifteen years later, if it had not been for a new experience 
 in life which promised me safety — the home life of a 
 family man. For a year I occupied myself with my 
 duties as arbitrator, with the schools, and my newspaper, 
 and got so involved that I was harassed to death ; my 
 arbitration was one continual struggle, what to do in the 
 schools became less and less clear, and my newspaper 
 shufifling more and more repugnant to me, always the 
 
HOW I CAME TO BELIEVE. 1/ 
 
 same thing — trying to teach without knowing how or 
 what — so that I fell ill, more with a mental than physical 
 sickness, gave up everything, and started for the steppes 
 to breathe a fresher air, to drink mare's milk, and live a 
 mere animal life. 
 
 Soon after my return I married. The new circum- 
 stances of a happy family life by which I was now sur- 
 rounded completely led my mind away from the search 
 after the meaning of life as a whole. My life was con- 
 centrated in my family, my wife, and children, and 
 consequently in the care for increasing the means of 
 supporting them. The effort to affect my own individual 
 perfection, already replaced by the striving after general 
 progress, was again changed into an effort to secure the 
 particular happiness of my family. In this way fifteen 
 years passed. Notwithstanding that during these fifteen 
 years I looked upon the craft of authorship as a very 
 trifling thing, I continued all the time to write. I had 
 experienced the seductions of authorship, the temptations 
 of an enormous pecuniary reward and of great applause 
 for valueless work, and gave myself up to it as a means 
 of improving my material position, and of stifling all 
 the feelings which led me to question my own life and 
 that of society for the meaning in them. In my writings 
 I taught what for me was the only truth, that the object 
 of life should be our own happiness and that of our 
 family. 
 
 By this rule I lived ; but five years ago, a strange state 
 of mind-torpor began at times to grow upon me. I had 
 moments of perplexity, of a stoppage, as it were, of life, 
 as if I did not know how I was to live, what I was to do. 
 
 с 
 
1 8 CHRIST S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 I began to wander, and was a victim to low spirits. 
 This, however, passed, and I continued to live as before. 
 Later, these periods of perplexity grew more and more 
 frequent, and invariably took the same form. During 
 their continuance the same questions always presented 
 themselves to me : "Why ? " and " What after t " 
 
 At first it seemed to me that these were empty and 
 unmeaning questions, that all they asked about was well 
 known, and that whenever I wished to find answers to 
 them I could do so without much trouble — then I had no 
 time for it. But these questions presented themselves 
 to my mind Avith ever-increasing frequency, demanding 
 an answer with still greater and greater persistence, 
 grouping themselves into one dark and ominous spot. 
 It was with me as in every case of a hidden, mortal 
 disease — at first the symptoms, as to its position, are 
 slight, and are disregarded by the patient, while later 
 they are repeated more and more frequently, till they 
 end in a period of uninterrupted suffering. The sufferings 
 increase, and the patient, before he has time to seek a 
 remedy, is confronted with the fact that what he took 
 for a mere indisposition has become more important to 
 him than anything else on earth, that he is face to face 
 with death. 
 
 This is exactly what happened mentally to myself. I 
 became aware that this was not a mere passing phase of 
 mental ill-health, that the symptoms were of the utmost 
 importance, and that if these questions continued to 
 recur I must find an answer to them. I tried to answer 
 them. The questions seemed so foolish, so simple, so 
 childish; but no sooner had I begun my attempt to decide 
 
now I CAME TO BELIEVE. 
 
 19 
 
 them, than I was convinced that they were neither 
 childish nor silly, but were concerned with the deepest 
 problems of life, and again that I was, think of them as 
 I would, utterly unable to find an answer to them. 
 
 Before occupying myself with my estate, with the 
 education of my son, with the writing of books, I was 
 bound to know why I did these things. Till I know 
 the reasons for my own acts, I can do nothing, I 
 cannot live. While thinking of the details of the 
 management of my household and estate, which in these 
 days occupied much of my time, the following question 
 came into my head : " Well, I have now six thousand 
 ' desatins ' in the government of Samara, and three 
 hundred horses — what then } " I was quite disconcerted, 
 and knew not what to think. Another time, dwelling 
 on the thought of how I should educate my children, I 
 asked myself, " W/iy ? " Again, when considering by 
 what means the well-being of the people might best be 
 promoted, I suddenly exclaimed, " But what concern 
 have I with it?" When I thought of the fame which 
 my works had gained me, I used to say to myself, 
 "Well, what if I should be more famous than Gogol, 
 Poushkin, Shakespeare, Moliere — than all the writers of 
 the world — well, and what then ? " I could find no 
 reply. Such questions demand an answer, and an 
 immediate one ; without one it is impossible to live, but 
 answer there was none. 
 
20 CHRIST'S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 IV. 
 
 My life had come to a sudden stop, I was able to 
 breathe, to eat, to drink, to sleep, I could not, indeed, 
 help doing so ; but there was no real life in me. I had 
 not a single wish to strive for the fulfilment of what I 
 could feel to be reasonable. If I wished for anything, 
 I knew beforehand that, were I to satisfy the wish, 
 nothing would come of it, I should still be dissatisfied. 
 Had a fairy appeared and offered me all I desired, I 
 should not have known what to say. If I seemed to 
 have, at a given moment of excitement, not a wish, but 
 a mood resulting from the tendencies of former wishes, 
 at a calmer moment I knew that it was a delusion, that 
 I really wished for nothing. I could not even wish to 
 know the truth, because I guessed what the truth was. 
 
 The truth lay in this, that life had no meaning for me. 
 Every day of life, every step in it, brought me nearer 
 the edge of a precipice, whence I saw clearly the final 
 ruin before me. To stop, to go back, were alike impos- 
 sible ; nor could I shut my eyes so as not to see the 
 suffering that alone awaited me, the death of all in me, 
 even to annihilation. Thus I, a healthy and a happy 
 man, was brought to feel that I could live no longer, 
 that an irresistible force was dragging me down into 
 the grave. I do not mean that I had an intention of 
 committing suicide. The force that drew me away from 
 life was stronger, fuller, and concerned with far wider 
 consequences than any mere wish ; it was a force like 
 that of my previous attachment to life, only in a con- 
 
но IV J CAME TO BELIEVE. 21 
 
 trary direction. The idea of suicide came as naturally 
 to me as formerly that of bettering my life. It had so 
 much attraction for me, that I was compelled to practise 
 a species of self-deception, in order to avoid carrying it 
 out too hastily. I was unwilling to act hastily, only 
 because I had determined first to clear away the con- 
 fusion of my thoughts, and, that once done, I could 
 always kill myself. I was happy, yet I hid away a cord, 
 to avoid being tempted to hang myself by it to one of 
 the pegs between the cupboards of my study, where I 
 undressed alone every evening, and ceased carrying a 
 gun because it offered too easy a way of getting rid of 
 life. I knew not what I wanted ; I was afraid of life ; 
 I shrank from it, and yet there was something I hoped 
 for from it. 
 
 Such was the condition I had come to, at a time 
 when all the circumstances of my life were pre- 
 eminently happy ones, and when I had not reached 
 my fiftieth year, I had a good, a loving, and a well- 
 beloved wife, good children, a fine estate, which, without 
 much trouble on my part, continually increased my 
 income ; I was more than ever respected by my friends 
 and acquaintances ; I was praised by strangers, and 
 could lay claim to having made my name famous 
 without much self-deception. Moreover, my mind was 
 neither deranged nor weakened ; on the contrary, I 
 enjoyed a mental and physical strength which I have 
 seldom found in men of my class and pursuits : I could 
 keep up with a peasant in mowing, and could continue 
 mental labour for ten hours at a stretch, without any 
 evil consequences. 
 
22 CHRIST'S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 The mental state in which I then was seemed to me 
 summed up in the following : my life was a foolish and 
 wicked joke played upon me by I knew not whom. 
 Notwithstanding my rejection of the idea of a Creator, 
 that of a being who thus wickedly and foolishly made a 
 joke of me, seemed to me the most natural of all con- 
 clusions, and the one that threw the most light upon my 
 darkness. I instinctively reasoned that this being, 
 wherever he might be, was one who was even then 
 diverting himself at my expense, as he watched me, after 
 from thirty to forty years of a life of study and develop- 
 ment, of mental and bodily growth, with all my powers 
 matured and having reached the point at which life as a 
 whole should be best understood, standing like a fool 
 with but one thing clear to me, that there was nothing in 
 life, that there never was anything, and never will be. 
 " To him I must seem ridiculous. . , . But was there, or 
 was there not, such a being ? " Neither way could I feel 
 it helped me. I could not attribute reasonable motive to 
 any single act, much less to my whole life. I was only 
 astonished that this had not occurred to me before, from 
 premises which had so long been known. Illness and 
 death would come (indeed they had come), if not to-day, 
 then to-morrow, to those whom I loved, to myself, and 
 nothing would remain but stench and worms. All my 
 acts, whatever I did, would sooner or later be forgotten, 
 and I myself be nowhere. Why, then, busy one's self 
 with anything? How could men see this, and live } It 
 is possible to live only as long as life intoxicates us ; 
 as soon as we are sober again we see that it is all a 
 delusion, and a stupid one ! In this, indeed, there is 
 
HOW I CAME TO BELIEVE. 23 
 
 nothing either ludicrous or amusing, it is only cruel and 
 absurd. 
 
 ' There is an old Eastern fable about a traveller in 
 the steppes who is attacked by a furious wild beast. 
 To save himself the traveller gets into a dried-up 
 well ; but at the bottom of it he sees a dragon with 
 its jaws wide open to devour him. The unhappy 
 man dares not get out for fear of the wild beast, and 
 dares not descend for fear of the dragon, so he catches 
 hold of the branch of a wild plant growing in a crevice 
 of the well. His arms grow tired, and he feels that he 
 must soon perish, death awaiting him on either side, but 
 he still holds on ; and then he sees two mice, one black 
 and one white, gnawing through the trunk of the wild 
 plant as they gradually and evenly make their way round 
 it. The plant must soon give way, break off, and he will 
 fall into the jaws of the dragon. The traveller sees this, 
 and knows that he must inevitably perish ; but, while 
 still hanging, he looks around him, and finding some 
 drops of honey on the leaves of the wild plant, he 
 stretches out his tongue and licks them. 
 
 Thus do I cling to the branch of life, knowing that 
 the dragon of death inevitably awaits me, ready to tear 
 me to pieces, and I cannot understand why such tortures 
 have fallen to my lot. I also strive to suck the honey 
 which once comforted me, but it palls on my palate, 
 while the white mouse and the black, day and night, 
 gnaw through the branch to which I cling. I sec the 
 dragon too plainly — and the honey is no longer sweet. 
 I see the dragon, from whom there is no escape, and 
 the mice, and I cannot turn my eyes away from them. 
 
24 CHRISrS CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 It is no fable, but a living, undeniable truth, to be 
 understood of all men. The former delusion of happiness 
 in life, which hid from me the horror of the dragon, no 
 longer deceives me. 
 
 However I may reason with myself that I cannot 
 understand the meaning of life, that I must live without 
 thinking, I cannot again begin to do so, because I have 
 done so too long already. I cannot now help seeing 
 that each day and each night, as it passes, brings me 
 nearer to death. I can see but this, because this alone 
 is true — all the rest is a lie. The two drops of honey, 
 which more than anything else drew me away from the 
 cruel truth, my love for my family and for my writings, 
 to which latter I gave the name of art, no longer taste 
 sweet to me. " My family," thought I ; " but a family, a 
 wife and children, are also human beings, and subject to 
 the same conditions as myself; they must either be living 
 in a lie, or they must see the terrible truth. Why should 
 they live ? Why should I love, care for, bring up, and 
 watch over them ? To bring them to the despair which 
 fills myself, or to make dolts of them ? As I love them, 
 I cannot conceal from them the truth — every step they 
 take in knowledge leads them to it — and that truth is 
 death." 
 
 But art, then ; but poetry ? Under the influence of 
 success and flattered by praise, I had long persuaded 
 myself that these were things worth working for, notwith- 
 standing the approach of death, the great destroyer, to 
 annihilate my writings and the memory of them ; but 
 now I soon saw that this was only another delusion, I 
 saw clearly that art is only the ornament and charm of 
 
BOIV I CAME TO BELIEVE. 2$ 
 
 life. Life having lost its charm for me, how could I 
 make others see a charm in it ? While I was not living 
 my own life, but one that was external to me, as long 
 as I believed that life had a meaning, though I could 
 not say what it was, life was reflected for me in the 
 poetry and art which I loved, it was pleasant to me to 
 look into the mirror of art ; but when I tried to discover 
 the meaning of life, when I felt the necessity of living 
 myself, the mirror became either unnecessary or painful. 
 I could no longer take comfort from what I saw in the 
 mirror, that my position was a stupid and desperate one. 
 
 It warmed my heart when I believed that life had a 
 meaning, when the play of the light on the glass showed 
 me all that was comic, tragic, touching, beautiful, and 
 terrible in life, and comforted me ; but when I knew that 
 life had no meaning at all, and was only terrible, the play 
 of the light no longer amused me. No honey could be 
 sweet upon my tongue, when I saw the dragon, and the 
 mice eating away the stay which supported me. Nor 
 was that all. Had I simply come to know that life has 
 no meaning, I might have quietly accepted it as my 
 allotted portion. I could not, however, remain thus un- 
 moved. Had I been like a man in a wood, out of which 
 he knows that there is no issue, I could have lived on ; 
 but I was like a man lost in a wood, and who, terrified 
 by the thought, rushes about trying to find a way out, 
 and, though he knows each step can only lead him farther 
 astray, cannot help running backwards and forwards. 
 
 It was this that was terrible, this which to get free 
 from I was ready to kill myself. I felt a horror of what 
 awaited mc ; I knew that this horror was more terrible 
 
2б CHRISrS CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 than the position itself, but I could not patiently await 
 the end. However persuasive the argument might be, 
 that all the same something in the heart or elsewhere 
 would burst and all be over, still I could not patiently 
 await the end. The horror of the darkness was too great 
 to bear, and I longed to free myself from it by a rope or 
 a pistol ball. This was the feeling that, above all, drew 
 me to think of suicide. 
 
 V. 
 
 It was possible, however, that I had overlooked some- 
 thing, that I had failed to understand something, and 
 I often asked myself, if such a state of utter despair 
 could be, what man was born to. I sought an explanation 
 of the questions which tormented me in every branch of 
 human knowledge ; I sought that explanation painfully 
 and long, not out of mere curiosity nor apathetically, but 
 obstinately day and night ; I sought it as a perishing 
 man seeks safety, and I found nothing. My search not 
 only failed, but I convinced myself that all those who 
 had searched like myself had failed also, and come like 
 me to the despairing conviction that the only absolute 
 knowledge man can possess is this — that life is without 
 a meaning. I sought in all directions, and, thanks to a 
 life of study, and also to the footing which I had gained 
 in learned society, all the sources of knowledge were 
 open to me, not merely through books, but through 
 personal intercourse. I had the advantage of all that 
 learning could answer to the question, " What is life ? " 
 
HOW I CAME TO BELIEVE. 2/ 
 
 It was long before I could believe that human learn- 
 ing had no clear answer whatever to this question. It 
 seemed to me, when I considered the importance which 
 science attributed to so many theories unconnected with 
 the problem of life, and the serious tone which pervaded 
 her inquiries into them, that I must have misunderstood 
 something. For a long time I was too timid to oppose 
 the learning of the day, and I fancied that the in- 
 sufficiency of the answers which I received was not its 
 fault, but was owing to my own gross ignorance ; but 
 this thing was not a joke to pass the time with me, but 
 the business of my life, and I was at last forced to the 
 conclusion, that these questions were just and necessary 
 ones underlying all knowledge, and that it was not I 
 that was in fault in putting them, but science in pretend- 
 ing to have an answer to them. 
 
 The question, which in my fiftieth year had brought 
 me very close to suicide, was the simplest of all questions, 
 one to make itself heard in the heart of every man. 
 from undeveloped childhood to wisest old age ; a ques- 
 tion without which, as I had myself experienced, life 
 became impossible. 
 
 That question was as follows : " What result will there 
 be from what I am doing now, and may do to-morrow ? 
 what will be the issue of my life ? " Otherwise expressed, 
 it may run : "Why should I live.'' why should I wish 
 for anything } why should I do anything ? " Again, 
 in other words it is : " Is there any meaning in my 
 life which can overcome the inevitable death awaiting 
 me?" 
 
 To this question, one and the same though variously 
 
28 CHRIST'S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 expressed, I sought an answer in human knowledge, and 
 I found that with respect to this question all human 
 knowledge may be divided into two opposite hemi- 
 spheres, with their respective poles, the one negative, 
 the other affirmative, but that at neither end is to be 
 found an answer to the problem of life. One system of 
 knowledge seems to deny that there is such a question, 
 but, on the other hand, has a clear and exact answer to 
 all its own independent inquiries : it is the system of 
 experimental science, at the extreme end of which is 
 mathematics. Another system accepts the question, but 
 does not answer it ; it is that of theoretic philosophy, 
 and at its extremity is metaphysics. I had been addicted 
 from my youth to theoretical study ; later, mathematics 
 and the exact sciences had attracted me ; and till I came 
 to put clearly to myself this question as to the meaning 
 of life, until it grew up in me, as it were, of itself, and 
 till I felt that it demanded an immediate answer, I was 
 content with the artificial and conventional answers 
 given by learning. 
 
 For the practical side of life I used to say to myself, 
 " All is development and differentiation, all tends to 
 complication and perfection, and there are laws which 
 govern this process. You are yourself a part of the 
 whole. Learn as much as possible of this whole, and 
 learn the law of its development, you will then know 
 your own place in the great unity, and know yourself 
 as well." Though I feel shame in confessing it, I 
 must needs own that there was a time when I was 
 myself developing — when my muscles and memory were 
 strengthening, my power of thinking and understanding 
 
но IV I CAME TO BELIEVE. 2g 
 
 on the increase — that I, feehng this, very naturally 
 thought that the law of my own growth was the law of 
 the universe and explained the meaning of my own life. 
 But there came another time when I had ceased to 
 grow, and I felt that I was not developing but drying 
 up ; my muscles grew weaker, my teeth began to fall 
 out, and I saw that this law of growth, not only explained 
 nothing, but that such a law did not and could not 
 exist ; that I had taken for a general law what only 
 affected myself at a given age. 
 
 On looking more closely into the nature of this 
 pretended law,* it was clear to me that there could be 
 no law of eternal development ; that to say everything 
 in infinite space and time is developed, complicated, 
 differentiated, and perfected, is to talk nonsense. Such 
 words have no meaning, for the infinite can know 
 nothing of simple and compound, of past and future, 
 of better and worse. It was a personal question that 
 was of such importance to me, and which remained 
 without an answer : " What am I myself with all my 
 desires ? " I understood that the acquirement of know- 
 ledge was interesting and attractive, but that it could 
 only give clear and exact results in proportion to its 
 inapplicability to the question of life. The less it had to 
 do with these questions, the clearer and more exact it 
 was ; the more it took the character of a solution of 
 these questions, the obscurer and less attractive they 
 became. If we turn to those branches of knowledge in 
 which men have tried to find a solution to the problem 
 of life, to physiology, psychology, biology, sociology, we 
 meet with a striking poverty of thought, with the greatest 
 
30 CHRIST'S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 obscurity, with an utterly unjustifiable pretension to 
 decide questions beyond their competence, and a con- 
 stant contradiction of one thinker by another, and even 
 by himself. If we turn to the branches of knowledge 
 which are not concerned with the problem of life, but 
 find an answer to their own particular scientific questions, 
 we are lost in admiration of man's mental powers ; but 
 we know beforehand that we shall get no answer to our 
 questions about life itself, for these branches of know- 
 ledge directly ignore all questions concerning it. 
 
 Those who profess them say, " We cannot tell you 
 what you are and why you live ; such questions we do 
 not study. But if you wish to know the laws of light, 
 of chemical affinities, of the development of organisms ; 
 if you wish to know the laws that govern different bodies, 
 their form, and relations to number and size ; if you wish 
 to know the laws of your own mind, we can give you 
 clear, exact, and absolutely certain answers on every 
 point." The relation of experimental science to the 
 question of the meaning of life may be put as follows : 
 Question, "Why do I live?" Answer, "Infinitely small 
 particles, in infinite combinations, in endless space and 
 endless time, eternally change their forms, and when 
 you have learned the laws of these changes, you will 
 know why you live." I used to say to myself when 
 theorizing, " Spiritual causes lie at the root of man's life 
 and development, and they are the ideals which govern 
 him. These ideals find expression in religion, in science, 
 in art, and in the forms of government, and rise higher, 
 from one stage to another, till man at last reaches his 
 highest good. I am myself a man, and am therefore 
 
HOW I CAME TO BELIEVE. 3I 
 
 called upon to assist in making the ideals of humanity 
 known and accepted." 
 
 In the days of my mental weakness this reasoning 
 sufficed for me ; but as soon as the problem of life really, 
 as it were, arose within me, the whole theory fell to 
 pieces at once. Not to speak of the dishonest in- 
 accuracy, by which learning of this kind is made to give 
 as general results those due to the study of but a small 
 part of mankind ; not to speak of the many contra- 
 dictions among the various champions of this theory, as 
 to what are the ideals of humanity ; the strangeness, if 
 it be not the silliness, of this way of thinking is, that, 
 in order to answer the question which occurs to every 
 man—" What am I ? " or " Why do I live ? " or " What 
 am I to do "^ " — we must first answer this other question : 
 " What is the life of that unknown quantity to us man- 
 kind, of which we are acquainted with but one minute 
 part in one minute period of time .? " 
 
 In order to understand what he is himself, a man 
 must first know what that mysterious humanity is, which 
 is formed of other men like himself, and who again are 
 ignorant of what they are. 
 
 I confess there was a time when I believed this. 
 That was when I had my own cherished ideals which 
 determined my caprices, and I would strive to evolve a 
 theory which should enable me to look upon my fancies 
 as a law belonging to humanity. As soon, however, as 
 the question of the meaning of life made itself clearly 
 felt within me, my theoretical answer was for ever 
 confuted. I understood that, as in the experimental 
 sciences there are real sciences, and semi-sciences which 
 
32 CHRIST S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 pretend to give answers to questions beyond their com- 
 petence, so in the province of theoretical knowledge is 
 there a wide range of highly cultivated philosophy 
 which attempts to do the same. The semi-sciences of 
 this division, jurisprudence and historical sociology, 
 endeavour to decide the questions concerning man and 
 his life, by deciding, each in its own way, another 
 question, that of the life of humanity as a whole. 
 
 But, as in the sphere of exact science, a man who 
 earnestly seeks an answer to the question, " How am I 
 to live ? " cannot content himself with the answer, that 
 if he studies in infinite space and time the endless com- 
 binations and changes of infinite particles, he will кполу 
 what his own life means, so a sincere man cannot be 
 satisfied with this other answer, " Study the life of 
 humanity as a whole, and then, though we know neither 
 its beginning nor its end, and are ignorant of its parts, 
 you will know what your life means." 
 
 It is the same with these sham sciences as with the 
 sham experimental ones ; they contain obscurity, in- 
 accuracy, stupidity, and contradiction, exactly in pro- 
 portion to their divergence from their proper sphere. 
 The problem of exact science is the succession of cause 
 and effect in material phenomena. If exact science 
 raises the question of a finite cause, it stumbles against 
 an absurdity. The problem of theoretical science is the 
 conception of the uncaused existence of life. Directly 
 the question of the cause of phenomena is raised — as, for 
 instance, of social and historical phenomena — theoretical 
 science lands also in an absurdity. Experimental science 
 gives positive results, and shows the grandeur of man's 
 
но IF I CAME TO BELIEVE. 33 
 
 intellect, only when it does not inquire into finite causes ; 
 while, on the contrary, theoretical science only shows 
 the greatness of man's mental powers, is only a science 
 at all when it gets rid altogether of the succession of 
 phenomena, and looks upon man only in relation to 
 finite causes. Such in this department of science is the 
 office of its most important branch, of the one which is 
 the pole, as it were, of all the others, of metaphysics or 
 philosophy. 
 
 This science puts the clear question, "What am I, and 
 what is the whole world around me ? Why do I and the 
 world exist .'' " and it has always answered it in the same 
 way. Whatever name the philosopher may give to the 
 principle of life existing in me and in all other living 
 beings, whether he call it an idea, a substance, a spirit, 
 or a will, he still says ever, that it is a reality, and that I 
 have a real existence ; but why this is so he does not 
 know, and does not try to explain if he is an exact 
 thinker. 
 
 I ask, " Why should this reality be ? What comes 
 of the fact that it is and will be ? " Philosophy cannot 
 answer, it can only itself put the same question. If it 
 be, then, a true philosophy, its whole labour consists in 
 this, that it should put this question clearly. If it 
 keep firmly to its proper sphere, it can only answer the 
 question, " What am I and the whole world around 
 mc?" by saying, "All and nothing," and to that other 
 question, " Why ? " by adding, " I do not know." Thus, 
 however I examine and twist the theoretical replies of 
 philosophy, I never receive an answer to my question ; 
 and that, not as in the sphere of experimental knowledge, 
 
 D 
 
34 CHRIST S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 because the answer does not relate to the question, but 
 because here, although great mental labour has been 
 applied directly to the question, there is no answer, and 
 instead of one I get back my own question repeated in a 
 more complicated form. 
 
 VI. 
 
 In my search for a solution of the problem of life I 
 experienced the same feeling as a man who has lost 
 himself in a wood. He comes to an open plain, climbs 
 up a tree, and sees around him a space without end, but 
 nowhere a house — he sees clearly that there can be none ; 
 he goes into the thick of the wood, into the darkness, 
 and sees darkness, but again no house. Thus had I lost 
 my way in the wood of human knowledge, in the twilight 
 of mathematical and experimental science, which opened 
 out for me a clear and distant horizon in the direction 
 of which there could be no house, and in the darkness of 
 philosophy, plunging me into a greater gloom with every 
 step I took, until I was at last persuaded that there was, 
 and could be, no issue. When I followed what seemed 
 the bright light of learning, I saw that I had only turned 
 aside from the real question. Notwithstanding the 
 attraction of the distant horizon unfolded so clearly 
 before me, notwithstanding the charm of losing myself 
 in the infinity of knowledge, I saw that the clearer it 
 was the less was it needed by me, the less did it give me 
 an answer to my question. 
 
 I said to myself, " I know now all that science so 
 
HOW I CAME TO BELIEVE. 35 
 
 obstinately seeks to learn ; but an answer to my question 
 as to the meaning- of my life is not to be obtained from 
 science." I saw that philosophy, notwithstanding that, 
 or perhaps because an answer to my question had 
 become the direct object of its inquiries, gave no answer 
 but the one I had given to myself, " What is the 
 meaning of my life ? It has none. Or what will 
 come of my life ? Nothing. Or why does all that is 
 exist, and why do I exist .-' Because it does exist." 
 When I turned to one branch of science, I obtained 
 an endless number of exact answers to questions I had 
 not proposed : about the chemical elements of the stars 
 and planets, about the movement of the sun with 
 the constellation of Hercules, on the origin of species 
 and of man, about the infinitely small and weightless 
 particles of ether ; but the only answer to my question 
 as to the meaning of my life was this, " You are what 
 you call life ; that is, a temporary and accidental agglo- 
 meration of particles. The mutual action and reaction 
 of these particles on each other has produced what you 
 call your life. This agglomeration will continue during 
 a certain time, then the reciprocal action of these particles 
 will cease, and with it ends what you call your life and 
 all your questions as well. You are an accidentally 
 combined lump of something. The lump undergoes 
 decomposition, this decomposition men call life ; the 
 lump falls asunder, decomposition ceases, and with it all 
 doubting." This is the answer from the clear and positive 
 side of human knowledge, and if true to its own 
 principles it can give no other. 
 
 Such an answer, however, is no answer to the qucs- 
 
Зб CHRISrS CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 tion at all. I want to know the meaning of my life, and, 
 that it is an infinite particle, not only does not give a 
 meaning to it, but destroys the possibility of a meaning. 
 The compromise which experimental makes with theo- 
 retical science, when it is said that the meaning of life is 
 development, and the efforts made towards its attainment, 
 from its obscurity and inaccuracy cannot be considered 
 an answer. The theoretical side of human knowledge, 
 when it keeps firmly to its own principles, through all 
 time has ever answered and still answers one and the 
 same, " The world is something which is eternal and not 
 to be understood. The life of man is an inconceivable 
 part of this inconceivable whole." 
 
 Again I set aside all the compromises between 
 theoretical and experimental science which are the pro- 
 duct of the sham sciences, of so-called jurisprudence, of 
 political economy, and of history. In these sciences we 
 have again a false conception of development and perfec- 
 tion, with this difference, that formerly it was a develop- 
 ment of everything, and now it is a development of 
 human life. The inaccuracy is again the same ; develop- 
 ment and perfection in infinity can have no object, no 
 direction, and therefore can give no answer to my ques- 
 tion. Whenever theoretical knowledge is exact, where 
 philosophy is true to itself, and does not simply serve, 
 like what Schopenhauer calls " professorial philosophy," 
 to divide all existing phenomena into new columns, and 
 give to them new names — wherever the philosopher 
 does not overlook the great question of all, the answer is 
 always the same, the answer given by Socrates, Schopen- 
 hauer, Solomon, and Buddha. " We approach truth only 
 
но IV I CAME TO BELIEVE. 3/ 
 
 in the proportion as we are farther from Hfe," said Socrates, 
 when preparing to die. What do we who love truth 
 seek in hfe ? In order to be free from the body and all 
 the ills that accompany life in it. If so, then, how shall 
 we not be glad of the approach of death ? 
 
 A wise man seeks death all his life, and death has no 
 terrors for him. This is what Schopenhauer says : 
 " Accept will as the ultimate principle of the universe, 
 and in all phenomena, from the unconscious tendencies 
 of the unknown forces of nature to the conscious activity 
 of man, acknowledge only the objectivity of that will, and 
 we still cannot get rid of this logical consequence, that 
 directly that will uses its freedom to abdicate, to deny 
 and destroy itself, all phenomena disappear with it, there 
 is an end to the constant efforts and impulses now going 
 on, without aim and without intermission, in every degree 
 of the objectivity in which and through which the universe 
 exists, there is an end to the varieties of successive forms, 
 and with form vanish its postulates, space and time, even 
 to the last and fundamental elements of form, the subject 
 and the object. If there is no will, no phenomenal 
 appearance, then there is no universe. The only thing 
 that remains to us is nothing. But this passage to 
 annihilation is opposed by our own nature, by our 
 will to live, which causes our own existence and that of 
 the universe. That we so fear annihilation, or, what is 
 the same, that we so wish to live, only shows that we 
 ourselves are nothing but that wish, and know nothing 
 beyond it. Consequently, what remains to us after the 
 annihilation of will, except will again, is assuredly 
 nothing ; on the other hand, for those in whom will has 
 
38 CHRIST S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 destroyed itself, the whole of this material universe of 
 ours, with all its suns and its milky ways — is nothing." 
 
 "Vanity of vanities," says Solomon, "vanity ofvanities, 
 all is vanity. What profit hath a man of all his labour 
 which he taketh under the sun ? One generation passeth 
 away, and another generation cometh : but the earth 
 abideth for ever. . . . The thing that hath been, it is 
 that which shall be ; and that which is done is that which 
 shall be done : and there is no new thing under the sun. 
 Is there anything whereof it may be said, See, this is 
 new ? it hath been already of old time, which was before 
 us. There is no remembrance of former things ; neither 
 shall there be any remembrance of things that are to 
 come with those that shall come after. 
 
 " I the Preacher Avas king over Israel in Jerusalem. 
 And I gave my heart to seek and search out by wisdom 
 concerning all things that are done under heaven : this 
 sore travail hath God given to the sons of man to be 
 exercised therewith, I have seen all the works that are 
 done under the sun ; and behold, all is vanity and vexa- 
 tion of spirit. ... I communed with mine own heart, 
 saying, Lo, I am come to great estate, and have gotten 
 more wisdom than all they that have been before me 
 in Jerusalem : yea, my heart had great experience of 
 Avisdom and knowledge. And I gave my heart to know 
 wisdom, and to know madness and folly : I perceived 
 that this also is vexation of spirit. For in much wisdom 
 is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge in- 
 creaseth sorrow. 
 
 " I said in mine heart, Go to now, I will prove thee 
 with mirth, therefore enjoy pleasure : and, behold, this 
 
HOW I CAME TO BELIEVE. 39 
 
 also is vanity. I said of laughter, It is mad : and of 
 mirth, What doeth it ? I sought in mine heart to give 
 myself unto wine (yet acquainting mine heart with 
 wisdom), and to lay hold on folly, till I might see what 
 was that good for the sons of men, which they should do 
 under the heaven all the days of their life. I made me 
 great works ; I builded me houses ; I planted me vine- 
 yards ; I made me gardens and orchards, and I planteti 
 trees in them of all kind of fruits : I made me pools of 
 water, to water therewith the wood that bringeth forth 
 trees : I got me servants and maidens, and had servants 
 born in my house ; also I had great possessions of great 
 and small cattle above all that were in Jerusalem before 
 me : I gathered me also silver and gold, and the peculiar 
 treasure of kings and of the provinces : I gat me men 
 singers and women singers, and the delights of the sons 
 of micn, as musical instruments, and that of all sorts. 
 So I was great, and increased more than all that were 
 before me in Jerusalem : also my wisdom remained with 
 me. And whatsoever mine eyes desired I kept not from 
 them, I withheld not mine heart from any joy. . . . Then 
 I looked on all the works my hands had wrought, and 
 on the labour that I had laboured to do : and behold, all 
 was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit 
 under the sun. 
 
 " And I turned myself to behold wisdom, and madness, 
 and folly. . . . And I myself perceived also that one 
 event happeneth to them all. Then said I in my heart, 
 As it happeneth to the fool, so it happeneth even to 
 me; and why was I then more wise? Then I said in 
 my heart, that this also is vanity. For there is no re- 
 
40 CHRISrS CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 membrance of the wise more than of the fool for ever ; 
 seeing that which now is in the days to come shall be 
 forgotten. And how dieth the wise man ? as the fool. 
 
 " Therefore I hated life ; because the work that is 
 wrought under the sun is grievous unto me : for all is 
 vanity and vexation of spirit. Yea, I hated all my 
 labour which I had taken under the sun : because I 
 should leave it unto the man that shall be after me. . . . 
 For what hath man of all his labour, and of the vexation 
 of his heart, wherein he hath laboured under the sun ? 
 For all his days are sorrows, and his travail grief ; yea, 
 his heart taketh not rest in the night. This is also 
 vanity. There is nothing better for a man than that he 
 should eat and drink, and that he should make his soul 
 enjoy good in his labour. This also I saw, that it was 
 from the hand of God. . . . 
 
 " All things come alike to all : there is one event to 
 the righteous, and to the wicked ; to the good and to the 
 clean, and to the unclean ; to him that sacrificeth, and to 
 him that sacrificeth not : as is the good, so is the sinner ; 
 and he that sweareth, as he that feareth an oath. This is 
 an evil among all things that are done under the sun, that 
 there is one event unto all : yea, also the heart of the 
 sons of men is full of evil, and madness is in their heart 
 while they live, and after that they go to the dead. 
 
 " For to him that is joined to all the living there is 
 hope : for a living dog is better than a dead lion. For 
 the living know that they shall die : but the dead know 
 not anything, neither have they any more a reward ; for 
 the memory of them is forgotten. Also their love, and 
 their hatred, and their envy, is now perished ; neither 
 
но IV I CAME TO BELIEVE. 4 1 
 
 have they any more a portion for ever in anything that 
 is done under the sun." 
 
 Thus speaks Solomon, or the one who wrote the 
 above ; and this is what an Indian sage says : " Sakya 
 Muni, the young and happy heir to a great throne, 
 from whom had been kept the sight of illness, old age, 
 and death, once while out driving saw a horrible-looking, 
 toothless old man. The prince was much astonished, 
 and asked the driver what it meant, and why the man 
 was in such a pitiable and disgusting state. When he 
 learned that this was the common lot of all men, and 
 that he himself, prince and young though he was, must 
 inevitably one day be the same, he was unable to con- 
 tinue his drive, and ordered the carnage to be driven 
 home, that he might have time to think it all over. He 
 shut himself up alone and thought it over. He probably 
 thought of something which consoled him, for again he 
 got into his carriage and drove off merry and happy. 
 This time he is met by a sick man. He sees a worn-out, 
 tottering man, who is quite blue in the face and has dim 
 eyes. The prince stopped and asked what it was. 
 When he was told that it was illness, that old men are 
 subject to it, and he himself, young and happy prince 
 though he was, might fall ill the next day, he again lost 
 all desire for amusement, and gave orders to drive home. 
 There he again sought peace of mind and probably 
 found it, for soon after he started again, for the third 
 time, in his carriage. This time, however, he saw some- 
 thing new also — some men were carrying something by. 
 ' What is that ? ' 'A dead body.' ' What does a dead 
 body mean ? ' asks the prince ; and he is told that to 
 
42 CHRISrS CHRISTIANirY. 
 
 become one means to become what the man before him 
 now is. The prince descends and approaches the body, 
 uncovers it, and looks at it. ' What will become of him ? ' 
 asks the prince. He is told that the body will be thrust 
 into a hole dug in the earth. ' Why ? ' ' Because he 
 will never be alive again, and only stench and worms 
 can come from him.' 'And that is the lot of all men? 
 And it will be so with me ? . I shall be put underground 
 to stink and have worms come from me ? ' ' Yes.' 
 ' Back ! I will not go for the drive, and never will go 
 again.' " 
 
 So Sakya Muni could find no comfort in life, and he 
 decided that life was a very great evil, and applied all 
 his energies to freeing himself and others from it, so 
 that after death, life should in no way be renewed, and 
 the very root of life should be destroyed. Thus speak 
 all the Indian sages. Here we have the only direct 
 answers which human wisdom can give to the problem 
 of life. " The life of the body is evil and a lie, and so 
 the annihilation of that life is a good for which we ought 
 to wish," says Socrates. 
 
 Life is what it ought not to be ; " an evil, and a pas- 
 sage from it into nothingness is the only good in life," 
 says Schopenhauer. Everything in the world, both folly 
 and wisdom, both riches and poverty, rejoicing and 
 grief, all is vanity and worthless. Man dies and nothing 
 is left of him, and this again is vanity, says Solomon. 
 
 " To live, knowing that sufferings, illness, old age, 
 and death are inevitable, is not possible ; we must get 
 rid of life, get rid of the possibility of living," says 
 Buddha. 
 
HOJV I CAME TO BELIEVE. 43 
 
 And what these powerful minds have said, what 
 millions on millions of men have thought and felt, has 
 been thought and felt by me. 
 
 Thus my wanderings over the fields of knowledge 
 not only failed to cure me of my despair, but increased 
 it. One branch of knowledge gave no answer at all to 
 the problem of life, another gave a direct answer which 
 confirmed my despair, and showed that the state to 
 which I had come was not the result of my going astray, 
 of any mental disorder, but, on the contrary, of my 
 thinking rightly, of my being in agreement with the 
 conclusions of the most powerful intellects among man- 
 kind. 
 
 I could not be deceived. All was vanity. A mis- 
 fortune to be born. Death was better than life, and 
 life's burden must be eot rid of. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Having failed to find an explanation in knowledge, I 
 began to seek it in life itself, hoping to find it in the 
 men who surrounded me ; and I began to watch men 
 like myself, to observe how they lived, and how they 
 practically treated the question which had brought mc 
 to despair. 
 
 And this is what I found among those of the same 
 social position and culture as myself. 
 
 I found that for those who occupied the same 
 position as myself there were four means of escape from 
 the terrible state in which we all were. 
 
 The first means of escape is through ignorance. It 
 
44 CHEISrS CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 consists in not perceiving and understanding that life 
 is an evil and an absurdity. People of this class — for 
 the greater part women, or men who are either very 
 young or very stupid — have not understood the problem 
 of life as it presented itself to Schopenhauer, to Solomon, 
 and to Buddha. They see neither the dragon awaiting 
 them, nor the mice eating through the plant to which 
 they cling, and they taste the drops of honey. But they 
 only lick the honey for a time ; something directs their 
 attention to the dragon and the mice, and there is an 
 end to their tasting. From these I could learn nothing : 
 we cannot unknow what we do know. 
 
 The second means of escape is the Epicurean. It 
 consists in, while we know the hopelessness of life, 
 taking advantage of every good there is in it, in avoiding 
 the sight of the dragon and mice, and in seeking the 
 honey as best we can, especially wherever there is most 
 of it. Solomon points out this issue from the difficulty 
 thus: "Then I commended mirth, because a man hath 
 no better thing under the sun, than to eat, and to drink, 
 and to be merry : for that shall abide with him of his 
 labour the days of his life, which God giveth him, under 
 the sun. . . . Go thy way, cat thy bread with joy, and 
 drink thy wine with a merry heart. . . .Live joyfully 
 with the wife whom thou lovest all the days of the life 
 of thy vanity, which he hath given thee under the sun, 
 all the days of thy vanity : for that is thy portion in 
 this life, and in thy labour which thou takest under the 
 sun. Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy 
 might ; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, 
 nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou gocst." 
 
HOIV I CAME TO BELIEVE. 45 
 
 Such is the way in which most people, who belong 
 to the circle in which I move, reconcile themselves to 
 their fate, and make living possible. They know more 
 of the good than the evil of life from the circumstances 
 of their position, and their blunted moral perceptions 
 enable them to forget that all their advantages are acci- 
 dental, and that all men cannot have harems and palaces, 
 like Solomon ; that for one man who has a thousand 
 wives there are thousands of men who have none, and 
 for each palace there must be thousands of men to build 
 it with the sweat of their brow, and that the same chance 
 which has made me a Solomon to-day may make me 
 Solomon's slave to-morrow. The dulness of their ima- 
 gination enables these men to forget what destroyed 
 the peace of Buddha, the inevitable sickness, old age, 
 and death, which, if not to-day, then to-morrow, must be 
 the end of all their pleasures. 
 
 Thus think and feel the majority of the men of our 
 time of the upper classes. That some of them call their 
 dulness of thought and imagination by the name of 
 positive philosophy, does not, in my opinion, separate 
 them from those who, in order not to see the real 
 question, search for and lick the honey. I could not 
 imitate such as these ; my imagination not being 
 blunted like theirs, I could not artificially prevent its 
 action. Like every man who really lives, I could not 
 turn my eyes aside from the mice and the dragon, when 
 I had once seen them. 
 
 The third means of escape is through strength and 
 energy of character. It consists in destroying life, when 
 we have perceived that it is an evil and an absurdity. 
 
4б CHRIST'S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 Only men of strong and unswerving character act thus. 
 Understanding all the stupidity of the joke that is 
 played with us, and understanding far better the hap- 
 piness of the dead than of the living, they put an end at 
 once to the parody of life, and bless any means of doing 
 it — a rope round the neck, water, a knife in the heart, or 
 a railway train. The number of those in my own class 
 who thus act, continually increases, and those who do 
 this are generally in the prime of life, with their physical 
 strength matured and unweakened, and with but few of 
 the habits that undermine man's intellectual powers yet 
 formed. I saw that this means of escape was the 
 worthiest, and wished to make use of it. 
 
 The fourth means of escape is through weakness. 
 It consists, though the evil and absurdity of life are well 
 known, in continuing to drag on, though aware that 
 nothing can come of it. People of this class of mind 
 know that death is better than life, but have not the 
 strength of character to act as their reason dictates, to 
 have done with deceit and kill themselves ; they seem 
 to be waiting for something to happen. This way of 
 escape is due solely to weakness, for if I know what is 
 better, and it is within my reach, why not seize it ? To 
 this class of men I myself belonged. 
 
 Thus do those of my own class, in four different ways, 
 save themselves from a terrible contradiction. With the 
 most earnest intellectual efforts I could not find a fifth 
 way. One way is, to ignore life's being a meaningless 
 jumble of vanity and evil, not to know that it is better 
 not to live. For me not to know this was impossible, 
 and when I once saw the truth I could not shut my eyes 
 
HOIV I CAME TO BELIEVE. 47 
 
 to it. Another way is, to make the best of Hfe as it is 
 witliout thinking of the future. This, again, I could not 
 do. I, Hke Sakya Muni, could not drive to the pleasure- 
 ground, when I knew of the existence of old age, suffer- 
 ing, and death. My imagination was too lively for that. 
 Moreover, my heart was ungladdened by the passing 
 joys which fell for a few rare instants to my lot. The 
 third way is, knowing that life is an evil and a foolish 
 thing, to put an end to it, to kill one's self. I under- 
 stood this, but still did not kill myself The fourth 
 way is, to accept life as described by Solomon and 
 Schopenhauer, to know that it is a stupid and ridiculous 
 joke, and yet live on, to wash, dress, dine, talk, and even 
 write books. This position was painful and disgusting 
 to me, but I remained in it. 
 
 I now see that I did not kill myself because I had, in 
 a confused sort of way, an inkling that my ideas were 
 wrong. However persuasive and unanswerable the idea, 
 which I shared with the wisest on earth, that life has no 
 meaning, appeared to me, I still felt a confused doubt in 
 the truth of my conclusions, which formed itself thus : 
 " My reason tells me that life is contrary to reason. If 
 there is nothing higher than reason (and there is nothing), 
 reason is the creator of my life ; were there no reason, 
 there would be no life for me. How can it be that 
 reason denies life, and is at the same time its creator ? 
 Again, from the other side, if there were no life, I should 
 have no reason, consequently reason is born of life, and 
 life is all. Reason is the product of life, and yet it 
 denies life." I felt that something here was wrong. I 
 said to myself: " Life undoubtedly has no meaning, and 
 
48 CHRISrS CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 is evil, but I have lived and am still alive, and so also 
 have lived and are living the whole human race. How 
 is it, then ? Why do all men live, when all men are able 
 to die? Is it that I and Schopenhauer alone are wise 
 enough to have understood the unmeaning emptiness 
 and evil of life ? " 
 
 To see the inanity of life is a simple matter enough, 
 and it has long been apparent to the simplest among 
 us, but men still live on. Yes, men live on, and never 
 think of calling in question the reasonableness of life ! 
 
 My acquired knowledge, confirmed by the wisdom of 
 the wisest of the world, showed me that everything on 
 earth, organic or inorganic, was arranged with extra- 
 ordinary wisdom, and that my own position alone was a 
 foolish one. But, all the same, the enormous masses of 
 those fools, my fellow-men, know nothing of the organic 
 or inorganic structure of the world, but live on, and it 
 seems to them that their lives are subjected to perfectly 
 reasonable conditions ! 
 
 Then I thought to myself : " But what if there be 
 something more for me to know ? Surely this is the way 
 in which ignorance acts. Why, it always says exactly 
 what I do now ! What men are ignorant of they say is 
 stupid. It really comes to this, that mankind as a whole 
 have always lived, and are living, as if they understood 
 the meaning of life, for not doing so they could not live 
 at all, and yet I say, that all this life has no meaning in 
 it and that I cannot live." 
 
 Nobody prevents our denial of life by suicide, but 
 then, kill yourself and you will no longer argue about it 
 If you dislike life, kill yourself. If in your life you 
 
HOJV I САЛЕ TO BELIEVE. 49 
 
 cannot find a reason for it, put an end to it, and do not 
 go on talking and writing about being unable to under- 
 stand life. You have got into a gay company, in which 
 all are well satisfied, all know w^iat they are doing, and 
 you alone are wearied and repelled, then get out of it ! 
 
 And after all, then, what are we who, persuaded of 
 the necessity of suicide, still cannot bring ourselves to 
 the act, but weak, inconsistent men, to speak more 
 plainly, stupid men, who carry about wath them their 
 stupidity, as the fool carries his name written upon his 
 cap? 
 
 Our wisdom, indeed, however firmly it be grounded 
 on truth, has not imparted to us a knowledge of the 
 meaning of life, yet all the millions that share in the life 
 of humanity do not doubt that life has a meaning. 
 
 It is certainly true that, from the far-distant time 
 when that life began of which even I know something, 
 men lived who, though they knew what proved to me 
 that life had no meaning, the argument of its inanity, 
 still lived on, and gave to life a meaning of their own. 
 Since any sort of life began for men, they have had 
 some conception of their own about it, and have so 
 lived down to my own time. All that is in and around 
 me, physical or immaterial, it is all the fruit of their 
 knowledge of life. The very mental instruments which 
 I have employed against that life, to condemn it, were 
 fashioned, not by me, but by them. I was born, and bred, 
 and have grown up, thanks to them. They dug out the 
 iron, taught how to hew down the forests, to tame the 
 cows and the horses, to sow corn, to live one with another, 
 they gave order and form to our life ; moreover, they 
 
 E 
 
50 CHRIST'S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 taught me how to think and how to speak. And I, the 
 work of their hands, their foster-child, the pupil of their 
 thoughts and sayings, have proved to them they them- 
 selves had no meaning ! " There must be something 
 here," said I, "that is wrong, I have made some mistake." 
 I could not, however, discover where the mistake lay. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 All these doubts, which I am now able to express more 
 or less clearly, I could not have then explained. I then 
 only felt that, despite the logical certainty of my conclu- 
 sions as to the inanity of life, and confirmed as they were 
 by the greatest thinkers, there was something wrong in 
 them. Whether in the conclusion itself, or in the way of 
 putting the question, I did not know ; I only felt that, 
 though my reason was entirely convinced, that was not 
 enough. All my reasoning could not induce me to act 
 in accordance with my convictions, i.e. to kill myself I 
 should not speak the truth, if I said that my reason alone 
 brought me to the position in which I was. Reason had 
 been at work no doubt, but something else had Avorked 
 too, something which I can only call an instinctive con- 
 sciousness of life. There also worked in me a force, 
 which determined my attention to one thing rather than 
 to another, and it was this that drew me out of my 
 desperate position, and completely changed the current 
 of my thoughts. This force led me to the idea, that I, 
 with thousands of other men like me, did not form the 
 whole of mankind, that I was still ignorant of what 
 human life was. 
 
HOW I CAME TO BELIEVE. 5 I 
 
 When I watched the restricted circle of those who 
 were my equals in social position, I saw only people who 
 did not understand the question, people who kept down 
 their understanding of it by the excitement of life, people 
 who understood it and put an end to life, and people 
 who, understanding, lived on through weakness, in 
 despair. And I saw no others. It seemed to me that 
 the small circle of learned, rich, and idle people, to which 
 I myself belonged, formed the whole of humanity, and 
 that the millions living outside it were animals not men. 
 
 However strange, improbable, and inconceivable it 
 now seems to me, that I, reasoning about life, could 
 overlook the life of mankind surrounding me on all sides, 
 and fall into such an error as to think that the life of a 
 Solomon, a Schopenhauer, and my own was alone real 
 and fit, and the life lived by unconsidered millions, a cir- 
 cumstance unworthy of attention — however strange this 
 appears to me now, I see that it was so then. Led away 
 by intellectual pride, it seemed to me not to be doubted 
 that I, with Solomon and Schopenhauer, had put the 
 question so exactly and truly that there could be no 
 other form of it ; it seemed unquestionable that all these 
 millions of men had failed to conceive the depth of the 
 question, that I had sought the meaning of my life ; 
 and it never once occurred to me to think, " But what 
 meaning has been given, what meaning is given now, by 
 the millions of those who have lived and are living on 
 earth?" 
 
 I long lived in this state of mental aberration, which, 
 though its theories are not always openly professed, is 
 not the less common among those who are supposed to 
 
52 CHRIST'S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 be the most learned and most liberal part of society. 
 But whether, thanks to my strange khid of instinctive 
 affection for the labouring classes, which impelled me to 
 understand them, and to see that they are not so stupid 
 as we think, or thanks to the sincerity of my conviction 
 that I could know nothing beyond the advisability of 
 hanging myself, I felt that, if I wished to live and under- 
 stand the meaning of life, I must seek it not amongst 
 those who have lost their grasp on it, and wish to kill 
 themselves, but among the millions of the living and the 
 dead, who have made our life what it is, and on whom 
 now rests the burden of our life and their own. 
 
 So I watched the life common to such enormous, 
 numbers of the dead and the living, the life of simple, 
 unlearned, and poor men, and found something quite 
 different. I saw that all these millions, with rare excep- 
 tions, did not come under any division of the classifica- 
 tion which I had made ; I could not count them among 
 those who do not understand the question, because they 
 not only put it but answer it very clearly ; to count 
 them among the Epicureans I was also unable, because 
 their life has far more of privation and suffering than of 
 enjoyment ; to count them amongst those who, against 
 their reason, live through a life without meaning, was 
 still less possible, because every act of their lives, and 
 death itself, is explained by them. Self-murder they 
 look upon as the greatest of evils. It appeared that 
 throughout mankind there was a sense given to the 
 meaning of life which I had neglected and despised. It 
 came to this, that the knowledge based on reason denied 
 a meaning to life, and declined to make it a subject of 
 
HOW I CAME TO BELIEVE. 53 
 
 inquiry, while the meaning given by the miUions that 
 form the great whole of humanity was founded on a 
 despised and fallacious knowledge. 
 
 The knowledge based on reason, the knowledge of the 
 learned and the wise, denies a meaning in life, and the 
 great mass of all the rest of mankind have an unreason- 
 ing consciousness of life which gives a meaning to it. 
 
 This unreasoning knowledge is the faith which I 
 could not but reject. This is God, one and yet three ; 
 this is the creation in six days, the devils and the angels ; 
 and all that I cannot, while I keep my senses, under- 
 stand. My position was a terrible one. I knew that from 
 the knowledge which reason has given man, I could get 
 nothing but the denial of life, and from faith nothing but 
 the denial of reason, which last was even more impossible 
 than the denial of life. The result of the former was, 
 that life is an evil and that men know it to be one, that 
 men may cease to live if they will, but that they always 
 go on living — I myself lived on, though I had long 
 known that life had no sense nor good in it. The result 
 of the latter was that, in order to understand the meaning 
 of life, I must abandon the guide without which there can 
 be no meaning in anything, my reason itself 
 
 IX. 
 
 T WAS Stopped by a contradiction which could only be 
 explained in two ways : either what I called reasonable 
 was not so reasonable as I thought it, or what I called 
 unreasonable was not so unreasonable as I thoueht it. 
 
54 CHRIST'S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 I began by verifying the process of thinking through 
 which I had been led to the conchisions of reasoning 
 knowledge. 
 
 On doing this I found the process complete without 
 a flaw. The conclusion, that life was nothing, was in- 
 evitable ; but I discovered a mistake. The mistake was, 
 that I had not confined my thoughts to the question 
 proposed. The question was, why should I live, i.e., 
 what of real and imperishable will come of my shadowy 
 and perishable life — what meaning has my finite exist- 
 ence in the infinite universe ? And I had tried to answer 
 this by studying life. 
 
 It was evident that the decision of any number of 
 questions concerning life could not satisfy me, because 
 my question, however simple it seemed at first, included 
 the necessity of explaining infinity by infinity, and the 
 contrary. I asked myself, what meaning my life had 
 apart from time, causation, and space. After long and 
 earnest efforts of thinking, I could only answer — none at 
 all. 
 
 Through all my reasoning with myself I constantly 
 compared, and I could not do otherwise, the finite 
 with the finite, and the infinite with the infinite, and 
 the conclusion was consequently inevitable : a force 
 is a force, matter is matter, will is will, infinity is 
 infinity, nothing is nothing — and beyond that there 
 was no result. It was like what happens in mathe- 
 matics, when instead of an equation to resolve we get 
 identical terms. The process of solution is correct, but 
 our answer is a =■ a, x = .r, or = 0. This happened 
 to mc in m}- inquiries into the meaning of my life. 
 
HOW I CAME TO BELIEVE. 55 
 
 The answers given by science to the question were all 
 " identity." 
 
 Strict scientific inquiry, like that carried on by 
 Descartes, begins undoubtedly Avith a doubt of every- 
 thing, throws aside all knowledge founded on belief, and 
 reconstructs all in accordance with the laws of reason 
 and experience, while it can give but one answer to the 
 question about the meaning of life, the one which I 
 myself obtained — an indefinite one. It seemed to me at 
 first that science did give a positive answer, the answer 
 of Schopenhauer : life has no meaning, it is an evil ; 
 but, when I inquired more closely into the matter, I 
 perceived that the answer was not positive, that it was 
 my own feeling alone made me think it so. The answer 
 is expressed in the same terms as is that of the Brahmins, 
 of Solomon, and of Schopenhauer, and is only an 
 indefinite one, the identity of о and o, life is nothing. 
 This philosophical knowledge denies nothing, but answers 
 that the question cannot be decided by it, that the 
 matter remains indefinite. 
 
 When I had come to this conclusion, I understood 
 that it was useless to seek an answer to my question 
 from scientific knowledge, because the latter only shows 
 that no answer can be obtained till the question is put 
 differently, till the question be made to include the 
 relation between the finite and the infinite. I also 
 understood that, however unreasonable and monstrous 
 the answers given by faith, they do bring in the relation 
 of the finite to the infinite. 
 
 However the question, How am I to live .^ be put, 
 the same answer is obtained — by the law of God. W ill 
 
5б CHRIST'S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 anything real and positive come of my life, and what ? 
 Internal torment, or eternal bliss. Is there a meaning in 
 life not to be destroyed by death, and, if so, what ? 
 Union with an infinite God, paradise. 
 
 In this way I w^as compelled to admit that, besides 
 the reasoning knowledge which I once thought the only 
 true knowledge, there was in every living man another 
 kind of knowledge, an unreasoning one, but which gives 
 a possibility of living — faith. 
 
 All the unreasonableness of faith remained for me 
 the same as ever, but I could not but confess that faith 
 alone gave man an answer as to the meaning of life, and 
 the consequent possibility of living. 
 
 When scientific reasoning brought me to the conclu- 
 sion that my life had no meaning, life stood still in me, 
 and I wished to end it. When I looked at the men 
 around me, at humanity as a whole, I saw that men did 
 live, and that they affirmed their knowledge as to the 
 meaning of life. For other men, as for myself, faith 
 gave a possibility of living and a meaning to life. 
 
 On examining life in other countries than my own, 
 as Avcll among my contemporaries as among those who 
 have passed away, I found it but one and the same. 
 From the beginning of the human race, wherever there is 
 life there is the faith which makes life possible, and 
 everywhere the leading characteristics of that faith are 
 the same. 
 
 Whatever answers any kind of faith ever gives to any 
 one, every one of these answers clothes with infinity the 
 finite existence of man, gives a meaning to life which 
 triumphs over suffering, privation, and death. In faith, 
 
ffOJV I CAME TO BELIEVE. 5/ 
 
 therefore, alone is found a possibility of living and a 
 meaning in life. What is this faith ? I understood that 
 faith is not only the apprehension of things unseen, is 
 not only a revelation (that is only a definition of one of 
 the signs of faith), is not the relation of man to God 
 (faith must first be determined, and then God, and not 
 faith through God), and is not, as it has so often been 
 understood, acquiescence — faith is the knowledge of the 
 meaning of man's life, through which man does not 
 destroy himself, but lives. Faith is the force of life. 
 
 If a man lives, he believes in something. If he did 
 not believe that there was something to live for, he 
 луоиЫ not live. If he does not see and understand the 
 unreality of the finite, he believes in the finite ; if he sees 
 that unreality, he must believe in the infinite. Without 
 faith there is no life. 
 
 I then went back upon all the past stages of my 
 mental state, and was terrified. It was now clear to me, 
 that for any one to live it was necessary for him, either 
 to be ignorant of infinity, or to accept an explanation of 
 the meaning of life which should equalize the finite and 
 the infinite. Such an explanation I had, but I had no 
 need of it while I believed in the finite, and I began to 
 apply to my explanation the tests of reason, and in the 
 light of the latter all former explanations were shown to 
 be worthless. But the time when I ceased to believe in 
 the finite passed, and I tried to raise my mental structure 
 on the foundation, that I knew an explanation which 
 gave a meaning to life, but I tried in vain. Like so 
 many of the greatest minds of earth, I came only to the 
 conclusion that = 0, and, though nothing else could 
 
58 CHRIST'S CHRISTIAA'ITY. 
 
 have come of it, I Avas much astonished to have obtained 
 such an answer to my problem. 
 
 What did I do, луЬеп I sought an answer in the study 
 of experimental science ? I wanted to know why I 
 lived, and to that end I studied everything outside 
 myself. Clearly in this way I might learn much, but 
 nothing of that which I needed. 
 
 What did I do, when I sought an answer in the 
 study of philosophy } I studied the thoughts of others 
 in the same position as myself, and who had no answer 
 to the question — what is life ? Clearly I could in this 
 way learn nothing but what I myself knew, namely, that 
 it was impossible to know anything. 
 
 What am I ? — a part of the infinite whole. In those 
 few words lay the whole problem. 
 
 Could it be that men had only now begun to put this 
 question to themselves ? Could it be that no one before 
 myself had asked this simple question, that must occur 
 even to the mind of an intelligent child .'* 
 
 Since man has been on earth this question has to a 
 certainty been put, and to a certainty it has been under- 
 stood, that the decision of this question is equally un- 
 satisfactory, whether the finite be compared with the 
 finite, and the infinite with the infinite, or the solution 
 sought and expressed in the relation of the finite to the 
 infinite. 
 
 All these conceptions of the equality of the finite and 
 the infinite, through which we receive the ideas of life, of 
 God, of freedom, of good, when we submit them to 
 logical analysis, will not bear the tests of reason. 
 
 If it were not so terrible, it would be laughable to 
 
в о IV I CAME ТО BELIEVE. 59 
 
 think of the pride and self-confidence Avith which we, 
 Hke chikh-en, pull out our watches, take away the spring, 
 make a plaything of them, and are then astonished that 
 they will no longer keep time. 
 
 Tiie decision of the contradiction between the finite 
 and the infinite, and such an answer to the question of 
 what is life, as shall enable us to live, is wanted by and 
 is dear to us. The only answer is the one to be found 
 everywhere, always, and among all nations, an answer 
 which has come down to us from the times in which the 
 origin of human life is lost, an answer so difficult that we 
 could never ourselves have come to it — this answer we 
 in our careless indifference get rid of, by again raising 
 the question which presents itself to ever}- one, but 
 which no one can answer. 
 
 The conception of an. infinite God, of the divinity of 
 the soul, of the way in which the afifairs of men are 
 related to God, of the unity and realit}^ of the spirit, 
 man's conception of moral good and evil, these are con- 
 ceptions worked out through the infinite mental labours 
 of mankind ; conceptions without which there would be 
 no life, without which I should not myself exist, and yet 
 I dare to reject the labours of the whole human race, 
 and to venture on working out the problem again in my 
 own way alone. 
 
 I did not at the time think so, but the germs of 
 these thoughts were already within me. I understood 
 (i) that the position assumed by Schopenhauer, Solomon, 
 and myself, with all our wisdom, was a foolish one : wc 
 understand that life is an evil, and yet we live. This 
 clearly is foolish, because if life is foolish, and I care so 
 
бО CHRIST'S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 much for reason, life should be put an end to, and then 
 there would be no one to deny it. (2) I understood 
 that all our arguments turned in a charmed circle, like 
 a cog-wheel the teeth of which no longer catch in 
 another. However much and however well we reason, 
 we get no answer to our question, it will always be о = o, 
 and consequently our method is probably wrong. (3) I 
 began to understand that in the answers given by faith 
 was to be found the deepest source of human wisdom, 
 that I had no reasonable right to reject them, and that 
 they alone solved the problem of life. 
 
 X. 
 
 I UNDERSTOOD what I have just stated, but my heart 
 was none the lighter for it. 
 
 I Avas now ready to accept any faith that did not 
 require of me a direct denial of reason, for that would 
 be to act a lie ; and I studied the books of the Buddhists 
 and the Mahometans, and especially also Christianity, 
 both in its writings and in the lives of its professors 
 around me. 
 
 I naturally turned my attention at first to the 
 believers in my own immediate circle, to learned men, 
 to orthodox divines, to the ciders among the monks, to 
 the teachers of a new shade of doctrine, the so-called 
 New Christians, who preach salvation through faith in a 
 Redeemer. I seized upon these believers, and demanded 
 from them what they believed in, and what for them 
 gave a meaning to life. 
 
no IV I CAME TO BELIEVE. 6 1 
 
 Notwithstanding that I made every possible con- 
 cession, that I avoided all disputes, I could not accept 
 the faith of these men. I saw that what they called 
 their faith did not explain but obscured the meaning of 
 life, and that they professed it, not in order to answer 
 the question as to life which had attracted me towards 
 faith, but for some other purpose to which I was a 
 stranger. 
 
 I remember how terribly I felt the return of the old 
 feeling of despair, after the hopes with which my con- 
 nection with these people had from time to time 
 inspired me. 
 
 The more minutely they laid their doctrines before 
 me, the more clearly I perceived their error, the more 
 I lost all hope of finding in their faith an explanation of 
 the meaning of life. 
 
 I was not so much alienated by the unnecessary and 
 unreasonable doctrines which they had mingled with the 
 Christian truths always so dear to me, as by the fact 
 that their lives were like my own, the only difference 
 being that they did not live according to the doctrines 
 which they professed. I felt that they deceived them- 
 selves, and that for them, as for myself, the only meaning 
 of life was to live from hand to mouth, and take each for 
 himself all that his hands can lay hold on. I saw this, 
 because had the ideas of life Avhich they conceived done 
 away with fear, privation, suffering, and death, they 
 would not have feared them. But these believers of my 
 own class, the same as I myself, lived in comfort and 
 abundance, struggled to increase and preserve it, were 
 afraid of privation, suffering, and death ; and again, like 
 
б2 CHRIST'S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 myself and all other not true believers, satisfied the lusts 
 of the flesh, and led lives as evil as, if not worse than, 
 those of infidels themselves. 
 
 No arguments were able to convince me of the 
 sincerity of the faith of these men. Only actions, 
 proving their conception of life to have destroyed that 
 fear of poverty, illness, and death so strong in myself, 
 could have convinced me, and such actions among them 
 I could not see. Such actions I saw, indeed, among the 
 open infidels of my own class in life, but never among 
 its so-called believers. 
 
 I understood, then, that the faith of these men was 
 not the faith which I sought, that it was no faith at all, 
 but only an Epicurean consolation. I understood that 
 this faith, if it could not really console, could at least 
 soothe the repentant mind of a Solomon on his death- 
 bed, but that it could not serve the enormous majority 
 of mankind, who are born, not to be comforted by the 
 labours of others, but to create a life for themselves. 
 For mankind to live, for it to continue to live and be 
 conscious of the meaning of its life, all these millions 
 must have another and a true conception of faith. It 
 was not, then, that I, Solomon, and Schopenhauer had 
 not killed ourselves, which convinced me that faith 
 existed, but that these millions have lived and are now 
 living, carrying along with them on the impulse of their 
 life, both Solomon and ourselves. 
 
 I began to draw nearer to the believers among the 
 poor, the simple, and the ignorant, the i)ilgnms, the 
 monks, the sectaries, and the peasants. The doctrines 
 of these men of the people, like those of the pretended 
 
HOIV I CAME TO BELIEVE. 63 
 
 believers of my own class, were Christian. Here also 
 much that was superstitious was mingled with the truths 
 of Christianity, but with this difference, that the super- 
 stition of the believers of my own class was not needed 
 by them, and never influenced their lives beyond serving 
 as a kind of Epicurean distraction, while the superstition 
 of the believing labouring class was so interwoven with 
 their lives that it was impossible to conceive them 
 without it — it was a necessary condition of their living 
 at all. The whole life of the believers of my own class 
 was in flat contradiction with their faith, and the whole 
 life of the believers of the people was a confirmation of 
 the meaning of life which their faith gave them. 
 
 Thus I began to study the lives and the doctrines of 
 the people, and the more I studied, the more I became 
 convinced that a true faith was among them, that their 
 faith was for them a necessary thing, and alone gave 
 them a meaning in life and a possibility of living. In 
 direct opposition to what I saw in my own circle — the 
 possibility of living without faith, and not one in a 
 thousand who professed himself a believer — amongst the 
 people there was not in thousands a single unbeliever. 
 In direct opposition to what I saw in my own circle — a 
 Avhole life spent in idleness, amusement, and dissatis- 
 faction with life — I saw among the people whole lives 
 passed in heavy labour and unrepining content. In 
 direct opposition to what I saw in my own circle — men 
 resisting and indignant with the privations and sufferings 
 of their lot — the people unhesitatingly and unresistingly 
 accepting illness and sorrow, in the quiet and firm con- 
 viction that all was for the best. In contradiction to 
 
б4 CHRIST'S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 the theory, that the less learned we are the less we 
 understand the meaning of life, and see in our sufferings 
 and death but an evil joke, these men of the people live, 
 suffer, and draw near to death, in quiet confidence and 
 oftenest with joy. In contradiction to the fact that an 
 easy death, without terror or despair, is a rare exception 
 in my own class, a death which is uneasy, rebellious, and 
 sorrowful is among the people the rarest exception of 
 all. These men, deprived of all that for us and for 
 Solomon makes the only good in life, experience the 
 highest happiness both in amount and kind. I looked 
 more carefully and more widely around me, I studied 
 the lives of the past and contemporary masses of 
 humanity, and I saw that, not two or three, not ten or 
 a hundred, but thousands and millions had so understood 
 the meaning of life, that they were able both to live and 
 to die. All these men, infinitely divided by manners^ 
 powers of mind, education, and position, all alike in 
 opposition to my ignorance, were well acquainted with 
 the meaning of life and of death, quietly laboured, en- 
 dured privation and suffering, lived and died, and saw 
 in all this, not a vain, but a good thing. 
 
 I began to grow attached to these men. The more 
 I .learned of their lives, the lives of the living and of the 
 dead of whom I read and heard, the more I liked them, 
 and the easier I felt it so to live, I lived in this way 
 during two years, and then there came a change which 
 had long been preparing in me, and the symptoms of 
 which I had always dimly felt : the life of my own circle 
 of rich and learned men, not only became repulsive, but 
 lost all meaning whatever. AH our actions, our reason- 
 
HOIV I CAME TO BELIEVE. 65 
 
 ing, our science and art, all appeared to me in a new 
 light. I understood that it was all child's play, that it 
 was useless to seek a meaning in it. The life of the 
 working classes, of the whole of mankind, of those that 
 create life, appeared to me in its true significance. I 
 understood that this was life itself, and that the meaning 
 given to this life was a true one, and I accepted it. 
 
 XL 
 
 When I remembered how these very doctrines had 
 repelled me, how senseless they had seemed, when pro- 
 fessed by men whose lives were spent in opposition to 
 them, and how they had attracted me and seemed 
 thoroughly reasonable, when I saw men living in accord- 
 ance with them, I understood why I had once rejected 
 them and thought them unmeaning, why I now adopted 
 them and thought them most reasonable. I understood 
 that I had erred, and how I had erred. I had erred, 
 not so much through having thought incorrectly, as 
 through having lived ill. I understood that the truth 
 had been hidden from me, not so much because I had 
 erred in my reasoning, as because I had led the excep- 
 tional life of an epicure bent on satisfying the lusts of 
 the flesh. I understood that my question as to what 
 my life was, and the answer, an evil, were in accordance 
 with the truth of things. The mistake lay in my having 
 applied an answer which only concerned myself to life 
 in general. I had asked what my own life was, and the 
 answer was, an evil and a thing without meaning. Exactly 
 
 V 
 
66 CHRIST'S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 SO, my life was but a long indulgence of my passions, 
 it was a thing without meaning, an evil ; and such an 
 answer, therefore, referred only to my own life, and not 
 to human life in general. 
 
 I understood the truth which I afterwards found in 
 the Gospel ; " That men loved darkness rather than 
 light, because their deeds were evil. For every man 
 that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the 
 light, lest his deeds should be reproved." I understood 
 that, for the meaning of life to be understood, it was 
 first necessary that life should be something more than 
 an evil and unmeaning thing discovered by the light 
 of reason. I understood why I had so long been near 
 to, without apprehending this self-evident truth, and 
 that if we would judge and speak of the life of man- 
 kind, we must take that life as a whole, and not merely 
 certain parasitic adjuncts to it. 
 
 This truth was always a truth, as 2 X 2 = 4, but 
 
 1 had not accepted it, because, besides acknowledging 
 
 2 X 2 = 4, I should have acknowledged that I was 
 evil. It was of more importance to me to feel that 
 I was good, more binding on me, than to believe 
 2x2=4. I loved good men, I hated myself, and 
 I accepted truth. Now it was all clear to me. What 
 if the executioner, who passes his life in torturing and 
 cutting off heads, or a confirmed drunkard asked him- 
 self the question. What is life } he could but get the 
 same answer as a madman would give, who had shut 
 himself up for life in a darkened chamber, and who 
 believed that he would perish if he left it ; and that 
 answer could but be — Life is a monstrous evil. 
 
HOW I CAME TO BELIEVE. 6/ 
 
 The answer would be a true one, but only for the 
 man who gave it. Here, then, was I such a madman ? 
 Were all of us, rich, clever, idle men, mad like this ? I 
 understood at last that we were ; that I, at any rate, was. 
 Look at the birds ; they live but to fly, to pick up their 
 food, to build their nests, and when I see them doing 
 this their gladness rejoices me. The goat, the hare, the 
 wolf live but to feed and multiply, and bring up their 
 young ; and when I see them doing this, I am well 
 convinced of their happiness, and that their life is a 
 reasonable one. What, then, should man do .? He also 
 must gain his living like the animals, but with this 
 difference, that he will perish if he attempt it alone ; he 
 must labour, not for himself, but for all. And when he 
 does so, I am firmly convinced he is happy, and his life 
 is a reasonable one. 
 
 What had I done during my thirty years of conscious 
 life ? I had not only not helped the life of others, I 
 had done nothing for my own. I had lived the life of 
 a parasite, and contented myself with my ignorance of 
 the reason why I lived at all. If the meaning of the 
 life of man lies in his having to work out his life him- 
 self, how could I, who during thirty years had done my 
 best to ruin my own life and that of others, expect to 
 receive any other answer to my questioning of life but 
 this, that my life was an evil and had no meaning in it ? 
 It was an evil ; it was without meaning. 
 
 The life of the world goes on through the will of 
 some one. Some one makes our own life and that of the 
 universe his own inscrutable care. To have a hope of 
 understanding what that will means, we must first carry 
 
68 CHRIST'S CHRISTIANITY. ^ 
 
 it out, we must do what is required of us. Unless I 
 do what is required of me, I can never know what that 
 may be, and much less know what is required of us all 
 and of the whole universe. 
 
 If a naked, hungry beggar be taken from the cross- 
 roads into an enclosed space in a splendid establishment, 
 to be well clothed and fed, and made to work a handle 
 up and down, it is evident that the beggar, before 
 seeking to know why he has been taken, why he must 
 work the handle, whether the arrangements of the 
 establishment are reasonable or not, must first do as he 
 is directed. If he do so he will find that the handle 
 works a pump, the pump draws up water, and the water 
 flows into numerous channels for watering the earth. 
 He will then be taken from the well and set to other 
 work ; he will gather fruits and enter into the joy of his 
 lord. As he passes from less to more important labours, 
 he will understand better and better the arrangements 
 of the whole establishment ; and he will take his share 
 in them without once stopping to ask why he is there, 
 nor will he ever think of reproaching the lord of that 
 place. 
 
 And thus it is with those that do the will of their 
 master ; no reproaches come from simple and ignorant 
 working men, from those whom we look upon as brutes. 
 But we the while, wise men that we are, devour the 
 goods of the master, and do nothing of that which he 
 wills us to do ; but instead, seat ourselves in a circle to 
 argue why we should move the handle, for that seems to 
 us stupid. And when луе have thought it all out, what 
 is our conclusion ? Why, that the master is stupid, or 
 
HOW I CAME TO BELIEVE. 69 
 
 that there is none, while we ourselves are wise, only we 
 feel that we are fit for nothing, and that we must some- 
 how or other get rid of ourselves. 
 
 XII. 
 
 My conviction of the error into which all knowledge 
 based on reason must fall assisted me in freeing myself 
 from the seductions of idle reasoning. The conviction 
 that a knowledge of truth can only be gained by living, 
 led me to doubt the justness of my own life ; but I had 
 only to get out of my own particular groove, and look 
 around me to observe the simple life of the real working 
 class, to understand that such a life was the only real one. 
 I understood that, if I wished to understand life and its 
 meaning, I must live, not the life of a parasite, but a real 
 life, and, accepting the meaning given to it by the com- 
 bined lives of those that really form the great human 
 whole, submit it to a close examination. 
 
 At the time I am speaking of, the following was my 
 position. 
 
 During the whole of that year, when I was constantly 
 asking myself, whether I should or should not put an 
 end to it all with a cord or a pistol, during the time that 
 my mind was occupied with the thoughts which I have 
 described, my heart was oppressed by a tormenting 
 feeling, which I cannot describe otherwise than as a 
 searching after God. 
 
 This search after a God was not an act of my 
 reason, but a feeling, and I say this advisedly, because it 
 
70 CHRIST'S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 was opposed to my way of thinking, it came from the 
 heart. It was a feeling of dread, of orphanhood, of 
 isolation amid things all apart from me, and of hope in 
 a help I knew not from whom. Though I was well 
 convinced of the impossibility of proving the existence of 
 God — Kant had shown me, and I had thoroughly grasped 
 his reasoning, that this did not admit of proof — I still 
 sought to find a God, still hoped to do so, and still, from 
 the force of former habits, addressed myself to one in 
 prayer. Him whom I sought, however, 1 did not find. 
 
 At times I went over in my mind the arguments of 
 Kant and of Schopenhauer, showing the impossibility of 
 proving the existence of the Deity ; at times I began 
 to refute their reasoning. 
 
 I would say to myself, that causation is not in the 
 same category as thought and space and time. If I 
 am, there is a cause of my being, and that the cause of 
 all causes. That cause of all things is what is called 
 God ; and I dwelt upon this idea, and strove with all 
 the force that was in me to reach a consciousness of the 
 presence of this cause. 
 
 No sooner was I conscious of a power over me, than 
 I felt a possibility of living. Then I asked myself : 
 " What is this cause, this power .? How am I to think 
 of it ? What is my relation to what I call God 'i " And 
 only the old familiar answer came into my mind, " He 
 is the creator, the giver of all." This answer did not 
 satisfy me, and I felt that the staff of life failed me, I 
 fell into great fear, and began to pray to Him whom 
 I sought, that He would help me. But the more I 
 prayed, the clearer it became that I was not heard, that 
 
HOW I CAME TO BELIEVE. /I 
 
 there was no one to whom to pray. With despair in 
 my heart that there was no God, I cried : " Lord, have 
 mercy on me, and save ! О Lord, my God, teach me ! " 
 But no one had mercy on me, and I felt that Hfe stood 
 still within me. 
 
 Again and again, however, the conviction came back 
 to me that I could not have appeared on earth without 
 any motive or meaning, that I could not be such a 
 fledgling dropped from a nest as I felt myself to be. 
 What if I wail, as the fallen fledgling does on its back 
 in the grass .'' It is because I know that a mother bore 
 me, cared for me, fed me, and loved me. Where is that 
 mother } If I have been thrown out, then who threw 
 me ? I cannot but see that some one who loved me 
 brought me into being. Who is that some one ? Again 
 the same answer, God. He knows and sees my search, 
 my despair, my struggle. " He is," I said to myself. I 
 had only to admit that for an instant, to feel that life 
 re-arose in me, to feel the possibility of existing and 
 the joy of it. Then, again, from the conviction of the 
 existence of God, I passed to the consideration of our 
 relation towards Him, and again I had before me the 
 triune God, our Creator, who sent His Son, the Redeemer. 
 Again, I felt this to be a thing apart -from me and from 
 the world. This God melted, as ice melts, from before 
 my eyes ; again there was nothing left, again the source 
 of life dried up. I fell once more into despair, and felt 
 that I had nothing to do but to kill myself, while, worst 
 of all, I felt also that I should never do it. 
 
 I went through these changes of conviction and 
 mood, not once, not twice, but hundreds of times, now 
 
72 CHRISTS CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 joy and excitement, now despair from the knowledge of 
 the impossibihty of Hfe. 
 
 I remember one day in the early spring-time I was 
 listening to the sounds of a wood, and thinking only of 
 one thing, the same of which I had constantly thought 
 for two years — I was again seeking for a God. 
 
 I said to myself : " It is well, there is no God, there 
 is none that has a reality apart from my own imaginings, 
 none as real as my own life — there is none such. Nothing, 
 no miracles can prove there is, for miracles only exist in 
 my own unreasonable imagination." 
 
 And then I asked msyelf: "But my conception of the 
 God whom I seek, whence comes it ? " And again life 
 flashed joyously through my veins. All around me 
 seemed to revive, to have a new meaning. My joy, 
 though, did not last long, for reason continued its work : 
 " The conception of God, is not God. Conception is 
 what goes on within myself; the conception of God is an 
 idea which I am able to rouse in my mind or not as I 
 choose, it is not what I seek, something without which 
 life could not be." Then again all seemed to die around 
 and within me, and again I wished to kill myself. 
 
 After this I began to retrace the process which had 
 gone on within myself, the hundred times repeated dis- 
 couragement and revival. I remembered that I had 
 lived only when I believed in a God. As it was before, 
 so it was now ; I had only to know God, and I lived ; I 
 had only to forget Him, not to believe in Him, and I died. 
 What was this discouragement and revival ? I do not 
 live when I lose faith in the existence of a God ; I should 
 long ago have killed myself, if I had not had a dim hope 
 
no IV I CAME TO BELIEVE. 73 
 
 of finding Him. I only really live when I feel and seek 
 Him. " What more, then, do I seek .-' " A voice seemed 
 to cry within me, " This is He, He without whom there 
 is no life. To know God and to live are one. God is 
 life." 
 
 Live to seek God, and life will not be without Him. 
 And stronger than ever rose up life within and around 
 me, and the light that then shone never left me again. 
 
 Thus I was saved from self-murder. When and how 
 this change in me took place I could not say. As 
 gradually, imperceptibly as life had decayed in me, till 
 I reached the impossibility of living, till life stood still, 
 and I longed to kill myself, so gradually and imper- 
 ceptibly I felt the glow and strength of life return 
 to me. 
 
 It was strange, but this feeling of the glow of life 
 was no new sensation, it was old enough, for I had been 
 led away by it in the earlier part of my life. I returned, 
 as it were, to the past, to childhood and my youth. 
 I returned to faith in that Will which brought me into 
 being and which required something of me ; I returned to 
 the belief that the one single aim of life should be to 
 become better, that is, to live in accordance with that 
 Will ; I returned to the idea that the expression of that 
 Will was to be found in what, in the dim obscurity of the 
 past, the great human unity had fashioned for its own 
 guidance ; in other words, I returned to a belief in God, 
 in moral perfectibility, and in the tradition which gives 
 a meaning to life. The difference was, that formerly I 
 had unconsciously accepted this, whereas now I knew 
 that without it I could not live. 
 
74 CHRISrS CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 The state of mind in which I then was may be likened 
 to the following. It was as if I had suddenly found 
 myself sitting in a boat which had been pushed off from 
 some shore unknown to me, had been shown the direc- 
 tion of the opposite shore, had had oars given me, and 
 had been left alone, I use the oars as best I can and 
 row on ; but the farther I go towards the centre, the 
 stronger becomes the current which carries me out of my 
 course, and the oftener I meet other navigators, like 
 myself, carried away by the stream. There are here 
 and there solitary sailors who row hard, there are others 
 who have thrown down their oars, there are large boats, 
 and enormous ships crowded with men ; some struggle 
 against the stream, others glide on with it. The farther 
 I get, the more, as I watch the long line floating down 
 the current, I forget the course pointed out to me as my 
 own. In the very middle of the stream, beset by the 
 crowd of boats and vessels, and carried like them along, 
 I forget altogether in what direction I started, and 
 abandon my oars. From all sides the joyful and exult- 
 ing navigators, as they row, or sail down stream, with 
 one voice cry out to me that there can be no other 
 direction. I believe them, and let myself go with them, 
 I am carried far, so far that I hear the roar of the rapids 
 in which I must perish, and I already see boats that have 
 been broken up within them. Then I come to myself 
 It is long before I clearly comprehend what has happened, 
 I see before me nothing but destruction, I am hurrying 
 towards it ; what, then, must I do ? On looking back, 
 however, I perceive a countless multitude of boats 
 engaged in a ceaseless struggle against the force of the 
 
J/OIV I CAME TO BELIEVE. 75 
 
 torrent, and then I remember all about the shore, the 
 oars, and the course, and at once I begin to row hard up 
 the stream and again towards the shore. 
 
 The shore is God, the course tradition, the oars are 
 the free-will given me to make for the shore, to seek 
 union with the Deity. And thus the vital force was 
 renewed in me, and I began again to live. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 I RENOUNCED the life of my own class, for I had come 
 to confess that it was not a real life, only the semblance 
 of one, that its superfluous luxury prevented the pos- 
 sibility of understanding life, and that in order to do so 
 I must know, not an exceptional parasitic life, but the 
 simple life of the working classes, the life which fashions 
 that of the world, and gives it the meaning which the work- 
 ing classes accept. The simple labouring men around me 
 were the Russian people, and I turned to this people and 
 to the meaning which it gives to life. 
 
 This meaning may, perhaps, be expressed as follows. 
 
 We have all of us come on earth by the will of God, 
 and God has so created man that each of us is able to 
 ruin or to save his soul. The problem of man's life 
 being to save his soul, he must live after God's word ; 
 to live after God's word, he must renounce all the 
 pleasures of life, labour, be humble, endure, and be 
 charitable to all men. This to the people is the mean- 
 ing of the whole system of f?iith, as it has come down to 
 them through, and is now given them by, the pastors of 
 
7б CHRIST'S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 their Church and the traditions which exist among 
 them. 
 
 This meaning was clear to me, and dear to my 
 heart. This popular faith, howev-er, among the non- . 
 sectarian communities in which I moved, was inex- 
 tricably bound up with something else so incapable 
 of being explained that it repelled me. I mean the 
 sacraments of the Church, the fasts, and the bowing 
 before relics and images. The people were unable to 
 separate these things, and no more could I. Though 
 many things belonging to the faith of the people ap- 
 peared strange to me, I accepted everything, I attended 
 the Church services, prayed morning and evening, fasted, 
 prepared for the communion ; and while doing all this, 
 for the first time felt that my reason found nothing to 
 object to. What had formerly seemed to me impossible, 
 now roused not the slightest opposition in me. 
 
 The position which I occupied with relation to ques- 
 tions of faith had become quite different to what it once 
 was. Formerly life itself had seemed to me full of 
 meaning, and faith an arbitrary assertion of certain 
 useless and unreasonable propositions which had no 
 direct bearing on life. I had tried to find out their 
 meaning ; and once convinced they had none, had thrown 
 them aside. Now, on the contrary, I knew for certain 
 that my life had not, and could not have, any meaning, 
 and that the propositions of faith, not only appeared no 
 longer useless to me, but had been shown, beyond dis- 
 pute by my own experience, to be that which alone gave 
 a meaning to life. Formerly I looked upon them as a 
 worthless, illegible scrawl ; now I did not understand 
 
HOW I CAME TO BELIEVE. 7 у 
 
 them, but knew that they had a meaning, and resolved 
 to find it out 
 
 I reasoned thus : Faith springs, like man and his 
 reason, from the mysterious first cause. That cause is 
 God, in whom begin the body and the mind of man. 
 As my body proceeded through successive gradations 
 from God to me, so have my reason and my conception 
 of Hfe proceeded from Him, and consequently the steps 
 of this process of development cannot be false. All that 
 men sincerely believe in must be true ; it may be 
 differently expressed, but it cannot be a lie, and con- 
 sequently, if it seem to me a lie, that must be because I 
 do not understand it. 
 
 Again, I said to myself: The true office of faith is 
 to give a meaning to life which death cannot destroy. 
 It is only natural that, for faith to give an answer 
 to the question of the king dying amid every luxury, 
 of the old and labour-worn slave, of the unthinking 
 child, of the aged sage, of the half-witted old woman, 
 of the happy girl full of the strong passions of youth, 
 of all of both sexes under all possible differences of 
 position and education, it is only natural that, if there 
 be but one answer to the one eternally repeated question 
 — " Why do I live, and what will come of my life .'' " — 
 the answer, though one and the same in reality, should 
 be infinitely varied in its form ; that in exact proportion to 
 its unvarying unity, to its truth, and its depth, it should 
 appear strange, and even monstrous, in the attempts to 
 find due expression which arc owing to the bringing up 
 and the social state of each individual answerer. But 
 this reasoning, which justified the oddities of the ritual 
 
yZ CHRISrS CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 side of faith, was insufficient to make me feel that I had 
 a right, in a matter like faith, now become the one busi- 
 ness of my life, to take part in acts of which I still am 
 doubtful. I ardently desired to be one with the people, 
 and conform to the rites which they practised, but I 
 could not do it. I felt that I should lie to myself, and 
 mock what I held most sacred, if I did this thing. At 
 this point our new Russian theologians came to my 
 assistance. 
 
 According to the explanation of these divines, the 
 fundamental dogma of faith is the infallibility of the 
 Church. From the acceptance of this dogma follows, as 
 a necessary consequence, the truth of all that is taught 
 by the Church. The Church, as the assembly of believers 
 united in love, and consequently possessing true know- 
 ledge, becomes the foundation of my faith. I argued 
 that the truth which is in God cannot be attained by 
 any one man, it can only be reached by the union of all 
 men through love. In order to attain the truth, we 
 must not go each his own way ; and to avoid division, 
 we must have love one to the other, and bear with things 
 which we do not agree with. Truth is revealed in love, 
 and therefore, if we do not obey the ordinances of the 
 Church, we destroy love, and make it impossible for us 
 to know truth. 
 
 At the time I did not perceive the sophism involved 
 in this reasoning. I did not then sec that union through 
 love may develop love to the highest degree, but can 
 never give the truth that comes from God, as stated 
 in the words of the Nicene Creed, that love can never 
 make any particular form of creed binding on all 
 
HOW I CAME TO BELIEVE. 'JC) 
 
 believers. I did not then see error in this reasoning, 
 and, thanks to it, I was able to accept and practise 
 all the rites of the Orthodox Church, but without 
 understanding the greater part of them. I struggled 
 earnestly to set aside all reasoning, all contradictions, 
 and endeavoured to explain as reasonably as I could all 
 the doctrines of the Church which presented any 
 difficulty. 
 
 While thus fulfilling the ordinances of the Church, I 
 submitted my reason to the tradition adopted by the 
 mass of my fellow-men. I united myself to my ancestors, 
 to my beloved father, mother, and grandparents. They, 
 and all before them, lived, and believed, and brought me 
 into being. I joined the millions of the people whom I 
 loved. Moreover, there was nothing bad in all this, for 
 bad with me meant the indulgence of the lusts of the 
 flesh. When I got up early to attend divine service, I 
 knew that I did well, were it only because, for the sake 
 of a closer union with my ancestors and contemporaries, 
 I tamed my intellectual pride, and, in order to seek for a 
 meaning in life, sacrificed my bodily comfort. It was 
 the same with preparing for the communion, the daily 
 reading of prayers, the bowing to the ground, and the 
 observance of all the fasts. However insignificant the 
 sacrifices were, they were made in a good cause. I 
 prepared for the communion, fasted, and observed regular 
 hours for prayer both at home and at church. While 
 listening to the Church service, I weighed every word, 
 and gave it a meaning whenever I could. At mass the 
 words which appeared to mc to have most importance 
 were the following : " Let us love one another in unity." 
 
80 CHRISrS CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 What follows — the confession of belief in the Father, 
 the Son, and the Holy Ghost — I passed over, because 
 I could not understand it. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 It was so necessary for me at that time to believe in 
 order to live, that I unconsciously concealed from myself 
 the contradictions and the obscurities in the commonly 
 received doctrines. 
 
 This interpretation of the sense of the ritual had, 
 however, its limits. Though the leading points of the 
 Liturgy became clearer and clearer to me ; though I 
 gave a kind of meaning to such expressions as " Re- 
 membering our Sovereign Lady, the most Holy Mother 
 of God, and all the Saints, let us devote ourselves, 
 each other, and our whole lives to the Christ God ; " 
 though I explained the frequent repetition of prayers 
 for the Emperor and his family by the fact that they 
 were more exposed to temptation than others, and 
 were therefore more in need of prayer, and the prayers 
 for victory over our enemies and opponents to mean 
 victory over the principle of evil, nevertheless the hymn 
 of the Cherubim, the preparation of the bread and wine, 
 the adoration of the Virgin — in short, two-thirds of the 
 whole service — either remained for me without an ex- 
 planation at all, or made mc feel that the only one I 
 could apply to them was false, while to lie was to break 
 off my connection with God, and lose utterly the 
 possibility of believing. 
 
HOJV I CAME TO BELIEVE. 8 1 
 
 I felt the same at the celebration of the principal 
 Church holidays. I could understand the seventh day 
 the consecration of a day to communion with God, The 
 great holiday, however, was in remembrance of the 
 Resurrection, the reality of which I could neither imagine 
 nor understand. It was this which gave a name to the 
 holiday in each week, to the Sunday, to the day on 
 which the sacrament of the Eucharist was given, a 
 mystery which to me was utterly inconceivable. The 
 other twelve holidays, with the exception of Christmas, 
 were all in remembrance of miracles, which I tried not 
 to think of in order not to deny : the Ascension, Pente- 
 cost, Epiphany, the Intercession of the Virgin, and so 
 on. On the'^qholidays I felt that the greatest impor- 
 tance was given to what I believed to be of the least, 
 and I either held fast to the explanation which quieted 
 me most, or else shut my eyes so as not to see what 
 disquieted me. 
 
 This feeling came upon me strongest whenever I took 
 part in the most ordinary, and generally considered the 
 most important sacraments, as christening and the Holy 
 Communion. Here I had to do with nothing difficult, 
 but with what was easy to be understood : such acts 
 appeared to me a delusion, and I was on the horns of a 
 dilemma — to lie, or to reject. 
 
 I shall never forget the painful feeling I experienced 
 when I took the communion for the first time after many 
 years. The service, the confession, the prayers, all this 
 was understood by me, and produced the glad conviction 
 that the meaning of life lay open to me. The com- 
 munion I explained to myself as an action done in 
 
 G 
 
82 C//J^/SrS CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 remembrance of Christ, and as signifying a cleansing 
 from sin and a complete acceptance of Christ's teaching. 
 If this explanation was an artificial one, I at least did 
 not perceive it. It was such happiness for me to humble 
 myself with a quiet heart before the priest, a simple and 
 mild old man, and repenting of my sins, to lay bare all 
 the past troubles of my soul ; it was such happiness to 
 be united in spirit Avith the meek Fathers of the Church 
 who composed these prayers ; such happiness to be one 
 with all who have believed and who do believe, that I 
 could not feel my explanation was an artificial one. But 
 when I drew near to the altar, and the priest called upon 
 me to repeat that I believed that what I was about to 
 swallow was the real body and blood, I felt a sharp pain 
 at the heart ; it was no unconsidered word, it was the 
 hard demand of one who could never have known what 
 faith was. 
 
 I now allow myself to say that it was a hard demand, 
 but then I did not think so ; it was only exquisitely 
 painful. I no longer thought, as I had done in my 
 youth, that all was clear in life ; I had been drawn 
 towards faith because outside it I had found nothing but 
 ruin, and as therefore I could not throw faith aside, I 
 had believed and submitted. I had found in my heart a 
 feeling of humility and meekness which had helped me 
 to do this. I humbled myself again, I swallowed the 
 blood and the body without any mocking thoughts in 
 the wish to believe, but the shock had been given, and 
 knowing what awaited me another time, I could never 
 go again. 
 
 I still continued an exact observance of the rites of 
 
/lOJy I CAME TO BELIEVE. 83 
 
 the Church, and I still believed that the doctrines I 
 followed were true ; and then there happened to mc a 
 thing which now is clear enough, but which then appeared 
 to me very strange. 
 
 I once listened to the discourse of an unlettered 
 peasant pilgrim. He spoke of God, of faith, of life, and 
 of salvation, and a knowledge of what faith was seemed 
 opened to me. 
 
 I went amongst the people, familiarizing myself with 
 their ideas of life and faith, and the truth became 
 clearer and clearer to me. It was the same when I 
 read the " Martyrology " and the " Prologues ; " they 
 became my favourite books. With the exception of the 
 miracles, and looking upon these as fables to bring out 
 forcibly the thought, the reading of these books revealed 
 to me the meaning of life. There I found the lives of 
 Macarius the Great ; of Tosaph the Prince (the story of 
 Buddha) ; the discourses of St. Chrysostom ; the story 
 of the traveller in the well ; of the Monk who found 
 gold ; of Peter the Publican ; — this is the history of the 
 martyrs, of those who have all testified the same, that 
 life does not end with death ; here we have the story 
 of unlettered foolish men, who knew nothing of the 
 doctrines of the Church. 
 
 But no sooner did I mix with learned believers, or 
 consult their books, than doubts, uneasiness, and the 
 bitterness of dispute came over me, and I felt that the 
 more I studied their discourses the more I wandered 
 from the truth, the nearer I came to the precipice. 
 
84 CHRIST'S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 XV. 
 
 How often have I not envied the peasant, unable to 
 read or write, his lack of learning. The very doctrines 
 of faith which to me were nonsense, contained for him 
 nothing that was false ; he was able to accept them and 
 to believe in truth, the same truth in which I believed ; 
 while to me, unhappy one, it was clear that truth was 
 connected with falsehood by the finest threads of differ- 
 ence, and that I could not receive it in such a form. 
 
 In this condition I lived for three years, and when 
 I first, like a new convert, little by little drew nearer to 
 truth, and, led by an instinct, groped my way to the 
 light, these obstacles seemed to me less formidable. 
 When I failed to understand anything, I said, " I am 
 wrong, I am wicked." But the more I became imbued 
 with the spirit of the truths which I studied, the more 
 surely I saw them to be the substratum of life, the 
 greater and more formidable became the obstacles, the 
 more clearly defined the line which I was unable to 
 understand, and of which I could only seek an explana- 
 tion through lying unto myself. 
 
 Notwithstanding all my doubts and sufferings, I still 
 remained in the Orthodox Church ; but practical ques- 
 tions arose which required immediate decision, and the 
 decisions of the Church, contrary to the elementary 
 principles of the faith by which I lived, compelled me 
 finally to abandon all communion with it. 
 
 The questions were, in the first place, the relation of 
 the Orthodox Church to other Churches, to Catholicism 
 
I/OIV I CAME TO BELIEVE. 85 
 
 and the so-called Sectaries. The interest which I took 
 in this great question of faith led me at this time to 
 form acquaintance with the professors of different creeds, 
 Catholics, Protestants, Old Believers, New Dissenters, 
 and others, and among them I found many who sincerely 
 believed and obeyed the highest moral standard. I 
 desired to be a brother to these men, and what came of 
 it ? The doctrines which had seemed to promise me 
 the union of all men in faith and love, in the persons 
 of their best representatives, showed themselves but 
 capable of educating men in a lie ; resulted but in this, 
 that what gives them strength to live is a temptation of 
 the devil, the belief that they alone possess the possibility 
 of knowing truth. 
 
 And I saw that the members of the Orthodox 
 Church consider all those who do not profess the same 
 faith as themselves to be heretics, exactly as Catholics 
 and others account our Orthodoxy to be heresy ; I saw 
 that all consider others who do not adopt the same 
 outward symbols and the same formulas of faith as 
 themselves as their enemies. The Orthodox Church 
 does this, though she tries to conceal it ; and it must 
 be so, in the first place, because the assertion that you 
 live a lie and I am in the truth is the hardest thing 
 that one man can say to another ; in the second place, 
 because a man who loves his children and his relations 
 cannot but feel at enmity with those who desire to 
 convert them to another faith. Moreover, this enmity 
 increases as men learn more of the particular doctrines 
 which they adopt. Thus I, who had believed faith was 
 to be found in the union of love, was unwillingly forced 
 
86 CHRISTS CHRISTIAN4TY. 
 
 to see that the doctrines of faith destroy the very thing 
 which they should produce. 
 
 This snare is so evident, to men hving Hke ourselves 
 in countries where differing faiths are professed, and 
 witnessing the contempt and self-confidence with which 
 the Catholic absolutely rejects Protestantism and Ortho- 
 doxy, repaid by the scorn of the Orthodox for the Catholic 
 and the Protestant, and that of the latter for both the 
 others, while the same relation of enmity includes the 
 Old Believers, the Revivalists, the Shakers, and all other 
 creeds, that at first it perplexes us. 
 
 We say to ourselves, " No, it cannot be so simple as 
 that, and yet these men have not seen, that when two 
 propositions flatly contradict each other the truth on 
 Avhich faith should rest is in neither. There must be 
 some cause for this, there must be some explanation." 
 I myself thought there was, and sought for it. I read 
 everything I could get on the subject, and consulted 
 with as many as I could, but the only explanation I 
 obtained was that of the hussar, who accounts his 
 regiment the first in the world, while his friend the 
 lancer says the same of his own. The clergy of all 
 religions, the best among them, all told me of their belief 
 that they alone were right and all others wrong, and 
 that all they could do for those who were in error was 
 to pray for them. I went to the Archimandrites, the 
 Archprelates, the Priors, and the Monks, and asked 
 them, but no one made the slightest attempt to explain 
 this snare to me but one, and his explanation was such 
 that I put no more questions to any one. 
 
 I said that, for every unbeliever who returns to belief 
 
I/O IV I CAME 70 BELIEVE. 8/ 
 
 (in which category I place the whole of the present 
 young generation) the principal question is, Why is 
 truth to be found in the Orthodox Church and not in 
 the Lutheran nor the Catholic one? He is taught in his 
 gymnasium, and he cannot but know, what the peasant 
 is ignorant of, that Protestants and Catholics equally 
 affirm their own faith to be the only true one. Historical 
 proofs, twisted by each party to serve their own purpose, 
 are insufficient. 
 
 Is it not possible, as I have already said, for a 
 higher knowledge to issue from the disappearance of 
 these differences, as they do already disappear for those 
 who sincerely believe? Can we not go farther on our 
 way to meet the Old Believers ? They affirm that our 
 way of signing the cross, of singing hallelujah, and of 
 moving round the altar, is not the same as theirs. We 
 say, " You believe in the Nicene Creed, in all the 
 sacraments, and we also believe." Let us add, " Keep 
 to that, and for the rest do as you will." We shall then 
 be united to them by this, that we both place the 
 essential points of faith above the unessential. Again, 
 can we not say to Catholics, " You believe in certain 
 things which are essential, and for what concerns the 
 dispute about the procession of the Trinity and the Pope, 
 do as you please " ? Can we not say the same to the 
 Protestant, and unite with him in what is really im- 
 portant ? My fellow-disputant agreed with me, but 
 added that such concessions draw down the reproach 
 that the clergy have receded from the faith of their 
 forefathers and favour dissent, while the office of those 
 in authority in the Church is to preserve the purity of 
 
88 CHRISrS CHRISTIA.\4TY. 
 
 the Russian Greek Orthodox faith as handed down from 
 our ancestors. 
 
 Then I understood it all. I am in search of faith, 
 the staff and strength of life, while these men seek the 
 best means of fulfilling in the sight of men certain 
 human obligations, and having to deal with earthly 
 affairs they fulfil them as ordinary men ever do. 
 However much they may talk of their pity for the errors 
 of their brethren, of praying for them at the throne of 
 the Most High, for earthly affairs force is needed, and 
 force always has been, is, and will be applied. If two 
 religious sects each believe that truth resides in them- 
 selves, and that the faith of the other is a lie, they will 
 preach their doctrines in the hope of converting their 
 brethren to the truth, and, if false doctrines are taught 
 to the inexperienced sons of the Church who still tread 
 in the ways of truth, she cannot but burn the books and 
 banish the men who seduce her sons. What can be 
 done with the Sectaries who, in their enthusiasm for a 
 faith which the Church pronounces false, seduce her 
 sons .'' What can be done with them, but to cut off 
 their heads or imprison them ? In the time of Alexis 
 Michaelovitch men were burnt at the stake ; in other 
 words, the severest punishment of the time was applied, 
 and in our days also the severest punishment is applied, 
 men are condemned to solitary confinement. When I 
 looked around me at all that was done in the name of 
 religion, I was horrified, and almost entirely withdrew 
 from the Orthodox Church. 
 
 The second point which concerned the relations of 
 the Church to the problems of life was her connection 
 
HOW I CAME TO BELIEVE. 89 
 
 with war and executions. It was the time of the war in 
 Russia. Russians slew their brethren in the name of 
 Christian love. Not to think of this was impossible. 
 Not to see that murder is an evil, contrary to the very 
 first principles of every faith, was impossible. In the 
 churches, however, men prayed for the success of our 
 arms, and the teachers of religion accepted these mur- 
 ders as acts which were the consequence of faith. Not 
 only murder in actual warfare was approved, but, during 
 the troubles which ensued, the authorities of the Church, 
 her teachers, monks, and ascetics, approved the murder 
 of erring and helpless youths. I looked round on all 
 that was done by men who professed to be Christians, 
 and I was horrified. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 I CEASED from this time to doubt, and became firmly 
 convinced that all was not truth in the faith which I had 
 joined. Formerly I should have said that all in this 
 faith was false, but now it was impossible to say so. 
 
 That the men of the people had a knowledge of 
 truth was incontestable, for otherwise they could not live. 
 Moreover, this knowledge of truth was open to me ; I 
 already lived by it, and felt all its force, but in that same 
 knowledge there was also error. Of that again I could 
 not doubt. All, however, that had formerly repelled me 
 now presented itself in a vivid light. Although I saw 
 that there was less of what had repelled me as false 
 among the people than among the representatives of the 
 
90 CHRISTS CHRISTIA.XITY. 
 
 Church, I also saw that in the belief of the people what 
 was false was mingled with what was true. 
 
 Whence, then, came this truth and this falsehood ? 
 Both the falsehood and the truth came to them from 
 what is called the Church ; both are included in the 
 so-called sacred traditions and writings. I was thus, 
 whether I would or not, brought to the study and 
 analysis of these writings and traditions, a study which, 
 up to that time, I had feared, and I turned to the 
 study of theology, which I had once thrown aside with 
 contempt as useless. Then theology had seemed to 
 me but profitless trifling with nonsense, for I was sur- 
 rounded by the phenomena of life, and I thought them 
 clear and full of meaning ; now I should have been 
 glad to throw off ideas unsuited to a healthy state of 
 mind, but I could not. 
 
 On this doctrinal basis was founded, or at least with 
 it was very intimately bound up, the only explanation 
 of the meaning of the life I had so lately discovered. 
 Hou-ever strange it might seem to my worn but prac- 
 tised intellect, it was the only hope of salvation. To 
 be understood, it must be cautiously and carefully 
 examined, even though the result might not be the 
 certain knowledge of science, which, aware as I was 
 of the special character of religious inquiry, I did not, 
 and could not seek to obtain. 
 
 I would not attempt to explain everything. I knew 
 that the explanation of the whole, like the beginning 
 f)f all things, was hidden in infinity. I wished to be 
 brought to the inevitable limit where the incompre- 
 hensible begins ; I wished that what remained uncom- 
 
I/OIV I CAME TO BELIEVE. gi 
 
 prehended should be so, not because the mental impulse 
 to inquiry was not just and natural (all such impulses 
 are, and without them I could understand nothing), but 
 because I had learned the limits of my own mind. I 
 wished to understand so that every unexplained pro- 
 position should appear to my reason necessarily unex- 
 plainable, and not an obligatory part of belief I never 
 doubted that the doctrines contained both truth and 
 falsehood, and I was bound to separate the one from 
 the other. I began to do this. What I found of false 
 and of true, and to what results I came, forms the 
 second part of this work, which, if it be thought worth 
 while, and if it can be useful to any one, will probably 
 be some day published. 
 1879. 
 
 The above was written by me three years ago. 
 
 The other day, on looking over this part again, on 
 returning to the succession of ideas and feelings through 
 which I had passed while writing it, I saw a dream. 
 
 This dream repeated for me in a condensed form all 
 that I had lived through and described, and I therefore 
 think that a description of it may, for those who have 
 understood me, serve to render clearer, to refresh the 
 remembrance of, and to collect into one whole, all that 
 has been described at so much length in these pages. 
 The dream was as follows. 
 
 I am lying on my back in bed, and I feel neither 
 particularly well and comfortable, nor the contrary. I 
 begin to think whether it is well for me to lie, and some- 
 thing makes me feel uncomfortable in the legs ; if the 
 
92 CHmsrS CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 bed be too short or ill-made, I know not, but something 
 is not right. I move my legs about, and at the same 
 time begin to think how and on what I am lying, a 
 thing which previously had never troubled me. I ex- 
 amine the bed, and see that I am lying on a network 
 of cords fastened to the sides of the bedstead. My 
 heels lie on one of these cords, my legs on another, 
 and this is uncomfortable. I am somehow aware that 
 the cords can be moved, and Avith my legs I push the 
 cord away, and it seems to me that thus it will be easier. 
 But I had pushed the cord too far ; I try to catch it with 
 my legs, but this movement causes another cord to slip 
 from under me, and my legs hang down. I move my 
 body to get right again, convinced that it will be easy, 
 but this movement causes other cords to slip and change 
 their places beneath me, and I perceive that my position 
 is altogether worse ; my whole body sinks and hangs 
 without my legs touching the ground. I hold myself up 
 only by the upper part of the back, and I feel now not 
 only discomfort, but horror. I now begin to ask myself 
 what I had not thought of before. I ask myself where I 
 am, and on what I am lying. I begin to look round, 
 and first I look below, to the place towards which my 
 body sank, and where I feel it must soon fall. I look 
 below, and I cannot believe my eyes. 
 
 I am on a height far above that of the highest 
 tower or mountain, a height beyond all my previous 
 powers of conception. I cannot even make out whether 
 I see anything or not below me, in the depths of that 
 bottomless abyss over which I am hanging and into 
 which I feel drawn. My heart ceases to beat, and 
 
но IV I CAME TO BELIEVE. 93 
 
 horror fills my mind. To look down is too terrible. 
 I feel that if I look down I shall slip from the last cord 
 and perish. I stop looking, but not to look is still 
 worse, for then I think of what will at once happen to 
 me when the last cord breaks. I feel that I am losing 
 in my terror the last remnant of my strength, and that 
 my back is gradually sinking lower and lower. Another 
 instant, and I shall fall. 
 
 Then all at once came into my mind the thought 
 that it could not be true, that it was a dream ; I will 
 awake. I strive to wake myself and cannot. " What 
 can I do ? " I ask myself, and as I put the question I 
 look above. 
 
 Above stretches another gulf. I look into this, and 
 try to forget the abyss below, and I do forget. The 
 infinite depth repels and horrifies me ; the infinite height 
 attracts and satisfies me. I still hang on the last cords 
 which have not yet slipped from under me over the 
 precipice ; I know that I am hanging thus, but I look 
 only upwards, and my fear leaves me. As happens in 
 dreams, I hear a voice saying, " Look well ; it is there ! " 
 I pierce farther and farther into the infinity above, and 
 I feel that it calms me. I remember all that has 
 happened — how I moved ray legs, how I was left 
 hanging in air, how I was terrified, and how I was 
 saved from my fears by looking above. I ask my- 
 self, " And now, am I not hanging still ? " and I feel 
 in all my limbs, without looking, the support by which 
 I am held. I perceive that I no longer hang nor fall, 
 but have a fast hold. I question myself how it is that 
 I hold on. I touch myself, I look around, and I sec 
 
94 CHRISl'S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 that under the middle of my body there passes a stay, 
 and on looking up I find that I am lying perfectly 
 balanced, and that it was this stay alone that held me 
 up before. As it happens in dreams, the mechanism 
 by which I am supported appears perfectly natural 
 to me, a thing to be easily understood, and not to 
 be doubted, although this mechanism has no apparent 
 sense when I am awake. In my sleep I was even 
 astonished that I had not understood this before. At 
 my bedside stands a pillar, the solidity of which is be- 
 yond doubt, though there is nothing for it to stand 
 upon. From this pillar runs a cord, somehow cun- 
 ningly and simply fixed, and if I lie across this cord 
 and look upwards, there cannot be even a question of 
 my falling. All this was clear to me, and I was glad 
 and easy in my mind.. It seemed as if some one said 
 to me, " See that you remember I " And I awoke, 
 1882. Leo Tolstoi. 
 
PART П. 
 WHAT I BELIEVE. 
 
WHAT I BELIEVE. 
 
 When I reached the age of fifty-five years, with the 
 exception of the fourteen or fifteen years of childhood, I 
 had been for thirty-five years a NihiHst in the true sense 
 of that word, that is to say, not a sociaHsl- or a revolu- 
 tionist, as it is generally understood, but a Nihilist in 
 the sense that I had no religious belief 
 
 Five years ago I began to believe in the teaching of 
 Christ, and my life was suddenly changed. I ceased to 
 care for that which I had previously desired, and began 
 to long for what I had once not cared for. What had 
 formerly seemed to me good, seemed bad, and what had 
 seemed bad, seemed good. It happened to me as it 
 might happen to a man, who, having left his home on 
 business, should suddenly find the business to be un- 
 necessary, and go home again. All that stood to his 
 right now stands to his left ; all that was to the left is 
 now to the right. His former wish to be as far from 
 home as possible, has changed into the wish to be near 
 it. The tendency of my life and all my desires became 
 different : good and evil changed places. All this came 
 from my understanding the teaching of Christ otherwise 
 than I had formerly understood it. 
 
 I do not wish to be taken as an interpreter of Christ's 
 
 И 
 
98 CHRISrS CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 teaching ; I only wish to relate how I have come to 
 understand what is simplest in that teaching, Avhat is 
 clearest, most comprehensible, surest, and of most 
 universal application, and how this understanding has 
 affected the foundations of my mind, and given me quiet 
 and happiness. 
 
 I do not wish to explain the teaching of Christ ; but 
 desire only to deprecate special explanation of any kind. 
 
 All Christian Churches have always accepted that all 
 men, unequal in learning and intellect, the wise and the 
 foolish, arc equal before God ; that God's truth is attain- 
 able by one and all. Christ has said even, that it is 
 God's will to make clear to the foolish what is hidden 
 from the wise. 
 
 Into the deep mysteries of dogmatic, patristic, 
 liturgic, apologetic, and other similar writings few can 
 be initiated ; but all can and ought to understand what 
 Christ has spoken to all the millions of the simple and 
 the unwise who have lived and are living on the earth. 
 Just this, which Christ spoke to all the simple folk who 
 never had an opportunity of asking for an explanation 
 of his teaching from a Paul, a Clement, or a Chrysostom 
 — ^just this I once did not understand, and now, having 
 understood, just this I wish to tell to all. 
 
 The thief on the cross believed and was saved. 
 Would it, indeed, have been a bad thing, a thing hurtful 
 to any one, had the thief not died on the cross, but 
 descended from it and related how he believed in Christ } 
 
 I too, like the thief on the cross, believed the teaching 
 of Christ and was saved. And this is no far-fetched 
 comparison, but the most exact representation of that 
 
WHAT I BELIEVE. 
 
 99 
 
 mental state of despair and horror at the problem of life 
 and death in which I once found myself, of that condition 
 of peace and happiness in which I live now. 
 
 I, like the thief, knew that I had lived and was 
 living ill, that the majority of men around me led the 
 same life. I also, like the thief, knew that I was unhappy 
 and suffering, and that around me others were also un- 
 happy and suffering ; and I saw no issue but death alone. 
 I also, like the thief, was nailed by some force or other to 
 a cross — to an evil and suffering life. And, as the terrible 
 darkness of death after the countless agonies and ills 
 of life awaited the thief, so the same awaited me. In all 
 this I was exactly like the thief: the difference between 
 myself and him was this, that he was dying and I was 
 still alive. The thief could believe that his salvation 
 Avas there, beyond the grave ; but I could not be satisfied 
 with that, because, besides the life beyond the grave, 
 there was yet before me a life here. I did not com- 
 prehend that life ; it seemed to me terrible. Then 
 suddenly I heard the words of Christ ; I understood 
 them ; and life and death ceased to appear evil to me. 
 Instead of despair I felt the joy and happiness of life, 
 never to be destroyed by death. 
 
 Surely it can harm no one if I relate how this 
 happened with me. 
 
lOO ClimsrS CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 My former misapprehension of the teaching of Christ, 
 how and whence the knowledge came to me, I have ex- 
 plained in two long works — a criticism of dogmatic 
 theology, and a new translation and harmony of the 
 Four Gospels, In these two works I have endeavoured 
 systematically and step by step to examine everything 
 that may hide the truth from men, and verse by verse to 
 translate, compare, and incorporate the Four Narratives. 
 
 For six years this has been my луогк. Every year, 
 every month, I find more, and again more doubts made 
 clear, fresh confirmations of the fundamental idea, I 
 correct the faults which have arisen from haste or over- 
 eagerness, and revise what has been already done. My 
 life, of which there cannot be much left, will probably be 
 ended before my work ; but that work I am c(л^vinced 
 is wanted, and while life remains, I shall do what I can. 
 
 So much for my material labour on the theology of 
 the Gospels. But my internal, spiritual labour, of which 
 I wish to speak here, has been different. It has been no 
 systematic investigation of the theology and the text of 
 the Gospels. 
 
 It has been to me the instantaneous removal of all 
 misconception and obstruction, the instantaneous lustre 
 of the divine light of truth. I was as a man ^\■ho, from 
 an incorrect drawing, strives to puzzle out the meaning 
 of a confused heap of marble fragments, when some 
 larger piece suddenly reveals the fact that the statue 
 differs totally from what he had anticipated, and then 
 
IVJIAT I BELIEVE. 10 1 
 
 reuniting the fragments, he sees, as piece by piece the 
 parts grow to a whole, the gradual confirmation of his 
 Idea. This is what happened to me : this is what I 
 wish to tell. 
 
 I wish to tell how I found that key to the under- 
 standing of Christ's teaching, which revealed the truth 
 to me ^\'ith a clearness and persuasiveness excluding all 
 possibility of doubt. 
 
 The discovery came about in this wise : From the 
 time when almost in childhood, I began to read the 
 Gospel for myself, what touched and affected me most 
 in it, were those passages in which Christ preached of 
 love, humility, self-abasement, self-sacrifice, and the re- 
 payment of evil by good. This has always been for 
 me the substance of Christianity ; that which my heart 
 loved in it, in the name of which I, after despair 
 and unbelief, accepted the idea of life adopted by a 
 Christian and laborious people, in the name of which I 
 submitted myself to the faith professed by that people, 
 the faith of the Orthodox Church. But still, after sub- 
 mitting to the Church, I soon perceived that I could not 
 find in her teaching a confirmation of those principles of 
 Christianity which I believe to be the most important ; 
 I perceived that what to me was dear as the very sub- 
 stance of Christianity did not in fact form the substance 
 of her teaching. I perceived that what seemed to me of 
 most importance in the teaching of Christ Avas not so 
 recognized by the Church. She recognizes another 
 principle as the all important. At first I was not 
 inclined to regard this difference as of vital significance. 
 " Well, what then ? " thought I. " The Church, besides 
 
102 CHRIST^ iCflRISTIANITY. 
 
 the ideas of love, humility, and self-sacrifice, accepts a 
 dogmatic and external sense. This last is foreign to 
 me, it is even repellent, but there is no harm in it." 
 
 But the longer I lived in obedience to the teaching 
 of the Church, the more clear it became to me that this 
 discrepancy was not so unimportant as I had at first 
 thought it. The Church repelled me by the strangeness 
 of her dogmas, by her acceptance and approval of perse- 
 cutions, executions, and war ; and by the disputes of 
 conflicting creeds. But my belief in the Church Avas 
 chiefly undermined by her indifference to what seemed 
 to me the very substance of Christ's teaching ; and, on 
 the other hand, by her partiality for what I considered 
 to be unimportant in it. I felt that something was 
 wrong here, but Avhat I could not tell. And this 
 increased my difficulties, that the Church not only did 
 not deny what seemed to me most important in Christ's 
 teaching, but distinctly recognized it, yet in such a way 
 that it no longer occupied the first place. I could not 
 reproach the Church with denying what was essential, 
 but she had so accepted it as to make it unsatisfying to 
 me. She had not given me what I had expected from 
 her. 
 
 I had passed from Nihilism to the Church only 
 because I recognized the impossibility of living without 
 belief, without the knowledge of good and evil apart 
 from my own animal instincts. This knowledge I 
 believed I could find in Christianity, but Christianity, as 
 it then showed itself to me, was merely a certain 
 tendency, excessively undeterminatc, from which pro- 
 ceeded no clear and oblifratorv rules of conduct. For 
 
IVIIAT I BELIEVE. IO3 
 
 these rules I turned to the Church. But the Church 
 gave me rules which brought me no nearer to the 
 Christianity T desired ; nay, rather tended to keep me 
 from it. I could not, then, go with the Church. To me 
 both dear and needful was a life based upon Christian 
 truths ; but the Church gave me rules of conduct 
 altogether apart from these truths. Her rules for faith 
 with respect to dogmas, for the observance of the sacra- 
 ments, for fasts and prayers, were not needed by me ; 
 and of rules based on Christian truths there луеге none. 
 
 Nay, her rules even weakened, and sometimes quite 
 destroyed, that Christian state of feeling, which alone 
 gave a meaning to my life. And this disturbed me 
 most, that all the ills of humanity — the condemnation of 
 individuals, of nations, and of other creeds, and the 
 results of such condemnation, executions, wars, and so 
 forth, — all these things were approved by the Church. 
 The essence of Christ's teaching — humility, forbearance, 
 forgiveness of injuries, self-sacrifice, love, — all these were 
 verbally exalted by the Church, and, at the same time, 
 all that was incompatible with them was approved in 
 practice. 
 
 Was, then, Christ's teaching of such a kind that these 
 contradictions were bound to exist ? I could not believe 
 it. Moreover, it had always struck me as an astonishing 
 fact that, so far as I was acquainted with the Gospel, 
 the passages on which definite dogmatic theories were 
 founded were the most obscure, while those which 
 defined the practical application of Christ's doctrine, 
 were the clearest and the most categorical. Meanwhile 
 the dogmas, and a Christian's obligation to them, were 
 
104 CIIRISrS CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 defined by the Church in the clearest and most precise 
 manner, while regarding the practical application of 
 Christ's teaching, all was allegorical, vague, and in- 
 determinate. Was this the way Christ wished his preach- 
 ing to be interpreted ? 
 
 The answer to my doubts Avas to be found only 
 in the Gospels. I read and re-read them. Of the 
 whole Gospel scheme one thing had always stood 
 out for me in stronger relief than any other, the 
 Sermon on the Mount. And this it was that I read 
 oftener than anything else. In no other place does 
 Christ speak with such solemnity ; nowhere else does 
 he enunciate so many moral, clear, and comprehensible 
 rules, appealing so straight to the heart of every man ; 
 nowhere else does he speak to a greater or more various 
 mass of simple folk. If there be any clear and definite 
 rules of Christian conduct, here it is that they must 
 be found. In these three chapters, then, of Matthew 
 I sought the solution of my doubts. 
 
 Many and many a time did I read that Sermon, 
 and each time with the same feeling of rapture and 
 tender emotion as I dwelt on those verses which bid 
 one to turn the left cheek to him who had smitten the 
 right, to give up even our shirts to the spoiler, to be 
 reconciled v/ith all men, and to love our enemies ; but 
 also as I read came the old feeling of dissatisfaction. 
 The words of God were not clear. An impossible 
 renunciation of everything, even of life itself, as I con- 
 ceived it, was ordained ; and this, it seemed to me, could 
 not be the necessary condition of salvation. Again, if 
 this were not the necessary condition of salvation, then 
 
WHAT I BELIEVE. lo$ 
 
 there was nothing that was definite and clear. Nor 
 did I only read the Sermon on the Mount ; I read 
 the Gospels, and the theological ' commentaries upon 
 them. 
 
 In most of these the Sermon on the Mount is ex- 
 plained as indicating the perfection to which man should 
 aspire, while he, poor fallen creature in bondage to sin, 
 is incapable of reaching that perfection, and can be 
 saved only by faith, prayer, and divine grace. But such 
 explanations did not satisfy me. .-.--f r..ti ^' - ''-n 
 
 They did not satisfy me because it had always 
 seemed to me strange that Christ, well knowing the 
 impossibility of his teaching being carried into practice 
 by the unassisted strength of man, should have given 
 such clear and beautiful rules directly applicable to every 
 individual. Whenever I read them, they always seemed 
 to apply directly to myself, and demand of me personally 
 their fulfilment. nvrm /.■ 
 
 Each time I read them, I felt a joyful confidence that 
 I at once, from that very moment, had it in me to do all 
 this. I longed to do it ; I strove to do it ; but, whenever 
 I found the struggle hard, then unwittingly came back 
 to me the teaching of the Church, that man is weak and 
 cannot of his own strength do such things, and my will 
 was weakened. 
 
 I was told to believe and pray. 
 
 I felt, however, that I believed so little, that I could 
 not pray. I was told to pray that God might give me 
 faith, the faith which should create that prayer, which in 
 turn creates the faith, which creates the prayer, and so 
 on without end. 
 
i06 CHRISrS CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 But reason and experience both showed me that 
 these means were insufficient. The only true way, I 
 felt, was to be found in my own efforts to fulfil the 
 teaching of Christ. 
 
 And thus after long and vain seeking, after the 
 study of all that has been written to prove the divinity 
 of this teaching, and its non-divinity, after many doubts 
 and much suffering, I again remained alone with my 
 heart and the book of mystery before me. I could not 
 give to the book the meaning which others did ; I could 
 neither find a sense different from theirs, nor could I 
 renounce the book. Only when I had lost all confidence 
 in the interpretations both of learned critics and of 
 theologians, and had thrown them all aside, in accordance 
 with those words of Christ, " Except yc turn, and become 
 as little children, ye shall in no wise enter into the 
 kingdom of heaven " — only then did I at once under- 
 stand what I had misunderstood before. 
 
 And all was made plain to me, not through any 
 clever and profound transposition, comparison, or inter- 
 pretation ; but by forgetting all interpretations whatever. 
 The passage, which was to me the key that unlocked all, 
 was contained in two verses, the thirty-eighth and thirty- 
 ninth of the fifth chapter of Matthew : * " Ye have heard 
 that it was said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a 
 tooth : but I say unto you. Resist not him f that is evil." 
 I suddenly for the first time understood these words 
 directly and simply, as though I had read them for the 
 
 * All quotations are from the Revised Version. 
 
 t The луогс! used is TTovt]p6s, translated " him that is evil " (margin, 
 "evil"), and in chap, vi, 13, " tlic evil one." 
 
WHAT I BELIEVE. lO/ 
 
 first time. I understood that Christ means what he 
 really does say. And at once, not as if something new 
 had appeared, but as if all that obscured the truth had 
 fallen away, the truth itself arose before me in its full 
 meaning, " Ye have heard that it was said. An eye for 
 an eye, and a tooth for a tooth : but I say unto you. 
 Resist not him that is evil." These words suddenly 
 seemed to me to take new being, as if I had never heard 
 them before. 
 
 Formerly, in reading this passage I had always,, 
 through some strange mental darkness, overlooked the 
 words, " But I say unto you. Resist not him that is evil," 
 as though these words had not been there, or had no 
 definite meaning. 
 
 Often when conversing with men who knew the 
 Gospel well, have I noticed the same mental darkness 
 with respect to these words. No one remembered them, 
 and even professing Christians would often turn to the 
 Gospel to verify their very existence. 
 
 And so I, too, used to overlook these words, and to 
 pay attention only to what follows : " but whosoever 
 smiteth thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other 
 also." And these words had always in my fancy implied 
 an acquiescence in suffering and privation, inconsistent 
 with human nature. The words moved me. I felt that 
 it would be an excellent thing to put them into practice ; 
 but I also felt that I should never have strength to act 
 so, only for the action's sake, for the mere sake of 
 suffering. I said to myself: "Well, so be it ; I will turn 
 the other check — I shall be beaten again ; I will give — 
 all will be taken from me. My life will not be mine. 
 
I08 CHRIST'S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 But life has been given me, why should I lose it ? 
 Christ cannot demand that." 
 
 Thus did I speak to myself once, supposing Christ 
 by these words to exalt suffering and privation, and 
 in thus exalting them to speak with exaggeration, not 
 precisely, or clearly. But now that the true significance 
 of these words, " Resist not evil," is clear to me, I see 
 that Christ exaggerates nothing, that he demands no 
 suffering for suffering's sake, but only very definitely, 
 and very clearly means what indeed he says. He says, 
 " Resist not evil, and in so doing, know well that there 
 may be men, who, having struck you on one cheek 
 without meeting resistance, will strike you on the other ; 
 who, having robbed you of your shirt, Avill strip the coat 
 from your back also ; who, having profited by your 
 labour, will force you to labour again ; who will seize all, 
 and return nothing. And even if it be thus, see that you 
 still resist not evil. To those who beat and injure you, 
 still render good for evil." And when I had understood 
 these words in their simple meaning, all that had been 
 dark grew light, and all that I had thought exaggerated 
 I saw to be exact. Then for the first time I understood 
 that the essence of the idea is to be found in the words, 
 " resist not evil," while all that follows, but explains that 
 commandment. I understood that Christ in no way 
 commands me to turn the other cheek, and to give up 
 my coat, for sheer suffering's sake ; but commands me 
 not to resist evil, and warns me that my obedience may 
 entail suffering. 
 
 Even so a father, when he sends his son on a long 
 journey, does not order him not to sleep by night, nor 
 
WHAT I BELIEVE. IO9 
 
 yet to eat insufficient food, nor to get wet nor cold, 
 when he says, " Go thy way, and if thou hast to 
 suffer from wet and cold, do not the less continue thy 
 way." Christ does not say, Turn your cheek to the 
 smiter, to suffer ; but he does say, In all circumstances, 
 resist not evil ; whatever happen, resist it not. These 
 words, "Resist not evil," or "him that is evil," understood 
 in their literal significance, were to me verily the master- 
 key. I was astonished that I could have so grossly 
 misunderstood words so clear and definite. "You are 
 told, a tooth for a tooth ; but I say, Resist not evil, or 
 him that is evil ; whatever evil be done unto thee ha\^e 
 patience ; let that which is taken from thee freely go." 
 What can be clearer, more comprehensible, more free 
 from doubt, than this ? 
 
 Then with this understanding came also a clear 
 comprehension of all Christ's teaching, not only in the 
 Sermon on the Mount, but throughout the Gospels ; 
 then all that had before seemed obscure became inteU 
 Hgible, all that had seemed contradictory became 
 harmonious, and, above all, what had appeared super- 
 fluous became necessary. All the parts were fused 
 into one whole, and without any possibility of doubt 
 confirmed one another, as the fragments of the broken 
 statue rightly fitted together. In this Sermon, and 
 throughout all the Gospels, I found universal confirma- 
 tion of the teaching, " resist not evil." 
 
 In this sermon, and everywhere else, Christ represents 
 his disciples, that is to say, those who carry out his 
 rule of not resisting evil, as men who turn the other 
 cheek, who give up their garments, as men who arc per- 
 secuted, beaten, and poor. 
 
no CHRIST'S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 Here and everywhere Christ says over and over 
 again, that he who has not taken up his cross, has not 
 renounced all, cannot be his disciple ; no one, that is to 
 say, who is not prepared for all the consequences of 
 obedience to the rule, resist not evil. Christ bids his 
 disciples be poor," and ready, without resisting evil, to 
 undergo persecution, suffering, and death. Without 
 resisting evil he is preparing himself for suffering and 
 death, and drives Peter from his presence for murmuring 
 at the command ; and himself dies reiterating it in un- 
 faltering constancy to his own teaching. 
 
 All his earlier disciples obeyed this rule, spent their 
 lives in poverty and persecution, and never returned evil 
 for evil. 
 
 It follows that Christ meant what indeed he said. It 
 may be affirmed that the constant fulfilment of this rule 
 is difficult, and that not every man will find his happi- 
 ness in obeying it, it may be said that it is foolish, that, 
 as unbelievers pretend, Christ was a visionary, an idealist, 
 whose impracticable rules were only followed through 
 the stupidity of his disciples. But it is impossible not 
 to admit that Christ said very clearly and definitely that 
 which he intended to say, namely, that men according 
 to his teaching should not resist evil, and that therefore 
 he who accepted his teaching could not resist it. Never- 
 theless, neither believers, nor unbelievers, understand 
 these words of Christ in this clear and simple sense. 
 
WHA Т I BELIE VE. Ill 
 
 II. 
 
 When I understood that the words, " resist not evil," 
 mean resist not evil, all my previous ideas of Christ's 
 meaning were suddenly changed, and I was terrified, not 
 so much at my former ignorance of his teaching as at 
 the strange misinterpretation of it which had been mine. 
 I knew, we all know, that the essence of Christianity is 
 love. To say, turn the other cheek to the smiter, love 
 your enemies, is to express the vital principle of Chris- 
 tianity. I had known this from childhood, but why had 
 I not understood these simple words simply, without 
 seeking in them an allegorical sense ? Resist not evil, 
 means resist not evil at any time ; that is to say, never 
 employ force, never do what is contrary to love. And if 
 men still offend you, put up with the offence, employ no 
 force against force. It would be impossible to speak 
 more clearly and simply than he spoke. How, then, 
 could I, believing as I believe, or at least endeavour to 
 believe, that he who thus spoke is God — how could I 
 have ever said that to carry this out is above my strength, 
 is impossible? The commandment of God, which He 
 gives us to fulfil, of which He says he who fulfils and 
 teaches this the same shall be called great ; and again 
 that only those who do so fulfil it shall enter into life, 
 the commandment by Himself fulfilled, by Himself ex- 
 pressed, with a clearness and simplicity beyond all doubt, 
 that commandment I, without a single trial have declared 
 to be beyond my own unaided strength, have declared 
 
112 CHRIST S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 possible to be fulfilled only through supernatural as- 
 sistance. 
 
 God came upon earth in order to give salvation unto 
 man. Now, salvation is this, that the second person of 
 the Trinity, God the Son, suffered for man, redeemed his 
 sins before the Father, and gave him a Church in which 
 is preserved divine grace, transferable by her to those 
 who believe. 
 
 But it means yet more than all this ; God the Son 
 gave to man both the teaching and the living example 
 necessary for salvation. How, then, could I say, that 
 the rules of life, expressed by him so simply and so 
 clearly for all, were impossible of fulfilment without 
 supernatural assistance ? He not only did not say this, 
 but he said positively, Except ye do this, ye shall not 
 enter into the kingdom of heaven. So far from allowing 
 this difficulty, he said : " For my yoke is easy, and my 
 burden is light." John the Evangelist has said that his 
 commandments were not heavy. How, then, could I 
 say that God's commandment so clearly defined as easy 
 to be obeyed, that commandment which He himself as 
 man fulfilled, which His first followers fulfilled after Him, 
 how could I say that obedience \vas difficult, was even 
 impossible without supernatural assistance ? If a man 
 gave all the powers of his mind to the abrogation of a 
 given law, what could he say stronger than this, that it 
 was one impossible to be carried out, that the idea of it 
 in the mind of the law-giver himself was that it was 
 possible to be carried out only by supernatural assist- 
 ance .-' And this is what I thought about the command- 
 ment not to resist evil. 
 
WHA Т I BELIE VE. 1 1 3 
 
 Then I began to recall whence and when that strange 
 idea first came into my mind, that the law of Christ 
 was divine but impossible of fulfilment ; and then, on 
 reflection I saw that it had never fairly come to me in 
 all its nakedness (for then it would have repelled me), 
 but that I had unconsciously sucked it in with my 
 mother's milk, and that all my subsequent life had only 
 strengthened in me this strange error. 
 
 From childhood I had been taught that Christ is God, 
 and his teaching divine, but at the same time I had been 
 also taught to respect those institutions which guaranteed 
 by force my safety against evil men, and to consider 
 them sacred. I was taught to withstand him that is 
 evil ; it was instilled into me that it was humiliating and 
 shameful to submit to the evil man, and to suffer by 
 him ; and that to resist him was worthy of praise. I 
 was taught to judge and to condemn. I was also taught 
 to make war, that is to say, by murder to oppose 
 evil, and the army to which I belonged was called a 
 Christian army, its activity was sanctified by Christian 
 benediction. 
 
 From childhood, moreover, until manhood, I was 
 taught to respect what was directly contrary to the law of 
 Christ. To withstand the offender, by force to avenge 
 insults, whether personal, family, or national ; all this was 
 not only sanctioned, but I was taught to admire it, and 
 to consider it in accordance with the law of Christ. 
 
 All that surrounded me ; the quiet, my personal 
 safety, the safety of my family, my property, all were 
 based on the law rejected by Christ, the law of a tooth 
 for a tooth. 
 
 I 
 
114 CimiSrS CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 The teachers of the Church taught that Christ's 
 teaching was divine, but that, through human frailty, its 
 fulfilment was impossible without the express gift of the 
 grace of Christ. The teachers of the world, the whole 
 system of society, openly acknowledged the impractic- 
 ability, the fancifulness of this teaching of Christ, and 
 both by speech and act did they uphold what was 
 contrary to it. 
 
 This confessed impracticability unconsciously took 
 such hold of me, became such a part of my mental 
 habit, and was in such entire accordance with my lusts, 
 that I never once became aware of the contradiction in 
 which I was involved. I did not see that it was im- 
 possible at one and the same time, to confess the God- 
 Christ, the foundation of whose teaching is the non- 
 resistance of evil, and yet both consciously and calmly 
 to labour for the establishment of property, tribunals, 
 kingdoms, and armies ; for the establishment of a life 
 contrary to the teaching of Christ, and yet to pray to the 
 same Christ for the fulfilment among men of this law of 
 non-resistance to evil and forgiveness of injuries. 
 
 Clear as it is now to me, I never in those days saw 
 how much simpler it would be to form, and keep our life 
 in harmony with Christ's law, and to pray meanwhile 
 for tribunals, punishments, and wars, if such things were 
 truly essential to our welfare. 
 
 And I understood whence arose my error. It arose 
 from confessing Christ in word, and in deed denying 
 him. 
 
 The law of non-resistance to evil is one which unites 
 all this teaching into one indivisible whole ; but only 
 
WHA Т I BELIE VE. 1 1 5 
 
 when it is not a mere apothegm, only when it is a rule 
 which it is vital for us to abide by, — only when it is Law. 
 
 It is indeed a key to open all doors, but only when 
 it is pushed firmly into the lock. The acknowledgment 
 of this proposition as an apothegm, impossible to be 
 carried into practice without supernatural aid, is an 
 abrogation of the whole teaching. What but impossible 
 can that teaching seem to men, from which the essence 
 has been taken ! To unbelievers it even seems foolish ; 
 nay, to them it cannot well seem otherwise. 
 
 To get the engine ready, to heat the boiler, to set all 
 in motion, but to forget to put on the connecting strap 
 would be to do what has been done with the teaching of 
 Christ, луЬеп we are taught that we may be Christians 
 while discarding the rule of non-resistance to evil. 
 
 Not long ago I read the fifth chapter of Matthew 
 with a Hebrew Rabbi. At nearly every sentence the 
 Rabbi exclaimed, " That is in the Bible ; that is in the 
 Talmud ;" and both in the Bible and the Talmud he 
 showed me passages very similar to the words of the 
 Sermon on the Mount. But, when we came to the verse 
 about non-resistance to evil, he did not say, " And that is 
 in the Talmud," but only asked me with a smile, "And 
 do Christians fulfil that .'' Do they turn the other 
 cheek ? " I had nothing to reply, for well I knew that 
 at that very time Christians not only were not turning 
 the other cheek, but were smiting the cheeks of Hebrews 
 turned to them. I was curious, however, to know 
 whether any similar expression was to be found either 
 in the Bible, or the Talmud, and I put the question to 
 him. He answered, "No, there is not; but tell me 
 
Il6 CHRIST'S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 whether Christians fulfil that law or not." By this ques- 
 tion he affirmed, that the existence of a rule in the 
 Christian law, which is not only neglected by them, but 
 acknowledged to be incapable of fulfilment, is a confes- 
 sion of its senselessness and uselessness. And I had no 
 answer for him. 
 
 Now that I understand the true meaning of this 
 doctrine, I see clearly the strange contradictions in which 
 I was involved. Confessing Christ to be God and his 
 teaching to be divine, and yet at the same time regulating 
 my life by rules directly opposed to that law, what else 
 was left me but to acknowledge that teaching to be 
 impracticable ? In word I accepted the teaching of Christ 
 as sacred, but in deed I professed something wholly 
 different ; I acknowledged and worshipped institutions 
 which were un-Christian, and which on every side en- 
 closed my life. 
 
 The Old Testament speaks throughout of the mis- 
 fortunes of the Jews as due to their belief in false gods 
 instead of the one true God. Samuel, in the eighth and 
 twelfth chapters of his first book, accuses the people of 
 having added a new form to the many, by which they 
 had so often forsaken God ; in the place of God, who 
 had been their King, they had set up a man-king, able, 
 as they thought, to save them. " And turn ye not aside : 
 for then should ye go after vain things," says Samuel to 
 the people (chap. xii. 21), "which cannot profit nor 
 deliver, for they are vain." That you may not perish 
 with your king, serve the Lord alone. 
 
 And thus a belief in these "vain things," these empty 
 idols, had turned me aside from the truth. Between it 
 
WHAT I BELIEVE. II J 
 
 and me, obscuring its light, obstructing my steps, were 
 these "vain things," to renounce which I had not 
 strength. 
 
 The other day I happened to walk through the 
 Borovitsky Gate. In the gateway there sat an old and 
 crippled beggar with his head wrapped in a rag. I took 
 out my purse to give him alms. At that moment a 
 smart-looking, ruddy young fellow, in a grenadier's 
 uniform, came running down from the Gremlin. On 
 seeing him the beggar started up in a fright, and 
 hobbled away as fast as he could down towards the 
 Alexander Garden. The grenadier gave chase, but, not 
 gaining on him, stopped, and poured out abuse after 
 him for having broken the regulations by sitting in the 
 gateway. I waited for the grenadier, and when he came 
 up, asked him if he had learnt to read. 
 
 " Yes, I have. What then ? " 
 
 " Have you read the Gospel ? " 
 
 " I have." 
 
 " Well, have you read the passage, ' And he who feeds 
 the hungry ...'.? " And I quoted the words. 
 
 He knew it, and listened to me. I saw that he 
 was puzzled. Two passers-by stopped to listen. The 
 grenadier evidently felt it rather hard that, when he had 
 done his duty well by driving people away according to 
 his orders, he should suddenly appear in the wrong. He 
 was confused, and was evidently seeking for an excuse. 
 Suddenly a light shone in his sensible black eyes ; he 
 turned away from me as if going. " And have you read 
 the military regulations? " 
 
 I answered that I had not done so. 
 
Il8 CHRIST'S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 " Then hold your tongue ! " said he, shaking his head 
 triumphantly as, wrapping his fur coat round him, he 
 stalked proudly to his post. 
 
 This was the only man I had ever met in my life, 
 who with strict logic had decided the eternal question, 
 which, in our actual social state, lay before me, and lies 
 before every man calling himself a Christian. 
 
 III. 
 
 It is said, and said in vain, that the Christian teaching 
 concerns personal salvation, and not points of general 
 interest nor State questions. This is only a bold and 
 unfounded assertion, the falsity of which is self-evident, 
 and which the first serious consideration must refute. 
 
 Very well, say I to myself, I will not personally resist 
 evil ; I will turn the other cheek ; but what am I to do 
 should the troops of an enemy invade us, or a nation 
 be oppressed, and I be called upon to take part in the 
 strife against evil — am I to go and kill ? Then I cannot 
 avoid answering the question, Which am I to serve ? 
 God, or the " things which are vain " ? — to go to the 
 war or not to go .'' 
 
 I am a peasant ; I am elected to office in my village 
 as a judge, as a juryman ; I am compelled to take 
 oaths, to try offenders, to punish them — what am I to 
 do .'' Again I must choose between the law of God and 
 the law of man. 
 
 I am a monk, living in a monastery ; the peasants 
 have carried off our hay, and I am sent to take part in 
 
WHA Т I BELIE VE. 1 1 9 
 
 the strife against evil, to bring the peasants to justice. 
 Again I must choose. No man can escape from the 
 decision of this question. 
 
 I do not speak of the class to which I myself belong, 
 its activity being almost wholly devoted to the resistance 
 to evil, in military, judicial, or civil functions. But there 
 is not one private individual, however modest be his 
 position, who may not be called upon to make his 
 decision between serving God by the fulfilment of His 
 commandments, and serving " things which are vain " in 
 the institution of the State. My individual life is bound 
 up with that of the State, and the latter requires of me 
 an un-Christian activity contrary to the commandments 
 of Christ. At present, with universal military service, 
 and with the legal obligation of all to be jurymen, the 
 dilemma in its roughest, most uncompromising form, is 
 before us all. Every one has to take the instruments of 
 murder, the gun and the sword, and, if we have not 
 actually to kill, he must load the gun and sharpen the 
 sword ; must, that is to say, get himself ready for murder. 
 Every citizen must come to the courts, must take his 
 share in the administration of justice and in punishment ; 
 in short, one and all must reject the commandments of 
 Christ not to resist evil, and that not only by words, but 
 in deed. 
 
 The question of the grenadier : the Gospel or the 
 military regulations .'' the law of God or the law of 
 man } stands now, as it stood in the days of Samuel, 
 before mankind. It stood before Christ himself and 
 his disciples. It stands now before those who wish to 
 be Christians, and it stood before me. 
 
120 CHRISrS CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 The law of Christ, with its teaching of love, humility, 
 and self-sacrifice, had always touched my heart, had 
 always irresistibly attracted me. But on all sides — in 
 history, in the actual facts which surrounded me, in my 
 own life — 1 saw a law the very opposite, repugnant to 
 my heart, to my conscience, to my reason, but giving 
 full play to my animal instincts. I felt that, were I to 
 accept the law of Christ, I should stand alone, and it 
 might be ill with me. Before me lay persecution and 
 weeping, as Christ himself said. Should I accept the 
 law of man, all would approve me. I should be tranquil, ' 
 secure, with all the highest mental faculties sharpened 
 to assist me in quieting my conscience. I should laugh 
 and rejoice, as Christ himself also said. I felt this, and 
 consequently not only did not allow myself to dwell 
 on the meaning of the law of Christ, but endeavoured 
 to understand it so that it should not hinder me in 
 my animal life. To understand it, however, in such a 
 way was not possible, and so I did not understand it 
 at all. 
 
 In this misunderstanding I came to a state of mental 
 darkness which now surprises me. As an example of 
 this darkness I will give my former comprehension of 
 the words, " Judge not, that ye be not judged " (Matt. 
 vii. i). "Judge not, and ye shall not be judged" 
 (Luke vi. 37). 
 
 The judicial institutions, in which I had shared, and 
 which protected my property and my person, appeared 
 to me undoubtedly sacred, and so clearly not destructive 
 of the law of God, that the possibility of the above 
 sentence meaning anything beyond a prohibition of 
 
WHAT I BELIEVE. 121 
 
 verbal condemnation of our neighbour never entered 
 into my head. It never occurred to me that Christ in 
 these words might have spoken of courts of justice, of 
 the courts of the Zemstvo, of the criminal court, of 
 district and justice's courts, of all senates and State 
 departments. It was only when I understood the words, 
 resist not evil, in their plain sense, that the question 
 arose in my mind, How would Christ himself have 
 behaved towards all tribunals and State departments ? 
 And, seeing that he would have had to deny them, I 
 asked myself, Does not that mean, not only that we 
 must not judge our neighbour verbally, but also that we 
 must not condemn him through any court of justice ; 
 that we must not judge our neighbour in any human 
 tribunal } 
 
 In Luke (vi. 37-49) these very words are said, imme- 
 diately after those which teach us not to resist evil, but to 
 return good for evil. Immediately after the words, " Be 
 ye merciful, even as your Father is merciful," it is said, 
 "And judge not, and ye shall not be judged : and con- 
 demn not, and ye shall not be condemned." Does not 
 this mean, said I to myself, that not only should we not 
 condemn our neighbour verbally, but that tribunals for 
 the judgment of our neighbours are not to be established ? 
 It was only necessary for me to put the question, and 
 both my heart and common sense at once answered it 
 in the affirmative. 
 
 I know well how startling is such an interpretation 
 of these words at first. Certainly it startled me. To 
 show how far I was from a right understanding, I will 
 confess to a shameful piece of foolishness. Even after 
 
122 CHRISrS CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 I had become a believer, and had read the Gospel as a 
 divine book, when I met my friends among lawyers 
 and judges, by way of a playful joke I would say to 
 them, " So you still keep on judging, and yet it is said, 
 'Judge not, that ye be not judged.'" I felt so certain 
 that these words could have been uttered only against 
 slander and the like that I did not understand the 
 horrible sacrilege of which I myself was guilty. I had 
 come to this, that persuaded these clear words meant 
 something other than they do, I had in jest used them 
 in their true significance. 
 
 I will relate in detail how all my doubts about the 
 meaning of these words were removed ; how I came to 
 perceive that they could mean nothing but that Christ 
 forbade all earthly tribunals of justice, and that when he 
 made use of them, that, and that only, must have been 
 his meaning. 
 
 The first thing which astounded me, when I had 
 understood the commandment of non-resistance to evil 
 in its simple sense, was that earthly courts of justice, 
 not only are not in accordance with it, but are directly 
 contrary to it, contrary also to the spirit of the whole 
 teaching, and that consequently if Christ thought of these 
 tribunals he must have condemned them. 
 
 Christ says. Resist not evil : the object of the courts 
 is to resist evil. Christ says. Return good for evil : the 
 courts render evil for evil. Christ says. Do not classify 
 men as good or bad ; the courts are occupied only in 
 making this distinction. Christ says, Forgive all men ; 
 forgive not once, not seven times, but without end ; love 
 your enemies, do good to those that hate you : the courts 
 
WHAT I BELIEVE. 1 23 
 
 do not forgive, but punish ; they render not good but evil 
 to those whom they call the enemies of society. 
 
 So that it comes to this, that Christ must have denied 
 all courts of justice. But perhaps, thought I, Christ had 
 no dealings with earthly tribunals, and did not think 
 of them. But then I saw this could not be. Christ 
 through all his life on earth was constantly hampered 
 by the courts of Herod, by the Sanhedrin, and by the 
 high priests. Moreover, I saw that Christ often spoke 
 directly of judgments as evils. He warns his disciples 
 that they will be judged, and tells them how to behave 
 when before the judgment seat. He foretells his own 
 condemnation, and shows in his own person how we 
 should regard earthly tribunals. It follows, then, that 
 Christ did think of these tribunals, which were to con- 
 demn himself and his disciples, which have condemned 
 and are condemning millions of men. Christ saw this 
 evil, and directly pointed to it. He directly denies the 
 justice of the sentence against the adulteress, on the 
 ground that man has no right to judge because he 
 is himself guilty. He repeats this idea several times, 
 saying that the eye with a beam in it should not behold 
 the mote in the eye of another, that the blind should not 
 lead the blind, lest both fall into the ditch. 
 
 Yet may it not be that in his reproof of the sen- 
 tence on the adulteress, and in his application of the 
 parable of the beam and the mote to the general weak- 
 ness of mankind, he still did not forbid our appeal to 
 earthly justice for defence against evil men. But I sec 
 that this can in no way be admitted. 
 
 In the Sermon on the Mount, addressing himself 
 
124 CI/RISrS CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 to all, he says : " And if any would go to law with thee, 
 to take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also." 
 Therefore he forbids every one to go to law. 
 
 But it may be that Christ spoke only of the personal 
 relation of the individual to the courts of law, not 
 denying the administration of justice itself, and ad- 
 mitting into a Christian society those who sit as judges 
 in established tribunals. But I see that this also can in 
 no way be admitted. Christ in his prayer enjoins on all 
 men without exception to forgive others that they might 
 have their own trespasses forgiven ; and this idea he 
 repeats many times. It follows, then, that every man 
 before bringing his offering of prayer is bound to pardon 
 all trespassers. How can a man, who by his profession 
 of faith is bound to pardon all who have done wrong, 
 judge and sentence by law ? To me, therefore, it is 
 clear that by the teaching of Christ, a Christian cannot 
 be a punishing judge. 
 
 But it may be, from the connection which the words 
 judge not and condemn not have with others, that in 
 this passage Christ, when he said judge not, did not 
 think of earthly courts. This, however, is also not so ; 
 on the contrary, it is clear by the context and the dis- 
 course itself that in saying judge not, Christ did not 
 mean to speak of courts and tribunals. According to 
 Matthew and Luke, before saying judge not, and con- 
 demn not, he said. Resist not evil, bear with evil, do 
 good to all men. Before these words, according to 
 Matthew, he repeated the saying of the Hebrew law, 
 "An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth." And 
 after this reference to the criminal law, he said, " But 
 
WHAT I BELIEVE. 125 
 
 do not ye SO, resist not evil ; " and again after that he 
 says, " Judge not." It surely follows that Christ did 
 speak of the earthly criminal law, and did condemn it in 
 the words, "judge not." 
 
 Again, according to Luke, he said not only. Do 
 not judge, but do not judge, and do not condemn. 
 These words, having almost the same meaning, must 
 have been added for a special purpose ; they could have 
 had only one object, to explain the significance of those 
 which went before. 
 
 If he had wished to say do not condemn your 
 neighbour, he would have added that word ; but he 
 says only, Do not condemn. And he adds, " and ye 
 shall not be condemned : release, and ye shall be re- 
 leased." 
 
 But after all, Christ in these words may not have 
 alluded to courts of law ; and I may be maintaining my 
 own false interpretation of this passage. 
 
 I inquire, then, how did the earlier disciples of 
 Christ, the apostles, look upon the courts of this world ? 
 Did they accept them ? Did they approve of them ? 
 
 In chap, iv., and in the eleventh and twelfth verses, 
 the apostle James says : " Speak not one against another, 
 brethren. He that speaketh against a brother, or 
 judgeth his brother, speaketh against the law, and 
 judgeth the law : but if thou judgest the law, thou art 
 not a doer of the law, but a judge. One only is the law- 
 giver and judge, even he who is able to save and to 
 destroy : but who art thou that judgest thy neighbour .'' " 
 The word which is here translated by " speaking 
 against," and in Russian by " to slander, or speak evil 
 
12б CHRISrS CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 of," is катакаХьш. Now a simple reference to the lexicon 
 shows us that the real meaning of the word is to 
 " accuse." The translation is, " He that speaketh against" 
 (speaketh evil of) " his brother, speaketh against " (slan- 
 dereth) " the law," and one involuntarily asks, why ? 
 Whatever evil I may speak of my brother, I do not 
 necessarily speak evil of the law, but if I accuse and 
 bring my brother before the judgment-seat, it is evident 
 that then I condemn the law of Christ ; I account the 
 law of Christ insufficient, and in so doing I accuse and 
 judge the law. Clearly, then, I do not fulfil Christ's 
 law, I am myself a judge. The judge, says James, is he 
 who is able to save. How, then, can I, who am unable 
 to save, be a judge, or take it upon me to punish .'' 
 
 The whole passage is directed against human judg- 
 ments in courts of law, and repudiates them. 
 
 The whole of this epistle breathes the same spirit. 
 In it (ii. 1-13) we read, "My brethren, hold not the faith 
 of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with respect 
 of persons. For if there come into your synagogue 
 a man with a gold ring, in fine clothing, and there 
 come in also a poor man in vile clothing ; and ye have 
 regard to him that wearcth the fine clothing, and say, 
 Sit thou here in a good place ; and ye say to the poor 
 man, Stand thou here, or sit under my footstool ; are 
 ye not divided in your own mind, and become judges 
 with evil thoughts .? Hearken, my beloved brethren ; 
 did not God choose them that are poor as to the world 
 to be rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which he 
 promised to them that love him ? But ye have dis- 
 honoured the poor man. Do not the rich oppress you. 
 
WHAT I BELIEVE. 12/ 
 
 and themselves drag you before the judgment-seats ? 
 Do not they blaspheme the honourable name by the 
 which ye are called ? Howbeit if ye fulfil the royal law 
 according to the Scripture, Thou shalt love thy neigh- 
 bour as thyself, ye do well ; but if ye have respect of 
 persons, ye commit sin, being convicted by the law as 
 transgressors. For whosoever shall keep the whole law, 
 and yet stumble in one point, he is become guilty of all. 
 For he that said. Do not commit adultery, said also, Do 
 not kill. Now if thou dost not commit adultery, but 
 killest, thou art become a transgressor of the law. So 
 speak ye, and so do, as men that are to be judged by a 
 law of liberty. For judgment is without mercy to him 
 that hath showed no mercy : mercy glorieth against 
 judgment." These last words, "mercy glorieth against 
 judgment," have often been translated, "mercy must be 
 upheld in judgment" — a rendering which implies that 
 judgment by Christians is lawful, but that it must be a 
 judgment of mercy. 
 
 James admonishes the brethren to make no distinc- 
 tion of persons. If you have regard to persons, then 
 you are divided in your mind like the judges of the 
 tribunals with evil thoughts. You have decided that 
 the poor man is the worse ; on the contrary, it is the rich 
 man. He both oppresses you, and drags you before the 
 judgment-seat. If you live by the law of love to your 
 neighbour, by the law of mercy (which, by way of dis- 
 tinction, James calls the royal law), then it is well. 
 But if you have regard to persons, and make distinction 
 among men, then you become transgressors against the 
 law of mercy. P^arther, having probably in view the 
 
128 CHRIST'S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 example of the adulteress, whom they brought to Christ in 
 order to stone her to death according to the law, or else 
 in general allusion to the crime of adultery, James says, 
 that he who punishes an adulteress by death is guilty 
 of murder, and breaks the eternal law ; for the same 
 eternal law forbids adultery and murder. He says. Act 
 as men that are to be judged by a laiv of liberty. For 
 there is no mercy for him that doth not show mercy, and 
 consequently mercy destroys judgment. 
 
 Can words be more clear, more definite ? Here are 
 forbidden, all respect of persons, every judgment on 
 individuals as good or bad. Here is a direct reference 
 to earthly tribunals, which are undoubtedly bad. It 
 even appears that the judgments of such tribunals are 
 accounted criminal, because they inflict punishment for 
 crime, and that the justice of human laws is at once 
 annihilated by God's law — the law of mercy. 
 
 I read the Apostle Paul, he who suffered before many 
 tribunals, and I find in the first chapter of his Epistle to 
 the Romans, that he admonishes them of their vices and 
 errors ; and among the rest names their administration 
 of justice, ver. 32, "Who, knowing the ordinance of God 
 that they which practise such things are worthy of death, 
 not only do the same, but also consent with them that 
 practise them." 
 
 Chap. ii. 1-4. "Wherefore thou art without excuse, 
 О man, whosoever thou art that judgest : for wherein thou 
 judgest another, thou condcmnest thyself; for thou that 
 judgest dost practise the same things. And we know 
 that the judgment of God is according to truth against 
 them that practise such things. And reckonest thou 
 
WHAT I BELIEVE. 129 
 
 this, О man, who judgest them that practise such things, 
 and doest the same, that thou shalt escape the judgment 
 of God ? Or despisest thou the riches of His goodness 
 and forbearance and longsufifering, not knowing that the 
 goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance ? " 
 
 The Apostle Paul says : that they, knowing the 
 rightful judgment of God, act unjustly, and teach others 
 to do the same, and therefore the man who judges cannot 
 be justified. 
 
 This, then, is the opinion of the apostles, as expressed 
 in their epistles on tribunals ; and in actual life, as we all 
 know, they had to submit to these tribunals as to an evil, 
 and a trial to be borne with fortitude and in obedience to 
 the will of God. 
 
 Any one who attempts to realize to himself the 
 position of the early Christians among the Pagans, will 
 easily understand how impossible it was for them to 
 forbid the tribunals which persecuted them. They could 
 only as occasion offered, oppose this evil by denying the 
 principle on which it rested, and that they did. 
 
 From the writings of the earliest teachers of the 
 Church I learn that they invariably distinguished their 
 teaching from all others by never admitting either com- 
 pulsion or judgment. 
 
 Both Athenagoras and Origen, for example, emphasize 
 the fact that they, while themselves enduring patiently 
 the cruelties of man's justice, never in their turn sought 
 to put in motion the engines of the law. The martyrs 
 by their acts professed the same doctrine. Throughout 
 all Christendom up to the time of Constantino these 
 tribunals were regarded in no other light than an evil to 
 
 К 
 
I30 CHRISrS CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 be patiently borne. No Christian of that age would 
 have thought it compatible with his Christianity to take 
 a part in the administration of the law. 
 
 All my studies have shown me that the words of 
 Christ, judge not, and condemn not, were understood by 
 his first disciples as I now understand them, in their 
 simple meaning, — take no part whatever in the adminis- 
 tration of the law. 
 
 Beyond all possibility of doubt was I thus confirmed 
 in my conviction that the words, judge not, and condemn 
 not, were to be taken in their most practical sense. But 
 the interpretation, as of speaking evil against our neigh- 
 bour, had been so generally accepted, and courts of law 
 had so boldly and self-confidently flourished in all 
 Christian states, and under the shelter of the Church 
 itself, that I long doubted of the justice of my own inter- 
 pretation. There must be some ground for the general 
 interpretation, I thought, for the establishment by Chris- 
 tians of courts of justice ; there must be something which 
 I do not understand. There must exist grounds, on 
 which these words are understood to mean, evil-speak- 
 ing, grounds on which Christian courts of justice are 
 established. 
 
 Then I turned to see how the Church interpreted 
 these words, and I found that from the fifth century 
 downwards, the Church had taken them as referring to the 
 verbal condemnation of our neighbour — to slander. 
 
 Now, when these words are taken only in that sense, 
 there arises this difficulty : how is it possible not to con- 
 demn ? It is impossible not to condemn evil, and the 
 question therefore rests on this, what may and what may 
 
WHAT I BELIEVE. 13Г 
 
 not be condemned. It has been said, by St. Augustine 
 and Theophilus, that this cannot apply to the servants of 
 the Church, inasmuch as the apostles themselves judged. 
 It has also been said, that the allusion was probably to 
 the Jews, who accused their neighbour of small offences, 
 and themselves committed greater. 
 
 But no word is said whether civic tribunals were for- 
 bidden or allowed by Christ. 
 
 The absence of all answers to this natural question 
 suggests that it must have been held self evident, that as 
 soon as a Christian is in the seat of j'udgment, he has 
 then the right not only to judge, but even to condemn to 
 death. 
 
 I turned to the Greek, Catholic, and Protestant 
 writers, to those of the school of Tubingen and of the 
 historical school ; by all, even by the freest thinkers 
 among them, the words in question were understood as 
 a prohibition of slander. But why, contrary to the whole 
 teaching of Christ, are these words understood in such a 
 narrow sense that the prohibition of slander does not 
 include the prohibition of courts of justice ? Why should 
 it be supposed that Christ, while forbidding as an evil 
 thing the condemnation of our neighbour by words in- 
 voluntarily breaking from the lips, does not regard as 
 evil, and does not forbid the very same condemnation, 
 when accomplished deliberately, and accompanied by 
 the use of force against the one condemned ? To this 
 there is no answer ; there is not the slightest hint that 
 the word condemnation may include the sentences of 
 those tribunals from which millions suffer. Nay, owing 
 to these very words, judge not, and condemn not, 
 
132 CHRIST'S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 theologians have found it necessary carefully to explain 
 the cruel processes of legal trials, reminding us, that in 
 Christian kingdoms the administration of justice must 
 exist coequally with the law of Christ. 
 
 When I had satisfied myself of this, I began to doubt 
 the sincerity of these interpretations, and turned to what 
 I ought to have begun with, the translation of the words 
 judge not, and condemn not. 
 
 In the original text the words are KpivM and кага- 
 biKaZ,b). The incorrect translation of the word катакаккь) 
 in the Epistle of James, by " evil speaking," confirmed 
 my doubts of the correctness of the translation. On 
 comparing the different translations of the words KpivM 
 and катаЪ1каХ,ь), I found that the Vulgate renders the 
 word condemn by "condammare " ; it is the same in 
 French ; in Slavonic it is " to condemn " ; while Luther 
 translates it " verdammen — to curse." 
 
 The difference between these translations increased 
 my doubts, and I asked myself, what can be the meaning 
 of the Greek word jcptvo) which is used in both Gospels 
 and of the word катаЪ1каС,ы, which is used in that of 
 Luke, who wrote, according to the opinion of scholars, a 
 good Greek style. How would it be translated by a man, 
 who knew nothing of the Gospel-teaching nor of its inter- 
 pretations, and had only before him this one sentence ? 
 
 On consulting a lexicon, I found that this word 
 Kp'ivh) has many different meanings. It often means — -to 
 pass sentence on, or even to condemn to death ; but never 
 to speak evil of In the glossary to the New Testament 
 I found that the word is there often used to signify the 
 sentence of a tribunal, sometimes to express the idea of 
 
WHAT I BELIEVE. 1 33 
 
 distinguishing, but never that of speaking evil. Thus I 
 saw that the word Kpivb) may be translated in many 
 different ways, but that by which it is made to mean evil 
 speaking, or slander, is the most fanciful and unauthorized 
 of all. 
 
 I then examined the word KaTa.biKaZ,(o, which follows 
 the word Kpivio, as it is evident that the former word 
 was added in order to qualify the meaning in which the 
 latter was used. I opened an ordinary lexicon and 
 found that the word ката^1кас,ш never has any other 
 meaning than to sentence as a judge to punishment, or 
 to death. I then again referred to the concordance and 
 found that this word is used four times in the New 
 Testament and always in the sense of " to condemn by 
 law — to execute." I examined the context, and found 
 that this word is used by James (v. 6), where he says, 
 " Ye have condemned, ye have killed the righteous 
 one." Here the word condemned is this same word 
 KaraStica^w, and it is used in allusion to the condemnation 
 of Christ. This word is never used in any other sense 
 throughout the whole of the New Testament, nor in any 
 Greek writings. 
 
 What is this, then ? Have I lost my senses ? I, and 
 every one living in our present society, were we only to 
 reflect on the lot which befalls so many, would be 
 horrified by the sufferings and wrongs which human 
 criminal laws bring into human life, an evil alike for the 
 judge and the judged, from the punishments of a Zingis 
 Khan, or of a French revolution, to those of our own 
 days. 
 
 No man with a heart in him can have escaped this 
 
134 CHRIST S CHRISTIAK'ITY. 
 
 sense of horror and of doubt in the existence of good, 
 when he has heard these things related ; or, worse still, 
 when he has been a witness of the execution of man by- 
 man, or when he has even looked upon the instruments 
 of death, the guillotine and the gallows. 
 
 In the Gospel, whose every word we receive as sacred, 
 it is directly and clearly said. You have a criminal law, 
 a tooth for a tooth, but I give you a new law, Resist not 
 evil ; let all men fulfil this commandment ; return not 
 evil for evil, but do good to all men at all times, and 
 forgive all men. 
 
 No less clearly is it said. Judge not. And as if to 
 make any misunderstanding of the words impossible, it 
 is added. Do not sentence to punishment by the law. 
 
 My heart says to me distinctly and intelligibly. Do 
 not punish. Science says, Do not punish ; the more 
 punishment, the greater evil. Reason says. Do not 
 punish ; evil cannot be extirpated by evil. The word of 
 God, in which I believe, tells me the same. And I, after 
 studying the teaching in its entirety, after reading the 
 words, "judge not, and ye shall not be judged ; and con- 
 demn not, and ye shall not be condemned ; release, and 
 ye shall be released," confess them to be the words of 
 God, and then explain them to mean that we should not 
 occupy ourselves with tittle-tattle and slander, and con- 
 tinue to class courts of justice among Christian institu- 
 tions, and myself, a judge among Christian people ! 
 
 And I was terrified by the coarseness of the deceit 
 which had enveloped me. 
 
WHAT I BELIEVE. 1 35 
 
 IV. 
 
 I UNDERSTOOD at last what Christ meant when he said, 
 " Ye have heard that it was said, An eye for an eye, and 
 a tooth for a tooth ; but I say unto you, Resist not evil." 
 Christ says. It has been instilled into you, you have 
 become accustomed to account it a good and reasonable 
 thing that you should withstand evil by force, and pluck 
 out an eye for an eye, that you should establish courts of 
 law, police officers, and soldiers, and that you should 
 fight against your enemies ; but I say unto you, Do no 
 violence, take no part in violence, do evil to no one, not 
 even to those whom you call your enemies. 
 
 I understood that in laying down the proposition not 
 to resist evil, Christ not only points out the immediate 
 result to every man of not resisting evil, but that in oppo- 
 sition to the principles which prevailed from the time of 
 Moses to his own, which were accepted by the Roman 
 Law, and which exist still in the codes of different 
 nations, he also lays down the rule of non-resistance to 
 evil, which, according to his teaching, should be the 
 binding principle of our social life, to free humanity from 
 the evils wrought by itself He says to mankind. You 
 think that your laws correct evil, they only increase it. 
 There is one only way of extirpating evil — to render for 
 it good to all men without distinction. You have tried 
 your principle for thousands of years ; try now the re- 
 verse, which is mine. 
 
 An astonishing thing ! It has often happened to me 
 of late to speak with men of all conditions about this law 
 
13б CHRISrS CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 of Christ's, non-resistance to evil. I have met, though 
 seldom, with some who as^reed with me, but there are 
 two sorts who never admit, not even in principle, the 
 straightforward interpretation of that law, and warmly 
 oppose its justice. These persons are at the two opposite 
 poles of humanity : Christian conservative patriots, who 
 accept their Church as the true one, and revolutionary 
 atheists. Neither will consent to abandon the right of 
 opposing by force what they consider to be evil. The 
 wisest, the most learned among them, close their eyes to 
 this simple and obvious truth, that if one man be suffered 
 to oppose by violence what he considers evil, then 
 another must be equally allowed to use violence against 
 what to him is evil. 
 
 Not long ago I was allowed a sight of an instructive 
 correspondence on this very subject between an orthodox 
 Slavophile and a Christian revolutionist. The one stood 
 out for war in the name of his oppressed Slavonic 
 brethren, the other for revolution in the name of his 
 oppressed brethren, the Russian peasants. Both appealed 
 to force, and both relied on the teaching of Christ. 
 
 The teaching of Christ is understood in many different 
 ways, but never in the one simple sense which can alone 
 be obtained from his words. 
 
 We have arranged our whole life on the very prin- 
 ciples which he denies ; we will not understand his 
 teaching in its simple and direct meaning, and we assure 
 ourselves and others, either that we do profess his 
 teaching, or that it is unsuited to us. So-called Christians 
 believe that Christ is God, the Second Person of the 
 Trinity, who came down upon earth to show men how 
 
WHAT I BELIEVE. 1 37 
 
 to live, and they put in practice the most complicated 
 details, for the celebration of the sacraments, for the 
 building of churches, for the sending forth of missionaries, 
 the ordination of pastors, the government of their flocks, 
 and the correction of errors of faith ; but one trifling cir- 
 cumstance they forget — to do what he taught. Un- 
 believers also in all ways essay to regulate their lives, 
 but not according to the law of Christ, having agreed to 
 hold that law unsuitable. No one will consent to attempt 
 to do what he commanded. Nay, without even at- 
 tempting it, both believers and unbelievers alike have 
 decided that it is impossible. 
 
 He says with perfect clearness and simplicity : the 
 law of resistance to evil by violence, which you have 
 made the principle of your lives, is false and unnatural : 
 he gives another basis — the non-resistance of evil, which 
 according to his teaching can alone deliver mankind from 
 evfl. He says : you think that your laws of violence 
 correct evil ; they only increase it. For thousands of 
 years you have tried to destroy evil by evil, and you 
 have not destroyed it but increased it. Do what I say, 
 and you will know the truth of this. 
 
 He not only preached this, but himself throughout 
 his life and in his death practised as he preached. 
 
 Believers listen to all this, read it in their churches, 
 call these words divine, call him God, but at the same 
 time say. All this is well, but it is impossible with our 
 social state, it would derange our whole way of life, to 
 which we are accustomed, which wc love. Consequently 
 we believe this only in the sense of an ideal, to be reached 
 by prayer and faith in the Holy Communion, in the 
 
138 CHRISTS CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 redemption, and the resurrection from the dead. Others, 
 unbehevers, the free interpreters of the teaching of Christ, 
 the historians of rehgion, Strauss, for example, Renan, 
 and others, adopting completely the interpretation of the 
 Church, that the teaching of Christ has no direct applica- 
 tion to life, but is a visionary doctrine consoling to 
 weak-minded men, tell us seriously that though fit to be 
 preached to the wild inhabitants of the by-places of 
 Galilee, for us, with our culture, it presents only, in the 
 words of Renan, the amiable dream " du charmant 
 docteur." 
 
 According to their opinion Christ was unable to rise 
 to the wisdom of our present civilization and culture. 
 Had he reached the intellectual height which these 
 learned men have attained, he would not have spoken 
 all that amiable nonsense about the birds of heaven, 
 the turning of the other cheek to the smiter, and the 
 taking thought only for the day. These wise historians 
 judge of Christianity by what they see of it in our 
 present society. 
 
 The Christianity of our society and our time accepts 
 our present mode of life with all its arrangements as 
 true and sacred. Solitary confinement, imprisonment, 
 music-halls, factories, newspapers, brothels, and parlia- 
 ments ; and of the teaching of Christ only that is 
 adopted which is not destructive of such a life. And 
 as Christ totally rejects such a life, from his teaching 
 nothing is taken but empty words. The learned historians 
 sec this fact, and having no need to conceal it, as do the 
 pretended believers, they take this same teaching of 
 Christ, bereft of its very essence, and subject it to a pro- 
 
WHA Т I BELIE VE. 1 3 9 
 
 found criticism, and with good reason reject it, and show 
 that Christianity never was anything more than a 
 visionary idea. 
 
 Before we judge the teaching of Christ, it is surely 
 necessary to know in what it consists ; before deciding 
 whether his teaching be reasonable or not, to take what 
 he said as he said it. This is precisely what we do 
 not do, whether freethinkers or interpreters after the 
 Church, and why we do not, we know very well. 
 
 We know very well that the teaching of Christ 
 rejected, and still rejects all those human errors, those 
 " vain things " and hollow idols, which we, calling them 
 churches, kingdoms, culture, science, art, civilization, 
 think to exclude from his list of errors. But Christ is 
 against them all ; his words exclude every "vain thing." 
 
 Not Christ alone, but all the Hebrew prophets, like 
 John the Baptist, all the truly wise men of the earth, 
 speak of this same church, of these same kingdoms, of 
 this culture, this civilization, as of an evil ruinous to man. 
 
 Let us suppose a builder to say to the master of a 
 house, " Your house is bad, it requires to be altogether 
 rebuilt," and then to go on to details, to explain how such 
 and such beams are лvanted, how they should be fashioned, 
 where they should be put. The master pays no heed to 
 the general proposition that his house is bad and should 
 be rebuilt, but with feigned respect he listens to the 
 builder's ideas for the ultimate arrangement of the house. 
 It is clear that the advice of the builder will appear 
 unsuitable, and that he who thus refuses it his respect 
 Avill end by calling it foolish. This is exactly how wc 
 are treating the teaching of Christ. 
 
140 CHRISrS CffR!STIA.\4TY. 
 
 For want of another illustration, I have employed 
 this. I then remembered that Christ in his preaching 
 has himself employed it. He said, " I will destroy your 
 temple, and in three days I will build another." For 
 this he was crucified, and for this do they now crucify 
 his teaching. 
 
 The least to be required of those who judge a particular 
 set of doctrines, is that they should accept them in the 
 sense in which they were understood by the teacher. 
 But he understood his teaching, not as a far-fetched 
 ideal of humanity, the fulfilment of which was impossible, 
 not as a visionary poetical fancy, with which to captivate 
 the simple-minded folk of Galilee. To him, his teaching 
 meant life, actual work which should save the race of 
 man. It was no dreamer who hung on the cross, to 
 suffer, to die for his teaching. In the same way many 
 others have died and still will die. It cannot be said of 
 such teaching that it is a dream of the fancy. 
 
 All teaching of the truth is fancy to those луЬо stray 
 from it. We have come to this, that many (and I myself 
 was of their number) say, that this teaching is visionary 
 because it is unsuited to man's nature. It is against man's 
 nature, they say, when he is beaten on one check to turn 
 the other, unnatural to give up what is our own to another, 
 unnatural to work not for ourselves but for others. It 
 belongs to a man, they say, to take care of himself, of his 
 own safety and of that of his family, to defend his 
 property ; in other words, it is natural for a man to fight 
 for his existence. A learned j'urist scientifically proves 
 that the most sacred duty of man is to defend his rights, 
 that is to say, to fight. 
 
WHAT I BELIEVE. I4I 
 
 The moment, however, we dismiss the thought, that 
 the existing conditions of society as made by men are 
 the best and most sacred of Avhich human life is 
 capable, the objection — that Christ's teaching is opposed 
 to man's nature — immediately turns an argument against 
 the objectors. Who will dispute that to torture a dog, 
 to kill a hen or a calf, much more to torture and kill 
 a man, is contrary and painful to man's nature ? I have 
 known men abstain from meat because they had them- 
 selves to kill the animals. Meanwhile human society is 
 so constituted, that not a single personal good is obtained 
 without the sufferings of others, and these sufferings are 
 repugnant to our human nature. 
 
 The whole system of our social life, the complicated 
 mechanism of our varied institutions, which all have 
 violence for their aim, bear witness to the degree to 
 which violence is contrary to human nature. Not a 
 single judge will consent to strangle with a rope the 
 man whom he has condemned to death in his court. 
 No one of higher rank will consent to snatch a peasant 
 from his weeping family and shut him up in prison. 
 No general, nor soldier, save in obedience to discipline, 
 to his oath, and in time of war, would kill hundreds of 
 Turks or Germans and destroy their villages ; he would 
 not so much as wound one of them. 
 
 These things are due to that complicated machinery 
 of Society, and the State, which makes it its first busi- 
 ness to destroy the feeling of responsibility for such 
 deeds, that no man should feel them to be as unnatural 
 as they are. Some make laws, others apply them. 
 Others again train men and educate them in the habit 
 
142 CHRISrS CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 of discipline, in the habit, that is to say, of senseless 
 and irresponsible obedience. Again others, and these 
 are the best trained of all, practise every kind of violence, 
 even to the slaying of men without the slightest know- 
 ledge of the why and wherefore. We need only clear 
 our minds for an instant from the network of human 
 institutions in which we are thus entangled, to feel how 
 adverse it is to our true nature. 
 
 When we cease to affirm that this accustomed evil, the 
 fruits of which we enjoy, is an immutable and divine 
 truth, it becomes clear which of the two is the more 
 natural and suitable to man — the law of violence or the 
 law of Christ. Am I to think that the peace and safety 
 of myself and my family, my joys and my happiness, are 
 to be bought by beggary, by moral corruption, and by 
 the suffering of millions of men ; by the daily erection 
 of the gallows, by hundreds and thousands of prisoners ; 
 by millions of soldiers torn from their families and made 
 sottish by discipline, and by as many officers of police, 
 \Л\о watch over my amusements with loaded arms 
 turned against hungry men ? Am I to buy each sweet 
 morsel that I put into my mouth, or into the mouths of 
 my children, with all this mass of human suffering, 
 because without it no morsel is attainable } Or am I 
 rather to think, that no morsel is mine which is necessary 
 to any one else, for which another suffers .'' I have only 
 once to understand that these things arc so, that each 
 joy of mine, each instant of tranquillity in our present 
 social state, is bought by the privations and suffering of 
 thousands who are the victims of violence ; I have only 
 to understand this, to be convinced of what is really 
 
WHAT I BELIEVE. 1 43 
 
 fitted to the nature of man, to man not only as an 
 animal, but as a reasoning being-, — I have only to accept 
 the law of Christ in its true significance and with all its 
 consequences, to understand that not only is Christ's 
 teaching not contrary to human nature, but that on the 
 contrary it consists in rejecting a teaching opposed to 
 human nature, that is, the fanciful doctrine of men about 
 resistance to evil, which really is the cause of all their 
 suffering. 
 
 Christ's teaching. Resist not evil, a fanciful dream ! 
 
 But is not this a dreadful dream, what the life of men, 
 men in whose souls has been placed the sense of pity 
 and love, has undergone and is even now undergoing 
 from the stake, wheels, the lash, mutilation, torture, 
 chains, penal labour, the gallows, military executions, 
 solitary confinement, prisons ; what women and children 
 endure through war, through periodical revolutions ; what 
 some have to suffer in carrying out all these horrors, and 
 others in the attempt to avoid them. 
 
 When we feel the teaching of Christ, we see that this 
 world of ours, not the world given by God for man to be 
 happy in, but a world created by men for their own ruin, 
 is a dream, the wildest and most terrible of dreams, the 
 wandering of a madman's mind, from which we need but 
 once to awaken never again to return to its fearful 
 visions. 
 
 God descended upon earth, the Son of God, one of 
 the persons of the Holy Trinity, became man, and 
 redeemed the sin of Adam. This God, we have been 
 taught to think, was obliged to say something mystic 
 and mysterious, incomprehensible, to be understood only 
 
144 CHRIST S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 with the aid of faith and divine grace ; and yet how 
 simple, clear, and reasonable are those words of God ! 
 Render not evil to one another, and evil will exist no 
 more. Is the revelation of God then indeed so simple ? 
 Has He, indeed, said no more than this ? So much 
 surely we all knew. 
 
 The prophet Elijah hid himself from the wrath of men 
 in a cave, and it was revealed to him that there he should 
 see God. A storm arose, and the trees were broken by 
 the wind. Elijah thought that this was God, and looked, 
 but God was not there. A tempest followed of thunder 
 and lightning, and Elijah came forth to see, but God was 
 not there. Next there was an earthquake : fire came 
 out from the earth, the rocks trembled and the hills were 
 shaken. Elijah looked again, but God was not there. 
 Last came a calm, and a light wind blew from the quiet 
 fields. Elijah looked, and God was there. So come to 
 us the simple words of God, Resist not evil. 
 
 Simple they are, yet in them lies the law of God and 
 of man, the single and eternal law. So true is it, that 
 whatsoever progress towards the lessening of evil there 
 has been in the history of mankind is due to those and 
 those only who have understood the teaching of Christ, 
 and have suffered evil without opposing it by violence. 
 The progress of humanity towards good is accomplished 
 not by its tormentors, but by its martyrs. As fire will 
 not put out fire, so evil will not destroy evil. Good 
 alone, untainted by evil, can overcome it. That this is so, 
 is a law of the human soul, as immutable as the law of 
 Galileo, nay, yet more immutable, more clear and com- 
 plete. Men may fall away from it, may hide it from 
 
WHAT I BELIEVE. 1 45 
 
 Others, but the progress towards the good of humanity- 
 can be accompHshed through it alone. Each forward 
 step is taken only in the name of non-resistance to 
 evil. 
 
 The disciple of Christ can say in answer to all 
 temptations and threats even with a greater certainty 
 than Galileo, " ' It remains true for all that,' not with 
 violence, but with returning good for evil shalt thou 
 destroy evil." 
 
 If this advance be gradual, it is because the clearness, 
 simplicity, and reasonableness, the necessity and in- 
 evitableness of the teaching of Christ, are hidden from 
 the greater part of mankind under the veil of cunning ; 
 most dangerously hidden under a pretended teaching 
 which is falsely attributed to him. 
 
 V. 
 
 Everything confirmed me in the truth of this new 
 interpretation of the teaching of Christ. It was long, 
 however, before I could accustom myself to the strange 
 idea, that after Christ's law had been preached during 
 eighteen hundred years by so many men, after so many 
 had devoted their lives to the study of this law, it had 
 still to be discovered, as though it had been a new one. 
 But however strange, so it was. The teaching of Christ 
 not to resist evil arose before me as something completely 
 new, something of which till that moment I had been 
 supremely ignorant. I asked myself, whence came this? 
 I must have had some false perception of the meaning 
 
 L 
 
146 CHRIST S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 of Christ's teaching, to have so strangely misunderstood 
 it. A false perception indeed it was ! 
 
 On turning again to the Gospel, I was not in the 
 position of a man, who having never heard of the teach- 
 ing of Christ, hears it suddenly for the first time, but I 
 had a whole system ready by which I was to judge it. 
 Christ was no longer to me a prophet unfolding a new 
 and divine law, but one who completed and explained to 
 me what I had long accepted as the certain law of God. 
 I possessed already a complete, distinct, though com- 
 plicated teaching, with respect to God, the creation of 
 the world and of man, and the commandments of God, 
 in the books of Moses. 
 
 In the Gospel I found the words : " Ye have found 
 that it was said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a 
 tooth ; but I say unto you, Resist not evil." The words 
 " an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth " were the 
 commandment given by God to Moses. The words 
 " resist not evil," embodied the new commandment which 
 repealed the original one. 
 
 Had I simply considered the teaching of Christ, apart 
 from those theological theories which I had, as it were, 
 sucked in with my mother's milk, I should have under- 
 stood simply, the simple meaning of his words ; I should 
 have understood that he rejects the old law and proclaims 
 the new, which is his own. But it had been instilled 
 into me, that Christ does not reject the law of Moses, 
 but on the contrary confirms it to the smallest point 
 and completes it. 
 
 The verses of Matthew (v. 17-23), in which this 
 is declared, had always struck me as obscure and per- 
 
WHAT I BELIEVE. 1 47 
 
 plexing. With the knowledge I then had of the Old Testa- 
 ment, and especially of the later books of Moses, so 
 full of trifling, senseless, and often cruel rules, and 
 each beginning with the words, " And the Lord spake 
 unto Moses," it seemed to me a strange thing and 
 incomprehensible, that Christ could confirm the law of 
 Moses. I left that question, however, without deciding 
 it, I went back to the belief, instilled into me from 
 childhood, that both these laws were the work of the 
 Holy Ghost ; that they agree one with the other, and 
 that Christ in truth confirms the law of Moses, and com- 
 pletes it. 
 
 How and where he completed it, how to reconcile 
 the obvious contradictions between the words of the 
 Gospel, these verses (17-20), and the words, " But I say 
 unto you," I had never clearly understood. No sooner, 
 however, had I accepted the plain meaning of Christ's 
 teaching than I saw that these two laws were contra- 
 dictory, that there could be no question of their agree- 
 ment, or of the completion of one by the other ; that it 
 is necessary to accept one of them ; and that the 
 interpretation of those verses of Matthew, which had 
 formerly struck me as obscure, was in truth a false one. 
 
 When I again read the verses 17-19, their meaning 
 was as clear to me as formerly it had been dark. 
 
 Their meaning was clear, not because I had thouglit 
 of something new, or that anything had been changed, 
 but only because I had thrown aside an artificial inter- 
 pretation which had become incorporated with the 
 passage. 
 
 Christ says (Matt. v. 17-19), "Think not that I 
 
148 CHRIST'S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 came to destroy the law or the prophets : I came not 
 to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, 
 Till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle 
 shall in no wise pass away from the law, till all things 
 be accomplished." 
 
 And he adds, ver. 20, " Except your righteousness 
 shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and 
 Pharisees, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom 
 of heaven." 
 
 He says, I have not come to destroy the eternal 
 law, for the fulfilment of which were written your holy 
 books and your prophecies, but I have come to enjoin 
 on you the execution of the eternal law, and I speak, not 
 of that law which your teachers the Pharisees call the 
 law of God, but of that eternal law which is more 
 immutable even than the earth and the heavens. 
 
 I express the same meaning in other words, only in 
 order to divert the mind of the reader from the customary 
 false interpretation. Had this false interpretation not 
 existed, it would be impossible to express the idea better 
 and more distinctly than in these verses. 
 
 The interpretation that Christ does not reject the 
 law is based on this, that the word law in this passage, 
 thanks to a comparison with the "one jot or one tittle" 
 of the written law, is unjustifiably, and contrary to the 
 sense of the words, taken to imply the written law 
 instead of the eternal law. But Christ docs not speak 
 of the written law. If Christ had so spoken in this 
 passage, he would have employed the customary ex- 
 pression, the law and the prophets, as is his invariable 
 custom when using the word in that significance ; but 
 
WHAT I BELIEVE. 1 49 
 
 his expression is quite different, " the law or the 
 prophets." If Christ had here meant the written law, 
 in the following verse, which is a continuation of the 
 thought, he would have said, " the law and the prophets," 
 and not used the word law alone as it there stands in 
 the text. 
 
 Again, Christ uses the same expression in the 
 Gospel of Luke, in such a context that its meaning 
 becomes indisputable. In chap. xvi. 15, he says to 
 the Pharisees, who rely on justification through the 
 written law, "Ye are they that justify yourselves in the 
 sight of men ; but God knoweth your hearts : for that 
 which is exalted among men is an abomination in the 
 sight of God. The lazu and the prophets were until John : 
 from that time the gospel of the kingdom of God is 
 preached, and every man entereth violently into it." 
 Immediately afterwards (ver. 17) he says, "But it is 
 easier for heaven and earth to pass away, than for one 
 tittle of the law to fall." By the words, " TJie law and 
 the prophets until John," Christ repeals the written law. 
 By the words, " easier for heaven and earth to pass 
 away than for one tittle of the law to fall," he declares 
 the eternal law. In the former place he says, iJie laiv 
 and the prophets ; that is to say, the ivritten law; in the 
 latter place he uses the single word law, and he means 
 the eternal law. It follows clearly, then, that here the 
 eter7ial law is placed in distinct opposition to the ivritten 
 lazv* and that the same opposition is intended in 
 
 * This is far from being tlie only argument for this interpretation. As 
 if purposely not to leave in doubt which law is meant, Christ immediately 
 afterwards and in direct continuity dwells on a striking instance of the 
 rejection of the law of Moses by that eternal law not one title of which 
 
ISO CHRIST'S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 Matthew, when the eternal lazu is indicated by the words, 
 the lazv OR the prophets. 
 
 The history of the variations in the text of these 
 seventeenth and eighteenth verses is a remarkable one. 
 In the greater number of the manuscripts the word 
 " law " alone is used without the addition of the word 
 " prophets." It is impossible to take such a rendering 
 as significant of " the written law." In other copies, in 
 Tischendorfs and in the Canonical one, the word 
 "prophets" is added, not with the conjunction "and," 
 but with the conjunction " or " ; the law or the prophets. 
 This also expressly excludes the rendering, " the written 
 law," and gives the sense of the eternal law. 
 
 In some copies unaccepted by the Church, the word 
 " prophets " is added with the conjunction " and " ; and 
 on the repetition of the words, " and the prophets " is 
 added again. In this way the sense of the whole passage 
 is changed, and Christ is made to speak only of the 
 written law. 
 
 These variations furnish us with the history of the 
 interpretation of this passage. The one clear meaning 
 is, that Christ here, as also in Luke, speaks of the eternal 
 law ; but among the copyists of the Gospels were some 
 who desired to acknowledge the law of Moses as bind- 
 ing, and so wilfully altered the meaning by the addition 
 of the word " prophets." 
 
 Other Christians, who do not accept the books of 
 Moses, either exclude the addition, or change the con- 
 shall pass away, the most violent contradiction of the former to be found 
 in the Go.spels (Luke xvi. i8) : "Every one that putteth away his wife, 
 and marrieth another, committeth adultery : " — that is to say, by the 
 written law divorce is allowed, but by the eternal law it is a sin. 
 
WHAT I BELIEVE. 
 
 151 
 
 junction "and" into "or" {кси into /}), and the Canon in 
 this passage uses " or." Yet, notwithstanding the clear- 
 ness of the text as thus accepted by the Canon, and its 
 freedom from all doubt, Canonical interpreters continue 
 to explain it in the spirit in which these unaccepted 
 changes were made. This passage has been subjected 
 to countless constructions, each farther from the true 
 meaning, as each interpreter has been less guided by 
 the plain and simple meaning of the teaching of Christ, 
 and the greater number of these interpreters have 
 adopted the apocryphal sense refuted by the text. 
 
 In order to be persuaded that Christ in these verses 
 speaks only of the eternal law, we need but analyze 
 the word which has given occasion to the false inter- 
 pretation. 
 
 In Russian, " zakon " ; in Greek, " vofioq " ; in Hebrev/, 
 " tora " ; in all three languages, the word " law " has two 
 principal meanings : the one is the law itself, without 
 any relation to the form of its expression ; the other is 
 the written expression of what is accounted law. These 
 two different meanings exist in all languages. 
 
 In Greek, in the Epistles of Paul, this difference is 
 even determined sometimes by the use of the article. 
 Without the article Paul generally employs the word in 
 the sense of the written law ; with the article in the 
 sense of the eternal law of God. 
 
 Among the ancient Hebrews, by the prophets, and 
 by Isaiah, the word law (" tora ") is always used in the 
 sense of the revelation of the one eternal teaching of 
 God apart from any formal expression. Again, the 
 same word in Ezra, for the first time and in the latest 
 
152 CIIRISrS CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 Stage, in that of the Talmud, began to be employed in 
 the sense of the five books written by Moses. To the 
 latter was then given the general title of " tora," the law, 
 as with us the word Bible is used, with this difference, 
 however, that we have words to distinguish what we 
 mean by the Bible and by the law of God, whereas the 
 Hebrews had only one and the same for both. 
 
 We now see why Christ sometimes, like Isaiah and 
 the other prophets, employs the word law ("tora") in 
 the sense of the law of God, which is the true one, and 
 sometimes rejects it in the sense of the written law of 
 the five books. But, to mark the difference, when he, 
 rejecting it, employs the Avord in the sense of the written 
 law, he always adds "and the prophets," or else puts 
 before the word " law " the word " your." 
 
 When he says, Do not do to another what you 
 would not have him do to you, for this is the law and 
 the prophets, he speaks of the written law, he says that 
 it may all be reduced to that one expression of the 
 eternal law, and in these words he repeats the written law. 
 
 When he says (Luke xvi. i6), "The law and the 
 prophets were until John." He speaks of the written 
 law, and denies its obligations on man. 
 
 When he says (John vii. 19), " Did not Moses 
 give you the law, and yet none of you doeth the law ? " 
 or (John viii. 17) "in your law it is written," or (John 
 XV. 25) "that the word may be fulfilled that is written in 
 their law," he speaks of the written law, of the law 
 which he rejects, of that same law which condemned 
 him to death (John xix. 7). The Jews answered Pilate, 
 " We have a law, and by that law he ought to die." 
 
JVIIA Т I BELIE VE. I 5 3 
 
 It is evident that the law of the Jews which condemned 
 to death is not the law which he taught. When Christ 
 says, I came not to destroy the law, but to teach you 
 to fulfil it, for nothing can change in it, and it must all be 
 fulfilled, he speaks, not of the written law, but of the 
 divine eternal law, and, so speaking, confirms it. 
 
 But let us suppose that all these are formal proofs, 
 that I have laboriously put together the various texts, 
 contexts, and variations, that I have concealed all that 
 makes against my own interpretation ; let us suppose 
 that the interpretation of the Church is altogether clear 
 and convincing, and that Christ really did not abrogate 
 the law of Moses, but left it in its former authority. Let 
 us suppose it was so ; but, then, what is it that Christ 
 did teach .' 
 
 According to the interpretation of the Church, Christ 
 taught that he was the second person of the Trinity, 
 the Son of God the Father, who came upon earth to 
 redeem by his death the sin of Adam. But every one 
 who reads the Gospel knows that Christ is either silent 
 on this point, or, at all events, that his meaning is 
 doubtful. Suppose, however, that we are mistaken, and 
 that these assertions are made. Even in that case Christ's 
 allusions to his being the second person of the Trinity 
 and the redeemer of the sins of man, occupy the smallest 
 and the most obscure part of the Gospel. Of what does 
 all the remaining part of the teaching of Christ consist? 
 It cannot be denied, and all Christians have at all times 
 admitted, that Christ's teaching mainly consists in rules 
 for human conduct, in the relationship of man to his 
 fellow-men. 
 
154 cnmsrs Christianity. 
 
 If we admit that Christ taught a new way of Hfe, we 
 must define for ourselves the kind of men among whom 
 he taught. 
 
 Let us take Russians or EngHshmen, Chinese or 
 Hindus, or even savages, and we shall see that every 
 nation has its own rules of life, its own laws to live by, 
 and that in consequence, if a teacher preaches to any 
 one of them a new law of life, he must necessarily 
 abrogate the old, for, if he did not, he would be no 
 teacher. It would be the same in England, in China, 
 the same with us. The teacher would necessarily abro- 
 gate those laws of ours, which we esteem so highly and 
 think almost sacred. 
 
 But with us it might happen, though I grant a 
 difficulty in the supposition, that the teacher of this new 
 law of life would abrogate only our civil and criminal 
 laws, our customs, and would leave untouched the laws 
 which we hold to be divine. But in the midst of the 
 Hebrew nation, who had only one law, a law which was 
 divine and embraced the whole conduct of life down to 
 its slightest details, in the midst of such a people what 
 could the preacher teach, after he had declared that the 
 whole law of the nation was to remain and not pass 
 away ? 
 
 Let us suppose that this again is no proof. Let 
 those, who interpret the words of Christ to mean that 
 he confirms the whole law of Moses, consider this : 
 whom through the whole course of his career did Christ 
 convict,? against whom did he raise his voice, calling 
 them Pharisees, lawyers, and scribes 1 
 
 Who were they that rejected the teaching of Christ, 
 
WIIA Т I BELIE VE. I 5 5 
 
 and crucified him through their high priests ? If 
 Christ accepted the law of Moses, where were the faithful 
 followers of that law, who must have been on his side ? 
 Was there really not one of them ? 
 
 The Pharisees, we are told, were a sect. The Jews 
 do not say so ; they say that the Pharisees were the 
 faithful followers of the law. But allowing them to have 
 been a sect, so also were the Sadducees. Where, then, 
 were those who kept aloof from sects, where were the 
 orthodox Jews ? 
 
 According to the Gospel of John all enemies of 
 Christ are called Jews, and, as Jews, do they reject his 
 teaching and oppose him. But in the Gospels it is not 
 the Pharisees and the Sadducees alone who appear as 
 the enemies of Christ ; enemies no less were the lawyers, 
 those who observed the law, the elders, those who 
 were always considered the representatives of national 
 wisdom. 
 
 Christ says, " I am not come to call the righteous, 
 but sinners to repentance " (to a changed life, jxi-uvoia). 
 Where, then, were the righteous to be found .'* Who 
 were they ? Was it Nicodemus alone } Nicodemus is 
 represented as an honest but erring man. 
 
 We are so accustomed to this strange explanation, 
 that the Pharisees and certain wicked Jews crucified 
 Christ, that it never enters into our heads to put the 
 simple question, where were those who were not Pharisees 
 and wicked, but were simply Jews and upholders of the 
 law .'' A moment's thought over this question, and all 
 becomes clear. Christ, whether God or man, taught on 
 earth in the midst of a people who obeyed a law rcgula- 
 
156 CHRIST S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 ting the life of man and called the law of God. How 
 would Christ behave with respect to this law ? 
 
 Every prophet, every teacher of a faith who unfolds 
 to men the law of God, must always meet with some- 
 thing which men believe to be that law. He will never 
 be able to escape from the double sense of the word 
 law, the one their own law which these men falsely con- 
 sider to be the law of God, the other that which is really 
 His eternal law. And not only will the teacher be 
 unable to escape this twofold significance, but frequently 
 he will have no wish to avoid it, and will purposely 
 confound the two meanings, pointing out that in 
 the law professed by those whom he seeks to convert, 
 though false as a whole, there are still some eternal 
 truths. 
 
 Each teacher takes as the foundation of his teaching 
 the truths familiar to those whom he would convert. 
 
 And thus does Christ with the Jews, by whom both 
 the one and the other law were called by the same name 
 — " tora." Christ, in the law of Moses (and yet more in 
 the law of the prophets, especially of Isaiah, whose words 
 he so frequently quotes), admits the existence of eternal 
 and divine truths agreeing with the eternal law, and 
 these, as expressing love to God and to our neighbour, 
 he takes for the groundwork of his own teaching. 
 
 Christ many times expresses the same idea. He 
 says (Luke x. 26), " What is written in the law ? how 
 rcadcst tliou ? " Of a surety eternal truth may be found 
 in the law, if we read it aright. More than once he 
 shows them that the commandment of their law, to love 
 God and our neighbour, is a precept of the eternal law 
 
WHAT I BELIEVE. I 57 
 
 (Matt. xiii. 52). After the many parables, in which 
 he explains to his disciples the meaning of his teach- 
 ing, at the end, as if referring to all that had gone 
 before, he says, " Every scribe [that is, every one who 
 can read and write] who hath been made a disciple to 
 the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is a 
 householder, which bringeth forth out of his treasure 
 [together, without distinction] things new and old." 
 
 St. Ireneus, and all the Church after him, took these 
 words in this very meaning, but, quite arbitrarily and in 
 opposition to their sense, supposed them to include also 
 the proposition that all that is old is sacred. Their 
 interpretation is clearly this, that whoever seeks what is 
 good must take the old with the new, and reject nothing 
 simply because it is old, Christ by no means rejects 
 what is eternal in the old law ; but when the Jews 
 speak to him of the law as a whole, or of its peculiar 
 forms, he says that it is impossible to put new wine into 
 old skins. 
 
 Christ could not confirm the law as a whole, nor 
 could he reject both it and the prophets — the law in 
 which it is said love thy neighbour as thyself, and 
 the prophets whose words he so often used for his own 
 ideas. 
 
 Hence it comes that instead of taking these simple 
 words in their plain meaning, as they are confirmed 
 throughout by Christ's teaching, we have before us a 
 cloudy interpretation, introducing contradictions where 
 there are none, and destroying the essence of that teach- 
 ing, by reducing it to mere w^rds and by re-establishing 
 in fact the Mosaic law in all its savage cruelty. 
 
158 CHRIST S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 According to all the interpreters of the Church, 
 especially from the fifth century downwards, Christ did 
 not reject the written law, but confirmed it. 
 
 But how did he confirm it ? How can the law of 
 Christ be united to that of Moses ? 
 
 To this there is no answer. The interpretations 
 are a mere play upon words. They pretend that 
 Christ fulfilled the Mosaic law and the prophecies, 
 and that he fulfilled the law through man's acceptance 
 of him. The only real question for a believer, how to 
 unite two contradictory laws which equally determine 
 the life of man, remains without even an attempt at 
 decision, and the contradiction between the verse in 
 which it is said that Christ came not to destroy the law, 
 and the verse in which it is said, " Ye have heard that it 
 was said — but I say unto you," — and again between the 
 spirit of the whole teaching of Moses and that of Christ 
 remains in full force. 
 
 Let any one interested in this question, himself 
 examine the interpretations of this passage by the wTiters 
 of the Church from the days of St. Augustine to our own 
 time, and these long dissertations will only convince him 
 that not only is there to be found no explanation of the 
 contradiction, but that others are artificially introduced 
 which did not previously exist. 
 
 The impossible attempts to unite things which 
 cannot be united show clearly that this union is not a 
 mental error, but is due to a clear and definite idea that 
 it is necessary. And wh}' it is deemed necessary, is no 
 less clear. 
 
 Here is what St. Augustine, in his commentary on the 
 
WHAT I BELIEVE. I 59 
 
 Gospel of ]\Iatthew, says in answer to those who reject 
 the law of Moses. 
 
 " On farther scrutiny of the old law, which commands 
 
 us to pluck out an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth, 
 
 some at once exclaim, How can he be good who says 
 
 these things ? What can we say to them ? This, that on 
 
 the contrary they are the most perfect proof of the love of 
 
 God for man. He ordained this law, not in order that 
 
 we should pluck out each other's eyes, but that, fearing 
 
 to undergo such evil from others, we should not ourselves 
 
 inflict it. In the same way, when he threatened the 
 
 inhabitants of Nineveh with ruin, He did not wish them 
 
 to perish (for if He had wished it. He had only to be 
 
 silent) ; He wished by these terrors to make them repent, 
 
 that He might lay aside His Avrath. Thus also, for those 
 
 who are wicked enough" to be ready to pluck out their 
 
 neighbour's eyes, He appointed the punishment with the 
 
 object that, in case they will not refrain of their own good 
 
 will from this cruelty, fear at least should prevent their 
 
 depriving others of sight. If this was cruelty, then it 
 
 was also cruelty to forbid murder, to prohibit adultery. 
 
 But to speak thus men must be mad, in the last stage 
 
 of insanity. I, for my part, am so much afraid to call 
 
 these ordinances cruel, that I should consider any others 
 
 opposed to them unlawful acts, if I am to judge with a 
 
 man's common sense. Thou sayest that God is cruel, 
 
 because He commanded me to pluck out an eye for an 
 
 eye ; but I say if He had not given such commands, then 
 
 might many more justly have called Him what thou 
 
 hast named Him." St. Augustine directly accepts the 
 
 law of a tooth for a tooth as divine, and the opposite of 
 
l60 CHRIST'S CHRISTIAA'ITY. 
 
 the law of a tooth for a tooth, that is, the teaching of 
 Christ not to resist evil, as unlawful. 
 
 " Let us suppose that all law has been destroyed," says 
 St. Augustine elsewhere, " and that no one fears punish- 
 ment, that all vicious men will be allowed to live, 
 without any fear for the consequences, after their own 
 inclinations — adulterers, murderers, thieves, and perjurers. 
 Will not all then be brought low, towns, market-places, 
 the earth, the sea ? Will not the universe be filled with 
 countless crimes and murders .'' This is evident to all. 
 If, even while we have laws, terrors and threats, the 
 designs of the wicked can hardly be restrained, what 
 would hinder men deciding for evil, when these impedi- 
 ments were removed } What woes would not then burst 
 over the life of man ? Not only is there cruelty, when 
 the wicked are allowed to do what pleases them, but also 
 when the man Avho has committed no injustice is left to 
 suffer innocently without the slightest defence. Tell me, 
 were any one to collect from all parts wicked men, arm 
 them with swords, and order them to go throughout the 
 town, killing all they met, could there be anything more 
 inhuman ? On the contrary, should some one else bind 
 these armed men, and by force confine them in a prison, 
 delivering out of their lawless hands those threatened 
 with death, could there be anything more humane 1 " 
 
 (St. Augustine does not say, how any one else is to 
 determine who are wicked. What if he himself were 
 wicked, and imprisoned the good .'') " Now apply these 
 examples to the law. The one, who bids us to pluck 
 out an eye for an eye, imposes on the souls of the vicious 
 the same terror as that produced by strong fetters, and 
 
WHAT I BELIEVE. l6l 
 
 is compared to the one who binds the armed men ; but 
 he who would appoint no punishment for the criminals, 
 would arm them with fearlessness for consequences, and 
 would be like the man who gave out swords to the 
 wicked and sent them through the town." 
 
 If St. Augustine acknowledged the law of Christ, he 
 ought to have made plain who it is that will pluck out 
 eyes and teeth, and cast men into prison. If He who 
 bids us do so, that is, God, were Himself to act, there 
 would be no contradiction ; but it is to be done by men 
 to men, and the Son of God has bid men not to do it. 
 God said. Do this ; the Son said, Do it not. One of these 
 two commandments we must accept, and St. Augustine, 
 and with him the whole Church, accepts the command 
 of God the Father, that is of Moses, and rejects the com- 
 mand of the Son, that is of Christ, whose teaching he 
 nevertheless professes to acknowledge. Christ put aside 
 the Mosaic law, and gave his own instead. 
 
 For a man who believes in Christ there is no contra- 
 diction at all ; disregarding the law of Moses, he accepts 
 only the law of Christ, and fulfils it. For a man who 
 believes in the law of Moses there is also no contradic- 
 tion. The Hebrews consider Christ's teaching to be 
 vain words, and believe in the law of Moses. The 
 contradiction exists only for those Avho wish to live after 
 the law of Moses, and yet assure themselves and others 
 that they believe in the law of Christ, for those whom 
 Christ calls hypocrites and a race of vipers. 
 
 Instead of accepting one or the other, the law of 
 Moses or the law of Christ, both arc accepted as divinely 
 inspired truths. 
 
 M 
 
1б2 CHRIST'S CHRISTIAA4TY. 
 
 But, when the hard facts of life come into question, 
 then the law of Christ is left and the law of Moses taken. 
 
 In this false interpretation, if we probe its meaning, 
 there lies the terrible drama of the strife of evil and 
 darkness with goodness and light. 
 
 To the Hebrew people, embarrassed by countless 
 material rules, ordained on them by the Levites as divine 
 law, and stamped each one with the words, " And the 
 Lord spake unto Moses," in their midst, appears Christ. 
 He found not only the relation of man to God, his 
 sacrifices, his feasts and fasts, but the relations of man 
 to his fellow-man, whether national, civil, and domestic, 
 all the details of individual life — circumcision, ablution 
 both of the body and the cup, dress — all, down to 
 the smallest trifles, accepted as the command, the law 
 of God. 
 
 What was possible, I say, not to the God-Christ, but 
 even only to a prophet, to the most ordinary teacher, in 
 dealing with such a people but to destroy such a law .^ 
 Christ, like all prophets, takes from that which men 
 believe to be the law of God only what is truly God's 
 law, takes the groundwork, and throwing aside all the 
 rest, binds that groundwork into his own exposition of 
 the eternal law. It is not necessary to destroy all, but it 
 is most necessary to destroy the idea that the old law is 
 of necessity vital in all its bearings. This Christ does ; 
 for this he is reproached with destroying the law of 
 God ; and for this he is put to death. 
 
 But his teaching remains Avith his disciples ; it passes 
 into another state of society, into other ages. 
 
 Under these altered conditions as time goes on this 
 
WHAT I BELIEVE. 1 63 
 
 teaching is again overgrown with the same excrescences, 
 the same interpretations and explanations ; the mean 
 inventions of man again replace the inspiration of the 
 Divinity. 
 
 Where once was heard, " And the Lord spake unto 
 Moses," now runs the formula, " It hath pleased us and 
 the Holy Ghost ; " the spirit is once more sacrificed to 
 the letter. And, most astounding of all, the teaching of 
 Christ becomes involved with that " tora," in the sense 
 of the written law, which he could not but condemn. 
 This " tora " is accepted as the inspired issue of Christ's 
 own mind, that is, of the Holy Ghost, and he himself is 
 caught in the web of his own weaving ; his whole teach- 
 ing is reduced to nought. 
 
 This is why, 1800 years after Christ taught, I was 
 placed in the strange position of having to search for the 
 meaning of his teaching as for something new. 
 
 Yet in reality I made no discovery. I did no more 
 than all do who are truly seekers of God and His law. 
 I perceived the existence of this eternal law in the midst 
 of the confusion which men have called by its name. 
 
 VI. 
 
 And thus, when I understood the law of Christ to be the 
 law of Christ, and not that of Moses and Christ ; when I 
 understood that it distinctly denies the law of Moses, 
 the Gospels were to me no longer a heap of obscure and 
 fragmentary contradictions ; they formed in my mind a 
 single indivisible whole, from which stood forth complete 
 
1б4 CHRIST S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 the grand principles of Christ's teaching, expressed in 
 five simple and clear commandments (Matt. v. 21-48) 
 accessible to all men, but which to me had hitherto been 
 a sealed book. 
 
 Through all the Gospels run the commandments of 
 Christ, and our obligations to obey them. 
 
 All theologians speak oi the commandments of Christ,, 
 but what they lucre I had hitherto not known. To me 
 it had seemed that they consisted in loving God and our 
 neighbour as we love ourselves. I had not seen that 
 this could not be called the commandment of Christ, 
 because it is the commandment of the old Mosaic law. 
 
 The words (Matt. v. 19), "Whosoever therefore shall 
 break one of these least commandments, and shall teach 
 men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven ; 
 but whosoever shall do and teach them, he shall be called 
 o-reat in the kingdom of heaven," I had thought referred 
 to the commandments of Moses. It had never entered 
 my head that the verses (Matt. v. 21-48) clearly and 
 definitely express the new commandments of Christ. I 
 did not see that, in the passage where he says, " Ye have 
 heard that it was said — but I say unto you," his new 
 commandments arc distinctly declared, making in all, if 
 луе count by the number of references to the ancient law 
 (taking the two references about adultery as one) five 
 new, clear, and definite commandments. 
 
 Of the beatitudes and their exact number I had 
 heard, and had been taught all about them in my lessons 
 of divinity ; but I had never heard of the commandments 
 of Christ. To my own great astonishment I found that 
 I had to discover them for mj-self 
 
WHAT I BELIEVE. 1 65 
 
 And this is how the discovery came about. In 
 Matthew (v. 21-26) it is said: "Ye have heard that it 
 was said to them of old time, Thou shalt not kill ; and 
 whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the j"udgment ; 
 but I say unto you, that every one who is angry with his 
 brother shall be in danger of the judgment ; and whoso- 
 ever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of 
 the council ; and whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be 
 in danger of the hell of fire. If therefore thou art offering 
 thy gift at the altar, and there rememberest that thy 
 brother hath aught against thee, leave there thy gift 
 before the altar, and go thy way, first be reconciled to 
 thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift. Agree 
 with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art with him 
 in the way ; lest haply the adversary deliver thee to the 
 judge, and the judge deliver thee to the ofiicer, and thou 
 be cast into prison. Verily I say unto thee. Thou shalt 
 by no means come out thence, till thou have paid the 
 last farthing." 
 
 At the time when I first recognized the true bearing 
 of the commandment not to resist evil, I began to think 
 that to this passage also there must be a distinct signifi- 
 cance applicable to everyday life. 
 
 The meaning I had formerly given to these words 
 was, always to avoid anger, never to use abusive language, 
 to live in peace with all men ; but in the text I found 
 a word which annulled that meaning. We arc told not 
 to be angry without cause,* and therefore the passage 
 cannot prescribe unconditional peace. Troubled solely 
 
 The Revised Version gives these words only in margin, l)ut the 
 Russian text, like our own Aulliori/.ed Version, includes them. — II. V. Б. 
 
l66 CHRISrS CHRIST! A ЛЧТУ. 
 
 by these words, I turned for the resolution of my doubts 
 to the interpretations of the theologians, and found, to 
 my surprise, that the Fathers were chiefly occupied with 
 deciding the cases in which anger was excusable, and in 
 which it was not. All the interpreters of the Church, 
 relying principally on the words zvitJiout cause, explain 
 the passage thus — we must not offend the innocent, nor 
 use abusive language ; but anger is not always unjust ; 
 and then, to confirm their explanation, they quote 
 examples of the anger of the apostles and the saints. 
 
 I was forced to acknowledge that anger, as they 
 express it, for the glory of God, is not forbidden, though 
 contrary to the whole spirit of the Gospel ; and that this 
 conclusion is justly founded on the words " ivitJioiit cause'' 
 in the twenty-second verse. These words changed the 
 meaning of the whole passage. 
 Do not be angry luitJiont cause. 
 
 Christ enjoins us to forgive all men, to forgive to the 
 end, even as he himself forgave when he forbids Peter to 
 be angry with Malchus. When Peter opposed his master's 
 arrest, it would surely seem that he acted not Avithout 
 cause. Yet Christ, who thus forgives, says explicitly to 
 man, do not be angry ivithout cause ; and by that saying 
 permits men to be angry when they have just cause. 
 Christ preaches peace to all men, and then, as if defending 
 himself against the supposition that this commandment 
 is of universal application, shows that there are cases 
 when anger is la\\-ful by adding the words " without 
 cause." 
 
 In the commentaries it is explained that there arc 
 times and seasons when anger is just. V>\.\X. who, said 
 
WHAT I BELIEVE. 16/ 
 
 I, is to be the judge of these times and seasons ? I 
 have never yet seen angry people who did not think 
 their anger j'ust. All men believe their anger to be 
 lawful and even needful. These words destroyed the 
 whole meaning of the verse, but these words were in the 
 Holy Scriptures, and I could not erase them. To me 
 they seemed as if instead of the words " Love thy neigJi- 
 lwu}%" had stood '^ Love thy good ncigJibonr^' or ''Love the 
 neighbour who is agreeable to thee." 
 
 Thus Avas the whole sense of this passage destroyed 
 for me by the words ivithoiit cause. Those verses 
 which enjoin us before prayer to be reconciled with those 
 who have any cause of offence against us, which, un- 
 connected with the words zvithont cause, would have a 
 positive meaning — received in this wise, could now only 
 have a conditional one. 
 
 Christ, I thought, must surely have forbidden anger 
 in every case, must have enjoined on all men to abstain 
 from ill-will of all kinds. Before you offer your gift 
 [that is, before you enter into relation with God], con- 
 sider if there be not some one who is angry with you, 
 with cause or ivithout, and if such there be, first go and 
 be reconciled to him, and afterwards offer your gift [or 
 pray]. So I had understood this passage, but from the 
 commentaries it seemed that henceforth I must take 
 it in a conditional sense only. 
 
 All the interpretations are at one that we must strive 
 to be at peace with all men, but if, through the depravity 
 of those who are at enmity with us, that may not be, 
 we must be reconciled with them in our hearts and 
 thoughts, and then their ill-will cannot hinder our own 
 
1 68 CHRISl^'S CHRISTIAK4TY. 
 
 prayers. Moreover, the words, Whosoever shall say 
 Raca and fool shall be in danger, had always seemed to 
 me strange and obscure. If it is generally forbidden to 
 use abusive language, for what purpose are examples 
 selected so weak as hardly to come within the category 
 of abuse at all ? And then, why such a fearful threat 
 against the use of a word so comparatively harmless as 
 Raca, that is, an insignificant fellow ? This was not 
 clear. 
 
 I felt that here also was the same misunderstanding 
 as had before obscured the words "judge not." I felt 
 that, as with the interpretation of the latter, so here, 
 what was simple, important, definite, and capable of 
 practical application, had been made cloudy and in- 
 distinct. I felt that Christ could not have intended the 
 words, Go and be reconciled, to have the popular 
 significance, be reconciled in your thoughts. What is 
 the meaning of being reconciled in our thoughts ? I 
 believed that Christ had repeated the saying of the 
 prophet, that he desired not sacrifice, but mercy, that is, 
 love to our fellow-men, and that in consequence he taught 
 that if we would truly please God, wc must, before 
 morning and evening prayer, at mass or vespers, consider 
 if any man had anything against us, and if so, go and 
 do what might appease him, before wc oficred our 
 prayers to God. 
 
 But what about this phrase, in otir thoughts? I felt 
 that this interpretation, so destructive of all clear and 
 positive meaning, was founded upon the words, withoiU 
 cause. Strike them out, and the sense would be clear. 
 But against this conception were all the commentators 
 
WHAT I BELIEVE. 1 69 
 
 and the Canonical Gospel, which adopts the words zuith- 
 oiit catise. If I give way in this instance, I may give 
 way in another at my own discretion ; others may do the 
 same. The whole difficulty hung on two words ; were it 
 not for them all would be clear. 
 
 I will make an attempt to examine into the philological 
 value of these words, to explain them so that they shall 
 not destroy the sense of the passage. I take a lexicon, 
 and find that the Greek word for the expression, ^'zvith- 
 oiit cause" ню], means also aimlessly, tmadvisedly ; I en- 
 deavour to find a less destructive meaning, but without 
 success. Turning from the lexicon to the context, I 
 find that the word is only used in the Gospel twice, in 
 this very passage. In the Epistles it is used several 
 times. In the first Epistle to the Corinthians (xv. 2) it 
 is used exactly in this sense. Consequently there was 
 no possibility of explaining the word otherwise ; it was 
 necessary to acknowledge that Christ said, Do not be 
 angry without canse. 
 
 I must confess that to adrhit that Christ in this 
 passage could use language so obscure as to have no 
 positive significance, was to me tantamount with re- 
 jecting the whole Gospel. There remained this one last 
 hope — was the word to be found in all the copies ? I 
 consulted the variations ; I searched through Griesbach, 
 who gives them all, how, in what copies, and by what 
 Fathers, this explanation or that is employed. I 
 was delighted to find that there were many references 
 to the expression zvithont cause, many variations of it. 
 The majority of the copies of the Gospels and of the 
 Fathers omitted it entirely, being clearly, therefore, of 
 
I/O CHRIST S CHRISTIAA4TY. 
 
 the same mind as myself. I looked into Tischcndorf, 
 into one of the oldest copies, and zvithont cause was 
 not there. I took up Luther's translation — which, in- 
 deed, might have shown me the shortest road at first — 
 and again ivithotit cause was Avanting. 
 
 This expression, so destructive of the true teaching 
 of Christ, was an interpolation of the fifth century, and 
 not to be found in the most authentic copies of the 
 Gospel. 
 
 A man had been found to add these Avords, and 
 others to approve and explain his addition ! 
 
 Christ could not have used and did not use this 
 terrible expression ; the simple plain meaning of the 
 whole passage, as it had struck me at first, as it must 
 strike every one, was the true one. 
 
 Moreover, as soon as I understood that the words of 
 Christ forbade anger at all times and against all men, 
 the prohibition of the words Raca and fool, which had 
 formerly troubled me, received another interpretation 
 than that of prohibiting abusive language only. 
 
 The strange untranslated Hebrew лvord Raca gave 
 me this clue. Raca means one trodden doivn, annihilated, 
 not existing ; the word Rak is much in use, and has the 
 sense of exclusion, meaning only not. Raca means a 
 man unworthy to be called a man. The plural form, 
 I'ckim, is used in the book of Judges (ix. 4), where it 
 means "lost persons." This, then, is the word Avhich 
 Christ forbids to be used to any one ; and why not forbid 
 also the use of that other word " fool " [that is, madman], 
 which apparently relieves us from our general responsi- 
 bility towards our fellow-men. 
 
WHAT I BELIEVE. 171 
 
 We are angry, wc inflict inj'ury upon others, and then 
 in justification allege that the person with whom we are 
 wrath is a lost or mad person. Thus Christ has for- 
 bidden these two words to be used of men or to men ; 
 he forbids anger in all circumstances, nor will he allow 
 any man to justify his wrath, because he deems another 
 artbst or mad person. 
 
 Thus, instead of an obscure, indefinite,and unimportant 
 expression, capable of being explained in many and 
 arbitrary ways, I found in the verses of the fifth chapter 
 of Matthew, from the twenty-first to the twenty-sixth 
 inclusive, clearly and definitely laid down, the first com- 
 mandment of Christ, Live in peace with all men ; account 
 your anger against no man just ; believe or call no man 
 either lost or mad ; think not your own anger to be 
 justified, and think not the anger of others- against 
 yourself to be unjustified ; consequently, if there be any 
 one who is angered against you, even without cause, 
 before praying go and put away all unfriendly feeling. 
 For the future strive to put an end to all enmity between 
 yourself and others, lest it increase and destroy you. 
 
 And the second commandment appeared to me to 
 stand out with the same clearness. In the fifth chapter 
 of Matthew, from the twenty-seventh to the thirtieth 
 verse inclusive, it is said in reference to the old law, " Ye 
 have heard that it was said, Thou shalt not commit 
 adultery (Exodus xx. 14-28) : but I say unto you, that 
 every one that looketh on a woman to lust after her 
 hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. 
 And if thy right eye causeth thee to stumble, pluck it 
 out, and cast it from thee : for it is profitable for thee 
 
1/2 CHRIST S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 that one of thy members should perish, and not thy 
 whole body be cast into hell. And if thy right hand 
 causeth thee to stumble, cut it off, and cast it from thee : 
 for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members 
 should perish, and not thy whole body go into hell." 
 
 In the thirty-first verse it is said that, if any one put 
 away his wife, he shall give her a writing of divorcement 
 (Deut. xxiv. i), and in verse thirty-two follows : " But I 
 say unto you, that every one that putteth away his wife, 
 saving for the cause of fornication, maketh her an 
 adulteress : and whosoever shall marry her when she is 
 put away committeth adultery." 
 
 And these words I took to mean : a man has no 
 right to admit even the thought of being united to any 
 other woman than the one whom he has already chosen> 
 and can never, as the law of Moses allowed, change that 
 woman for another. 
 
 As in the first commandment against anger we are 
 enjoined to put an end to it in its beginning (a command- 
 ment enforced by the parable of the man who is delivered 
 to the judge), so here Christ says that adultery arises 
 from men and women looking on each other as objects 
 of carnal pleasure. To prevent this, луе must banish all 
 that excites the desires of the flesh, and, uniting ourselves 
 to one wife, never repudiate her under any pretext Avhat- 
 ever, for the repudiation of wives leads to divorce, and 
 forsaken women seduce other men and are tlie causes of 
 depravity in the world. 
 
 The wisdom of this commandment needed no thought. 
 It avoided all the evils which threaten society from the 
 relations between the sexes. Men, knowing that the 
 
IVHAT I BELIEVE. 1 73 
 
 loose indulgence of their passions must lead them to 
 dissension, will keep clear of all incentives to passion, 
 and obeying the law of nature to live in couples, will 
 keep that natural union inviolate. Thus there will be 
 neither man nor woman living single deprived of married 
 life, and thus the evils which spring from such solitude 
 will cease to exist. 
 
 But the words, saving for the cause of fornication, 
 understood in the sense that a man might divorce his 
 wMq for adultery, which had always astonished me in 
 reading the Sermon on the Mount, astonished me now 
 still more. 
 
 Not to speak of there being in the form in which this 
 thought is expressed something not altogether worthy of 
 the occasion, of there being side by side with the deepest 
 truths of the discourse something like a formal note to 
 a legal code, there was this strange exception to the 
 general rule which contradicted the whole line of thought. 
 
 I consulted all the commentators, and they all (St. 
 Chrysostom and others), even learned theologians and 
 critics like Reuss, admitted that these words convey 
 Christ's approval of divorce in the case of the wife's 
 adultery, and that in the nineteenth chapter of the same 
 Gospel, a like approbation is conveyed. I read and 
 re-read the thirty-second verse, and each time it seemed to 
 me more impossible to signify the approval of divorce. In 
 order to make sure I compared all similar passages, and 
 found in the Gospel of Matthew, of Mark, of Luke, and 
 in the First Epistle to the Corinthians, the explanation 
 that marriage was indissoluble without exception. 
 
 In Luke (xvi. 18) it is said : " T^very one that puttcth 
 
174 CHRIST S CHRISTIANirY. 
 
 away his wife, and marricth another, committeth adultery: 
 and he that marrieth one that is put away from a 
 husband committeth adultery." 
 
 In Mark (x. 5-12) there is the same clearness of 
 expression : " For your hardness of heart he wrote you 
 this commandment, But from the beginning of the 
 creation male and female made he them. For this 
 cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall 
 cleave to his wife ; and the twain shall become one flesh : 
 so that they are no more twain, but one flesh. What 
 therefore God hath joined together, let no man put 
 asunder. And in the house the disciples asked him 
 again of this matter. And he saith unto them. Whoso- 
 ever shall put away his \vife, and marry another, com- 
 mitteth adultery against her : And if she herself shall 
 put away her husband, and marry another, she committeth 
 adultery." 
 
 So also in Matthew (xix. 4-9). 
 
 In the First Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians 
 (vii. 1-12), we find developed in detail the idea of the 
 prevention of immorality by the union of husband and 
 wife. That union is for life ; each is to render to the 
 other what is due, and it is also expressly said that in no 
 circumstances shall the husband leave his wife for another, 
 or the wife her husband. 
 
 According to Mark, Luke, and Paul divorce is not 
 lawful. By the sense of the saying, that man and wife 
 are one flesh, and their union of God, a saying repeated 
 in two of the Gospels, divorce is not lawful. By the 
 sense of the whole teaching of Christ, enjoining forgive- 
 ness of edl injuries, even to the forgiving of a fallen wife, 
 
1УЯАТ I BELIEVE. 1 75 
 
 divorce is not lawful ; neither is it according to the 
 sense of the whole passage, which explains that the 
 putting away of a wife leads to immorality, and especially 
 to the immorality of her who is put away. 
 
 On what, then, is based the interpretation that divorce 
 for adultery on the part of the woman is lawful ? On 
 those words in the thirty-second verse of the fifth chapter 
 of Matthew, which I found so strange, " saving for the 
 cause of fornication." These words are explained by 
 all to mean, that Christ permits divorce in case of the 
 adultery of the wife ; they are repeated in the nineteenth 
 chapter of Matthew, according to many copies of the 
 Gospels, and by many of the Fathers, instead of the 
 words, " for the sake of fornication." 
 
 Again I began to study these words, and long it was 
 before I could understand them. I saw that here must 
 be some error both in the translation and the explana- 
 tion, but what it was I was long in discovering. And yet 
 it was clearly in error. Christ setting his own command- 
 ment in direct opposition to that of Moses, by which 
 every husband, in whose eyes his wife finds no favour, 
 may give her a bill of divorcement, and send her out 
 of his house, says, " I say unto you, that every one that 
 putteth away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, 
 maketh her an adulteress." In these words the law of 
 Moses is not contradicted, nor is there any positive 
 decision as to the legality of divorce. It is only said 
 that putting away a wife leads to her becoming an 
 adulteress, and yet forthwith an exception is made in the 
 case of a wife already guilty of adultery. 
 
 This exception, relating to a wife guilty of adulter}-. 
 
1/6 CHRIST S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 when the subject immediately on hand is the husband, 
 is in itself strange and unexpected, but in this particular 
 place it is simply foolish, because it destroys even the 
 doubtful sense which the passage originally had. 
 
 It is said that the putting away of a wife drives her 
 to adultery, and yet husbands are enjoined to put away 
 adulterous wives, as if a woman once guilty of adultery 
 would sin no more. 
 
 Nor was this all ; for, on studying the passage more 
 attentively, I saw that it was not even grammatically 
 correct. It is said, " Every one that putteth away his 
 wife, saving for the cause of fornication, maketh her an 
 adulteress," and the sentence is complete. The question 
 concerns the husband who, divorcing his wife, exposes 
 her to the temptation of committing adultery, and then 
 is added, " saving for the cause of fornication." If it is 
 said that a husband who divorced his wife, saving when 
 she had been faithless, was guilty of adultery, the pro- 
 position would be grammatically correct. But here the 
 subject, " the husband who divorces," has only " causes " 
 for an attribute. One cannot add to this the words, 
 " saving for the cause of fornication." To which sentence, 
 then, does this phrase belong, for it is evident that the 
 husband, with or without the pretext of his wife's adultery, 
 will expose her with equal certainty, if he divorce her .^ 
 Take the following sentence : " He who refuses suste- 
 nance to his chikl, besides being guilty himself, causes 
 him to become cruel." 
 
 This clearly cannot mean that the father may refuse 
 to sustain his child if the latter be cruel, but that the 
 father who refuses, besides being cruel himself, leads his 
 
WHAT I BEL/EVE. 1 77 
 
 son into a similar sin. In the same way the Gospel 
 expression would have sense, if for the words " cause of 
 fornication " were to be substituted " for sensuality," " for 
 incontinence," or something similar, expressing not an 
 act but a quality. 
 
 I asked myself. Is it here simply said that whoever 
 divorces his wife, besides being himself guilty of incon- 
 tinence (for nearly all who divorce their wives do so 
 with intent to take another) exposes her to sin ? 
 
 If in the original text the word translated by "forni- 
 cation " had the significance of incontinence (and might 
 therefore be applied not to the wife but to the husband), 
 the sense is clear. 
 
 Here, as often before, a perusal of the original con- 
 firmed my supposition beyond the possibility of a doubt. 
 The first thing which struck me in my investigation 
 was that the word тгоруна, translated " fornication, " is 
 very different in meaning from fxoiyaaQai, the word 
 generally used in that significance. 
 
 To see if the words might be synonymous, I consulted 
 the lexicon, and found there that the word -rropveia, which 
 answers to the Hebrew " zono," the Latin " fornicatio," 
 the German " hurerei," the French " libcrtinage," the 
 English " incontinence," has a precise meaning, and has 
 not in any lexicon the sense of an " act of adultery," 
 " adultere," " ehebruch," as Luther and the Germans 
 translate it. 
 
 It signifies a state of moral depravity, a quality, not 
 an act, and can never be translated by " adultery." 
 
 I discovered also that the word "adultery " is always 
 rendered throughout the Gospels as in this passage by 
 
 N 
 
1/8 CHKISVS CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 the word fioix^vw. I had only to correct this clearly 
 intentional error, for the sense given by commentators 
 to this passage and the context in the nineteenth chapter 
 to become absolutely inadmissible, and for the sense in 
 which the word iropviia refers entirely to the husband to 
 become evident. 
 
 The translation in full is, тгарьктод besides \6yov 
 the crime iropvdag of incontinence, ттоГн it obliges avrriv 
 her fioixaaQai to be an adulteress. 
 
 The same sense appears in the nineteenth chapter. 
 
 It is only necessary to alter the incorrect translation 
 of TTopvua by putting " incontinence " for " adultery," and 
 it is clear that et ju»j етг! iropviiq. cannot apply to the 
 woman, but that both it and the sentence quoted above 
 can only have reference to the incontinence of the 
 husband, and the meaning at length becomes apparent 
 that Christ in answering the Pharisees, who thought that 
 if a man put away his wife, not for the sake of living 
 loosely, but in order to marry another, he does not 
 commit adultery, says that this is not so, but that such 
 legal union is none the less the crime they sought to 
 avoid. 
 
 It was this simple meaning, flowing from the words 
 themselves and from the spirit of the whole teaching, 
 which I was obliged to find out for myself, and found 
 only with the greatest difficulty. It is only too true, 
 that if we read these words in the German or French * 
 version, where it is distinctly stated, "pour cause 
 d'infidclite," or " a moins que cela ne soit pour cause 
 d'infidclite," we cannot guess that the real meaning is 
 * The same difficulty occurs in the English version. — En. 
 
WHAT I BELIEVE. 1 79 
 
 something quite different. The word тгаректбд in the 
 lexicons means, except(^, aiisgenomen, besides, but it is 
 translated by a whole proposition, a moins que cela ne 
 soit. The word irofivdag is translated infidclite, ehekbruch, 
 adidtery, and on this intentional mutilation of the text is 
 founded an interpretation, which destroys the moral, the 
 religious, the grammatical, and the logical meaning of 
 the words of Christ. 
 
 Thus the truth, to me at once so awful and yet 
 welcome, the truth that Christ's teaching was both simple 
 and clear, that his precepts were of the highest impor- 
 tance and strictly defined, but that modern interpreta- 
 tion, based on the wish to justify existing evils, had so 
 obscured his words that their real meaning was hard 
 indeed to discover — this double truth was once more 
 confirmed. 
 
 It was clear to me, that it would be easier to reach 
 the meaning of the Gospels, were half the original text 
 burnt or erased, than it is now with so many uncon- 
 scientious commentaries, the object of which is to pervert 
 and conceal the true meaning. In this case it was even 
 clearer to me than in my former difficulty, that some 
 private motive, to justify, for example, the divorce of an 
 Ivan the Terrible, might have brought the Gospel doctrine 
 of marriage into hopeless obscurity. 
 
 Do not give way to the desires of the flesh ; but 
 every man in possession of his natural powers, take to 
 himself a wife ; let every woman take a husband ; let a 
 man have only one wife, and a woman only one husband ; 
 and let them under no pretext whatever dissolve the 
 personal relations consequent on marriage. 
 
]8o CHJilSrS CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 Following close upon this second commandment 
 comes another reference to the old law, and then the 
 third commandment is declared (Matt. v. 33-37) : 
 " Again, ye have heard that it was said to them of old 
 time, Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shall perform 
 unto the Lord thine oaths (Lev. xix. 12 ; Deut. xxiii. 21) : 
 but I say unto you, Swear not at all ; neither by the 
 heaven, for it is the throne of God ; nor by the earth, 
 for it is the footstool of his feet ; nor by Jerusalem, for 
 it is the city of the great King. Neither shalt thou swear 
 by thy head, for thou canst not make one hair white or 
 black. But let your speech be. Yea, yea ; Nay, nay: and 
 whatsoever is more than these is of the evil one." 
 
 This passage in my former studies had always puzzled 
 me. It did not trouble me by its obscurity, like that 
 relating to divorce, nor by its contradiction of other 
 passages, like the prohibition of anger without a cause, 
 nor by any difficulty in fulfilling it, like the passage 
 about turning the other cheek to the smitcr. It troubled 
 me, on the contrary, by its clearness, by its simplicity 
 and easiness. Side by side with precepts whose depth 
 and meaning awed and touched my heart, I came sud- 
 denly upon a rule not wanted by me, futile, easy, and 
 carrying with it no consequences for myself or others. 
 I had never sworn by Jerusalem, or by God, and it 
 cost me nothing to abstain from doing so ; nor could I 
 understand what importance to others my fulfilment or 
 negligence of this commandment would be. Anxious 
 for an explanation of this puzzling simplicity, I had 
 recourse once more to the commentators, and this time 
 they helped me. 
 
WHA Т I BELIE VE. ' 1 8 I 
 
 All the commentators see in these words a confirma- 
 tion of the third commandment of Moses, not to swear 
 by the name of God. They explain that Christ, like 
 Moses, forbids the taking of God's name in vain. But, 
 in addition to this, they also hold that this rule of Christ, 
 not to swear, is not always binding on us, and in no way 
 applies to the oaths which a citizen is called upon to 
 take to the constituted authorities. Thus, the text of 
 Holy Scripture is searched, not in order to confirm the 
 plain meaning of what Christ ordained, but in order to 
 prove that men may and ought to leave it unfulfilled. 
 
 It is said, that Christ himself confirmed the use of 
 oaths before the judgment seat, when to the words of the 
 high priest, I adjure thee by the living God, he answered, 
 Thou hast said ; that the Apostle Paul calls God to 
 witness to the truth of his words, and that is clearly an 
 oath ; that oaths were prescribed by the law of Moses, 
 and not revoked by Christ ; that the only oaths for- 
 bidden are vain ones, hypocritical ones, like those of the 
 Pharisees. 
 
 As soon as I saw the sense and drift of these explana- 
 tions, I understood that this commandment was by no 
 means so insignificant, easy, and immaterial, as I had 
 supposed, while I did not count among the oaths for- 
 bidden those which a citizen is called upon to take by 
 the State. 
 
 I asked myself then, whether here also were not 
 forbidden the oaths so carefully guarded by the writers 
 of the Church, the oath without which the division of 
 men into kingdoms and states was impossible, without 
 which there could be no military class. Soldiers are 
 
1 82 CHRIST S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 men who practise violence, and they call themselves 
 " sworn." * If I asked my grenadier how he reconciled 
 the difference between the Gospels and the military 
 regulations, he would reply that he had taken an oath, 
 he had sworn, that is to say, on the Testament. Such 
 is the answer I have invariably received from military 
 men. An oath is such a necessary part of the organiza- 
 tion of that terrible evil which issues in violence and 
 war, that in France, where Christianity is denied, oaths 
 are still enforced. 
 
 Surely, if Christ had not said, Swear not at all, he 
 should have said so. He came to destroy evil on earth, 
 and had he not forbidden all swearing, how terrible an 
 evil would have been left. It may be said that in his 
 time this evil was not so marked, but that is not true. 
 Epictetus and Seneca both spoke against the practice 
 of administering oaths to any one ; they are forbidden 
 also in the laws of Manu. On what ground shall I say 
 that Christ did not perceive this evil ? How can I say 
 that, when he has pointed it out directly and with such 
 clearness .'' 
 
 Christ said, " But I say unto you. Swear not at all." 
 This expression is as simple, clear, and unhesitating as 
 the words, judge not, and condemn not, and requires as 
 little explanation ; particularly as it is further explained 
 that whatever is required of us more than the answer 
 Yea or Nay, is from the source of evil. 
 
 If the teaching of Christ be to fulfil the will of God, 
 how can a man swear to fulfil the will of a fellow man ? 
 The will of God may not accord with the will of a man. 
 
 * An old Russian alternative for soldier is "sworn." — Ed. 
 
WHAT J BELIEVE. I 83 
 
 Moreover, in this very place Christ himself says so 
 (ver. 36), Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, for not 
 only thy head but every hair on it is in the hands of 
 God. And the same is said by the Apostle James, as 
 if by way of conclusion, in the last chapter of his Epistle 
 (ver. 12) : " But above all things, my brethren, swear not, 
 neither by the heaven, nor by the earth, nor by any 
 other oath : but let your yea be yea, and your nay, nay ; 
 that ye fall not under judgment." The apostle lays 
 down distinctly why we must not swear : an oath in 
 itself may seem not criminal, but through it we fall 
 under judgment, and, therefore, swear not at all. Can 
 anything be more clear than the words both of Christ 
 and his apostle ? 
 
 So puzzled, however, had I been, that for a long 
 time I was in doubt as to their, true meaning. I asked 
 myself, how is it, then, that we all take oaths on the 
 Gospel .? It is impossible that these words should have 
 been so misinterpreted. 
 
 But I had read the commentaries, and seen that this 
 impossibility had been accomplished. 
 
 What happened in the interpretation of the passages 
 not to judge, not to be angry with any one, not to 
 destroy the union between husband and wife, had taken 
 place here also. 
 
 We establish our own social arrangements, we get 
 attached to them, and wish to consider them sacred. 
 Christ, whom we believe to be God, comes among us 
 and tells us that our social order is bad. We confess 
 him to be God, but we will not give up our social 
 order at his bidding. What arc we to do .? Where 
 
I 84 CHRIST'S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 we can, we interpolate the words " without cause." 
 When we can, we, Hke partial judges in the same 
 way, abolish the rule against anger, wrest the letter of 
 the law away from the intention of the law-giver, and 
 instead of the commandment never to divorce a wife, 
 we read that divorce is lawful. Where it is impossible 
 to alter the strict sense of the words, as in judge not, 
 and condemn not, and in swear not at all, we must 
 boldly act in direct contradiction to the whole teaching, 
 while affirming that we follow it. In very truth the 
 chief obstacle to understanding the law against the 
 swearing of oaths, has been that seeming Christian 
 teachers with more than usual boldness have forced 
 men, by the Gospel itself to swear on the Gospel ; or 
 in other words have forced them to do what is contrary 
 to the Gospel. 
 
 How can a man who is obliged to swear on the cross 
 and the Gospel, stop to think that the cross is sacred 
 only because on it was crucified the One who forbade 
 him to swear, and that while taking the oath he perhaps 
 kisses as a holy thing the very* place where it is clearly 
 and distinctly written. Swear not at all? 
 
 This boldness, however, did not surprise me. In 
 Matthew v. 33-37, 1 saw how distinct was the command- 
 ment, and how easy of fulfilment, Swear not at all to any 
 man at any time, for every oath is extorted from men 
 for evil. 
 
 Again, a reference to the old law, and a fourth 
 commandment is declared (Matt. v. 38-42 ; Luke vi, 
 
 * In Russia the Testament is opened for the administration of oaths. — 
 Л. V. B. 
 
WHAT I BELIEVE. 1 85 
 
 29) 30) • " Yg have heard that it was said, An eye for an 
 eye, and a tooth for a tooth : but I say unto you. 
 Resist not evil : but whosoever smiteth thee on thy 
 right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any 
 man would go to law with thee, and take away thy coat, 
 let him have thy cloke also. And whosoever shall 
 compel thee to go one mile, go with him twain. Give 
 to him that asketh thee, and from him that would 
 borrow of thee turn not thou away." 
 
 I have already spoken of the clear and definite 
 meaning of these words, and of how little our right to 
 explain them away, and to pervert them. The interpre- 
 tations of this passage, from the time of Chrysostom to 
 our own, have indeed been astonishing. These words 
 are pleasing to all men, and every one is led to thoughts 
 of deep moment in considering them, with this one 
 exception, that we de not allozv them the meaning which 
 they really have. 
 
 Theological writers, in no way hindered by the 
 authority of him whom they confess as God, calmly put 
 a limit to the meaning of his words. 
 
 They say, It is of course understood that all the com- 
 mandments about bearing with offences, and refraining 
 from vengeance, being specially directed against the 
 Jewish love of revenge, exclude neither the necessity of 
 public measures for the suppression of evil and the 
 punishment of those offenders who do evil, nor the 
 private efforts of the individual to uphold the integrity 
 of justice ; to bring offenders to their senses, and to 
 thwart the wrong-doing of evil-minded men. Were this 
 not so, they say, the spiritual laws of Christ would, after 
 
1 86 CHRISrS CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 the manner of the Jews, be turned into a mere dead letter 
 to be used for the furtherance of evil and the crushing of 
 virtue. The love of a Christian should be as the love of 
 God ; but the latter restrains and punishes evil only when 
 it is derogatory to his glory or imperils the salvation of 
 men ; in all other cases it behoves us energetically to 
 restrain and punish evil, and the obligation to do so falls 
 naturally on the State authorities. (The commentary on 
 the Gospel of the Archbishop Michael is altogether 
 based on the interpretations of the Fathers.) 
 
 Learned and free-thinking Christians do not tie 
 themselves to the words of Christ, but correct him. 
 They allow them to be very lofty sentiments, but devoid 
 of all possibility of a practical application to life, for 
 they would destroy the whole of that social order which 
 we have so well arranged. This is the theory of Renan, 
 Strauss, and of all the freethinking commentators. 
 
 But we have only to treat the words of Christ as we 
 treat the words of any one whom we meet and converse 
 with, we have only to admit that he says what he means, 
 to get rid of the necessity for any deep train of thought. 
 
 Christ says, I consider your way of securing per- 
 sonal safety foolish and bad, and in its stead I offer 
 you another. He then goes on to speak the words 
 contained in the fifth chapter of Matthew, from the 
 thirty-eighth to the forty-second verse. It would seem 
 that, before correcting these words, it is necessary to 
 understand them. But this is exactly what nobody 
 wishes to do ; having decided beforehand that the social 
 order under which we live, and which would be de- 
 stroyed by them, is the sacred law of humanity. 
 
WHAT I BELIEVE. 1 87 
 
 I myself never thought our life, as constituted, either 
 good or sacred, and for that reason, perhaps, came to 
 the right understanding of this commandment sooner 
 than others. And when I had so understood it, its 
 truth, exactness, and clearness made a deep impression 
 on me. Christ says, you wish to destroy evil by evil, 
 but that is unreasonable. That there may be no evil 
 do none yourselves. He then enumerates in order the 
 cases in which we are accustomed to do evil, and forbids 
 us in such cases so to act. 
 
 This fourth commandment of Christ was the first 
 which I understood rightly, and it gave me a key to the 
 meanings of all the others. The fourth commandment, 
 so simple, clear, and easy of fulfilment, says. Never 
 resist evil by force ; do not oppose violence to violence : 
 if beaten endure with patience ; if despoiled bear with 
 the spoiler ; if forced to labour, labour ; if from you be 
 taken that which you account your own, let it freely go. 
 
 Next, after the customary reference to the old law, 
 follows the fifth commandment (Matt. v. 43-48), "Ye 
 have heard that it was said, Thou shalt love thy neigh- 
 bour, and hate thine enemy (Lev. xix. 17, 18): but I 
 say unto you love your enemies, and pray for them that 
 persecute you ; that ye may be sons of your Father 
 which is in heaven : for he maketh his sun to rise on the 
 evil and the good, and sendeth rain on the just and the 
 unjust. For if ye love them that love you, what reward 
 have ye .'' do not even the publicans the same ? And 
 if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than 
 others.' do not even the Gentiles the same? Ye there- 
 fore shall be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect." 
 
I 88 CHRISrS CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 These verses had previously seemed to me an ex- 
 planation, a strengthening, nay, even an exaggeration of 
 the previous commandment, " Resist not evil." But when 
 I found that each passage, which begins with a reference 
 to the old law, had its own simple substantive meaning, 
 and one capable of being applied in practice, I felt that 
 it must be the same in this case. After each reference a 
 commandment is declared, and each verse has a meaning 
 and cannot be struck out. Here again, then, it must be 
 the same. The last words repeated by Luke, that God 
 makes no distinction of persons and does good to all, 
 and that we therefore should be like God, and not act 
 like the Gentiles who make such distinctions, but should 
 love all men, and do good to all alike — these words were 
 clear, they were for me a confirmation and explanation 
 of some clear rule, but it was long before I could under- 
 stand what that rule was. 
 
 Love your enemies ! That was a thing impossible, 
 one of those magnificent expressions which we can only 
 look upon as manifestations of an unattainable moral 
 ideal. It was either too much, or nothing at all. We 
 may choose not to injure an enemy, but love him 
 we cannot. Christ could not prescribe an impossible 
 thing. 
 
 Moreover, is there not something doubtful in the first 
 words in reference to the old law, hate thine enemy ? In 
 the previous passages Christ quotes the law of Moses 
 with verbal exactness, but here he quotes words which 
 were never spoken. He, as it were, calumniates the law. 
 
 The commentaries did not help me at all. In all 
 the interpretations it is admitted that the words, " hate 
 
WHAT I BELIEVE. 1 89 
 
 thine enemyl' are not in the law of Moses, but the 
 explanation of this incorrect rendering of the law is 
 nowhere given. The difficulty of loving evil men, your 
 enemies, is allowed, and Christ's words are mostly 
 corrected to mean that, though we cannot love our 
 enemies, we may refrain from wishing them or doing 
 them any ill. Meanwhile we are taught that we may, 
 that we ought, to convict our enemies, that is to say, to 
 resist them. We are told of different steps towards the 
 attainment of this virtuous end, and the final result of 
 the interpretation of the Church is that Christ, for some 
 unknown reason, quoted the law of Moses incorrectly, 
 using language which, magnificent as it is, is in reality 
 idle and incapable of being practically applied. 
 
 It seemed to me that this could not be. Surely, here 
 also should be the same clear and definite sense as in 
 the first four commandments. In order to comprehend 
 this sense, I first of all strove to get hold of the meaning 
 of this incorrect reference to the law : " Ye have heard 
 that it was said . . . hate thine enemy." 
 
 It is not without a reason that Christ quotes the very 
 words of the law, as he declares each of his rules — do 
 not kill, do not commit adultery, and so on ; and to 
 them opposes his own teaching. Without understanding 
 his own interpretation of the law quoted by him, wc 
 cannot understand what it is that he enjoins on us. In 
 the commentaries it is expressly stated (and indeed it is 
 impossible to avoid the statement), that he quotes words 
 which are not in the law, but it is not explained why he 
 does so, and what this incorrect reference signifies. 
 
 It appeared to me that the first thing needful was to 
 
I90 CHRISrS CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 explain Christ's intention in doing this, and I asked my- 
 self what it might be. In all his previous references to 
 the law, a single precept is alone quoted — do not kill, do 
 not commit adultery, keep your oath, a tooth for a tooth 
 — and then there is opposed to each the answering pre- 
 cept of his own teaching. 
 
 Here two precepts are quoted directly contrary to 
 one another ; you have been told — love your neighbour 
 and hate your enemy, so that clearly the new law must 
 be based upon this difference between the two precepts 
 of the old law with respect to a neighbour and an 
 enemy. 
 
 In order to understand more clearly in what this 
 difference consisted, I asked myself what the words 
 neighbour and enemy signified in the Gospel language. 
 After looking into the lexicons and searching the 
 Bible for parallel passages, I convinced myself that 
 neighbour in the Jewish tongue simply meant a Jew. 
 Neighbour is used in this sense in the parable of the 
 Samaritan. A teacher of the Jewish law could not 
 understand a Samaritan to be his neighbour. The word 
 is used in the same sense again in the Acts (vii. 27). 
 In the language of the Gospels it signifies, a fellow- 
 countryman, a man belonging to the same nationality. 
 So that, supposing the opposition which Christ brings 
 out in this passage by quoting from the old law, "Ye 
 have heard that it was said love your neighbours and 
 hate thine enemy," to be that between a countryman 
 and a foreigner, I asked myself what an enemy meant to 
 the mind of a Jew, and found the confirmation of my 
 supposition. The word enemy is seldom used in the 
 
WHAT I BELIEVE. Ipl 
 
 Gospels in a private or personal sense, but almost always 
 in a public and national one (Luke i. 71-74; Matt. xxii. 
 44 ; Mark xii. 36 ; Luke xx. 43 ; and in other places). 
 The singular number, in which the word " enemy " is 
 employed in these verses, in the expression " hate thine 
 enemy," shows me that a national enemy is here spoken 
 of. In the Old Testament for the same meaning- the 
 singular number is always employed. 
 
 As soon as I understood this, my difficulty vanished. 
 
 For what purpose could Christ, so accurate in his 
 quotations from the law, in this one instance have em- 
 ployed words not to be found in it ? It is only necessary 
 to take the word enemy in a national sense, and the word 
 neighbour in that of a fellow-countryman, for the whole 
 difficulty to disappear. Christ speaks of the way in 
 which the law of Moses prescribes that the Hebrews 
 should treat a national enemy. All the passages, spread 
 over the different books of the Scriptures, in which it is 
 prescribed to the Jews to oppress, slay, and destroy other 
 nations, are brought together by Christ into one saying, 
 Thou shall hate or do evil to thine enemy. He says. You 
 have been told to love your own people, and to hate the 
 enemy of your race, but I tell you to love all without 
 distinction of nationality. 
 
 No sooner, however, had these words become clear 
 to me than another great difficulty was solved — how 
 I was to understand the words. Love your enemies. It 
 is impossible to love our personal enemies, but men 
 of a hostile nationality wc can love as well as those 
 of our own. Consequently, it now became evident to 
 me that, in saying, You have been told, love your 
 
192 CHRIST S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 neighbour and hate your enemy, but I say unto you, 
 love your enemies, Christ alludes to the fact, that all 
 men have been accustomed to consider those of their 
 own nation as their neighbours, and those of other 
 nationalities as their enemies ; it was also clear to me 
 that he orders men not to do this. He really says. 
 By the law of Moses a distinction is made between Jews 
 and those who, not being Jews, are therefore the national 
 enemy, but I say unto you, you must not make this dis- 
 tinction. It agrees with this precept that he should 
 next, according both to Matthew and Luke, declare that 
 to God all men are equal, on all the same sun shines and 
 the same rain falls. God makes no difference between 
 nations, but sends good to them all alike. And thus 
 should men behave, treating all their fellows alike, and 
 not dividing them like the Gentiles, into different and 
 hostile nationalities. 
 
 I thus again found confirmation of the simple, im- 
 portant, clear, and practical meaning of the words of 
 Christ. Again, instead of the language of an obscure 
 and indefinite philosophy, there stood before me a clear, 
 definite, important, and practical rule — to make no differ- 
 ence between our own and other nations, never to act in 
 conformity with such a difference, that is, never to provoke 
 nor take part in war, and to treat all men of what 
 nationality soever as though they belonged to our own. 
 
 All this was now so simple and clear, that I was 
 astonished that I had not perceived it at the first glance. 
 
 The cause of my misapprehension was again that 
 which had made the prohibition of tribunals and oaths 
 so inexplicable to me. It was not easy to see that the 
 
WHAT I BELIEVE. 1 93 
 
 courts, the sittings of which are opened with Christian 
 prayers, which are blessed by those who call themselves 
 the guardians of Christ's law, are at variance Avith the 
 principles of Christ's teaching, are even repugnant 
 to it. 
 
 It was yet more difficult to see that the oath which the 
 special guardians of the law of Christ induce all men to 
 take, is expressly forbidden by that law ; but to see that 
 the sentiment universally regarded as not only necessary 
 and natural, but even admirable and nobly courageous, 
 to see that love for our native land, the defence, the 
 exaltation of her, the struggle against her enemies, and 
 so forth, are not only offences against the law of Christ, 
 but constitute a manifest rejection of him — to see this, I 
 say, was difficult indeed. 
 
 The life of mankind has now drifted so far away 
 from, the teaching of Christ that the very Avidth of 
 the separation has become the chief hindrance to 
 our right understanding of it. We have so long shut 
 our ears to, so long forgotten all the rules of conduct 
 which he has given us, about our not being permitted 
 to be angry with, much less kill, another fellow- 
 creature, about the wrongfulness of defending ourselves, 
 and the duty of turning the other cheek, about loving 
 our enemies, that now, accustomed as we are to call those 
 who devote their lives to murder. Christian warriors, 
 accustomed to hear prayers addressed to Christ for 
 victory over our enemies, we, resting our glory and our 
 pride on murder, on that almost sacred symbol of murder, 
 the sword, so far as to feel even shame at being found 
 without it at our sides, we now absolutely believe, that 
 
 О 
 
194 CHRISrS CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 Christ did not prohibit war, and that had he designed 
 to do so he would have spoken more clearly. 
 
 We forget that Christ could not conceive that men, 
 who accepted his teaching of humility, love, and 
 brotherhood, could be capable of compassing the murder 
 of their brethren with a quiet conscience. That he could 
 not conceive, and consequently could no more have for- 
 bidden a Christian to take part in war, than a father, 
 instructing his son how to live honestly, to offend no one, 
 and even to sacrifice himself to others could think of for- 
 bidding him to cut throats on the highway. 
 
 That it would be necessary to forbid a Christian to 
 commit murder under the name of war never occurred 
 to the apostles, nor to any disciple of Christ in the early 
 ages of Christianity. Listen to what Origen says, in his 
 answer to Celsus (Lib. viii. с 73) : — 
 
 " Then Celsus afterwards urges us to help the Prince 
 with all our strength, to relieve him in his just quarrels, 
 to fisfht with him, to bear arms under him, and, if he call 
 upon us, to assist him in the conduct of his armies. 
 
 " Now it may be said as to this, that we do, as occasion 
 requires, assist our princes, taking up (if I may so say), 
 divine assistance and the whole armour of God. And 
 these things we do, obeying the voice of the apostle 
 when he says, ' I exhort you therefore, first of all, that 
 supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks 
 should be made for all men, for kings, and for all that 
 are in authority.' And by how much any is the more 
 godly, by so much the more efficient is he in helping 
 princes than those soldiers who go forth to their armies 
 and slay whomsoever they can of their enemies. Besides 
 
IVIIAT I BELIEVE. 1 95 
 
 which, we may say to those who are strangers to the 
 faith, and who require us to fight for the common good, 
 and to slay men : that even those among you who are 
 priests of certain images, and have charge over the 
 temples of those whom ye esteem gods, keep their right 
 hand undefiled, and may on no account enlist in the 
 army." And he ends the chapter, " Yea, we rather fight 
 manfully for the Prince whilst we do not engage as 
 soldiers under him though he urge us to do so ; but we 
 fight for him, training our own camp in righteousness, 
 through continual communion with God." 
 
 This was the way in which the Christians of the 
 earlier ages bore themselves towards war, in which their 
 teachers, addressing themselves to the powerful of the 
 earth, spoke of it, and that at a time when martyrs 
 perished by hundreds and by thousands for professing 
 the faith of Christ. 
 
 And now ? Now there is not even a question as to 
 whether a Christian may or may not take part in war. 
 All the young men who are educated in the so-called 
 Christian law of the Church, when they have reached a 
 certain age, are every autumn taken before the military 
 authorities, and, with the help of the pastors of the 
 Church, there renounce the law of Christ. It is not long 
 since that a peasant refused, on gospel grounds, to serve 
 in the army. The teachers of the Church expounded to 
 him his error, but, as he believed not them but Christ, 
 he was thrown into prison, and kept there until he had 
 changed his belief And this eighteen hundred years 
 after God has laid His clear commandment on all 
 Christians : Count not the men of other nations vour 
 
196 CHRIST S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 enemies, but count all men your brethren, and treat all 
 as you treat those of your own nation ; therefore not only 
 do not slay those whom you call your enemies, but love 
 them, and do good to them. 
 
 With this understanding, then, of the commandments 
 of Christ, which are as simple and definite as they are 
 unshaken by any commentaries, I turned to consider 
 what might have happened, had the Christian world 
 obeyed them not with mere lip-service, but making them 
 the rule of life for the happiness of man ? How would it 
 be, if men believed in the obligation laid on them by 
 these commandments at least as firmly as they believe 
 in daily prayer, in going to church on Sunday, in fasting 
 on Friday, at Lent, and at other appointed seasons? 
 How would it be, if men believed in these command- 
 ments as they do in the observances of the Church ? 
 
 And thereupon I fell to imagining a truly Christian 
 society, living after, and teaching the younger generation 
 to abide by, these commandments. I pictured to myself 
 how from childhood we should be taught, both by word 
 and by example, not as we are taught now, that a man 
 must preserve his dignity, must stand up for his rights 
 against others (which can never be done without 
 humiliating and offending them), but that no man has 
 any rights of any kind, nor can be higher or lower than 
 another, save only that he is lowest and basest of all who 
 would stand highest. I fancied how we should learn 
 that no position in life degrades a man so much as his 
 own anger, that the seeming insignificance or the mad- 
 ness of a man cannot justify my anger against him nor 
 my separating myself from him. 
 
WHAT I BELIEVE. 1 9/ 
 
 Instead of the whole structure of our present life, 
 from the plate-glass windows in the shops to the theatres, 
 the novels, and women's dresses, all provocative of evil 
 passions, I imagined a society taught by word and deed 
 the baseness of finding amusement in immoral books, in 
 theatres, and at balls ; taught that every act, having for 
 its end the mere display and adornment of the body, is a 
 mean and disgusting one. 
 
 Instead of the custom, considered necessary and 
 even right, that a young man should live loosely before 
 marriage ; instead of considering a way of life which 
 separates married couples, natural ; instead of legalizing 
 the position of the class of women who live by im- 
 morality ; instead of permitting and blessing divorce ; 
 instead of all these things, I conceived our being taught, 
 and practically convinced, that for a man to remain un- 
 married after the age of manhood is monstrous and 
 shameful ; that for a man to leave his wife for another 
 woman is not only an act as unnatural as incest, but is 
 also cruel and inhuman. 
 
 Instead of that law which ordains that all our joys 
 should be purchased and preserved for us by violence, 
 instead of each of us being cither the oppressed or an 
 oppressor from childhood to extreme old age, I imagined 
 that all we heard and saw around us should teach us 
 the baseness and brutality of revenge, the shamcfulness 
 of violence, and assure us that the only true joys in life 
 were those which need no force to guard. Again, I 
 seemed to hear that the highest honours are not the 
 due of those who despoil and tyrannize over others, but 
 of those who yield to others and minister to them. 
 
198 CHRIST'S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 Instead of it being thought lawful and excellent for 
 a man to bind by oath his most valuable possession — 
 his life — to the will of another whom he knows not, I 
 imagined ourselves taught to look upon the reasoning 
 will of man as a sacred thing, which none ought to 
 renounce, and on an oath sworn to any one on any 
 account as a renunciation of our existence as reasoning 
 beings, and an outrage against a holy thing. 
 
 I pictured to myself how, instead of those inter- 
 national hatreds, which, under the pretence of love for 
 our native country, are instilled into us, instead of those 
 glorifications of murderous wars, which from our child- 
 hood are presented to us as furnishing examples of the 
 most valiant deeds, we might be taught horror and con- 
 tempt for all the public, diplomatic, and military pro- 
 ceedings which entail the separation of men ; how we 
 might be taught to look upon the recognition of any 
 particular kingdom or state, of particular laws, of the 
 draAving of frontiers, the assignment of lands, as a proof 
 of savage ignorance ; on war, that is, on the slaying of 
 men personally unknown to us, as the most frightful 
 wickedness to which an erring and brutalized man can 
 possibly descend. Imagining a society in which such 
 belief flourished, I put to myself the question — how 
 would life then be ? 
 
 Formerly, when I understood the teaching of Christ 
 otherwise, to the question. What change would take place 
 in the world were we to follow his teaching, I had to 
 answer, None. We shall all pray, all profit by the 
 blessings of the Holy Communion, all believe in the 
 salvation of the world b}- Christ, and yet that salvation 
 
WHAT I BELIEVE. 
 
 199 
 
 will still depend not on us, but on the coming of the end 
 of all things. Christ will come at the appointed time in 
 his glory to judge both the quick and the dead, and to 
 establish the kingdom of God, independently of our 
 life. 
 
 But the teaching of Christ, as I now saw it, had also 
 another meaning ; the establishment of the kingdom of 
 God upon earth rested with ourselves. The fulfilment 
 of Christ's teaching, as expressed in the five command- 
 ments, was the establishment of God's kingdom, the 
 kingdom of peace on earth to all men. Peace to all 
 men is the highest good which can be obtained on earth. 
 This is how the kingdom of God appeared to all the 
 Hebrew prophets ; this is how it has appeared, and still 
 does appear to every feeling human heart. All prophecy 
 promises peace and goodwill to man. 
 
 The essence of Christ's teaching is here, that the king- 
 dom of God signifies peace to man. In the Sermon on 
 the Mount, in the conversation with Nicodemus, in the 
 charge to his own disciples, in all his discourses, Christ 
 speaks only of the things which set man against man, 
 which hinder him from peace and the kingdom of 
 heaven. The parables are all really a description of the 
 kingdom of God, with this injunction, that only those 
 that love their brethren, and are at peace with them, can 
 enter into that kingdom. John the Baptist, the prede- 
 cessor of Christ, says that the kingdom of God draws 
 near, and that Jesus Christ will give it to the world. 
 
 Christ says, that he has brought peace unto the 
 world (John xiv. 27). " Peace I leave with you ; my 
 peace I give unto you : not as the world givcth, give I 
 
200 CHKISrS CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it 
 be fearful." 
 
 We see now that these five commandments of Christ 
 really do give peace to man. All five have the same 
 singleness of aim. Men have only to believe in the 
 teaching of Christ and to fulfil it, and there shall be 
 peace on earth, not a peace made by men, temporary, 
 accidental, partial, but a peace which shall be universal, 
 inviolable, and eternal. 
 
 The first commandment says. Be at peace with all 
 men ; consider no man as insignificant, or foolish (Matt. 
 V. 22). If peace be broken, strive to re-establish it with 
 all your strength. The service of God is the destruction 
 of enmity. Be reconciled for the least difference, that 
 you may not lose the true life. In this commandment 
 all is said ; but Christ, foreseeing how strongly the 
 temptations of the world would make against peace, 
 includes them also in his second commandment. In 
 spite of physical beauty, resist carnal desires ; be a 
 husband to one wife only, a wife to one husband, and quit 
 each other under no pretext. Then comes the tempta- 
 tion to take oaths. Know that this is an evil, and swear 
 not at all. The fourth temptation is revenge, miscalled 
 human justice. Seek no vengeance, nor justify yourself 
 in that you have been offended, but bear with injuries 
 and render not evil for evil. The fifth temptation is 
 the difference between nationalities, the enmity between 
 races and kingdoms. Know, that all men are brothers 
 and sons of the one God ; break peace with no man 
 under the plea of national aims. If one of these com- 
 mandments be left unfulfilled by men, peace will be 
 
IVHAT I BELIEVE. 201 
 
 broken. If all be fulfilled, then peace shall be in all the 
 Avorld. The fulfilment of these commandments excludes 
 evil from the life of man. 
 
 Yes, under such conditions the life of man would 
 indeed be what every feeling heart seeks and desires. 
 All men would be brothers, all would be at peace one 
 with another, enjoying for the appointed term of mortal 
 life all the good this world can give. The sword would 
 be changed for the ploughshare, and the spear for the 
 sickle. Then the kingdom of God would be on earth 
 the kingdom of peace promised by all the prophets, 
 which was drawing near in the days of John the Baptist, 
 and which Christ proclaimed in the words of Isaiah, 
 " The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he anointed 
 me to preach good tidings to the poor ; he hath sent me 
 to proclaim release to the captives, and recovering of 
 sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, 
 to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord " (Luke iv. 
 i8, 19 ; Isa. Ixi. i, 2). 
 
 The commandments of peace given by Christ, simple, 
 clear, anticipating and preventing all the chances of 
 strife, discover to us the kingdom of God on earth. 
 Christ then is truly the Messiah, he fulfilled what was 
 promised in his name. It is we who have left unfulfilled 
 what is the desire of all men's hearts, that for which we 
 have ever prayed and continue to pray. 
 
202 CHRISTS CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Why, then, will men leave undone what Christ has bid 
 them to do ? What can alone secure to them the highest 
 good attainable by man, which they have always longed 
 for and still desire ? From all sides I hear but one and 
 the same answer, though expressed in different words : 
 "The teaching of Christ is excellent, and were it fulfilled 
 the kingdom of heaven would indeed exist on earth, but 
 it is too difficult to be practically realized." 
 
 Christ's rules for human conduct are divinely good, 
 and would be a blessing to men, but they are hard for 
 men to practise. We so often hear and repeat this, that 
 the contradiction involved in such language escapes us. 
 
 It is agreeable to human nature to do what is good, 
 and every system of human conduct can be occupied 
 only with what is best for mankind. When men are 
 shown what is best for them to do, how can they say 
 that they wish to do it but cannot ? Men wish to da 
 what is of advantage to them, and avoid doing the 
 contrary. 
 
 The reasoning activity of man, from the time of his 
 creation, has been exercised in the search for what, amid 
 the contradictions with \vhich his individual and social 
 life abounds, is best for his happiness. 
 
 Men began by fighting for land, for every object of 
 their desire, and ended by dividing all between them- 
 selves and calling each share property. They find that 
 such a state of things, though more difficult to keep up 
 is nevertheless the best, and hold to it. As soon, then, as 
 
WHAT I BELIEVE. 203 
 
 men have decided what is best for them, that they do, 
 how hard soever of accompHshment it may be. What, 
 then, is our meaning when we say, the teaching of 
 Christ is excellent ; life so regulated is better than the 
 life we live ; but that better life is not for us, because it 
 is so difficult ? 
 
 If we are to take the word "difficult" to mean, that 
 the immediate sacrifice of our desires to a greater good 
 is difficult, why not say that it is difficult to plough the 
 ground to obtain bread, to plant apple trees that луе may 
 have apples ? That difficulties must be endured for the 
 sake of a greater good, is known to every human being 
 endowed with the smallest particle of intelligence ; yet 
 while calling Christ's teaching excellent we say that it is 
 too difficult to be practically applied to life. Difficult it 
 is, but its difficulty lies in this, that by obeying it we lose 
 much that we now possess. It is as though we had 
 never heard how much better it sometimes is to suffer 
 and to lose, than never to face any hardship and always 
 to satisfy our desires. 
 
 A man may be an animal and no one will reproach him 
 for it ; but no one can reasonably say that he wishes to 
 be an animal. As soon as a man reasons he is conscious 
 of being a reasoning being, and as such he cannot but 
 admit the distinction between reasonable and unreason- 
 able. Reason prescribes nothing ; it throws light upon 
 everything. 
 
 In the darkness I try to find a door, and only bruise 
 my hands and knees. A light is brought, and at once I 
 see the door, and I no longer need bruise myself against 
 the wall. Can I then affirm that, seeing the door, it is 
 
204 CHRIST'S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 still SO hard to pass through it that I must needs prefer 
 to hurt myself? 
 
 In this astonishing conclusion — that the teaching of 
 Christ is good and salutary, but that men are weak and 
 bad, and while yearning for the better, tend ever to the 
 worse, and therefore cannot attain the better^there is a 
 palpable misunderstanding. 
 
 But the objection to the teaching of Christ, that it is 
 good but incapable of application, is made not only by 
 believers but also by unbelievers, by those who disbelieve 
 or think they disbelieve the dogmas of original sin and 
 redemption. It is made by men of science, by philo- 
 sophers, and generally by men of high culture, who 
 believing, or professing to believe, in nothing, consider 
 themselves above all such superstitions. I saw that it 
 Avas so from the beginning. I saw also, or thought I saw, 
 that these learned men had yet another reason for deny- 
 ing the possibility of Christ's teaching. On looking 
 deeper into the grounds of their denial, I convinced 
 myself that they, too, have a false idea of life, and that 
 this idea is founded on the same misconception as the 
 false idea of those who believe. They disbelieve in God, 
 in Christ, and in Adam ; but in the original false propo- 
 sition, on which the whole idea is based, in the right of 
 man to a life of ideal happiness, they believe as much 
 and even more firmly, than do the theologians. 
 
 Science, in her alliance with philosophy, boasts herself 
 to be the arbitress and mistress of man's intellectual 
 development ; yet she is not truly the mistress but the 
 servant. The study of the universe comes to her fraught 
 with religion, and she can but work on the path shown 
 
WHAT I BELIEVE. 205 
 
 to her by religion. Religion unfolds the meaning of the 
 life of man, and Science applies that meaning to the 
 varied facts of life. If, then, Religion give a false idea 
 of life, Science, educated in that religious view of the 
 scheme of the universe, will on all sides apply that false 
 idea to human life. And this is what has happened 
 to our Christian science of philosophy. 
 
 The teaching of the Church gave as the leading 
 principle of human life, this — that man has a right to a 
 life of bliss, and that this bliss is attainable, not by his 
 own efforts, but through some external cause. This view 
 of the universe became the base of all our science and 
 of all our philosophy. 
 
 Religion, Science, Public Opinion, all are agreed that 
 the life we lead is bad, but all are equally against the 
 doctrine which teaches that with our own selves it rests 
 to make that life better. 
 
 Christ's teaching, that the improvement of man's life 
 depends on his own efforts to follow the guidance of his 
 reason, cannot be realized, because Adam fell, and the 
 world is given over to evil. This is what Religion 
 tells us. 
 
 It cannot be realized, because man's life depends on 
 certain laws independent of his will. This is what 
 Philosophy says. 
 
 Neither believers nor unbelievers ever ask them- 
 selves how we ought to live, and how employ the reason 
 given to us ; but they ask. Why is not our life Avhat we 
 imagined it to be, and when will it become what we 
 wish } 
 
 It is as if man had actually rejected the apple of the 
 
20б CHRISrS CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 knowledge of good and evil, which according to tradition 
 he ate in paradise, and, forgetting that his whole history 
 has to do only with the decision of the conflict between 
 his reasoning and his animal nature, should employ his 
 reason only to discover the historical laws which account 
 for his instincts. 
 
 The religious and philosophical teaching of all 
 nations, with the exception of those of the Christian 
 world, all the systems with which we are acquainted, of 
 the Jews, of Confucius, of Buddha, of Brahma, of the 
 Grecian sages, are all concerned with the regulation of 
 man's life, and \\\\\\ rules for his conduct. The system 
 of Confucius deals solely with the perfecting of the 
 individual, the system of the Jews with the personal 
 observance by the individual of God's covenants, the 
 system of Buddha with the security of the individual 
 against the ills of life. Socrates taught perfection in the 
 name of reason ; the Stoics 'held that the perfect liberty 
 of reason was the only foundation for a true life. 
 
 The whole intellectual activity of man could not but 
 be, and in fact was, centred in one thing — in the working 
 out by reason of the idea of good. Freedom of the will, 
 say our philosophers, is an illusion ; and they arc proud 
 of the boldness of this assertion. But free-will is not a 
 mere illusion ; it is a word which has no meaning. It 
 was invented by theologians and writers on criminal 
 jurisprudence ; and to refute that word is but to fight 
 against windmills. The reason which throws light upon 
 life, and guides our conduct, is no illusion ; it cannot be 
 gainsaid. To follow reason in order to obtain good, has 
 always been the doctrine of all true teachers of mankind ; 
 
П7ЫТ I BELIEVE. 20/ 
 
 in that consists the whole teaching of Christ ; and to 
 deny reason by the help of reason is absurd. 
 
 Christ's teaching deals with the son of man, taken in 
 the sense of all men — -deals, that is, with the aspirations 
 to good common to all men, and with the reason, 
 common no less to all men, which helps them to the 
 realization of their wishes. To prove this sense of the 
 expression " son of man " were superfluous. 
 
 If we take it in any other sense, we must hold that 
 Christ purposely used words which did not carry the 
 sense he intended to convey. But even if, as the Church 
 would have it, " the Son of man " does mean the Son of 
 God, it means also a man in the flesh, for Christ calls all 
 men the sons of God. 
 
 That a son of man is truly a son of God stands 
 clearly out through all the Gospels, but nowhere so 
 clearly as in the conversation with Nicodemus. Every 
 man, Christ there says, besides being conscious of a life 
 born of the flesh of his father and mother, cannot but 
 acknowledge another and a higher birth (John iii. 
 5, 6, 7). What a man feels in himself to be free, is that 
 which is born in him of the Eternal One whom we call 
 God (ver. 8). This that is born in us of God, this son 
 of God in man, must be raised and ennobled within 
 us that we may obtain the true life (ver. 14). The son 
 of man is the son of God, with a like nature, but not 
 the only son. He who raises and ennobles above all 
 else this son of God within him, who believes that life 
 is found in this divine element alone, such a one will 
 not be at variance with life, for this is to have a fcch'ng 
 which springs from a disbelief in the light which is in us 
 
208 • CHRIST S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 (vers. 18-21). (This is the Hght of which it is said in 
 the Gospel of John, that hfe is in it, the hfe which is 
 the hght of men.) 
 
 Christ teaches us to raise above all the Son of man, 
 who is at once the Son of God and the directing light of 
 our lives. He says. When you exalt or honour the 
 Son of man, you will know that I speak nothing from 
 myself (John xii. 49). The Jews, not understanding 
 these words, asked, Who is the Son of man who is to be 
 exalted (xii. 34) 1 Christ answered (ver. 35), " Yet a 
 little while is the light in you.* Walk while ye have 
 the light, that darkness overtake you not ; and he that 
 walketh in the darkness knoweth not whither he goeth." 
 To the question, What means this exalting of the Son of 
 man ? Christ answers, To live in the light which is 
 within men. 
 
 The Son of man, according to Christ, means the 
 Hght in which men are to walk, while they have Hght 
 within them. Thus, in Luke (xi. 35), "Look therefore 
 whether the light that is in thee be not darkness." In 
 Matthew (vi. 23), "If therefore the Hght that is in thee 
 be darkness, how great is the darkness ! " 
 
 Before and after Christ's coming on earth all men 
 have taught that there is within man a divine light, the 
 light of reason, that it alone should be followed, in it 
 alone can good be found. This was the teaching of the 
 Brahmins, of the Jewish prophets, of Confucius, Socrates,^ 
 Marcus Aurclius, and Epictctus, of all true sages, who, 
 
 * In all the translations of the Church there is an intentional error in 
 this passage, instead of the words "in you" (eV v^Civ), everywhere the 
 rendering is " with you." 
 
WHAT I BELIEVE. 209 
 
 instead of building up philosophical theories, sought 
 the truth for their own happiness and that of all 
 men.* 
 
 Yet we say that this light is of no importance to 
 m.an. What is important, say believers, is the under- 
 standing of the substantive nature of the persons of the 
 Trinity, what sacraments are vital, and what are not ; 
 for the salvation of man depends, not on his own efforts, 
 but on the Trinity, and the due observance of the sacred 
 mysteries of religion. What is important, say un- 
 believers, is the understanding of the law which sets the 
 particles of matter in endless motion through infinite 
 space and time ; but the action of man's reason on his 
 happiness is of no importance, because the improvement 
 of his state belongs not to him, but to general laws 
 which we will discover. 
 
 I feel convinced that in no long time, the history of 
 the so-called scientific development of these later 
 centuries will serve as an inexhaustible subject for 
 laughter and pity to our descendants. During several 
 ages the learned men of our small western world have 
 been as madmen, believing that a life of eternal bliss 
 
 * Marcus Aurelius says, " Honour that which is more powerful than 
 anything on earth, which rules and which guides all men. Honour also 
 that which is most powerful within thyself. The latter is like to the 
 former, because it profits by what is within thee to guide thy life." 
 
 Epictetus says, " God sent his seed not only to my father and grand- 
 father, but unto all those that live upon earth, especially unto those who 
 reason, for they alone enter into relation with God through reason, and 
 by it are made one with him." 
 
 In the book of Confucius it is written, "The law of the great science 
 consists in developing and establishing the light of reason, which we have 
 received from heaven." This proposition is repeated several times, and 
 forms the foundation of the tcachini; of Confucius. 
 
2IO CHRIST'S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 was theirs by right, and bringing themselves on every 
 side to discover whence, and by what law, that life 
 should begin for them, while totally neglecting all en- 
 deavours on their own account to make their existing 
 life better. 
 
 Yet still more curious to the future historian will it 
 appear, that his ancestors had a teacher, who showed 
 them clearly and definitely what they must do to attain 
 happiness ; but some of them explained his words to 
 mean that he would come in the clouds and set all 
 things in order, while others owned his words to be 
 excellent, but impracticable, because human life was not 
 what they desire it to be, and so, unworthy of serious 
 study ; for the reason of man, said they, should be 
 directed to the study of the laws of this life, and not 
 concern itself with the welfare of humanity. 
 
 The Church says, Christ's teaching cannot be ful- 
 filled, for our life here is but a shadow of the real life ; 
 it cannot be good, for it is all evil. The best way to 
 endure such a life is to despise it, and live through faith 
 (that is, in the imagination) in a blissful and eternal life 
 hereafter. Whereas on earth we must be content to live 
 as we can, and pray. 
 
 Philosophy, Science, Public Opinion, all are agreed 
 that Christ's teaching cannot be practically applied, 
 because man's life does not depend on the light of 
 reason, by which it might be improved, but on general 
 laws. It is useless, then, to consider life by the light of 
 reason, to strive to live in agreement with it. We must 
 rather live as we can, in firm belief that, by the law of 
 historical progress, of sociology, and by other laws, 
 
IVHA Т I BELIE VE. 211 
 
 after we have lived badly for a very long time our life 
 will suddenly become good of itself 
 
 There is a farm to which come many men, and in 
 that farm is all that men can want — a house well 
 furnished ; granaries filled with corn ; cellars and store- 
 rooms well stocked with all kinds of stores ; in the 
 outbuildings are agricultural instruments, tools, harness, 
 horses, cows, sheep, all that is needed for a life of 
 plenty. Men from all parts of the earth flock to this 
 farm, and make use of all that they find therein, each 
 man for himself, without thought of his neighbour, or of 
 those who may come after him. Each thinks only of 
 himself; each makes haste to profit by all he sees 
 around him. Then begins a general waste of all, a 
 general quarrel and strife for the possession of each 
 particular object. Milch cows, unshorn sheep are killed 
 for their flesh ; stoves are lighted with benches and carts ; 
 men fight for milk and for grain, spilling and spoiling 
 far more than they can use. No one can eat a morsel 
 in quiet. Each man snarling at his neighbour, and the 
 weaker ever forced to yield to the stronger ; and at last 
 all the inhabitants of that farm take their departure, 
 exhausted, bruised, and hungry. 
 
 Then the owner sets all once more in order. Once 
 more it is filled to overflowing, and once more there is 
 the same crush and quarrel. All is given and taken in 
 vain, and once more a crowd of jaded, bruised, and 
 exasperated men come forth venting their spite on their 
 comrades, and abusing the master of that house for 
 having prepared so little and so ill. 
 
 Again the kind master reorganizes the farm, only 
 
212 CHRIST'S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 for the same scene to recur. At last arrives a teacher 
 who says to the others, " Brothers, we do not act well ! 
 Look, how many goods there are in the farm, how well 
 it is all arranged ! There is ample for us all, and for all 
 that come after us, if we will but live reasonably. Let 
 us not take from each other, but rather help each other. 
 Let us plough and sow and look after the cattle, and 
 it will be well with all of us." Then it happened that 
 some understood the words of the teacher, and began 
 to act as he had said. They ceased from fighting, 
 and from robbing each other, and began to work. 
 But the rest, who either would not listen to the 
 teacher, or listening would not believe, continued as 
 formerly to quarrel among themselves and to ruin the 
 goods of the master, and then went on their way. Others 
 followed with the same result. Those who had listened 
 to the words of the teacher, kept beseeching their 
 brethren not to quarrel nor to lay waste the master's 
 goods, assuring them that it would be better for them 
 to hearken to the teacher's advice. But still there were 
 many who would not listen, who would not believe, and 
 things went on for very long in the old way. This was 
 quite natural and comprehensible so long as men did 
 not believe his teaching. 
 
 At last, it is said, there came a time when all on the 
 farm heard the words of the teacher, when all understood 
 them, and not only understood, but confessed that it 
 was God Himself v^ho spoke in the person of the teacher, 
 that the latter was Himself God ; and all believed, as in 
 a holy thing, in each word that fell from the teacher's 
 lips. But it is also said, that later on, instead of living 
 
IVHA Т I BELIE VE. 21^ 
 
 in harmony with the words of the teacher, all returned 
 to their old life, and began once more to quarrel among 
 themselves, and to say. Now we know for a certainty 
 that thus it must be and no otherwise. 
 
 What do these things mean ? Even cattle, when 
 they have food to eat, do not snatch it from one another ; 
 and yet men, with knowledge of a better life ordained, 
 as they believ^e, by God Himself, elect for the worst, 
 because, they say, it is not possible to live otherwise. 
 These men must have imagined something strange. 
 Well, what could those men on the farm have had in 
 their minds, that, having once believed the teacher they 
 should continue to live their old life, to despoil each 
 other, to fight, to ruin both the master's goods and 
 themselves ? This is what they had in their minds. 
 
 The teacher said unto them : Your life in this house 
 is bad, live better and it will be well for you ; but they 
 imagined that the teacher altogether condemned their 
 life in this farm, and promised them another and a 
 happy life, not there, but elsewhere. And so they 
 decided that this farm was but an inn, and that it was 
 not worth troubling themselves about their life there, so 
 long as they were careful not to lose sight of the good 
 life promised in another place. Only thus can be ex- 
 plained the strange conduct of those men, who believed 
 that the teacher was God, and of those who accounted 
 him wise and his words true, yet continued to live as 
 before in direct contradiction with his teaching. 
 
 Men have heard and understood all ; but they have 
 allowed the lesson of the teacher to pass through their 
 ears — that men should work out their happiness them- 
 
214 CHRISrS CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 selves here upon earth, in the farm where they have 
 met, instead of imagining that this farmhouse is only an 
 inn, and that in some place elsewhere will be the real 
 and lasting dwelling-place. This is how the astonishing 
 conclusion has been reached, that the words of the teacher 
 are excellent, are in very truth the words of God, but to 
 fulfil them here is impossible. 
 
 If men would only cease to ruin themselves ! Would 
 cease expecting some one coming to help them ! Whether 
 it be Christ amid the clouds to the sound of the trumpet ; 
 or some historical law ; or the law of the differentiation 
 and integration of forces ! But there can be no help, if 
 men will not help themselves, and hardly any effort is 
 needful. They have but to expect no miracle from heaven 
 or earth, and to cease from self-destruction. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Let us suppose that Christ's teaching gives happiness 
 to the world ; let us suppose that it is reasonable, and 
 that man on the ground of reason has no right to reject 
 it. But what can a single individual do, amid a whole 
 world disobeying the law of Christ ? If all men were 
 suddenly agreed to live after the law of Christ, to obey 
 it would be possible. But one man cannot set himself 
 against the whole world. " If I alone on earth fulfil 
 Christ's law," people say, " I shall have to give up all 
 that I possess, to present my cheek to the smiter without 
 defending myself; if I, moreover, do not consent to take 
 oaths and to fight in war, I am arrested, and if I do not 
 
IVHA Т I БЕ LIE VE. 2 1 5 
 
 die of hunger, I am beaten to death, or I am thrown into 
 prison or shot. So that by my obedience to this law 
 I should destroy my happiness and ruin my whole 
 life." 
 
 This objection is founded on the same misunder- 
 standing as that which rejects the application of Christ's 
 teaching to life. 
 
 This is what is generally said, and what I myself 
 thought, until I had entirely freed myself from the 
 influence of the teaching of the Church, through which 
 I had failed to understand in its true meaning Christ's 
 doctrine of human conduct. 
 
 Christ proposed his law of conduct to save men from 
 that ruinous life which results from the rejection of his 
 law ; and you say you would be glad to follow his law, 
 but would be sorry to ruin your life. Christ teaches us 
 a way of safety from a ruinous life, and you regret the 
 life which ruins you. Surely, then, you must consider 
 your life by no means ruined, but a real and acceptable 
 possession. In this acceptance of your earthly personal 
 life as something real belonging to you, lies the cause of 
 the misunderstanding of Christ's teaching. He knew 
 man's tendency to this error, and in a series of discourses 
 and parables shows them that they have no I'ight to life, 
 that there can be no life, until they obtain the true life, 
 and renounce the phantom which they call by that 
 name. 
 
 In order to understand this doctrine of the salvation 
 of life, it is necessary first to understand what was said 
 by the prophets, by Solomon, by Buddha, by all the wise 
 men of the world, about the personal life of man. We 
 
2l6 CIJRISrS CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 may, as Pascal expressed it, put it from our minds ; we 
 may carry before us screens to hide from our view the 
 abyss of death to which we are all hastening, — but it is 
 enough to think of what the life of man, if merely solitary 
 and personal, means, to be convinced that such a life 
 can have for individual men no meaning at all, that it is 
 a malicious derision of death, of man's reason, and of all 
 that there is of good within him. 
 
 Therefore, in order to understand Christ's teaching, 
 we must bethink ourselves well, that there may take 
 place in us what John, the predecessor of Christ, called 
 fxiTuvoia when he preached to men led astray like our- 
 selves. John said, Before all things repent, that is, 
 bethink yourselves, or you will all perish. He said, 
 The axe is laid to the root of the tree to hew it 
 down ; death and perdition are there beside every one. 
 Forget not this, beware ! Christ himself at the outset 
 of his career as preacher said also. Take heed, or else 
 you will all perish. 
 
 In Luke (xiii. 2-5), Christ is told of the Galileans 
 whom Pilate had slain. "And he answered and said 
 unto them, Think ye that these Galileans were sinners 
 above all the Galileans, because they have suffered these 
 things .^ I tell you. Nay : but except ye repent, ye shall 
 all in like manner perish. Or those eighteen, upon whom 
 the tower in Siloam fell, and killed them, think ye that 
 they were offenders above all the men that dwell in 
 Jerusalem ? I tell you. Nay : but except ye repent, ye 
 shall all likewise perish." 
 
 Had Christ lived in our day and country, he would 
 have said. Think yc that they who were burnt in the 
 
WHAT I BELIEVE. 
 
 217 
 
 circus,* or those who have perished in raihvay accidents, 
 were guiltier than others. Ye shall all likewise perish, 
 if you do not take heed, if you do not find in your life 
 that which cannot perish. Death through a falling 
 tower, through a burning circus, terrifies you, but I tell 
 you that a death as terrible and as inevitable awaits you 
 also. In vain do you strive to forget it ; and when it 
 comes unexpectedly, it is the more terrible. 
 
 Christ says (Luke xii. 54-57), " When ye see a cloud 
 rising in the west, straightway ye say, There cometh a 
 shower ; and so it cometh to pass. And when ye see 
 a south wind blowing, ye say. There will be a scorching 
 heat ; and it cometh to pass. Ye hypocrites, ye know 
 how to interpret the face of the earth and the heaven ; 
 but how is it that ye know not how to interpret this 
 time ? And why even of yourselves judge ye not what 
 is right ? " 
 
 You know the signs of the weather beforehand, how 
 is it that ye see not what is right for you ? Flee from 
 danger, guard well your lives, and still, if you fall not by 
 Pilate's hand, a tower will crush you ; and if neither 
 Pilate nor tower injure you, you may die in your beds 
 in still acutcr sufterings. 
 
 Take the trouble to make a simple calculation, as 
 men of the world do when they undertake any enterprise, 
 be it to build a house, to set out for a war, or to set up 
 works ; they consider and take great pains that the 
 enterprise may have a reasonable success. 
 
 * This alludes to one of the wooden buildings erected for the public 
 amusements during the Carnival and Easter Week in Russia in 1883, which 
 caught fire, and as the doors could not be opened from the inside nearly all 
 within perished, — Ed. 
 
2l8 CHRISrS CHRISTIAAUTY. 
 
 In Luke (xiv. 28-31) we find, "For which of you, 
 desiring to build a tower, doth not first sit down and 
 count the cost, whether he have wherewith to complete 
 it ? Lest haply, when he hath laid a foundation, and is 
 not able to finish, all that behold begin to mock him, 
 saying. This man began to build, and was not able to 
 finish. Or what king, as he goeth to encounter another 
 king in war, will not sit down first and take counsel 
 whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him that 
 Cometh against him with twenty thousand ? " 
 
 Is it not, then, a senseless thing to take pains with 
 what, for all your labour, will never be finished. Death 
 will always come before the house of your earthly happi- 
 ness is completed. And if you know beforehand, that 
 however you may struggle against death, the victory 
 will be to him and not to you, is it not better to cease to 
 struggle with him, to set all your affections not on that 
 which must of a certainty perish, but to seek that which 
 death cannot affect .'' 
 
 In Luke (xii. 22-27) we read, "And he said unto 
 his disciples. Therefore I say unto you, Be not anxious 
 for your life, what ye shall eat ; nor yet for your body, 
 what ye shall put on. For the life is more than the 
 food, and the body than the raiment. Consider the 
 ravens, that they sow not, neither reap ; which have no 
 store-chamber nor barn ; and God fecdeth them : of how 
 much more value are ye than the birds ! And which 
 of you by being anxious can add a cubit to his age ? If, 
 then, ye arc not able to do even that which is least, why 
 are ye anxious concerning the rest ? Consider the lilies, 
 how they grow : they toil not, neither do they spin ; yet 
 
WHAT I BELIEVE. 2ig 
 
 I say unto you, Even Solomon in all his glory was not 
 arrayed like one of these." 
 
 Whatever care you may take of your body and for 
 your food, not one of you can add an hour to his life. 
 Is it not, then, foolish to trouble ourselves with things 
 over which you have no power .-' 
 
 You know well that your life must end in death, yet 
 none the less you busy yourselves with guaranteeing 
 your life by the possession of property. Life cannot be 
 guaranteed by property. Understand, that this is an 
 idle deceit with which you deceive yourselves. 
 
 The true significance of life lies not, says Christ, in 
 what we have or what we get, in that which is without 
 us. It must lie in something else. 
 
 He says (Luke xii. 16-21) that the life of man 
 consists not in the abundance of his possessions. " The 
 ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully : 
 and he reasoned within himself, saying. What shall I do, 
 because I have not where to bestow my fruits ? And he 
 said, This will I do : I will pull down my barns, and 
 build greater ; and there will I bestow all my corn and 
 my goods. And I will say to my soul. Soul, thou hast 
 much goods laid up for many years ; take thine ease, eat, 
 drink, be merry. But God said unto him, Thou foolish 
 one, this night is thy soul required of thee ; and the 
 things which thou hast prepared, whose shall they be ? 
 So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not 
 rich toward God." 
 
 Death awaits us all at any and every moment. (Luke 
 xii. 35-40): "Let your loins be girded about, and your 
 lamps burning: and be ye yourselves like unto men 
 
220 CHRIST S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 looking for their lord, when he shall return from the 
 marriage feast ; that, when he cometh and knocketh, 
 they may straightway open unto him. And if he shall 
 come in the second watch, and if in the third, and find 
 them so, blessed are those servants. But know this, 
 that if the master of the house had known in what hour 
 the thief was coming, he would have watched, and not 
 have left his house to be broken through. Be ye also 
 ready : for in an hour that ye think not the Son of man 
 cometh." 
 
 The parable of the virgins waiting for the coming of 
 the bridegroom, of the end of time, and of the last 
 judgment, all these passages, according to the opinion of 
 all the commentators, besides their reference to the end 
 of the world, are to remind us also of the nearness and 
 the inevitableness of death. 
 
 Death is ever on the watch for you. Your life 
 must be rounded in death. Even while you are working 
 to lay up treasure for yourself in the future, you know 
 that for you in the future there is only death, for you 
 and for all that you have laboured for. Life, then, for 
 life's sake, can have no significance. If there be a life 
 into which reason enters, it must be other than this one ; 
 it must be one whose aim is other than the laying up of 
 treasure for the future. To live reasonably, is to live so 
 that death cannot destroy life. 
 
 Christ says, in Luke (x. 41), " Martha, Martha, thou 
 art troubled about many things : but one thing is 
 needful." 
 
 All the innumerable cares with which we trouble 
 ourselves for the future are useless ; they are a delusion 
 
IVffAT I BELIEVE. 221 
 
 with which we mock ourselves. One thing only is 
 needful. 
 
 From the day of his birth, inevitable ruin awaits 
 man, a senseless life and a senseless death if he find not 
 the one thing needful for the true life. What that one 
 thing is Christ has told us. It is not of his own inven- 
 tion, nor does he promise to bestow it on us of his own 
 divine power. He shows us only that together with the 
 personal life, which has been proved a fallacy, there 
 should be that which is a truth and no fallacy. 
 
 In the parable of the vineyard (Matt. xxi. 33-42) 
 Christ explains the source of the error which hides this 
 truth from men, imposing on them the phantom of their 
 individual life for the true one. 
 
 Man, dwelling in a well-kept and well-filled garden, 
 fancied himself to be the veritable owner thereof, and 
 from that erroneous fancy has sprung a series of foolish 
 and cruel acts, till he has been driven from the garden, 
 and has been excluded from the true life. Even so 
 have we imagined that this life of ours is our own 
 personal possession, our right to be employed as seems 
 best to us, without reference or obligation to others ; 
 and we, having imagined this, are inevitably led into the 
 same foolish and cruel acts, and the same exclusion 
 from life awaits us. As it appeared to the husbandmen 
 in the vineyard that the more cruel they were, the more 
 would it be to their advantage — killing the messengers 
 and the master's son — so it appears to us. 
 
 As it was with the vinc-drcsscrs, that, as they gave 
 to no one the fruits of the garden, they were at length 
 driven out by the master, so will it be with those who 
 
222 CHRIST'S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 imagine that their personal Hfe is the true one. Death 
 will drive them out of life, putting other men in their 
 place ; and this not for punishment, but merely because 
 they do not understand what life should be. As the 
 dwellers in the garden either forgot, or did not choose to 
 remember, that the garden entrusted to them had been 
 ditched in, fenced round, and provided with a well, the 
 work of others who naturally expected from them work 
 in return ; so men, living their personal life, have for- 
 gotten, or wish to forget, all that has been done for them 
 before their birth, that is being done for them at every 
 moment of their lives, and what in consequence is ex- 
 pected of them in return. They wish to forget that all 
 the good things of life by which they profit have been 
 given to them, are being daily given to them, as it were 
 in trust for others. 
 
 This correction of man's view of life, this iitravoia is 
 the. corner-stone of Christ's teaching, as he himself says 
 at the end of the parable. As the vine-dressers living in 
 the vineyard which they had not cultivated, were bound 
 to understand and feel that they owed an unpaid debt to 
 the master, so are men bound to understand and feel 
 that from the day of their birth to the day of their death 
 they are debtors still to those who have lived before 
 them, to their contemporaries, or to those who are to 
 come after them ; above all, debtors to Him who was, 
 and is, and shall be the end of all. Men should under- 
 stand, that every hour of life in which this debt remains 
 unpaid, but confirms it the more, and that consequently 
 a man, who lives for himself, denying the obligation 
 which connects him with life and its origin, deprives 
 
WHAT I BELIEVE. 223 
 
 himself of life. They should see, that, as Christ so often 
 reminds them, the life they lead in their anxiety to 
 preserve it, really ensures its destruction. 
 
 True life is that, and that only, which continues past 
 life, and promotes what is good both here and hereafter. 
 
 In order to have a part in this life, a man must 
 renounce his own will, and fulfil that of the Father of 
 Life, from whom the Son of man received it. 
 
 In John (viii. 35) Christ in effect says, that the bond- 
 servant who doth according to his own will, and not 
 after the will of his master, cannot dwell for ever in his 
 master's house, only the son, who fulfils the will of the 
 father abideth for ever ; and this idea he dwells upon in 
 many places. 
 
 The will of the Father of Life is the life, not of an 
 individual man, but of the only Son of man living in 
 men ; and consequently man preserves his life only when 
 he looks upon it as a pledge, as a talent given to him by 
 the Father in trust for all men ; when he lives not for 
 himself, but for the Son of man. 
 
 We are taught that Christ saved men when he, the 
 second person of the Trinity, God, became incarnate, 
 and taking upon himself the sins of Adam, and of 
 all men, atoned for them to the first person of the 
 Trinity, and established for our salvation his church 
 and sacraments. Believing thus, men are saved and 
 obtain eternal life beyond the grave. But it is im- 
 possible to deny that Christ saved, and still saves, 
 men by this also, that, pointing out to them their 
 inevitable ruin, in his words, " I am the way, the truth, 
 and the life," he shows them the true path of life, in 
 
224 CHRISrS CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 exchange for that treacherous path of individual Hfe 
 which we formerly followed. 
 
 Though some may doubt of a life and salvation 
 beyond the grave, grounded on the doctrine of the atone- 
 ment, no one can doubt of the salvation of all men, if 
 they be shown the inevitable ruin of personal life, and 
 the true path of safety in the union of their will with 
 that of the Father. Let any reasonable man ask him- 
 self, what his life and death are, and let him try to 
 give to them any other meaning than that given by 
 Christ. 
 
 Any idea of personal life unless founded on the 
 renunciation of self to serve others, mankind, the Son of 
 man, is a phantom which vanishes at the first touch of 
 reason. That my personal life perishes, but that the life 
 of the world after the will of the Father does not perish, 
 and that identification with that will alone gives me the 
 possibility of salvation, I cannot doubt. 
 
 What was I, then, to do,- if I alone understood the 
 teaching of Christ? if I, surrounded by those who 
 neither fulfilled nor understood it, stood alone in my 
 belief? 
 
 What was I to do? Live as all did, or live after the 
 teaching of Christ ? I understood the teaching of Christ 
 in his commandments, and saw that the fulfilment of 
 them gives happiness to mc and to all men on earth. I 
 understood that the fulfilment of these commandments 
 is the will of the Universal Spirit from whom my own 
 life also springs. 
 
 I understood also that, I should inevitably perish 
 by a senseless life and death, with all those around me, if 
 
WHAT I BELIEVE. 22$ 
 
 I did not fulfil the will of the P^ather, in which alone lay 
 the possibility of safety. 
 
 By acting- as all do, I shall certainly act contrary to 
 the general good, shall certainly act contrary to the will 
 of the Father of Life, and as surely deprive myself of the 
 only possibility of bettering my desperate state. By 
 doing what Christ teaches me, I shall continue the work 
 of men before me, contribute to the good of all men now 
 living and to live after me, and do the will of him who 
 called me into being, which can alone save me. 
 
 The circus is on fire, the crowd crush and suffocate 
 each other, pressing against the door which opens front 
 the inside. There comes one who cries, " Stand away 
 from the door, turn back ! The more you press on, the 
 less your hope of safety. Turn back, and you will find 
 a way out and be saved." Whether many or only one, 
 as I have heard said, listened to the voice makes no 
 difference. But in my case, having heard and believed, 
 Avhat can I do, but go back and call upon all to listen to 
 the voice of the one that would save them ? I may be 
 suffocated, crushed to death, but nevertheless my sole 
 chance of safety lies in finding the only issue. I cannot 
 but go that way. A saviour must be one in truth, he 
 must save ; and the salvation of Christ is real salva- 
 tion — he appeared, he spake, and the human race was 
 saved. 
 
 The circus has been burning an hour ; it is needful 
 to haste, if we would save those inside. But the world 
 has been burning for eighteen hundred years, ever since 
 Christ said, " I came to cast fire upon the earth ; " I will 
 feed it till it burn, and it shall burn until men are saved. 
 
 Q 
 
22б CHRIST'S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 Why are there men on earth, why does it burn, but that 
 men may have the blessing of salvation ? 
 
 Understanding this, I understood and believed that 
 Jesus is not only the Messiah, Christ, but the Saviour of 
 the world, 
 
 I know there is no other issue for myself, nor for 
 those who together with me have to endure the pains of 
 this life. I know that for them as for me, the only escape 
 is through the fulfilment of Christ's commands which 
 procure for all the highest conceivable bliss. Will I have 
 more difficulties to encounter, will I die the sooner by 
 following the teaching of Christ. 
 
 Such a prospect can only alarm one who does not 
 perceive how absurd and empty is his isolated personal 
 life, or who imagines that he will not die ; but it does 
 not alarm me, for I know that to live for my own indi- 
 vidual happiness is the greatest possible folly, and that 
 after so foolish a life, I must still die ; and so, though I 
 die as all who have not believed Christ, my life and 
 death will have sense both for me and for all ; they will 
 have been of use for the salvation and the life of all ; 
 and it is this that Christ taught. 
 
 IX. 
 
 Were all men to fulfil Christ's teaching, the kingdom of 
 God would have come on earth. If I alone fulfil it, I 
 will have done the best for all, and for myself. There 
 is no salvation without. 
 
 " But where can I find faith to enable me to fulfil it, 
 
WHAT I BELIEVE. 22/ 
 
 and always to follow it ? I believe, Lord, help thou 
 mine unbelief." 
 
 The disciples asked Christ to confirm their faith. " I 
 desire to do well, but I do ill," says the Apostle Paul. 
 
 " It is difficult to be saved," is what is generally said 
 and thought. 
 
 A drowning man calls for help. A rope, which alone 
 can save him, is thrown to him, and he says. Assure 
 me, before I lay hold of it, that this rope will save me ; I 
 believe it will, but still assist my unbelief What does 
 it all mean ? If the man refuse to take hold of the 
 rope, it proves he cannot understand his situation. 
 
 How can a Christian, professing to believe in the 
 divinity of Christ and his teaching, however he under- 
 stand it, say that he desires to believe, but cannot ? 
 
 God Himself has visited earth, and said, Eternal 
 suffering, fire, utter and immutable darkness, await you, 
 and here is your salvation — believe and fulfil My teach- 
 ing. A Christian cannot possibly disbelieve the offered 
 salvation, he cannot refrain from profiting by it, he 
 cannot say, " Help my unbelief" 
 
 For a man so to say, it is not only necessary that he 
 should doubt his perdition, but that he should believe in 
 his safety. Children who, having fallen overboard, are 
 kept floating by the current, by their clothes, or by their 
 feeble struggling, do not realize the danger they are in. 
 A rope is thrown to such a one from the ship, he is told 
 he will certainly perish, and he is implored to catch hold 
 of the rope. (The parables of the woman who found the 
 lost penny, of the shepherd who found his lost sheep, of 
 the feast of the prodigal son, all allude to the same thing.) 
 
228 CHRISrS CHRISTIAh4TY. 
 
 But the child does not believe. He does not doubt the 
 rope, but that he is perishing. Other light-hearted 
 children have told him that he will continue to float 
 happily even when the ship has disappeared. He does 
 not beheve that his clothes will be soaked, his little arms 
 tired, and at last that he will suffocate and sink ; and 
 therefore he pays no attention to the rope of safety. 
 
 In like manner people become persuaded that they 
 will not perish, and so reject the teaching of the Christ- 
 God ; continuing to say, " Uphold our belief that we are 
 not perishing." 
 
 To do so is impossible. To be assured of their safety 
 they must cease from doing that which causes their ruin, 
 and begin to do Avhat will save them ; they must take 
 hold of the rope. But they do not wish to do so, but 
 desire to be convinced that they are safe, though under 
 their eyes their fellows perish dail}\ And this desire 
 they call faith ; but it is only natural that such never 
 suffices them, and that they always require new additions 
 to it. 
 
 And when I understood Christ's teaching I saw 
 that such was not faith, and that it was this, falsely so 
 named, that the Apostle James had refuted in his epistle 
 (ii. 14) : * " What doth it profit, my brethren, if a man 
 thinks he hath faith, but have not works } Can that faith 
 save him ? If a brother or sister be naked, and in lack 
 of daily food, and one of you say unto them. Go in peace, 
 
 * This epistle for a long time was not accepted by the Church, and 
 when at last it was, it underwent certain distortions ; some words are left 
 out, some are transposed or arbitrarily translated. I have retained the 
 authorized Russian version, correcting only some inaccuracies according 
 to Tischendorfs manuscript. 
 
IVHA7 I BELIEVE. 229 
 
 "be ye warmed and filled ; and yet ye give them not the 
 things needful to the body ; what doth it profit ? Even 
 so faith if it have not works, is dead in itself. Yea, a 
 man will say, Thou hast faith and I have works ; shew 
 me thy faith apart from thy works, and I will shew thee 
 .my faith by my works. Thou believest that God is one, 
 thou doest well ; the devils also believe, and shudder. 
 But wilt thou know, О vain man, that faith apart from 
 works is barren ? Was not Abraham our father justified 
 by works, in that he offered up Isaac his son upon the 
 altar ? Thou seest that faith wrought Avith his works, 
 and by works was faith made perfect. . . . Ye see that 
 by works a man is justified, and not by faith. . . . For as 
 the body apart from the spirit is dead, even so faith 
 apart from works is dead." 
 
 James says that the only sign of faith is work, which 
 flows from it, and that so the unproductive faith does 
 not exist, and can neither feed others nor assist itself; 
 it is only a desire to believe something, a false verbal 
 assertion that one believes in what one does not believe. 
 According to the definition of the apostle, faith is that 
 which originates action, and action that which completes 
 faith, that is, what makes faith be faith. 
 
 The Jews asked Christ (Matt, xxvii. 42 ; Mark xv. 32 ; 
 John vi. 30), "What then doest thou for a sign that we 
 may see and believe thee ? What workest thou ? " 
 " Let him now come down from the cross, that wc may 
 sec and believe," " He saved others ; himself he cannot 
 save. He is the King of Israel ; let him now come 
 -down from the cross, and we will believe on him." 
 
 And to such demands for the enforcement of their 
 
230 CHRIST S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 faith, Christ answered, that their desire was vain, and that 
 he could not force them to beHeve what they would 
 not. " If I tell you, ye will not believe " (Luke xxii, 67). 
 " I told you, and ye believe not. . . . Ye believe not, 
 because ye are not of my sheep " (John x. 25, 26). 
 
 The Jews demanded precisely what is required by 
 Church-reared Christians — some exterior sign as an 
 evidence to Christ's teaching ; but he showed the 
 impossibility of such, and explained that they did not 
 believe, not for want of a sign, but because they would 
 not follow the way of life he had shown to his sheep. 
 And he explained further (John v. 44) who his sheep 
 were, why some believe, and others do not, and what is 
 the foundation of faith. How can ye believe, he said, 
 when ye accept teaching* (So^a) one from another, 
 but the teaching from the one God ye seek not ? In 
 order to believe, he said, you must seek the teaching 
 which comes from God alone. " He that speaketh from 
 himself seeketh his own glory " (8оца^ тцл> "[Ъшу) : " but 
 he that seeketh the teaching of Him that sent Him, the 
 same is true, and no unrighteousness is in him " (John 
 vii. 18). The teaching of life, Ъб^а, is the foundation of 
 faith, and all action flows spontaneously from faith, and 
 all faith from our idea of life. 
 
 There may be an indefinite variety of action, an 
 almost infinite number of beliefs, but there can only be 
 two doctrines of life, one of which Christ repudiates, the 
 other he accepts. The first — the source of all error — 
 consists in assigning to individual life an essential 
 
 ■" 5o|a, as in many other places is quite erroneously translated by the 
 woxA i^loiy: Ъб\(х. from Sowreco means view, judgment, doch-jnc. 
 
JVIIAT I BELIEVE. 23 T 
 
 reality belonging to the man. It is this which has 
 inspired the various beliefs and actions of men of the 
 world, which has now and has had always many 
 followers. The second — preached by all the prophets, 
 and taught by Christ — is that our individual life only 
 acquires a meaning in the fulfilment of the will of God. 
 
 If a man be persuaded that his individuality is of the 
 chief importance to him, he will also believe that personal 
 welfare is the real end of his life, and in accordance with 
 this he will have a faith and modes of action cor- 
 responding, either for the accumulation of property, the 
 attainment of celebrity, or the satisfaction of his passions. 
 If a man accept the second doctrine, if he be convinced 
 that life consists solely in accomplishing the will of God, 
 according to the faith of Abraham and the teaching of 
 Christ, such belief will give colour to his principles, and 
 out of it his actions will flow. 
 
 This, then, is the reason why those who believe in an 
 unmerged personal life cannot accept the teaching of 
 Christ, and always, with this belief, лу111 their deeds 
 correspond to their faith, and not to their intentions and 
 their words. The desire for miracle of old and at the 
 present time must destroy simplicity of life. We may 
 pray, attend the Holy Communion, become philanthropic, 
 build churches, convert others, and all the while be far 
 from following Christ, because we will not, as did 
 Abraham, bring our only son as a sacrifice. Did 
 Abraham doubt one moment his duty of sacrifice to the 
 God who alone gave a meaning to his life ? Did Christ 
 and his disciples hesitate in their self-sacrifice .^ It is 
 from this stranijc misunderstandinc;- of the essence of 
 
232 CHRISrS CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 faith springs the desire of men to be persuaded into the 
 belief that it is best to Hve according to Christ's teaching, 
 whereas with all the impulse of their soul, and by all 
 the teaching of the welfare of an individual existence, 
 they wish to live in a way quite at variance to this 
 teaching. 
 
 The foundation of faith lies in the meaning given to 
 life, and from it proceeds the appreciation of importance 
 in life ; faith is, in fact, the conception of all the pheno- 
 mena of life. Those who possess a faith founded on the 
 doctrine of personal welfare, cannot make it agree with 
 that deduced from Christ's teaching. 
 
 The likelihood of this misconception is clearly alluded 
 to in the Gospels. The disciples required confirmation 
 of their faith (Matt. xx. 20-28 ; Mark x. 35-45). Here, 
 after the denunciation of riches, occur the terrible words, 
 to those who believe in personal welfare, denouncing all 
 who are not ready to sacrifice even their life for the 
 teaching of Christ. Peter asks, "What shall we receive ? " 
 and James and John covet a post of honour in the 
 kingdom. To the first Christ replies in a parable (Matt. 
 XX. I-16), to the others in the solemn Avords, " Ye know 
 not what ye ask." You do not understand this teaching 
 which is based on renunciation, not on acquisition. You 
 may drink the cup (live the life) I drink of, but I cannot 
 seat you beside myself It is only here that the powerful 
 enjoy dominion ; you must know that happiness consists 
 in service, not in being served, and he who would thus 
 serve must give his life to be a ransom for all. 
 
 Christ did not tell his disciples to alter their concep- 
 tion of the good and evil in life, but he unfolded to them 
 
I VITA Т I BELIEVE. 233 
 
 the real meaning on which faith is founded, the true 
 appreciation of good and ill. In his parable to Peter, of 
 the workmen, Christ reveals the entire misconception of 
 his teaching which arises from lack of faith. He says — 
 It is only under conditions demanding personal welfare 
 that the equivalent for work done is valued, and such 
 valuation is founded on a presumption of the absolute- 
 ness of personal rights, which are purely visionary, man 
 having no rights he can claim, nothing but obligations 
 to perform. If even he sacrifice his whole life for others, 
 he has but returned the gift of another. If a man claim 
 ■a right to life, if he dispute with the Source of all, he 
 proves then by that he has no idea of the real meaning 
 of life. 
 
 Men, having received happiness, demand more ; 
 having waited, idle and miserable, in the market, living 
 not at all, they are set to work by the Master's kindness, 
 and at the same, afterwards they become discontented, 
 because, setting to work with a false idea of life, they 
 desire proportional rewards. They do not perceive that 
 in work itself is the highest good, for the benefits of 
 Avhich they ought to return all within their power, instead 
 of demanding a reward. And those who set about life 
 with the same confusion of principle as possessed these 
 workmen cannot have a right faith. The parable of the 
 master and the workmen returning from the field makes 
 this point still clearer. 
 
 On hearing the injunction to pardon one's brother 
 not seven times but seventy times seven, the disciples 
 said, struck with its difficulty, " Yes, but . . . it is 
 necessary to believe in order to fulfil that : increase then 
 
234 ciimsrs cнRISTIA^чтY. 
 
 our faith." The request was in reality from the same 
 weakness as had before asked a sign. 
 
 The disciples argued as do most of us : It will be well 
 to arrange to live a life of personal welfare, and believe 
 it will be still better for us to obey the will of God. 
 
 We all make this demand which is at variance with 
 the whole of Christ's teaching, and are astonished to 
 find faith difficult. 
 
 And this radical misunderstanding existed then as 
 now, and Christ in a parable disclosed the true nature 
 of faith, which arises not from what he said, but from the 
 consciousness of one's own position. It is founded 
 solely on the rational consciousness of what it is best to 
 do, being in a certain position ; and it is impossible to 
 excite a faith by promises of reward, or by threats of 
 perdition, that would not collapse at the first temptation ; 
 for the faith which can move mountains, which cannot 
 possibly waver, is founded upon the consciousness of 
 inevitable loss, and of the only salvation possible to 
 one so placed — namely, a united life in accord with the 
 will of the Master ; all who so perceive need no con- 
 firmation. 
 
 Christ says. When the master returns with his labourer 
 from the field he does not tell him to dine, but to look 
 after his employer, and to tend the beasts, and only 
 when he has so done does the labourer sit to his own 
 meal. And the man will do so without feeling that he 
 has been unjustly treated, nor does he vaunt his self- 
 abnegation, nor expect a reward or even thanks ; he so 
 acts for so he ought to act, and he only does what he 
 knows he must do, because such is the inevitable con- 
 
WHAT I BELIEVE. 235 
 
 dition of his service, and at the same time the true 
 welfare of his hfe. So also you, says Christ, when you 
 Avill have done all that was required of you (that you 
 were bidden to do), regard yourselves as having only 
 done what it Avas your duty to do. He who under- 
 stands his position towards the Master, will also under- 
 stand that he can live only by complying with the 
 Master's will, and will also know in what consists his 
 welfare, and Avill possess that faith for which nothing is 
 impossible. This is just the faith that Christ teaches. 
 Accordingly, Christ's faith is based upon the rational 
 consciousness of the true sense of life. 
 
 The foundation of faith according to Christ's teaching 
 is light — in the sense opposed to darkness (John i. 9-12). 
 There was the true light which lighteth every man, 
 coming into the world. He was in the world, and the 
 world was made by him, and the world knew him not. 
 He came unto his own, and they that were his own 
 received him not. But as many as received him, to 
 them gave he the right to become children of God. 
 "And this is the judgment, that the light is come into 
 the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the 
 light, for their works were evil. For ever}' one that 
 doeth ill hateth the light, and cometh not to the light, 
 lest his works should be reproved. But he that doeth 
 the truth cometh to the light, that his works may be 
 made manifest, because thc\- have been wrought in 
 God" (John iii. 19-21). 
 
 For him who has understood the teaching of Christ, 
 there can be no question as to the confirmation of his 
 faith. Faith, according to Christ's teaching, is founded 
 
236 CHRIST S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 upon the light — truth. Christ nowhere calls for faith 
 in himself; he calls only for faith in the truth. 
 
 He says to the Jews (John viii. 40), " Ye seek to 
 kill me, a man who hath told you the truth, which I 
 heard from God." 
 
 " Which of you convicteth me of sin ? If I say 
 truth, why do ye not believe me .'' " (ver. 46). He says, 
 (John xviii. '^j), " To this end have I been born, and 
 to this end am I come into the world, that I should 
 bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the 
 truth hcareth my voice. 
 
 He says (John xiv. 6), " I am the way, the truth, and 
 the life." 
 
 In the same chapter he says to his disciples, " The 
 Father shall give you another Comforter, that he may 
 be with you for ever, even the spirit of truth : whom 
 the world cannot receive ; for it beholdeth him not, 
 neither knoweth him : ye know him ; for he abideth 
 with you, and shall be in you" (vers. 16, 17). 
 
 He says that all his teaching is, that he himself is 
 truth. 
 
 The subject of Christ's teaching is truth. Faith, 
 therefore, in him is not confidence in everything con- 
 cerning Jesus, but it is the knowledge of truth. It is 
 useless to endeavour to persuade a man into the truth 
 of his teaching, or to buy him over to obey it by the 
 promise of rewards. Whoever understands it will have 
 faith in him, because it is truth. Whoever knows the 
 truth necessary for his own good, cannot but believe in 
 it,- as the drowning man, once aware of his danger, can- 
 not but lay hold of the rope that is thrown to save him. 
 
Jl'IIAT I BELIEVE. 237 
 
 The question, therefore, What shall we do that we may 
 believe? is one that proves only our misunderstanding 
 of the teaching of Christ. 
 
 We say that it is difficult to live after Christ's teach- 
 ing. How should it not be so, when through all our life 
 Ave industriously hide from ourselves our real position, 
 striving only to confirm our belief in that position being 
 other than it is. We exalt this confidence, re-christened 
 faith, into something sacred, and by every means — by 
 violence, by persuasion, by threats, flattery, and deceit, 
 we allure men to accept it. 
 
 In this demand for belief in the impossible and un- 
 reasonable, we go so far that the very unreasonableness 
 of what we ask to be believed is taken as a sign of its 
 truth. It was a Christian who said credo quia absiirdum, 
 and others with rapture repeat it, supposing that to 
 demand a belief in the impossible is the best means of 
 insuring truth. 
 
 Not long since a certain clever and learned man told 
 me in conversation that the Christian teaching, as giving 
 a moral view of life, was of small importance. "All that 
 is in it," said he, " can be found among the Stoics, the 
 Brahmins, and in the Talmud. The substance of 
 Christianity is not in that, but in the theosophical teach- 
 ing contained in its dogmas." This means, that what 
 is dear in Christianity, is not what is eternal and common 
 to all humanity, not what is required for life and is 
 reasonable, but what cannot be understood and is use- 
 less ; that, in the name of which have been slaughtered 
 millions of men. 
 
 We have formed our false view of life and of the 
 
238 CHRIST'S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 world, from our own evil passions and corrupt desires ; 
 and belief in this false view, externally connected with 
 the teaching of Christ, we account the most necessary 
 and important object in life. Were it not for this age- 
 long trust in a lie, the teaching of Christ would long ago 
 have triumphed. 
 
 It is perhaps a terrible thing to say, yet it seems so to 
 me, that were it not for the Church's commentaries on 
 this teaching, those who are now called Christians would 
 be much nearer to Christ ; they would be much nearer 
 to a reasonable conception of the good in life than they 
 are now. The moral teaching of all the prophets of 
 mankind would not be closed for them ; they would 
 have their own lesser teachers of truth, and would 
 believe in them. But now that the whole truth has 
 been unfolded, it has seemed so terrible to those whose 
 deeds are evil, that they have perverted it into a lie, and 
 all confidence in the real truth has been lost. In our 
 European society to the testimony of Christ, that he 
 came upon earth to bear witness of the truth, and that 
 all who are of the truth must listen to him, we have 
 long since answered in the words of Pilate — "What is 
 truth ? " 
 
 These words, which really sound so sad and deep an 
 irony against the Roman who spoke them, wc have 
 taken seriously and made a faith of We all on earth 
 live not only without truth, but in the firm conviction 
 that of all vain pursuits the vainest is that search for 
 truth which is to determine our knowledge of the mean- 
 ing of the life of man. 
 
 The doctrine which regulates life, which among all 
 
WHAT I BELIEVE. 239 
 
 nations, up to the times of our European society, was 
 always accounted the most important, alluding to which 
 Christ said that it was the "one thing necessary," is 
 itself excluded from our life, from all influence over 
 man's acts. It is relegated to a special institution called 
 the Church, and even those who officiate therein have 
 long ceased to believe in it. 
 
 The only window through which light can come, to 
 which the eyes of all thinking and suffering men are 
 turned, is shut. To the question, " What am I .-' What 
 am I to do "> Cannot you show me a way, through the 
 teaching of that God, who, you say, came to save us, to 
 lighten my life of its burdens ? " the only answer I 
 receive is : " Fulfil the commands of those in authority 
 over you, and believe in the Church ! " " But why is 
 our life on earth so bad ? " exclaims a despairing voice, 
 " Why is there all this evil ? Must I through life take 
 part in it ? Cannot it be lightened ? " The answer is, 
 " It is impossible. Your wish to live well and to help 
 others to do so is pride ; though a beautiful thought, it 
 is vain. The only thing it can save for you is your soul 
 in the next world. If you do not wish to take part in 
 the evil of this world, go out of it," 
 
 This way is open to all, says the Church ; but know 
 also that, if you choose that path, you cannot take part 
 in the life of the Avorld, you must cease to live, and slowly 
 kill yourself. 
 
 There are only two paths, say our teachers : to believe 
 in and obey those in authority, and to take part in the 
 evils which we institute, or to leave the world and go into 
 a monastery, to abstain from sleep and food and to stand 
 
240 CHRIST'S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 on a pillar to mortify your flesh, to bow down again and 
 again, and to do nothing at all for your fellow-men. If 
 you will not do this, you must confess that Christ's 
 teaching cannot be fulfilled, and accept the lawlessness 
 of life as consecrated by religion, or else renounce life, 
 which is equivalent to a slowly worked-out suicide. 
 
 Strange as must seem, to one who understands 
 Christ's teaching, the error that, though good for men, it 
 is impracticable ; the other error, that a man, Avho really 
 wishes, not in words, but in deed, to fulfil his teaching,, 
 must retire from the world, is still more strange. 
 
 The error, that it is better for a man to withdraw 
 from the world than to expose himself to its temptations, 
 is an old one, long known to the Hebrews, but altogether 
 foreign, not only to the spirit of Christianity, but even to 
 Judaism. Against this error, long before the time of 
 Christ, the story of the prophet Jonah was written, a 
 story so often and lovingly quoted by him. 
 
 The interpretation of that story is as follows. 
 
 Jonah, a prophet, desires to be the only righteous 
 one, and is astonished at the depravity of men. God 
 shows him that because he is a prophet he is wanted 
 to show to erring men his knowledge of the truth, 
 and that, so far from flying from them for their sins, 
 he should live among them, to purge them of those 
 sins, all the more if they be erring. Jonah despises the 
 depraved Nincvites, and flees from them, but God brings 
 him, by means of the whale, back again to them, and 
 then he fulfils the command of God ; through him the 
 Ninevites accept the teaching of God, and their life is 
 bettered. 
 
WHAT I BELIEVE. 24 1 
 
 But Jonah rejoices not to be the instrument of the 
 divine will ; he is vexed, and jealous of the Ninevites 
 — he wishes alone to be good and wise. He retires 
 into the desert, bewailing his lot, and reproaching God. 
 Then in one night a gourd grows over him for a 
 shelter from the sun, but in the next a worm destroys 
 the gourd, and Jonah still more bitterly reproaches 
 God, that the gourd, so useful to him, has perished. 
 Then God says, " Thou art sorry for the gourd, which 
 thou callest thine own, in one night it grew and in one 
 night it perished ; shall not I have pity on a whole 
 people, which was perishing, living like the beasts, unable 
 to tell the right hand from the left? Thy knowledge 
 of the truth was only wanted for thee to give to those 
 who had it not." 
 
 Christ often quoted this story, but it is moreover 
 recorded in the Gospels how he himself, after visiting 
 John the Baptist in the wilderness, before beginning to 
 preach, was subject to the same temptation. He w^as led 
 by the devil (deceit) into the wilderness to be tempted, 
 but, defeating the spirit of deceit by the strength of his 
 soul, went afterwards into Galilee, and from that time 
 forth, shrinking not from the most depraved of men, he 
 lived among Publicans, Pharisees, and sinners, teaching 
 them the truth.* 
 
 * Luke iv. 1,2: Christ was led by the spirit of deceit into the wilderness 
 to be tempted. Matt. iv. 3, 4; The spirit of deceit said to Christ, that he 
 was not the Son of God, if he could not of stones make bread. Christ 
 answered, I can live without bread, I live by that which God breathed 
 into me. Then the spirit of deceit said, If so, then throw thyself from the 
 height ; thou will kill thy flesh, but the spirit breathed into thee by God 
 shall not perish. Christ answered, My life in the flesh is the will of 
 God. To kill the flesh is to go against the will of God, Is to tcm]it God. 
 
 R 
 
242 CITRIST'S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 According to the teaching of the Church, Christ. 
 God in man, gave us an example of life. He passed the 
 most of his days, so far as they are known to us, in the 
 very whirl of life, among publicans and loose women, 
 and in Jerusalem among the Pharisees. His chief com- 
 mandments are, to love one's neighbour, and to spread 
 the teaching of truth among men, both of which require 
 constant intercourse with the world. And yet we seem 
 therefrom to have drawn this conclusion, that Christ 
 teaches us to retire from the world, to have nothing to 
 do with man. In a word, that we may follow the 
 example of Christ, we are taught the exact reverse of all 
 he taught and all he did. 
 
 According to the interpreters of the Church, Christ's 
 teaching offers, as well to those who live in the world as 
 to those who have chosen a monastic life, no doctrine of 
 life — no means of bettering it for themselves and others 
 — but the belief of the men of this world, that, living ill, 
 we may still be saved in the world to come ; while to 
 those who have chosen a life apart it is further ordained, 
 that they should make life here still worse than it is. 
 
 This, however, is not as Christ taught. 
 
 He taught truth ; and if there be an abstract truth, it 
 is not less the truth when practically applied. If life in 
 God be the only true life, the only one that brings 
 happiness with it, it is not less true or less happy here 
 
 Matt. iv. 8-1 1 : Then the spirit of deceit said, If so, then serve the flesh, 
 as well as men do, and the flesh will reward thee. Christ answered, I am 
 powerless over the flesh ; my life is in the spirit ; but to destroy the flesh 
 I cannot, because the spirit is lodged in it by the will of God, and because, 
 living in the flesh, I can only serve my father, God. Then Christ went 
 out of the wilderness into the world. 
 
WHAT I BELIEVE. 243 
 
 on earth amid all the changes and chances of the world. 
 If our life here did not confirm Christ's doctrine of life, 
 his teaching would not be true. 
 
 Christ does not invite men to leave the better for the 
 worse, but the worse for the better. He pities men, who 
 seem to him a flock of wandering sheep, perishing with- 
 out a shepherd ; and he promises them a shepherd and 
 good pasture. He owns that his disciples will be 
 persecuted for the sake of his teaching, and that they 
 must have patience and bear the persecutions of the 
 world with firmness. But he does not say that, by 
 following his teaching, they will suffer more than by 
 following the teaching of the world ; on the contrary, he 
 foretells misery for the latter, but for those who follow 
 him eternal happiness. 
 
 He does not teach salvation through faith or 
 asceticism, that is, through a deceit of the imagination, 
 or through voluntary torments in this life ; but he 
 teaches a life, through which, besides salvation from the 
 ruin of personal life, we shall have here on earth less 
 suffering and more happiness than when living for self 
 alone. 
 
 He tells men that, if they fulfil his teaching even in 
 the midst of those who neglect it, they will not on that 
 account be more unhappy, but, on the contrary, happier 
 than before. He says it is a sure calculation of worldly 
 wisdom to take no care for the things of this world. 
 
 In Mark (x. 28-31) we read: "Peter began to say 
 unto him, Lo, we have left all, and have followed thee. 
 Jesus said. Verily I say unto you. There is no man that 
 hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or mother, or 
 
244 ClfRISrS CHRISTIAhUTY. 
 
 father, or children, or lands, for my sake, and for the 
 gospel's sake, but he shall receive a hundredfold now in 
 this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, 
 and children, and lands, with persecutions ; and in the 
 world to come eternal life." 
 
 {Matt. xix. 27 ; Luke v. 1 1 ; xviii. 28.) 
 
 Christ, it is true, warns those who listen to him of 
 the persecution they must expect from those who reject 
 him ; but he does not say that they will be losers 
 thereby. On the contrary, he promises them more 
 happiness here on earth than will fall to the lot of those 
 who disregard him. 
 
 Of this there can be no doubt, both from the clear- 
 ness of Christ's language and from the whole spirit of 
 his teaching ; from his own life, and the life of his 
 disciples. But, is it true ? 
 
 Considering the relative position of the followers of 
 Christ and the followers of the world from an abstract 
 point of view, it is impossible not to see that the position 
 of the former must be the better one, were it only that 
 they, doing good to every man, do not provoke the 
 hatred of mankind against them. The followers of 
 Christ, doing evil to none, can be hateful only to evil 
 men. The followers of the world should be hateful to 
 all, for the law of their life is strife — the persecution of 
 one another. The probabilities of suffering are the same 
 for both, but with this difference, that the followers of 
 Christ will be prepared for it, while the followers of the 
 world will bend the whole strength of their minds to find 
 a way of escape from it ; that the former will know that 
 their sufferings are necessary for the world's sake, while 
 
WHAT I BELIEVE. 245 
 
 the latter will know not why they suffer. Considering 
 the question, then, in this wise, the position of Christ's 
 followers should be preferable to that of the followers of 
 the world. But, is it so in reality } 
 
 In order to verify this point, let any one recall the 
 difficult moments of his life, his bodily and mental 
 sufferings, and then ask himself in whose name he has 
 borne all these misfortunes ; in the name of the world 
 or of Christ ? Let any sincere man review the whole 
 current of his life, and he will see that no suffering came 
 from fulfilling the teaching of Christ ; that the greater 
 part of the misfortunes of his life proceeded from his 
 having been led away by the entanglements of the world 
 into opposition to his own impulses. 
 
 In the course of a happy and fortunate life, using the 
 words in their strictly worldly meaning, I have had to 
 bear as many sufferings, brought upon me by the teach- 
 ing of the world, as ever fell to the lot of a martyr for 
 the name of Christ. All the hardest moments of my 
 life, from drunkenness and looseness as a student, to 
 duels, war, ill-health, and the unnatural and tormenting 
 conditions under which I now live, all these form a 
 martyrdom in the name of the teaching of the world. 
 
 Be it remembered that I am speaking of a life 
 exceptionally fortunate in the common sense of the 
 word ; but how many martyrs have suffered, and are 
 now suffering, through the teaching of the world, what 
 I cannot even vividly realize ? 
 
 We do not sec the difficulties and dangers of fulfilling 
 the teaching of the world, because we consider all that it 
 brings upon us inevitable. 
 
246 CIIRISrS CHRISTIAA'ITY. 
 
 We are convinced that all the misfortunes, of which 
 we are ourselves the cause, are necessary conditions of 
 our life, and in that lies the very reason of our being 
 unable to understand that Christ's teaching opens to us 
 a way of escape from our misfortunes into a life of 
 happiness. 
 
 In order to be able to decide the question of the 
 relative happiness of the two lives, we must, at least for 
 the sake of the argument, get rid of this false conception, 
 and with an unbiassed mind survey ourselves and all 
 that goes on around us. 
 
 Mingle with a crowd, especially a town crowd ; look 
 into those harassed, agitated, sickly faces, and then recall 
 your own life and that of those whom you have known 
 intimately. Remember the violent deaths, the cases of 
 suicide of which you have heard, and then ask yourself 
 the cause of all those miseries, and of that despair which 
 ends in self-murder. You will see, terrible as it seems, 
 that nine-tenths of human sufferings spring from the 
 teaching of the world ; that all these sufferings are reall}- 
 needless, and yet unavoidable, and that the majority of 
 men are the martyrs of worldly teaching. 
 
 On a wet Sunday in last autumn I drove in a tram 
 through the market of the Souharoff tower. For half a 
 mile the carriage made its way through a compact crowd 
 which divided to let it pass. From morning to evening 
 these thousands of people, the majority of whom are 
 hungry and in rags, jostle each other in the mud, abusing, 
 cheating, hating each other ; and it is the same in all the 
 markets of Moscow. These people pass the evening in 
 public-houses, and houses of entertainments, the night in 
 
WHAT I BELIEVE. 247 
 
 their corners and kennels, and yet this is the best day of 
 their week ! On the Monday in their pestiferous holes 
 they again set about their toilsome work. 
 
 Think on the life of these people ; of the position 
 they have left for the one they have made for themselves. 
 Think of the unceasing labour they all, men and women 
 alike, voluntarily endure, and you will see then that they 
 are truly martyrs. 
 
 They have left their houses, and fields, and flocks, 
 many even their wives and children ; they have re- 
 nounced all, even their own lives, and have come to the 
 town to gain what the world considers necessary. And 
 all, not to speak of the tens of thousands of unfortunate 
 ones who kill themselves with the vile fare of the night 
 lodging-houses, all, from the factory hands, cabmen, 
 seamstresses, and prostitutes, to the rich merchants, the 
 ministers, and their wives, lead a hard and unnatural 
 life ; and yet not one has achieved what the world deems 
 needful. 
 
 Seek among these people, from the beggar to the 
 rich man, to find him who has earned what the world 
 thinks necessary, and you will find barely one out of a 
 thousand. Each struggles with all his strength to obtain 
 what he does not want, but what the world requires of 
 him, and what he in consequence believes himself to be 
 miserable without. No sooner has he won it, than he 
 is called upon to obtain more, and still more ; and so 
 on and ever on without end progresses that labour of 
 Sisyphus, ruining the lives of men. 
 
 Take the scale of income, from those who spend 
 three hundred roubles a year up to those who spend 
 
248 CHRISrS CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 fifty thousand, and how seldom will you find a man 
 who is not jaded and worn out with working for four 
 hundred, when he has three, for five hundred, when he 
 has four, and so on without end. There is not one 
 with an income of five hundred who would voluntarily 
 change places with another who has four. If there are 
 some who do this, they do it only for the chance of 
 making money more quietly and surely. All want more 
 and more to make the best of their labour, and then to 
 give this best, their life, their soul, without reserve to 
 the world. He who has to-day a coat and boots, will 
 to-morrow want a watch and chain, the next day apart- 
 ments with sofas and lamps ; next, carpets in the 
 drawing-room and fine clothes ; afterwards a house, 
 horses, pictures in gilt frames, till finally he falls ill 
 from overwork, and death ends the struggle. Another 
 takes his place, and gives his labour and his life to the 
 same Moloch, till he, too, dies in ignorance of all he has 
 been working for. Can such a life be truly a happy one ? 
 
 Grant him all that men call happiness, and yet, how 
 wretched is his life. Indeed, what are the conditions of 
 earthly happiness which cannot be disputed } 
 
 One of the first and most generally acknowledged 
 conditions of happiness is a life which does not break 
 the link between man and nature, a life in the open air, 
 and in the light of the sun. It involves an intimate 
 connection with the earth, with its plants and animals. 
 To be debarred from such a life has been considered 
 at all times and among all men a great misfortune. 
 Prisoners feel this deprivation more acutely than any 
 other men. 
 
WHAT I BELIEVE. 249 
 
 Yet look at the life of worldly men. The greater 
 their success, the farther are they from these conditions 
 of happiness ; the greater their worldly happiness, the 
 less they see of the sun, of the fields, and the woods, 
 and the animals that dwell therein. Many of them, 
 and especially the women, live to old age without having 
 more than once or twice, perhaps, seen the rising of 
 the sun, without having ever seen the fields and the 
 woods, save from a carriage or a train, and without 
 having themselves either sown or planted anything, or 
 fed, or reared any domestic beast. 
 
 Such people see only stuffs and stones and wood 
 wrought upon by human labour, and those they see 
 not by the light of the sun, but by an artificial light ; 
 they hear only the sound of carriages, machines, cannons, 
 and musical instruments ; and underfoot or in their 
 hands they have nought but the products of handicraft, 
 they smell only the fumes of wine and tobacco-smoke ; 
 and they eat for the most part, through the weakness 
 of their digestion, what is not fresh but tainted. Their 
 constant journeys from place to place do not save them 
 from this deprivation, and they travel shut up in boxes. 
 In the country and abroad, wherever they go, the same 
 stuffs and wood are beneath their feet, the same curtains 
 hide from them the light of the sun, the same lackeys 
 and coachmen do not allow them to touch the ground, 
 the plants, or the animals. Wherever they are, they are 
 deprived, as though they were prisoners, of this condition 
 of happiness. And as prisoners console themselves with 
 the blades of grass in the court of their prison, with spiders, 
 and with mice, so do these people console themselves 
 
250 CIIRISrS CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 with consumptive house-plants, parrots, dogs, and 
 monkeys, on which, however, they still bestow no care 
 themselves. 
 
 Another indisputable condition of happiness is labour; 
 freely chosen and liked, the physical labour nourishing a 
 good appetite and sound, restorative sleep. Again, the 
 greater the good fortune which people have had in this 
 world, the more do they lack this other condition of 
 happiness. 
 
 All the fortunate ones of the world, the dignitaries 
 and the rich, either, like imprisoned criminals, are 
 altogether deprived of labour, and have to contend in 
 vain with illness caused by the want of physical exertion, 
 and still less successfully with ciimii (I say unsuccess- 
 fully, because labour is only sweet when it is useful 
 and needed, and these people want for nothing), or they 
 have to put up with work distasteful to themselves 
 — bankers, for instance, lawyers, governors of towns, 
 or ministers — while their wives decorate saloons, by rich 
 services of plate, and dress out more richly still them- 
 selves and their children. I say their work is distasteful 
 to such men, for who yet met among them one who took 
 pride in his work, or performed it with the same zest 
 with which the doorkeeper sweeps away the snow from 
 before the house? These fortunate ones, then, are either 
 altogether shut out from labour, or are set to work at 
 what they dislike ; they are, in short, in the condition of 
 men condemned to penal servitude. 
 
 A third condition of happiness is a family. Here, 
 again, the greater the worldly success the less is this 
 happiness possible. Most adulterers designedly reject 
 
WHAT I BELIEVE. 25 I 
 
 the joys of family life, and think only of its incon- 
 veniences. Even when these people are not guilty of 
 adultery, children are not a joy to them, but a burden, 
 and in order to avoid having them they sometimes 
 employ criminal means. And when they have children, 
 they rarely have the pleasure of their society. According 
 to the laws of their life, they must give them over to 
 the care of others, mostly entire strangers ; at first to 
 foreigners, and afterwards to public educational establish- 
 ments. To such parents what does a family bring but 
 the grief of having children who from infancy are as 
 unhappy as themselves, and who have only one feeling 
 towards them, a desire for their death in order to inherit 
 from them. 
 
 The justification of this mode of life often heard 
 from parents is sufficiently astounding. " I am in want 
 of nothing," says the parent, " though my life is a 
 hard one ; but I love my children, and live for them." 
 That is to say, I know for a certainty by experiences 
 that our life is unhappy, and therefore I educate my 
 children to be as unhappy as I am. With that aim 
 I bring them to the place where physical and moral 
 infection is concentrated — to a town — give them over into 
 the hands of strangers, who in their education have 
 only interested motives, and thus corrupt my children 
 physically, morally, and intellectually. And this is the 
 argument which justifies the unreasonable life of the 
 parents themselves ! They are not prisoners, but their 
 family life entails on them more suffering than the 
 absence of it inflicts on the imprisoned. 
 
 A fourth condition is a free and living intercourse 
 
252 CHRJSrS CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 with all the various classes of mankind. Here again, the 
 higher people have risen in the world, the more must 
 they miss this important condition of happiness. The 
 higher the position of men, the narrower and more 
 limited is the range of their intercourse, the lower, in 
 their intellectual and moral development, are the few 
 who form that charmed circle out of which there is no 
 issue. 
 
 To the peasant and his wife the whole world lies 
 open, and if there be a million of men who will not 
 associate with him, he has eighty other millions left of 
 the labouring classes, with whom, from Archangel to 
 Astrachan, without waiting for a visit or an introduction, 
 he can enter at once into the most intimate brotherly 
 relations. 
 
 As for the government official and his wife, there 
 are hundreds who are his equals, but the higher class 
 will not receive him, and the lower are cut off from 
 him. For. the rich man of the world there are worldly 
 families enough, but from the rest he is wholly separated. 
 For the minister and the man of great wealth there is a 
 tenth part of society, as important or wealthy as them- 
 selves. For emperors and kings the circle becomes 
 smaller still. Is not this truly imprisonment, with the 
 possibility for the prisoner of intercourse with only two 
 or three of his jailors ? 
 
 There is also a fifth condition of happiness, and that 
 is health and a natural and painless death. Here once 
 more, the higher a man's social position, the less chance 
 he has of these blessings. Compare a man in easy cir- 
 cumstances with the average peasant, and notwithstand- 
 
WHAT I BELIEVE. 253 
 
 ing the hunger and excessive toil the latter must endure 
 (not through his own fault but through the cruelty of his 
 superiors), you will see that the lower, the healthier, 
 the higher, the more sickly, is true both of men and 
 women. 
 
 Thus is one life after another cast beneath the wheels 
 of the chariot of this fatal god, that crushes out these 
 lives, and yet new victims, with groans and sobs and 
 curses, throw themselves ever beneath it. 
 
 To fulfil the teaching of Christ is difficult. Christ 
 says. Who wishes to follow me must leave house, and 
 fields, and brothers for me, his God, and he shall receive 
 in this world an hundredfold more houses, and fields, 
 and brothers, and moreover life eternal. But no one 
 follows him. The teaching of the world says. Leave 
 house, and fields, and brothers, leave the village for the 
 unhealthy town, pass your life naked in a bathroom, 
 lathering the backs of strangers ; or as a petty tradesman 
 counting coppers in a cellar ; or as a public prosecutor 
 in trials, or immersed in papers, and occupied in making 
 the lives of those already unhappy still worse ; or as a 
 minister always signing in haste useless documents ; or 
 as a captain always bent on killing others — live this un- 
 natural life, that must end in a painful death, and you 
 shall receive nothing either in this world or in the world 
 to come. And this call all obey. 
 
 Christ says. Take up thy cross and follow me ; that 
 is, bear patiently the lot awarded thee, and obey me 
 thy God ; yet none obey. 
 
 But the first worthless man, fitted for nothing but 
 murder, who луеагз epaulettes and takes it into his head 
 
254 CHRIST'S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 to say — take not up a cross, but a knapsack and a gun, 
 and follow me to inflict and undergo misery and certain 
 death, is listened to, and obeyed by all. 
 
 Abandoning family, parents, wives, and children, 
 dressed like buffoons, and obeying the will of the first 
 man of higher rank they meet, starving, worn out by long 
 marches, they follow they know not where, like a herd 
 of cattle to the slaughter-house. But they are not cattle, 
 they are men. They cannot but know whither they are 
 driven. With the unanswered question of " Why ? " on 
 their lips, with despair in their hearts, they march to die 
 from cold, and hunger, and disease, from the fire of bullets 
 and cannon balls. They slay and are slain ; yet not one 
 of them knows why or wherefore this is so. The Turk 
 roasts them alive, flays them, disembowels them ; but 
 the next day again at the call of the trumpet, the 
 survivors march with their eyes open to suffering and 
 death. Yet no one finds any difificulty in obeying such 
 commands. Not only the sufferers themselves, but their 
 fathers and mothers see no difficulty ; nay, they even urge 
 their children to obedience. It seems to them, that 
 obedience to such commands not only is and must be 
 expedient, but a wise and moral law. 
 
 We might believe that the teaching of Christ is diffi- 
 cult, terrible, and leads to suffering, were the consequences 
 of the teaching of the world, easy, and safe, and agree- 
 able. But in reality the teaching of the world is more 
 difficult to fulfil, more dangerous, more fraught with 
 suffering than that of Christ. 
 
 There were, it is said, at one time Christian martyrs, 
 but they were exceptions ; it has been calculated that 
 
WHAT I BELIEVE. 255 
 
 their number has reached 380,000 during eighteen 
 hundred years. But if we count the martyrs to the 
 Avorld, for every single martyr to Christ we shall find a 
 thousand martyrs of the world, whose sufferings have 
 been a hundredfold greater. By death in war alone during 
 the present century have fallen thirty millions of men ! 
 
 These men were all martyrs to the teaching of the 
 world. Putting the teaching of Christ aside, had they 
 but forborne to follow that of the world, what sufferings 
 and death would they have escaped. 
 
 If a man follows his own inclinations in refusing the 
 life of a soldier, he will be sent to dig ditches, which is at 
 least better than being done to death at Sebastopol or 
 Plevna. He has only to deny that doctrine which 
 teaches him that he must wear fine clothes and a gold 
 chain, and have a useless drawing-room ; he has only to 
 satisfy himself that he need not commit all the follies 
 required of him by the world, and he will never know 
 overwork and suffering, he will never know those eternal 
 cares, that labour without rest or object ; he will never 
 be debarred from intercourse with nature, from the 
 work he delights in, from his family, and from health ; 
 and finally he will not die a senseless and painful death. 
 
 Christ never taught men that martyrdom in his 
 name was necessary. But he did teach them to cease 
 from tormenting themselves, in the name of the false 
 teaching of the world. 
 
 The teaching of Christ has a deep metaphysical 
 meaning ; it has a universal meaning, in the sense that it 
 is applicable to all humanity ; it has also a simple, clear, 
 practical meaning for the life of every individual man. 
 
256 CHRIST'S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 This meaning may be expressed thus : Christ teaches 
 men that they need not and should not act foohshly. 
 This is the simple meaning, which all can understand, of 
 the teaching of Christ. 
 
 He tells us to avoid anger, to despise no man ; to do 
 so is foolish, and the fools will suffer. He also tells us 
 not to spend our time after many women, but to keep 
 faithful to one ; not to bind ourselves by promises to any 
 one, for to keep them we may be obliged to commit 
 foolish or even evil actions. He tells us not to render 
 evil for evil, or the evil will return upon ourselves two- 
 fold, like the log of wood suspended over the honey by 
 which the bear is killed. He tells us not to call people 
 strangers, merely because they live in another country 
 than ours and speak another language ; with the same 
 eyes that we look on them with, will they see us. Shun 
 these follies, says Christ, it will be well with you. 
 
 " Yes," men reply, " but the world is so constituted, 
 that to go against its institutions is to suffer more hard- 
 ships than are incurred by accepting them. Let a man 
 refuse to enter the army, and he will be sent to prison, 
 possibly even shot. Let a man not provide for the 
 support of himself and his family, and he and they will 
 die of hunger." Thus men argue, striving to defend the 
 institutions of the world, against the dictate of their 
 heart. They argue thus only because they cannot deny 
 the truth of Christ's teaching ; they profess to believe in 
 him, and they must therefore somehow prove that they 
 fulfil his teaching. As a matter of fact they have never 
 really thought over the matter at all. They believe in 
 the world's teaching, and they make use of an excuse 
 
WHAT I BELIEVE. 257 
 
 taught them by the Church, that to fulfil the teaching of 
 Christ entails much suffering, never even to try to fulfil it. 
 
 We see countless sufferings which men endure through 
 following the teaching of the июгЫ, but suffering for 
 the sake of Christ's teaching in our day we never see. 
 Thirty millions have perished for the world's sake in 
 war, and thousands of millions after a life of torment 
 have fallen by other deaths ; but I know of no millions, 
 nor thousands, nor tens, who have perished for the 
 teaching of Christ, no, nor even of a single man who 
 Avould endure hunger or cold for his sake. It is only a 
 laughable excuse, proving our stupendous ignorance of 
 his teaching. It is not only that we do not believe, we 
 have never even treated the belief seriously. The inter- 
 pretation of the Church has made it, not a doctrine of 
 life to us, but a bugbear. 
 
 Christ invites all men to drink of a spring which is 
 there at hand beside them. Faint with thirst, they drink 
 the blood of one another, while their teachers tell them 
 they will perish if they drink at the spring to which 
 Christ invites them. And men believe, enduring torments 
 of thirst, even death itself, within a few paces of the 
 water they dare not approach. But we have only to 
 believe Christ, to believe that he brought good upon 
 earth, to believe in the fresh water he shows us to 
 quench our thirst ; we have only to come to him, to see 
 how crafty is the deceit of the Church, and how senseless 
 our sufferings when our salvation is so near. We have 
 only to accept his teaching and that terrible deception 
 in which we each and all live will stand out clearly 
 before us. 
 
258 CHRISrS CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 Generation after generation have we struggled to 
 maintain ourselves by violence, and by assuring the 
 security of our property. The happiness of our life has 
 lain in the amount of authority and of property we 
 possess. We are so accustomed to this, that Christ's 
 doctrine as to the part which power and property have 
 in man's happiness, namely, that a rich man cannot be 
 happy, appears to us only a demand for victims in the 
 name of future bliss. 
 
 Yet he calls us to no sacrifice ; on the contrary, he 
 offers us not the worse but the better part of life. Loving 
 all men, he teaches them to refrain from maintaining 
 themselves by violence, and from the mere heaping up 
 of riches, even as men teach men to refrain from brawls 
 and drunkenness. He tells men that, living without 
 violence and without property, they will be happier than 
 they are now, and by the example of his life confirms his 
 words. He tells them that, living after his teaching, they 
 must be prepared to die at any moment by violence or 
 cold or hunger, and must not calculate on a single hour 
 of life. 
 
 And this seems to us a terrible demand for victims, 
 yet it is only a confirmation of the conditions under 
 which every one of us inevitably lives. The disciple of 
 Christ should be prepared at every instant for suffering 
 and death ; but is not the disciple of the world exactly 
 in the same position .'' We are so accustomed to our self- 
 deceit, that all that we do under the pretence of provision 
 for our needs, our troops and fortresses, our stores, our 
 dress, our medical treatment, our goods, our money, all 
 seem to us things which really and truly arc a security 
 
WI/AT I BELIEVE. 259 
 
 for our lives. We forget what happened to him who 
 thought to build himself granaries to lay up provisions in 
 for his life, and who died the same night. Truly, all that 
 we do to secure to ourselves prosperity, is exactly what 
 the ostrich does, who hides his head, that he may not see 
 his death. Nay, we do worse than the ostrich ; for in 
 order doubtfully to assure our lives in a doubtful future, 
 we certainly spoil them in what might be a certain 
 present. 
 
 The deceit consists in a false persuasion that our 
 lives may be secured by strife with other men. We are 
 so accustomed to this false view, that we do not see how 
 much we lose through it ; we do not see that we lose all, 
 even life itself Devoting our whole life to make pre- 
 paration for its security, we have no leisure to profit by 
 life itself 
 
 It is worth while for a moment to get rid of this 
 deception, and to regard our life from the outside, as an 
 impartial spectator. How clearly, then, we see that all we 
 do to attain this pretended security does not really effect 
 its object, but leads us to forget that our life is never 
 secure and cannot be. But it is not enough that we 
 deceive ourselves, and ruin our actual life for an imaginary 
 one, in this impulse we oftenest of all ruin the very thing 
 which we wish to preserve. The French, in 1870, rose 
 in arms to protect their existence, and hundreds of 
 thousands of Frenchmen perished in consequence ; this 
 is the case with every nation that takes up arms. The 
 rich man secures his life with money ; and it is the 
 money that attracts the robber who kills him. The 
 hypochondriac thinks to secure his life by medical treat- 
 
2бО CHRIST S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 ment, and the very treatment slowly kills him, or at 
 least deprives him of all real life, as in the case of the 
 man who lay thirty-eight useless years at the pool of 
 Siloam. 
 
 Christ, who teaches us that life cannot be made 
 secure, and that we must be ready for death at any 
 moment, is surely a safer guide than the world which 
 bids us secure life as the capital necessity of existence. 
 In both doctrines the certainty of death and the in- 
 security of life remain the same ; but, according to Christ, 
 life itself, not being spent in the vain occupation of 
 obtaining a fancied security, is free to be devoted to its 
 one natural aim, the good of ourselves and of all men. 
 
 The follower of Christ will be poor. Yes, but that 
 means that he will always profit by the good things 
 Avhich God has given him ; he will not ruin his life. The 
 word poverty with men includes misery, but in reality 
 need not do so. 
 
 The country labourer is poor, and therefore lives, not 
 in the town, but in the country ; he does not sit idle at 
 home, but works in the forest or in the fields ; he sees 
 the light of the sun, the earth, the sky, the animals ; he 
 does not trouble himself how to provoke his appetite, or 
 how he may help his digestion. Three times each day 
 will he be hungry ; he will sleep with no thought of soft 
 cushions, or fear of wakeful nights. His children will 
 live with him, he will have free intercourse with all men, 
 and, first happiness of all, he will do nothing that he 
 docs not wish to do, will not be afraid of the future. He 
 will be ill, and suffer and die, as all men do, but his 
 death, experience shows us, will be easier than the death 
 
WHAT I BELIEVE. 26 1 
 
 of the rich man, as his Hfe will assuredly be more happy. 
 So Christ taught we must be to enter into the kingdom 
 of God, and such must we be to be happy here on earth. 
 
 " But no one will give you food, and you will die of 
 hunger," is the objection ; and this objection Christ 
 answers in a short sentence (the same that is explained 
 to justify the sloth of the clergy). In Matt. x. 10 and in 
 Luke ix. 3, he said, " Get you no gold, nor silver, nor 
 brass in your purses, no wallet for your journey, neither 
 two coats, nor shoes, nor staff ; for the labourer is worthy 
 of his food." In the house which you enter eat and drink 
 what is offered you, for the labourer is worthy of reward 
 for his labour. 
 
 The labourer is worthy, means, literally, may and 
 ought to have sustenance. This is a short sentence, but 
 he who understands it as Christ meant him to under- 
 stand it will never argue that a poor man must die of 
 hunger. 
 
 Now to understand the real meaning we must first 
 get completely rid of the idea, so familiar to us, that 
 the happiness of man lies in idleness. We must go back 
 to the idea, natural to all uncorrupted men, that a neces- 
 sary condition of happiness is, not idleness, but work ; 
 that a man cannot cease to work, for it is as wearisome 
 and difficult to him as to an ant, to a bird, and to every 
 wild animal. We must forget the superstition that the 
 position of a government official, or a landowner, or of 
 one who has money in the funds on which he may live 
 in idleness, is a natural and happy one. We must go 
 back to the primitive view of labour, the view of Christ, 
 that the labourer is worthy of his food. To Christ it 
 
2б2 ClfRISrS CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 seemed impossible that men should look upon labour as 
 a curse ; he could not conceive a man not working or 
 not wishing to work. He always takes it for granted 
 that his followers will work. Therefore he says, If a 
 man work, his work will give him food. If the work of 
 one man be hired by another, then he who hires will 
 feed him who works, in order to profit by his work. 
 Therefore he who labours will always have food. Pro- 
 perty he Avill not have, but for his existence he need 
 have no fear. 
 
 The capital difference on this point between the 
 teaching of Christ and that of the world is this, — the 
 latter considers labour a special merit in a man, giving 
 him a claim on others, and enabling him to assert his 
 right to a larger sustenance in proportion to the amount 
 of his labour ; while the former considers it a necessary 
 condition of the life of man, and sustenance an inevitable 
 consequence of it. Labour provides food, food provides 
 labour — in a never-ending circle : each in turn the con- 
 sequence and cause of the other. However bad the 
 master be, he will feed his labourer, as he will do the 
 horse that works for him ; will feed him so that he may 
 work as long as possible, that is, he will contribute 
 towards the attainment of the greatest good for the 
 man. 
 
 " The Son of man came not to be ministered unto, 
 but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many." 
 
 Christ teaches that every man, whatever the world 
 may be, will have a better life if he understand his voca- 
 tion not to demand labour from others, but to devote his 
 life to working for others, to give his life as a ransom for 
 
WHAT I BELIEVE. 263 
 
 many. A man who acts thus, says Christ, is worthy of 
 his food ; that is, he cannot fail to obtain it. 
 
 By the words which mean, a man does not live to be 
 worked for, but himself to work for others, Christ asserts 
 a principle which undoubtedly secures the material exist- 
 ence of man, and by the words, a labourer is worthy of 
 his food, Christ sets aside the customary objection to 
 his teaching that a man fulfilling it alone in the midst 
 of those who do not will perish of hunger and cold. He 
 shows that a man secures his means of livelihood, not by 
 wresting it from others, but by making himself useful 
 and necessary to others. The more necessary he is to 
 others, the more certain will he be of his own livelihood. 
 
 Even in the present state of the world, those Avho do 
 not follow the law of Christ, but yet labour for the good 
 of their fellow-men, though they have no property, do not 
 die of hunger. How, then, can the common objection to 
 the teaching of Christ stand ? No man can die of hunger 
 while a rich man has bread. In Russia, there are now 
 and always millions of men, who live without any 
 personal property, solely by the work of their hands. 
 
 Among the heathen a Christian's certainty of pro- 
 vision for his needs will be as great as among Christians. 
 He labours for others ; consequently he is necessary to 
 them, and will be cared for. A dog that is useful is fed 
 and taken care of: who, then, would not take care of a 
 man who is needed by all ? 
 
 " But a sick man, a man with a family, with children, 
 he is not wanted, and cannot work. Men will cease to 
 feed him," say those who desire to prove that the world's 
 teaching is right. So they say, but in reality their 
 
264 CHRIST'S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 actions dispute their words, for, not admitting the 
 practicability of Christ's teaching, they however act 
 according to it. They do not cease to feed sheep, or 
 oxen, or dogs, when they are ill ; they will not even 
 have an old horse put to death, but give it work accord- 
 ing to its strength ; they rear the young of animals that 
 when grown they may gain a profit from them ; how, 
 then, will they not take care of a man when he is ill ? 
 how not find work suited to the strength of the old and 
 the young, and how not bring up those who will labour 
 for them ? 
 
 Nine-tenths of men, the lower classes, are supported 
 by the other tenth, the rich and powerful class, as work- 
 ing cattle are. But, however gross be the error in which 
 that tenth lives, however it may despise the rest of 
 mankind, it will never use its power to take from them 
 the means of subsistence, it will never take away the 
 means of life from the class whose labour it needs. This 
 one-tenth has of late worked openly and avowedly to 
 the end that the other nine should be decently main- 
 tained ; so that they should be able to furnish the 
 greatest possible amount of labour, and should multiply 
 and bring up new labourers. The ants even multiply 
 and bring up their milch cows ; how, then, shall men 
 not do the same, and cause those who work for them to 
 increase? Labourers are needed, and those who profit 
 by labour will always take care of those by whom the 
 profit comes. 
 
 The objection to the practicability of Christ's teach- 
 ing that, if I do not acquire something for myself, and 
 keep what I have acquired, no one will support my 
 
WHAT I BELIEVE. 265 
 
 family, is true only with respect to slothful, useless, and 
 therefore pernicious men, such as are the majority of 
 our richer classes. Idle people no one will maintain, for 
 they are necessary to no one, not even to themselves ; 
 but him who labours even the evil-minded will care for 
 and support. Men rear calves, and man himself is a 
 working animal, more useful than an ox, as the price 
 paid for him in the slave market clearly shows. Thus 
 children need never remain without some calling in 
 life. 
 
 A man does not live to be worked for, but to work 
 for others. He who will labour need never fear want. 
 
 This is a truth which the life of the whole world 
 confirms. 
 
 In all times and countries the working man has 
 earned a livelihood, as a horse earns his fodder, but he 
 has taken it grudgingly, longing only the while for this 
 one thing — to be free from the necessity of labour, to 
 heap up all the money he could, and to sit on the neck 
 of him who at some time has sat on his. A labourer, 
 even of this unwilling kind, finds means of sustenance, 
 and is happier than he who lives his life long on the 
 labour of others. How much happier, then, will he be 
 who labours in the spirit of Christ's teaching, with all 
 his strength, and caring nothing for the reward ! How 
 much happier will be the position of such a man, when 
 around he finds a few, or, it may be, many like himself, 
 ready and glad to do him every service in their power ! 
 
 Christ's teaching on this subject is shown in the narra- 
 tive of the thousands fed with two fishes and five loaves. 
 Humanity will have attained its highest possible welfare 
 
2бб CHRISrS CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 when men cease to try to grasp all, each one for himself, 
 and live according to Christ's system. 
 
 Thousands had to be fed. Christ was told b}' one of 
 his disciples that a man was present who had a few 
 fishes, and that other disciples had some loaves. Jesus 
 understood that the people, coming from a distance, 
 would some of them have food with them, and some not. 
 (That many of them had a certain stock with them is 
 proved by the fact related in all the four Gospels, that at 
 the end of the meal twelve baskets of fragments were 
 picked up. If no one but the boy had had anything, 
 there would not have been twelve baskets in the field.) 
 
 If Christ had not done this wonder of feeding several 
 thousand people with a few loaves, what happens now in 
 the world would have happened then. Those who had 
 provisions would have eaten them, eaten more than they 
 needed, so as to leave nothing for the others. The stingy 
 ones, perhaps, would have carried home what they had 
 left. Those who had brought nothing would have re- 
 mained hungry, and would have looked on with angry 
 envy at those who were feasting ; some of them might 
 have stolen from the stores of their neighbours, and 
 there would have been quarrels and fighting ; some 
 would have gone home filled, others hungry and angry : 
 it would have been but a repetition of what happens with 
 us in daily life. 
 
 But Christ, with full knowledge of his purpose, 
 ordered the multitude to sit round, told his disciples to 
 give to others what they had, and told the people to do 
 the same. Then, when all those луЬо had provisions 
 had acted as the disciples, that is, had given of their own 
 
WHAT I BELIEVE. 26/ 
 
 to Others, all had sufficient ; as the food went round the 
 circle those obtained food who had none in the beginning. 
 Thus all were satisfied, and then remained so much 
 bread that twelve baskets were filled with it. 
 
 Christ teaches men by this that such should be the 
 law of human life. Labour is the necessary condition of 
 man's existence, the source of all material good ; to keep 
 from others, then, the fruits of our own, or their labour, is 
 to hinder, whereas to labour for others contributes to, the 
 welfare of mankind. 
 
 " If men do not take what they want from others, 
 they will die of hunger," it is answered. We ought 
 rather to say, " If men, to supply their own wants, rob 
 each other, some will be left in misery, and will perish ; " 
 as is indeed the case now. 
 
 Every man, however he may live, by the law of 
 Christ, or by that of the world, lives only on the labour 
 of others. Others have reared him, are taking care of 
 and feeding him, and so it will ever be. But the world 
 says, that a man by violence and threats must force 
 others to continue to support him and his family. 
 Christ says also, that a man is reared and taken care of 
 by others ; but that for this state of things to last, he 
 should not employ force, but himself try to serve others, 
 to be as useful as he can to all, and thus become 
 necessary to all. Men of the world will always desire to 
 cease from supporting a man who is unnecessary to 
 them, and forces them to work for him ; in fact, at the 
 first opportunity they not only cease to support him, but 
 are ready even to kill him as useless. 
 
 Which, then, is the surest, the most reasonable, and 
 
2б8 CIIRISrS CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 the happiest луау to live — to live according to the world 
 or according to Christ ? 
 
 The teaching of Christ is the establishment of the 
 kingdom of God upon earth, and it is a mistake to 
 believe that the fulfilment of this teaching is difficult. 
 Not only is it not difficult, but it will inevitably be 
 fulfilled by the man who has understood it. It gives the 
 only possible salvation from the otherwise certain ruin 
 of an individual existence. Nor does its fulfilment 
 entail on us privations, but it delivers us from nine- 
 tenths of the sufferings which we undergo for the sake 
 of the world's teaching. 
 
 Having, then, come to understand this, I asked 
 myself, Why had I hitherto neglected this teaching, 
 which brings me good, salvation, and joy .'' why had I 
 put into practice a very different one, which brought me 
 only misery ? The answer could only be and was this : 
 I did not know the truth ; it had too long been hidden 
 from me. 
 
 When first the meaning of Christ's teaching lay clear 
 before me, I did not for a moment think it would tend 
 to the denial of the teaching of the Church. It seemed 
 to me only that the Church had not reached the full 
 conclusion which flows from the teaching of Christ. Yet 
 I did not foresee that this new light would separate me 
 from the Church, but fearing it might during my 
 investigations, I was not keen to discover the faults of 
 the Church, and even wilfully closed my eyes to such 
 propositions as appeared to me obscure and strange, but 
 not opposed to what I then considered the substance of 
 Christian faith. 
 
WHAT I BELIEVE. 269 
 
 But the further I went in the study of the Gospels, 
 the more clearly did I perceive Christ's meaning in all 
 he taught, the more inevitable it became for me to 
 make my choice. On the one hand lay the teaching of 
 Christ, reasonable, clear, appealing to my conscience, 
 offering me salvation ; on the other, a doctrine directly 
 opposed to it, which my reason and conscience alike 
 rejected, and which gave me nothing beyond a conviction 
 of ruin for myself and for all men. I could not but throw 
 aside, one after the other, the propositions of the Church. 
 I did so, with reluctance, with a struggle, with the wish to 
 soften as much as possible my dissent from her principles, 
 in order not to quit her fold, not to lose that most pleasant 
 stay of faith — intercourse with the rest of my kind. 
 
 But when I had finished my study, I saw that, hard 
 as I might try to retain something, nothing could really 
 remain. 
 
 About this time the following incident happened to 
 me. My son told me of a dispute between two men 
 employed by me, neither of whom could do more than 
 barely read or write, about a certain religious book, in 
 which it Avas taught that it was no sin to put criminals 
 to death, or to kill men in war. I could not believe that 
 this was in print, and asked for the book, which was 
 entitled, " A Book of Prayer with Explanations," 3rd 
 edition (the 80th thousand), Moscow, 1879. On the 
 163rd page I found the following: — 
 
 " What is the sixth commandment .'' — Thou shalt 
 not kill. 
 
 " What does God forbid by this commandment ? — 
 He forbids us to kill, i.e. to deprive a man of life. 
 
270 CHRIST'S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 " Is it a sin to punish criminals according to law 
 by death, and to kill enemies in war ? — It is no sin. A 
 criminal's life is taken to put an end to a great evil which 
 he commits ; enemies are killed in war, because in war 
 men fight for their sovereign and for their country." 
 
 With these words closes the explanation why this 
 commandment of God is annulled. I could not believe 
 my eyes. 
 
 The disputants asked for my opinion. I told the 
 one who agreed with what was printed in the book that 
 the explanation was wrong. 
 
 " How is that ? Do they print things against the 
 law .'* " he asked, and I had no answer for him. I kept 
 the book, and looked through it. It contained (i) 
 Thirty-one prayers, with instructions for genuflexions 
 and the folding of the hands in sign of the cross ; (2) 
 An explanation of the creeds ; (3) The Beatitudes from 
 the fifth chapter of Matthew (for some reason called 
 commandments for the attainment of bliss) ; (4) The 
 Ten Commandments (with explanations for the most part 
 abolishing them) ; and (5) Canticles for the holy days. 
 
 As I have said, I not only strove to avoid condemn- 
 ing the faith of the Church, but I tried to look at it from 
 its best point of view. I did not, therefore, seek for 
 her weaknesses, and though well acquainted with the 
 academical literature of the Church, I was ignorant of 
 her books for general religious instruction. This book 
 of prayer, already distributed in such enormous numbers, 
 and provoking the doubts of the simplest persons, 
 astonished me. 
 
 I could not believe that a prayer-book, the contents 
 
WHAT I BELIEVE. 27 I 
 
 of which were so entirely heathen, so entirely devoid of 
 Christianity, could be deliberately distributed by the 
 Church among her sons. To verify this, I bought and 
 read all the books pubHshed by the Synod, or with its 
 " benediction," containing expositions of the faith of the 
 Church for children and for the people. 
 
 Their contents were to me almost new. At the 
 time when I attended classes for religion it was different. 
 As far as I remember, there were no " commandments 
 for the attainment of bliss," no doctrine that killing was 
 not a sin. 
 
 In all the old Russian catechisms they certainly 
 were not, nor are they in the short Catholic catechisms. 
 This new system was introduced by Philaret, who also 
 composed a catechism for the military class. The " Book 
 of Prayer with Explanations" was composed according to 
 his catechism. The principal work is the widely spread 
 " Christian Catechism for the Orthodox Church," for the 
 use of all orthodox Christians, issued by command of 
 his Majesty the Emperor. 
 
 The book is divided into three parts : of faith, of 
 hope, and of love. The first is an analysis of the Nicene 
 Creed. The second, an analysis of the Lord's Prayer, 
 and of the eight verses of the fifth chapter of Matthev/ 
 which form the introduction of the Sermon on the 
 Mount, called the " commandments for the attainment of 
 bliss." In both these parts the dogmas of the Church, 
 her prayers, and sacraments are discussed, but there is 
 nothing concerning actual life. 
 
 In the third part the duties of a Christian are 
 laid down. In this part, called " of love," are given 
 
2/2 CHRIST'S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 not the commandments of Christ, but the ten com- 
 mandments of Moses, and they are laid down as if 
 for the express purpose of teaching men to disobey 
 them. After each commandment there is a modification 
 which is practically an abrogation ; in explanation of 
 the first, ordering man to worship God alone, the 
 catechism teaches how to worship the angels and saints, 
 besides the mother of God and the three persons of the 
 Trinity. After the second, to make no idols, the cate- 
 chism teaches the worship of images. In the case of 
 the third commandment, not to swear idly, the catechism 
 teaches us to swear whenever required to do so by the 
 legal authorities. After the fourth, to keep the Saturday 
 holy, the catechism teaches us to keep holy, not the 
 Saturday, but the Sunday, as well as thirteen of the 
 greater holidays and a whole number of smaller ones, 
 and moreover, to fast on all the fast days, as well as 
 on every Wednesday and Friday. After the fifth, to 
 honour both father and mother, we are taught to honour 
 the emperor, our native country, and all the pastors of 
 the clergy, those who are in authority (in explanation of 
 the latter clause there follow three pages enumerating 
 the various representatives of authority), civil officers, 
 judges, military officials ; masters, as to their servants 
 and as to their serfs. I quote from the sixty-fourth 
 edition published in 1880. Twenty years have passed 
 since the abolition of serfdom, yet no one has given 
 himself the trouble to get rid of a phrase, which, under 
 the pretext of the commandment to honour our parents, 
 was inserted in the catechism for the purpose of uphold- 
 ing and j'ustifying slavery. 
 
WHAT I BELIEVE. 2/3 
 
 After the sixth commandment, Thou shalt not kill, 
 it is at once explained that killing is to be sanctioned. 
 
 " Q. What is forbidden by the sixth commandment ? 
 
 "A. The killing of our neighbour by any means. 
 
 " Q. Is every case of taking life unlawful ? 
 
 "Л. It is not unlawful when life is taken in the 
 execution of duty, as follows : — 
 
 " (i) When a criminal is punished with death accord- 
 ing to law. 
 
 " (2) When men kill an enemy in war for their 
 sovereign and country. 
 
 " Q. What cases belong to the breaking of this com- 
 mandment .'' 
 
 "yJ. When any one conceals or sets free a murderer." 
 
 And this is printed by authority in hundreds of 
 thousands of copies, and is taught with threats and under 
 fear of punishment to all the Russian nation as Christian 
 doctrine ! This is instilled into the innocent minds of 
 children, of whom Christ said, " Let them come unto 
 me, for of such is the kingdom of heaven," whom we must 
 resemble if we would enter that kingdom, and resemble 
 in our ignorance of such things ; of whom Christ said, 
 " Woe to him who shall cause one of these little ones to 
 stumble." It is to these very children that such things 
 are taught, as the sacred and only law of God ! 
 
 This is not a secret proclamation, distributed clandes- 
 tinely at personal risk, but one, the disobeying of which 
 is punished with penal servitude. Even now, as I write 
 this, I feel a painful sense of risk for having said that 
 the principal commandments of God, written in all the 
 laws and in all our hearts, cannot be set aside by words 
 
 T 
 
274 CHRIST'S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 which explain nothing — in the execution of duty for the 
 sake of the sovereign and the country — and that this 
 ought not to be taught to the people. 
 
 Yes, that has happened of which Christ warned men 
 (Luke xi. 33-36, and Matt. vi. 23), saying, "Look that 
 the light that is in thee be not darkness. If the light 
 that is in thee be darkness, how great is the darkness ! " 
 
 The light that is in us has turned to darkness, and 
 the darkness in which we live has become terrible. 
 
 Woe unto you, says Christ, Scribes and Pharisees, 
 hypocrites ! because ye shut the kingdom of heaven 
 against men : for ye enter not in yourselves, neither 
 suffer ye others to enter. Woe unto you, Scribes and 
 Pharisees, hypocrites ! for ye devour widows' houses, and 
 pray in public as performing a duty, for which you are 
 only the more guilty. Woe unto you, Scribes and 
 Pharisees, hypocrites ! for ye compass sea and land to 
 make one proselyte ; and when he is become so, ye 
 make him worse than he was. Woe unto you, blind 
 guides ! 
 
 " Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites ! for 
 ye build the sepulchres of the prophets, and garnish the 
 tombs of the righteous, and say, If we had been in the 
 days of our fathers, we should not have been partakers 
 with them in the blood of the prophets. Wherefore ye 
 witness to yourselves, that ye are sons of them that slew 
 the prophets. Fill up tlien the measure of your fathers. 
 Therefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise 
 men, and scribes : some of them shall ye kill and 
 crucify ; and some of them shall ye scourge in your 
 synagogues, and persecute from city to city ; that upon 
 
WHAT I BELIEVE. 275 
 
 you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth 
 from the blood of Abel." 
 
 " Every blasphemy (calumny) shall be forgiven to 
 men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be 
 forgiven." 
 
 All this seems to have been written but yesterday 
 against those who no longer compass sea and earth, 
 calumniating the Holy Ghost, and converting men to 
 their faith to make them worse, but who by violence 
 oblige men to accept their faith, and who persecute and 
 hunt to death every prophet and righteous man who 
 attempts to expose their deceit. 
 
 I then became convinced that the teaching of the 
 Church, notwithstanding that it calls itself Christian, is 
 itself the very darkness with which Christ struggled, and 
 against which he commanded his disciples to struggle. 
 
 The teaching of Christ, like every other religious 
 system, may be looked at from two points of view : 
 (i) As instruction for the life of men, how men should 
 live individually and together ; (2) As an explanation of 
 the reasons why men should live in this way and in no 
 other ; the first being an ethical system, the second its 
 metaphysical basis. The one is the consequence, and 
 at the same time the cause, of the other. Man ought 
 to live thus, because this is the end for which he was 
 appointed ; or, this end being appointed for man, he 
 ought to live thus. These two sides of every doctrine 
 are found in all the religions of the world. Such is the 
 religion of the Brahmins, of Confucius, of Buddha, of 
 Moses, and such is the religion of Christ. It teaches us 
 at once how to live, and the reason for that life. 
 
2/6 CHRIST'S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 But as it has happened to all religions, so also to 
 Christ's teaching. Men fall away from the true law of 
 life, and many among them are found to justify their fall. 
 Sitting, according to the expression of Christ, in the seat 
 of Moses, they explain the metaphysical side of the teach- 
 ing so that the ethical requirements of the creed become 
 no longer obligatory, and are replaced by outward 
 observances of worship, by rites and ceremonies. This 
 phenomenon is common to all religions, but it seems to 
 me to have never been so sharply defined as in Chris- 
 tianity. And this is so, because Christ's teaching con- 
 tains the highest of all doctrines, and because the 
 metaphysical and ethical principles of Christ are so 
 inextricably bound up together, and so clearly explain 
 one another, that to separate them is impossible without 
 depriving both of meaning. 
 
 And it is impossible for yet another reason, that his 
 teaching is, in principle, Protestantism. ; it is a denial, not 
 only of the rites of Judaism, but of all outward v/orship. 
 Hence this separation could not but pervert the whole 
 system of Christianity and deprive it of all meaning. 
 So it has been. The separation between the teaching 
 of life and the explanations of life itself began with the 
 preaching of Paul, who was unacquainted with the 
 ethical doctrines expressed in the Gospel of Matthew, 
 and who preached a cabalistic metaphysical theory 
 foreign to Christ's spirit. It became complete in the 
 time of Constantine, when it was found possible to 
 clothe the whole system of pagan life in a Christian 
 dress, and give to it the name of Christianity. 
 
 From the time of Constantine, a heathen of heathens, 
 
WHAT I BELIEVE. 2'J'J 
 
 whom the Church for his crimes and vices counts among 
 the choir of Christian saints, date the Councils ; and 
 then the metaphysical side of Christianity became in- 
 finitely the most important part of the whole system. 
 
 In time this metaphysical teaching, with its attendant 
 rites, departing more and more from its own fundamental 
 principles, became by degrees the state of things we now 
 see, a teaching which professes to explain the most 
 incomprehensible mysteries of heavenly life, to appoint 
 the most complicated forms of divine worship, but does 
 not offer the slightest religious help towards a life on 
 earth. 
 
 All religions, except that of Christianity as taught 
 by the Church, require from those who profess them, 
 besides the observance of rites, a proof of their faith by 
 the performance of good and by abstinence from evil 
 actions. Judaism requires circumcision, the observance 
 of the Sabbath, the year of jubilee, almsgiving, and 
 many other particulars. Mahometanism requires cir- 
 cumcision, prayer five times a day, tithes for the poor, 
 adoration of the tomb of the prophet, and so forth. It 
 is the same with all other religions. Whether these 
 requirements be good or bad, they involve at least 
 positive acts. Pseudo-Christianity alone requires nothing 
 from its followers, nothing either to be done or left 
 undone, unless we count the fasts and prayers which the 
 Church herself considers not obligatory. The sacra- 
 ments are all that this Christianity insists on. The 
 sacraments, however, are not performed by the believer 
 himself but by others for him. A so-called Christian is 
 not bound to any particular act, nor to abstain from any 
 
2/8 CIJKISrS CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 particular act, in order to be saved ; the Church does 
 everything for him. The Church baptizes and anoints 
 him, gives him the communion and extreme unction, 
 and confesses him, and prays for him — and he is 
 saved. 
 
 The Christian Church from the time of Constantine 
 has required no special acts from her followers, nor has 
 she enjoined them to refrain from any particular acts. 
 She has adopted and consecrated all that existed in the 
 pagan world, divorce and slavery, courts of justice, and 
 all the forms of authority which existed before her, wars, 
 and capital punishment ; she has only required, at 
 baptism, and that again only in earlier days, a verbal 
 renunciation of evil ; later, when infants were baptized, 
 she ceased to require even that. 
 
 The Church has accepted in words the teaching of 
 Christ, but in actual life has distinctly denied him. 
 
 Instead cf guiding the life of the world, the Church, 
 to please the world, gave an interpretation to the meta- 
 physical teaching of Christ, which warped it into laying 
 no obligations on men for their way of life, and made no 
 hindrance to their living as they pleased. The Church 
 gave way to the world, and having once done that, in 
 turn she followed it. The world did all that it wished, 
 leaving the Church to do what she could with her 
 explanations of life. The world erected its own institu- 
 tions, in flagrant defiance of Christ's teaching, and the 
 Church devised allegorical metaphors to prove that men 
 living contrary to the law of Christ were living in 
 obedience to it. The result was a life worse than that 
 of the old pagan world, and its justification by the 
 
WHAT I BELIEVE. 
 
 279 
 
 Church as one in harmony with the essence of Christ's 
 teaching. 
 
 But time went on, and the light of the true teaching 
 of Christ as it shines in the Gospels, notwithstanding the 
 efforts of the Church to conceal the truth, through the 
 so-called heresies, and even through the freethinkers of 
 the world, penetrated to the hearts of the people. Men 
 saw the falseness of the Church's teaching, and began to 
 change the life justified by her, and so long led by them, 
 into one more in accordance with the teaching of Christ 
 which had reached them independently of her. 
 
 Thus it was that, in spite of the Church, men put 
 an end to slavery, approved by her ; put an end to 
 class privileges ; to punishment for religious convictions 
 justified by her, to the power of emperors and popes 
 whom she had consecrated. Thus it is that they have 
 now begun, in a natural sequence, to put an end to 
 property and State. The Church made no resistance ; 
 she can make none now, for the abolition of these 
 injustices rests on the very doctrines of Christianity 
 which she professes to teach while doing her best to 
 prevent. 
 
 The doctrine of the life of man has become eman- 
 cipated from the Church, and is independent of her. 
 
 Yet she still has her explanations, but explanations 
 of what? A metaphysical explanation of doctrine has 
 a meaning, when there are practical rules for life which 
 it explains. But the Church gives no such rules. She 
 had an explanation once for the life which she herself 
 instituted, but which exists no longer ; if that explana- 
 tion remains still, no one believes in it. She has nothin'^- 
 
28o CIIKISrS CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 left her, but her temples, her images, her vestments, and 
 her sermons. 
 
 The Church carried the light of Christ's teaching for 
 eighteen centuries, and wishing to hide it in her robes 
 was herself burnt in its flame. The world abandoned 
 her and her institutions for the sake of those very- 
 principles of Christianity which she herself had unwil- 
 lingly preserved. It lives now without her. This is a 
 fact which it is now impossible to conceal. All those 
 that really live in this European world of ours — not 
 merely in sad or spiteful contemplation, a drag on the 
 life of others, but actively and healthily — have fallen 
 away from the Church, and live their own lives apart 
 from her. And let it not be said that this is only true 
 of the west of Europe. Russia, with her millions of 
 rational Christians, both educated and uneducated, who 
 have thrown off the yoke of the Church, proves beyond 
 dispute that she herself, thank God, is in this respect 
 not worse off than the rest of Europe. 
 
 The authority of government rests on tradition, on 
 science, on the choice of the people, on brute force, on 
 what you will, but not on the Church. 
 
 Wars, the relations of States to one another, rest on 
 the principle of nationality, of the balance of power, and 
 so forth, but not on the principles of the Church. 
 
 Government ignores the Church ; the idea that justice 
 and property could be based on her, is in our day only 
 laughable. 
 
 Science not only docs not co-operate to strengthen 
 her teaching, but follows a development which is 
 involuntarily hostile to her. 
 
WHAT I BELIEVE. 28 1 
 
 Art, which once served the Church exclusively, is 
 now independent of her. 
 
 Nor is it only that humanity has now emancipated 
 itself from the yoke of the Church. The only feeling it 
 has for her is contempt, so long as she cannot interfere 
 in the affairs of life ; but hatred as soon as she does 
 anything to recall the memory of her former rights. If 
 the outward form which we call a Church still exists, it 
 is only because men hesitate to break the chalice which 
 once held a treasure ; and thus alone can be explained 
 the existence in the present age of the Catholic, 
 Orthodox, and different Protestant Churches. 
 
 All Churches resemble sentinels carefully guarding a 
 supposed prisoner who has long ago escaped, and who 
 is now a free man in their midst attacking them. 
 
 All by which the world now really lives, socialism, 
 communism, political economy, utilitarianism, the free- 
 dom and equality of men and of women, the utmost 
 conception of men, the sacredness of labour, of reason, 
 of science, of art, all that makes the world advance, all 
 that the Church condemns, are parts of the teaching 
 which the Church herself, while striving to hide the teach- 
 ing of Christ, unconsciously preserved through the ages. 
 
 In our days the life of the world rolls on its course 
 completely outside the influence of the Church. Her 
 teachers have remained so far behind our prayers, that 
 men of the world no longer hear their voices. In truth, 
 there are no voices to hear, for those the Church still 
 gives forth only concern a state of things which the 
 world has long outgrown, and if it exists at all is fast 
 falling into irreparable ruin. 
 
282 CHRIST'S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 We are as men rowing in a boat with one who steers 
 them. They beUeved in their helmsman, and he steered 
 them well. But as time went on, their helmsman was 
 changed for another, who did not steer at all. Still the 
 boat kept on its course swiftly and easily, and for a 
 time the men, pleased with their smooth course, noticed 
 not that their helmsman was idle. But at last they 
 satisfied themselves that he was wanting, and after 
 mocking him, finally threw him overboard. This would 
 have mattered little ; but it did matter, that, in their 
 disgust at a useless helmsman, the rowers forgot they 
 knew not whither they were going. And this is how 
 it has fared with the Christian world. The Church 
 is no longer at the helm ; it is easy to float on, and wc 
 have floated far. All the boasted progress of our 
 nineteenth century means only that we float without a 
 rudder, that we float on, not knowing whither. We live 
 in our own way, and know not why we so live. But 
 men cannot dare thus with impunity. 
 
 If men did nothing for themselves, if the position 
 they occupy were due to some external force, then 
 indeed they might reasonably enough answer those who 
 ask them why they were in such a position, by owning 
 they know nothing, save that they have always been in 
 it. But men make a position for themselves, for others, 
 and especially for their children. When, then, they are 
 asked, why they assemble armies by millions, to kill and 
 mutilate each other ; why, at prodigious cost of money 
 and labour, they erect towns not needed by them, and 
 even injurious ; why they form their childish tribunals, 
 and send men whom they account criminals from France 
 
WHAT I BELIEVE. 283 
 
 to Cayenne, from Russia to Siberia, when they them- 
 selves know how senseless a thing it is to do so ; why 
 they leave the agricultural life so dear to them, to labour 
 in factories and at other work which they dislike ; why 
 they educate their children to follow the very life of 
 which they disapprove ; Avhy they do all this ; — men 
 must have an answer. If these things were agreeable 
 to them, men will still ask why they are so ; but since 
 they are hard and unpleasing, and are carried out with 
 trouble and controversy, it is impossible for men not to 
 consider why these things are done. Men must either ■ 
 cease from them, or give a reason for their continuance. 
 
 Men answer, that a Jew lived after his own will, 
 made wars, punished men with death, built temples, and 
 ordered his life in the way he did because it was so 
 appointed by the law, which in his conviction proceeded 
 from God Himself It was so with the peoples of India 
 and China, with the Romans and the Mahometans ; it 
 Avas so with Christians a hundred years ago, and it is 
 the same still with the mass of ignorant Christians. 
 
 To such questions the latter answer thus : Military 
 service, wars, tribunals, executions — all these exist by the 
 law of God, which is transmitted to us through the 
 Church, The present world is a fallen world. All the 
 evil that exists, exists by the will of God as a punishment 
 for the sins of the world, and correct that evil we cannot. 
 We can only save our souls by faith, by the sacraments, 
 by prayer, and by submission to the will of God as shown 
 to us by the Church. The Church also teaches us that 
 every Christian should obey without dispute the will of 
 the sovereign, the anointed of God, and that of his 
 
284 CHRISrS CHRISTIAAUTY. 
 
 appointed governors, should guard by force his own and 
 others' property, should make war, put men to death, 
 and himself bear the punishment of death when inflicted 
 by those put in authority over him by God. 
 
 Be these explanations good or bad, they were 
 accepted by the faithful Christians, as by the Jews, the 
 Buddhists, and the Mahometans, in explanation of all 
 the phenomena of life, and a man who lives according 
 to a law which he believes divine cannot be said to act 
 against his reason. But the time is now come when 
 only the most ignorant believe in such explanations, and 
 when the number of such believers diminishes every day 
 and every hour. There is no possibility of stopping 
 this movement. Men cannot be held back from follow- 
 ing those Avho march in front, and all will come in time 
 to stand where their leaders stand now. They stand 
 over an abyss. They are in a terrible position. They 
 make a life for themselves and for all who follow them ; 
 yet are they in complete ignorance why they do so. 
 
 Not a single leader of the day can answer this simple 
 question — Why do you lead the life which you do lead ? 
 I have asked this question of hundreds of men, and 
 never got a direct answer. Instead of an answer to the 
 direct personal question, "Why do you live thus, and 
 do this .'' " I always received an answer to a c^ucstion 
 which I had not put. 
 
 A believing Catholic, Protestant, or orthodox Chris- 
 tian, to the question, why he lives as he does, that is, in 
 opposition to the teaching of Christ, whom he acknow- 
 ledges as God, instead of a direct answer, always begins 
 to speak of the pitiful condition of the present un- 
 
WHAT I BELIEVE. 285 
 
 believing generation, of the evil men who cause unbelief, 
 and of the meaning and the future of the true Church. 
 But why he does not do what his faith commands he 
 will not say. Instead of answering for himself, he speaks 
 of the general condition of humanity and of the Church, 
 as though his own life had no meaning for him, and he 
 were only occupied with the salvation of mankind, and 
 with what he calls the Church. 
 
 A philosopher, to whatever school he belongs, be he 
 an idealist, a spiritualist, a pessimist, or a positivist, to 
 the question, why he lives as he does, that is, in con- 
 tradiction to his own philosophical theories, instead of 
 answering directly, always speaks of the progress of 
 mankind, of the historical law of that progress which he 
 has discovered, and by which mankind is urged towards 
 the goal of good. But he never gives a direct answer 
 to the question, why he does not order his own life by 
 the light of лvhat he believes to be reasonable. The 
 philosopher, like the believer, seems to be concerned, not 
 with his own life, but with the study of the general laws 
 of humanity. 
 
 An average man, that is, the enormous majority of 
 half-believing, half-unbelieving civilized men, those who 
 are always complaining of their own lot in life, and of 
 the conditions of man's life in general, and who foresee 
 ruin threatening everything, to the question, why he lives 
 a life which he condemns and does nothing to better it, 
 invariably, instead of answering directly, begins to speak, 
 not of himself, but of something general, of the adminis- 
 tration of justice, of commerce, of States, of civilization. If 
 he be a public man or a lawyer he will say. But how 
 
286 CHRIST'S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 would the government go on were I, bettering my own 
 life, to cease to take part in it ? What would commerce 
 do without me ? he will say, if he be a man of business. 
 
 Thus always speaks the average man, as though the 
 problem of his life were, not to do the good to which 
 he feels impelled, but to serve the state, commerce, or 
 civilization. The average man answers exactly in the 
 same way as the believer and the philosopher. He, 
 instead of the personal question, substitutes a general 
 one, as do both the latter, and he does this because he 
 has no answer to the personal question, because he has 
 no real doctrine of life, and is ashamed. 
 
 He is ashamed, because he feels himself in the 
 humiliating position of a man who has no understanding 
 of the principles of life, whereas a man never lived and 
 cannot live without some theory of life. It is only in 
 our Christian world that, instead of a theory of life, that 
 is, instead of religion, an explanation has been substituted 
 to prove that life ought to be what it was at some time 
 or other formerly, and that something needed by no one 
 has been substituted for religion ; while life itself no 
 longer depends on any theoretical principles, that is, 
 remains without any determining aim. 
 
 Nor is this all. As usual. Science has proclaimed 
 this fortuitous and monstrous condition of our society to 
 be one of the laws that govern mankind. Learned men, 
 as Tielc, Herbert Spencer, and others seriously speak of 
 religion, understanding by it metaphysical theories about 
 the beginning of all things and so forth, never suspecting 
 that they were speaking not of religion, but only of a 
 part of it. 
 
IVffAT I BELIEVE. 287 
 
 Hence has arisen the astonishuig phenomenon, that 
 in this age many clever and learned men naively believe 
 that they have got rid of all religion, merely because 
 they do not accept the metaphysical explanations of the 
 beginning of things which, at some time or other and for 
 some one or other, explained the meaning of life. It 
 never enters into their heads that they must in some u^ay 
 or other live, and that the something, which is the cause 
 of their living in one particular way and not in another, 
 is their religion. They imagine that they have very 
 elevated convictions and no belief; but, however they may 
 talk, a belief they have directly their reason urges, them 
 to the performance of any act, for all acts prompted by 
 reason are determined by belief. The acts of such men 
 are determined solely by the belief that what is com- 
 manded should always be done. The religion of men 
 who reject religion is the religion of submission to all 
 that is done by the great majority of men ; in other 
 words, it is the religion of obedience to constituted 
 authority. 
 
 It is possible to live after the teaching of the world, 
 to live an animal life, without acknowledging anything 
 higher and more obligatory than such an authority. But 
 whoever lives thus cannot affirm that he lives in accord- 
 ance with reason ; before such an affirmation we must 
 answer the question, what theory of life we consider 
 reasonable. But we, unhappy that we are, have not only 
 got no such theory, but have lost the consciousness of 
 the necessity for one. 
 
 Ask any of the men of our day, believers or un- 
 believers, what theory of life they follow, and they will 
 
288 CHRISrS CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 be obliged to confess that they only conform to one 
 teaching, that of the law as laid down by those concerned 
 with its administration and enforced by the police. This 
 is the only systematic doctrine of life which Europeans 
 accept. They know well that this doctrine is not from 
 heaven, nor from the prophets, nor from the wise among 
 men, they for ever condemn the way in which the officers 
 of the law exercise their authority ; yet they accept their 
 regulations as the basis of their lives, and obey them as 
 enforced by the police without dispute, even in their 
 most terrible shape. Let it be once laid down by law 
 that every youth shall be ready if required to outrage, or 
 even to slay his fellow, and all the fathers and mothers 
 who have grown-up sons will obey this law, drawn up, 
 perhaps, by a bribed official and to be changed, perhaps, 
 the next day. 
 
 The conception of laws which are perfectly consonant 
 to reason, and by the conviction of all men obligatory 
 on all, has been to such an extent lost in our present 
 society, that the existence of a reasonable law among 
 the Jewish peoples, which gives a micaning to all their 
 life, obligatory, not because enforced, but because it 
 satisfies their inward conviction, is considered a fact only 
 to be found among the Jews. That the Hebrews only 
 obeyed what they profoundly believed to be an indisput- 
 able truth proceeding directly from God, that is to say, 
 obeyed only that which agreed with their consciences, is 
 considered a specialty of the people. The normal posi- 
 tion of an educated man among us is considered to be, 
 that he should obey the laws ordained by a class of 
 despicable officials, and enforced by police officers with 
 
WHAT I BELIEVE. 289 
 
 pistols in their hands ; laws which each among us, or 
 at any rate by far the greater number, holds in his 
 conscience to be wrong. 
 
 I have sought in vain throughout our civilized society 
 for any kind of clearly expressed principles to guide and 
 explain life. There are none. There is not even the 
 conviction that they are needed. Nay, there is even a 
 strange persuasion that they are not needed ; that 
 religion is only a given form of speaking of a future life 
 and of God, a ceremony, very useful for the saving of 
 souls according to the opinion of some, and of no use for 
 anything according to that of others ; that life goes on 
 of itself, and that for it no basis nor principles are 
 required ; it is only needful to do лvhat is commanded. 
 
 Of the two things which lie at the foundation of a 
 faith, rules for conduct, and an explanation of life's mean- 
 ing, the first is considered unimportant and irrelevant to 
 faith, and the second, the explanation of life passed away, 
 or conclusions and guesses with respect to the historical 
 course of life, is looked upon as most important and 
 serious. In all that really constitutes the life of man, in 
 all practical questions — is he to go and kill men or 
 not? Is he to judge others or not .'' Is he to educate 
 his children in this way or in that ? The men of our 
 society give themselves up unreservedly into the hands 
 of others, as ignorant as themselves why they live, and 
 yet empowered to control the lives of their fellow-men. 
 
 And such a life men consider reasonable, and are not 
 ashamed. 
 
 The gulf betv/een the explanation of faith which 
 is called faith, and faith itself, which is named social 
 
 и 
 
290 CHRIST'S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 and national life, has now become impassable, and the 
 great majority of civilized men are left with a belief in 
 the policeman and the magistrate. 
 
 Such a position would be terrible, if it were universal ; 
 but, fortunately, even in our time there are men, and the 
 best men of our times, who are not satisfied with such 
 a faith, and have their own ideas, on life and human 
 conduct. 
 
 Such men are looked upon as most noxious and 
 dangerous, and above all as unbelievers, while in reality 
 they are the only true believers of our time ; for not 
 only do they possess a general belief, but they specially 
 believe in the teaching of Christ, in some parts, if not 
 in all. 
 
 They are often quite ignorant of Christ's teaching. 
 They do not understand him, and frequently even, like 
 their enemies, do not accept the leading principle of his 
 faith, non-resistance to evil. Nay, sometimes they may 
 be said to hate him. But their whole faith concerning 
 the constitution of life is taken from Christ's teaching. 
 However they may be persecuted and calumniated, they 
 are not the less the only men who do not submit without 
 a murmur to all that is commanded, and consequently 
 the only men of our society who do not lead an animal, 
 but a reasonable life ; the only people who believe. 
 
 The thread binding together the world and the 
 Church, and giving a meaning to the former, has been 
 growing more and more frayed, as the vital forces which 
 sustain life have been gradually more and more absorbed 
 into the world. Now that these forces have all passed 
 over, the thread has become a mere impediment. 
 
WHAT I BELIEVE. 29 1 
 
 This is the mysterious process of birth, and it takes 
 place before our eyes. At one and the same time the 
 last link with the Church is broken, and the process of 
 independent life begins. 
 
 The teaching of the Church, with the dogmas, 
 temples, and hierarchy, is undoubtedly linked with the 
 teaching of Christ. 
 
 Organs which have become useless in an altered state 
 are thrown off by nature, as no more than an impedi- 
 ment, and new links are formed with life. So it has 
 been with the Church. Our present development was 
 born of the teaching of Christ, and the Church was one 
 of the organs of its body. That organ has now done its 
 appointed work and has become useless, an impediment. 
 The world cannot guide the Church, but the deliverance 
 of the world has not yet ripened into life. That will 
 begin for it when it recognizes, like an infant, its own 
 want of strength and need for food. This is what must 
 happen to our Christian society ; it must cry aloud from 
 the feeling of its helplessness, of its need of nourishment, 
 and that feeling alone can bring it, as it does the child 
 to the mother's breast, where it alone can be fed. 
 
 What happens to the new-born infant must happen 
 also to our European world, with its outward self-con- 
 fidence and courage, its inward terror of perplexity. 
 The infant sprawls and struggles and cries, gets angry, 
 and knows not what it would be at. It feels instinctly 
 that it requires food, yet knows not where to seek it. 
 
 A new-born lamb uses both eyes and ears, can wag 
 its tail, and jump, and kick. It seems from its deter- 
 mined look to know everything, but, poor thing, it knows 
 
292 CHRISrS CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 nothing. All this determination and energy it has 
 received with its mother's blood, and she can give it no 
 more. It is in a blissful and at the same time a desperate 
 position. It is full of freshness and strength, but it is 
 lost unless it go to its mother for her milk. 
 
 It is the same with us. Look what a complicated, 
 apparently reasonable, and energetic life boils over in 
 our European world, as though all these people knew 
 what they were doing and why they did it. See with 
 what determination, courage, and skill men act. Art, 
 science, industry, and social government, organization, 
 all is full of life, but it is only alive because it has been 
 fed by a bountiful mother. There was a Church Avhich 
 passed into the veins of the life of the world the invigo- 
 rating blood of the teaching of Christ. Every part of 
 the world's multiform life fed on it, was born through 
 it, and grew with it. But in time the work of the 
 Church was done, and the vital forces ceased to flow 
 from her. All the organs of the world are alive still, but 
 the spring from which it once drew its nourishment has 
 dried up, and a new one has not yet been found. Men 
 are seeking it everywhere, save from her who first gave 
 it them. They, like the lamb, profit still by what the 
 mother gave them before their birth, but have yet to 
 understand that the mother still alive alone can give it, 
 but in an altered form. 
 
 What the world now has to do, is to understand that 
 the former process of unconscious nourishment has 
 ceased, and that another and conscious process is 
 necessary. 
 
 This new process consists in consciously accepting 
 
WHAT I BELIEVE. 293 
 
 those truths of Christian teaching which were formerly 
 unconsciously given to mankind through the Church, 
 and by which mankind still lives. Men must again hold 
 aloft the light by which they once saw, but which has 
 been hidden from them ; they must place it before them- 
 selves and before all men, and consciously live by it. 
 
 The teaching of Christ determining life and explain- 
 ing it, stands now, as it stood eighteen hundred years 
 ago, before the world. Formerly the world listened to 
 the explanations of the Church, which, though it hid 
 Christ's teaching, seemed to the world sufficient then for 
 its life ; but the Church has outlived her time, and the 
 world has no explanation of its own new life. It cannot 
 but feel its helplessness ; it cannot, therefore, but accept 
 the teaching of Christ. 
 
 * And he above all things teaches us this, that men 
 should believe in the light while the light is in them. 
 He teaches men to prize above all things this light of 
 reason, that they may live in conformity with it, and no 
 longer do what they themselves think unreasonable. If 
 you think it unreasonable to kill the Turks or the 
 Germans, do not kill them ; if you think it unreasonable 
 to take away their labour from poor men by force, in 
 order to wear a top hat or tight stays, or to furnish a • 
 drawing-room, do not do so ; if you think it unreasonable 
 to confine in a prison men perverted by idleness because 
 there they must undergo dangerous companionship, and 
 the worst idleness, do not do it ; if you think it unreason- 
 able to live in an infected town atmosphere, when you 
 may live in the fresh country air, unreasonable to teach 
 З'оиг children, before all else, the grammars of dead 
 
294 CHRISrS CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 languages, do not do so. Do not do what the whole 
 of European society is doing now ; living a life, and 
 doing that which it believes to be unreasonable, and from 
 want of belief in its own reason, living contrary to it. 
 
 The teaching of Christ is light. Light gives light on 
 all sides, and darkness cannot encircle it. We cannot 
 but receive light, when light shines on us. We cannot 
 dispute, cannot disagree about it. With the teaching of 
 Christ it is impossible to disagree, because it encircles 
 all the errors in which men live without encountering 
 them like the ether which physicists tell us pervades all 
 matter. It is equally necessary for every man on earth, 
 Nvhatever be his social position. It cannot be rejected 
 by men, not because its metaphysical explanation of life 
 cannot be denied (anything may be denied), but because 
 it alone gives those practical rules for life without which 
 the common life of humanity and the individual life of 
 the man is impossible if men wish to live like men, to 
 live in the light of reason. 
 
 The strength of this teaching lies, not in its explana- 
 tions of the meaning of life, but in what follows from it 
 — in its rules for life. Christ's metaphysical teaching is 
 not new. It is the same doctrine which is written in the 
 hearts of men, and which has been preached by all the 
 sages of the world. The strength of his teaching lies in 
 the application of his metaphysical doctrine of life. 
 
 The metaphysical basis of the ancient doctrine of the 
 Jews is the same as that of Christ — love to God and to 
 our neighbour. But the application of this doctrine by 
 Moses and by Christ was widely different. God, by 
 Moses, as was understood among the Hebrews, required 
 
JVJIAT I BELIEVE. 295 
 
 the fulfilment of no less than six hundred and thirteen 
 commandments, often without sense and cruel, and all 
 depending on the authority of Scripture. The law of 
 Christ, derived from the same metaphysical basis, is 
 expressed in five commandments, reasonable, merciful, 
 bearing in themselves their own meaning and justification, 
 and embracing the whole life of man. 
 
 The doctrine of Christ cannot but be accepted by 
 those followers of Judaism, Buddhism, Mahometism, 
 and other creeds who have doubted the truth of their 
 own law ; still less can it be rejected by those of our 
 own Christian world who have now no moral law 
 at all. 
 
 It does not dispute the point of view from which 
 men of the world regard the world ; it agrees with it, 
 beforehand, and itself embracing it, gives them what they 
 have not, what they seek because it is necessary to them : 
 it gives them a way of living, not new, but one familiar 
 and natural to all. 
 
 You, if you be a Christian, to whatever sect or church 
 you belong, believe in the creation of the world, in the 
 Trinity, in the fall and redemption of man, in the sacra- 
 ments, in prayer, in your Church. Christ does not 
 dispute your conception of the world ; he agrees on all 
 points with it, but in addition, he gives you something 
 you have not. Believing as you now do, you are 
 conscious that your life and the world's life are full of 
 evil, yet you know not how to better them. Christ (who 
 is also your God) offers you simple and easy rules of life, 
 which will rid you and other men of this tormenting evil. 
 Believe in the resurrection, in the heavenly paradise, in 
 
296 CHRIST'S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 hell, in the pope, in the Church, in the sacraments, and 
 in redemption ; pray as your faith directs you, fast, sing 
 psalms — nothing of all this is to be altered, but at the 
 same time do those things which Christ has ordained for 
 you to your good : be not angry, commit not fornication, 
 do not swear, do not defend yourself by violence, and do 
 not make war. 
 
 It may be that you will fail in the observance of one 
 or other of these rules. Urged by some sudden tempta- 
 tion you may break one of them, even as now under 
 temptation you sometimes break the rules of your own 
 faith, of the civil law, or of propriety. This may happen 
 under temptation and excitement ; but in your quiet 
 moments so order your life that always you may find it 
 hard to give way to anger, to live loosely, to swear, to 
 defend yourself by force. 
 
 You cannot refuse to accept this obligation, for it is 
 laid on you by God. 
 
 You, if you be an unbelieving philosopher, to what- 
 ever school you belong, you say that everything in the 
 world follows the law which you have discovered. Christ 
 disputes not with you ; he is willing to accept the law 
 discovered by you. But besides your law, through which 
 will be reached, after thousands of years, the good which 
 you desire and have prepared for mankind, there is your 
 own personal life, which you may live either in 
 accordance with the dictates of reason or against them. 
 For this personal life of yours you have no rules, except 
 those given by men commonly despised, and enforced 
 by the police. This want Christ supplies by offering you 
 rules which will certainly agree with your law, whether 
 
IV /ЫТ I BELIEVE. 297 
 
 it be altruism or free-will, for either is but a bad 
 paraphrase of Christ's teaching. 
 
 You, if you be the average man, half a believer, half 
 an unbeliever, who have no time to think on the meaning 
 of human life, you also have no clearly defined conception 
 of the world ; you do what all do. Neither with you 
 does Christ dispute. 
 
 He says, " Friend, you are not capable of disputing 
 and testing the truth of the teaching offered you, it is 
 easier to act as do others ; but, however modest you may 
 be, you still feel an inward judge, sometimes approving 
 the actions which follow those of others, sometimes dis- 
 approving them. However lowly be your lot, you have 
 still occasion to think and ask yourself, " Shall I act as 
 others do, or not ? " 
 
 At such moments you will feel the strength that lies 
 in Christ's rules ; they will give you a sure answer to 
 this question, because they embrace your whole life ; and 
 they will answer you in accordance with your reason and 
 your conscience. If you are nearer to belief than to 
 unbelief, then, by so acting, you are fulfilling the will of 
 God ; if you are nearer freethinking, then, by so acting, 
 you are acting by the most reasonable rules which exist 
 in the world of which you yourself will become convinced, 
 for the rules of Christ carry in themselves their own 
 meaning and justification. 
 
 Christ said (John xii. 31), " Now is the judgment of 
 this world ; now shall the prince of this world be cast 
 out." 
 
 Again (John xvi. 33), " These things have I spoken 
 unto you, that in me ye may have peace. In the world 
 
298 CHRISrS CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 ye have tribulation ; but be of good cheer ; I have over- 
 come the world." 
 
 And truly the world, that is, the evil of the world, 
 has been overcome. 
 
 If the world of evil still exist, it is only as something 
 half dead ; it has no longer a vital principle. For him 
 who believes the commandments of Christ the world of 
 evil is not ; it is overcome by the reasonable conviction 
 of the Son of man. The train once started still pursues 
 its straight course, but the driver, having seen the danger 
 signal, has applied the break. 
 
 " For whatsoever is begotten of God overcometh the 
 world ; and this is the victory that hath overcome the 
 world, even our faith " (i John v. 4). 
 
 The faith which overcomes the world is faith in the 
 teaching of Christ. 
 
 I believe in the teaching of Christ, and my belief is, 
 that complete happiness on earth is only possible when 
 all shall believe with me in his teaching. 
 
 I believe that the fulfilment of his teaching is possible, 
 easy, and joyful. 
 
 I believe that his teaching is neglected. I, even if 
 alone among those who neglect it, can do nothing to save 
 my life from inevitable ruin ; but by fulfilling it, even as 
 men who, finding the door in a burning house, can do 
 nothing better than to pass out by it. 
 
 I believe that the life I lived in obedience to the 
 dictates of the world was a torment to me, and that only 
 a life spent in accordance with the teaching of Christ 
 can give me the good which the Father of life has 
 ordained for me. 
 
WHAT I BELIEVE. 299 
 
 I believe that this teaching brings happiness within 
 the reach of all mankind, that it will save me from 
 inevitable ruin, and give me here on earth the highest 
 good, consequently that I am bound in reason to obey it. 
 
 John says (i. 17), " For the law was given by Moses ; 
 grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." The teaching 
 of Christ is happiness and truth. Once, not knowing the 
 truth, I knew not happiness or good. Taking evil for 
 goodj I fell into evil, and mistrusted my own impulse 
 to seek good. Now I understand, and believe that the 
 good to w^hich I aspired was the will of the Father, the 
 greatest and most lawful reality of my life. 
 
 Christ had said to me. Live for the sake of good, not 
 evil ; believe not those treacherous stumbling-blocks 
 which, deceiving you with the likeness of good, surprise 
 }'ou into evil. Your good and your happiness is in your 
 unity with all men ; evil is the destruction of the unity 
 of the son of man. Do not reject the good w^hich is 
 given you. 
 
 Christ has shown me that the unity of the son of 
 man is the love of men for one another, not, as it formerly 
 seemed to me, the end to which mien's efforts should be 
 directed ; and that this unity in love is their natural 
 state, the state to which children are born, as he himself 
 has said, and in which men have always lived until it 
 has been destroyed by deceit, by error, and by temptation. 
 
 But Christ has done more than merely show me this. 
 Beyond all possibility of mistake, he has enunciated in 
 his commandments all the temptations ready to steal 
 me from this natural state of unity, love, and good, and 
 entice me into evil ; in them he has also furnished me 
 
300 CHRIST'S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 with a means of salvation from those same temptations. 
 How, then, can I disbeheve him and his commandments ? 
 This, and this alone, is my faith. 
 
 The first evil he shows me which destroys the good 
 of my life is enmity to other men, my anger against 
 them. I cannot disbelieve him, and therefore cannot 
 consciously indulge a feeling of enmity to others ; cannot, 
 as I did once, be glad of my anger, be proud of it, excite 
 and justify it by asserting my own importance and 
 wisdom, and the insignificance, foolishness, and lost 
 state of other men. Now at the first approach of the 
 feeling of anger, I am forced to confess that I am myself 
 alone to blame, and therefore I straightway seek a 
 reconciliation with those who are at enmity with me. 
 
 Nor is that all ; besides knowing now that my anger 
 is an unnatural and unhealthy condition of mind, I know, 
 too, what particular temptation led me into it. The 
 temptation lay in my separating myself from other men, 
 in counting only a few of them my equals, and despising 
 the rest as insignificant men of naught (raca), or as 
 stupid and uneducated (fools). I see now that this way 
 of talking of others as raca and fools, was the chief cause 
 of my separation from men. Recalling my former life, 
 I see now that I never allowed my anger to burn against 
 those whom I considered my superiors, that I never 
 offended them ; but the slightest act of one whom I 
 considered beneath me was enough to rouse my anger 
 against him, and to make me offend him ; the higher 
 I thought myself above a man, the more carelessly I 
 offended him ; sometimes even my imaginary supposition 
 of the lowness of a man's position was sufficient cause of 
 
WHAT I BELIEVE. 3OI 
 
 offence. Now I know that he is highest among men 
 who makes himself the lowest, who is ready to serve all. 
 I know now why he who stands high among men is an 
 abomination before God ; why there is woe for the rich 
 and famous, and why the poor and meek are blessed. 
 
 Only lately have I understood and believed this, but it 
 has wholly changed my relative estimation of the different 
 orders of men. All that formerly seemed to me fine 
 and noble — honours, fame, education, wealth, all the 
 artificiality and refinement of life, a luxurious household, 
 food, dress, and outward appearance — all this has become 
 for me poor and mean. All that seemed to me poor 
 and mean — the peasantry, and obscure position, poverty, 
 rough manners, simplicity in household arrangements, 
 food, dress, and entertainment, has now become for me 
 fine and noble. And now that I am conscious of the 
 truth, though in a moment of forgetfulness I may give 
 way to anger and offend my brother, in my quiet hour I 
 spurn the temptation, which, raising me above my kind, 
 deprives me of my one true good — unity and love — even 
 as a man cannot set again for himself the trap into which 
 he has just fallen. Now I can lend my aid to nothing 
 which tends to raise me above others, to separate me 
 from my fellows. I cannot, as I once used, accept for 
 myself or others any titles or rank, or any name but that 
 of " man ; " I cannot seek fame, or praise, or learning 
 which will tend to separate me from others ; I cannot 
 but strive to get free from my wealth ; in my way of 
 life, in food, in dress, and in all outward appearances, I 
 must seek all that tends to bind me more closely to my 
 fellows. 
 
302 CHRIST'S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 The second evil is loose living — living, that is to say, 
 not with the woman to whom I am united, but with 
 another. I cannot question it, and therefore cannot, as 
 I did formerly, consider such a mode of life as something 
 elevated and belonging to man's nature ; I cannot justify 
 it to myself by my love for beauty, my passionate 
 temperament, or the faults of my wife ; I cannot, at the 
 first symptom of loose desires, but confess to myself that 
 I am in an unhealthy condition, and so must seek every 
 means to free myself from this evil. 
 
 But knowing that incontinence is an evil for me, I 
 know also the temptation which led me into it, and 
 therefore can no longer give occasion for it. I know 
 now that the chief cause of temptation is, not that we 
 cannot restrain our loose desires, but that the majority 
 of men and women are left by those to whom they were 
 first united. I know that every desertion by man or 
 woman of the one they first lived with, is that very 
 divorce which Christ forbids, because those left by the 
 first husband or wife carry incontinence through the 
 world. When I remember what led me to this mode 
 of life, I see now that, apart from an education worthy 
 of savages, which both physically and mentally nourished 
 loose desires, and justified them by the highest applica- 
 tion of intellect, my chief temptation arose from my 
 having abandoned the woman with whom I first lived, 
 and from the universal condition of all women so 
 abandoned. I sec now that the chief strength of the 
 temptation lay, not in my own passions, but in the 
 unnatural position in which I and the women around 
 me were placed. I cannot make a difference between 
 
IVHA7 I BELIEVE. 303 
 
 unions sanctioned, as it is said, by marriage and those 
 which are not. I can only consider as sacred and bind- 
 ing the communion into which a man can enter but 
 once. 
 
 I understood now the words of Jesus, " He that made 
 them from the beginning made them male and female, 
 and said, For this cause shall a man leave his father and 
 mother, and shall cleave to his wife ; and the twain shall 
 become one flesh. In that they are no more twain but 
 one flesh. What, therefore, God hath joined together let 
 not man put asunder." 
 
 I understood that monogamy was the natural law of 
 humanity, which cannot with impunity be violated. I 
 understood perfectly now, the words which are addressed 
 to him who has abandoned the companion with whom 
 he has lived, to unite with another, and which denounces 
 him for having introduced into the world an evil, which 
 will turn in the end against himself. 
 
 This I believed, and this faith changed my former 
 appreciation of what is good and great — bad and low in 
 life. What had appeared to me best — a refined, aesthetic 
 life, — poetic, passionate loves — sung by all poets and 
 artists — now seemed evil and distasteful. On the other 
 hand, a rude and labouring life, which subdues the 
 passions, seemed good to me ; great and to be revered 
 also, not so much the human institution of marriage, 
 which affords an exterior legality to the union of man 
 and woman, as the real communion of male and female, 
 which, once consummated, can never again be dissolved 
 without the violation of the will of God. And if still, in 
 moments of oblivion, I am carried away by evil passions, 
 
304 CHRISTS CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 I can no longer, recognizing the snare which lures me 
 on to evil, act unconsciously as before I was accustomed. 
 
 I cannot now desire or seek the physical idleness and 
 sumptuous existence which developed in me an excess 
 of sensuality, I can no longer seek out those amusements 
 which are as fuel to the flame of sensual love — romances, 
 most poems, music, theatres, balls, which in former days 
 not only seemed to me harmless but highly refined 
 pleasures. 
 
 I cannot now desert my wife, knowing that such 
 desertion is a chief snare both for me, for her, and for 
 others. 
 
 I can no longer aid the voluptuous and lazy existence 
 of others, no longer assist or be a partner in those 
 licentious modes of killing time — romantic literature, 
 theatres, operas, balls, and so forth, which are still 
 stumbling-blocks for me and for others. I cannot en- 
 courage celibacy in those ripe for marriage, or aid in the 
 separation of wives from their husbands. 
 
 The third evil to be guarded against is the taking 
 of oaths. Now that I have perceived this, I cannot as 
 before take an oath to any one, or about anything, and 
 cannot now, as formerly, justify my oath to myself by 
 saying that it can hurt no one, that all men do so, that 
 it is required by the State, and that it will be worse for 
 me or for others if I refuse to obey. 1 know now that 
 it is an evil thing for me and for others, and I cannot 
 do it. 
 
 But this is not all ; besides knowing that, I knew also 
 the temptation which lured me into this evil, and can no 
 longer give occasion for it. I know that the temptation 
 
IVI/AT I BELIEVE. 305 
 
 arises from the name of God being used to consecrate 
 deceit. The deceit consists in a man binding himself 
 beforehand to obey the commands of men which might 
 transgress the laws of God. I know now, that the evil 
 which is the most terrible on earth from its consequences, 
 murder in war, imprisonment, executions, torture, is 
 caused by this temptation, in the name of which all 
 responsibility is shifted from those who effect these 
 evils. 
 
 When I now recall the many evils which forced me to 
 condemn men instead of loving them, I see that many 
 of them were caused by this practice, by the belief in the 
 necessity for obeying the will of another. I understand 
 now the meaning of the words, all that is more than a 
 simple affirmation or denial, yea and nay, every promise 
 given beforehand, is an evil. Understanding this, I 
 believe that oaths ruin the good in my life and in that of 
 others, and this belief changes my estimation of good 
 and bad, of high and low. All that formerly seemed to 
 me fine and noble, the obligation of fidelity to the 
 government confirmed by an oath, the extortion of oaths 
 from men, and all the acts contrary to conscience done 
 in the name of an oath — all this appears to me now bad 
 and mean. And therefore I cannot now disobey the 
 commandments of Christ which forbid me to give or 
 exact an oath, I cannot any longer help to make men 
 believe that an oath is important and necessary, or harm- 
 less as so many believe. 
 
 The fourth evil is resistance of evil by violence. I 
 cannot disbelieve that this is an evil for myself and 
 other men, and therefore cannot consciously commit it, 
 
 X 
 
зоб CHRIST'S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 and I cannot, as I did formerly, justify this evil by 
 saying that it is necessary for the defence of myself and 
 others. I cannot, when I first perceive that I am tending 
 myself to the use of violence, but at once refuse to do so, 
 and strive with all my power to put an end to the evil. 
 
 And moreover, I know now the temptation which led 
 me into this evil, that it arose from believing that the 
 security of my life can be assured by the defence of 
 myself and of my property against others ; I recognize 
 that the most part of human suffering proceeds from this, 
 that men instead of giving up their labour to another, by 
 force take away the labour of others. Remembering all 
 the evil which I caused myself and others, and all the 
 evil which others wrought, I see that the most part of it 
 proceeded from our belief, that it was possible by defend- 
 ing our property, to secure and better our life. 
 
 I understand now the meaning of the words — a man 
 is born, not to be worked for, but himself to work for 
 others — and again, the labourer is worthy of his food. I 
 believe now, that good in my own life and in that of 
 others is only possible when each labours, not for him- 
 self, but for others, and not only docs not withhold his 
 labour from others, but gives it up to any one by whom 
 it is needed. 
 
 All, therefore, that once seemed to me fine and noble 
 — wealth, property of every kind, honours, the conscious- 
 ness of our own dignity and rights — all this has now 
 become for me bad and mean ; while all that once 
 seemed to me so mean — labour for others, poverty, 
 humiliation, and renunciation of all property and rights 
 — has now become for me fine and noble. If no lonijer 
 
WHAT I BELIEVE. 30/ 
 
 now, in a moment of forgetfulness, can I let myself be 
 carried away to defend my own property or that of 
 others by violence, still less can I calmly and consciously 
 help to give occasion for a temptation, which ruins 
 myself and others. I cannot strive to acquire property ; 
 I cannot employ any violence whatever against any one, 
 except on behalf of an infant, and that only to deliver it 
 from an imminent evil ; I cannot take part in any of the 
 branches of the administration which have for their 
 object the protection of men and their property by the 
 use of force ; I cannot be a judge, nor take any part in a 
 trial ; be a chief over others, nor serve under any chief ; 
 nor can I give help to others to do these things. 
 
 The fifth evil is the distinction which we make 
 between our own nation and foreigners. Feeling that 
 it is so, if, in a moment of forgetfulness, enmity arise in 
 me against one of another nation, in my quiet moments 
 I confess that this is a false feeling. I cannot justify 
 myself, as I formerly did, by saying that my nation 
 stands above all others, or by the errors, cruelty, or 
 barbarism of another people ; I cannot at the first 
 symptom of this feeling but strive to be more friendly to 
 a foreigner even than to one of my own countrymen. I 
 know now the temptation which led me into this evil, 
 and can no longer, as I once did, consciously and calmly 
 give occasion for it. I know that this temptation arose 
 from the false belief that my own good is bound up with 
 the good of the men of my own nation only, and not 
 with the good of all men on earth, that my unity with 
 other men cannot be destroyed by the line of a frontier 
 or the arrangement of a government. I know now that 
 
308 CffRISrS CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 all men everywhere are brothers and equals. Remem- 
 bering all the evil which I did, suffered, and saw done 
 through national enmities, it is clear to me that the cause 
 of all was a gross deceit, called by the fine name of 
 patriotism or love for our country. 
 
 Looking back on my education, I see now that the 
 feeling of enmity to other nations, the feeling of separa- 
 tion from them, w^as no natural one, but artificially 
 inspired by a senseless course of education. I under- 
 stand now the meaning of the words. Do good to your 
 enemies, do to them as you do to your own people. 
 You are all children of one Father, then be like unto 
 the Father ; that is, make no difference between your 
 own nation and others, be the same to all men. I 
 understand now, that good is only possible for me if I 
 accept my unity Avith all mankind without exception. 
 Hence it is that now the love for my country, my nation, 
 and my government, the services I have wrought them 
 to the injury of other men, seem to me horrible and 
 pitiful, that the renunciation of my country, cosmo- 
 politanism, now seem as noble as once they had seemed 
 to be shameful. 
 
 If the old feeling return in a moment of forgetfulness, 
 still never wittingly now can I give occasion to myself 
 or others for this temptation, never help my own country- 
 men more than I would a foreigner, or desire the success 
 of any government or people. I can acknowledge no 
 states nor nationalities, can take no part in any quarrels 
 of governments or peoples, or between peoples and 
 governments, neither in what I say or write, nor by 
 entering the service of any government. I can take no 
 
WHAT I BELIEVE. 309 
 
 part in any affairs which grow out of the division between 
 states — in the collection of customs, dues, and taxes, in 
 the fabrication of arms, or in anything connected with 
 them, in the military service, still less in war itself — and 
 I cannot lend myself to give occasion to other men to 
 do so. 
 
 I have understood where the good in my life lies ; I 
 believe in it, and therefore I cannot do what must un- 
 doubtedly deprive me of that good. And I believe that 
 by living up to this belief, my life will have the one 
 possible meaning, which is for me at the same time 
 reasonable, joyful, and not to be destroyed by death. 
 
 I believe that my reasonable life, my light, is given 
 to me that it may shine before men, not in words but in 
 good works, that men may glorify their Father. I 
 believe that my life and the knowledge of truth are 
 talents given to me to be put to use, and that these 
 talents are a fire only while they burn. I believe that 
 the only meaning my life has is this, that I should live in 
 the light which is in me, and not hide it under a bushel, 
 but hold it up before men that they may see it. And 
 this belief gives me a new strength to fulfil the teaching 
 of Christ, and to get rid of all the hindrances which 
 formerly impeded me. 
 
 What formerly undermined for me the truth and 
 practicability of Christ's teaching, what drove me away 
 from it — the possibility of suffering, of privations, even 
 of death at the hands of others ignorant of his teaching 
 — now confirms for me the truth of that teaching and 
 attracts me towards it. 
 
 Christ said, When you have elevated the Son of man 
 
ЗЮ CHRIST'S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 you will all be drawn towards me — and I felt myself 
 irresistibly drawn. He said also the truth shall make 
 you free — and I felt myself completely free. 
 
 An armed enemy will come, or evil men will fall upon 
 and attack me, I used to think, and if I do not defend 
 myself, they will rob and put me to shame, and torture 
 and kill both myself and those dear to me ; and it seemed 
 to me terrible that this should be. But now all that 
 once troubled me seems but to confirm the joyful 
 truth. 
 
 I know now that my enemies and those called robbers 
 or villains, are as much sons of men as I am ; that they 
 also naturally love what is good and hate what is evil ; 
 that they too live on the brink of death, and, like myself, 
 seek salvation, and will find it only in the teaching of 
 Christ. Every evil which they do to me will be an evil 
 done to themselves, and therefore they should render me 
 good. If they are ignorant of the truth, and do evil 
 thinking it to be good, I, who know the truth, must show 
 it to them, and I can do so only by showing my faith by 
 my works, and by refraining from taking any part myself 
 in evil. 
 
 Enemies will come, and if you do not defend yourself 
 against them will they not kill you } It is not so. If 
 there were a society of Christians, doing no evil to any, 
 but giving of their abundance to all, no enemies would 
 slay or torture them. They would take for themselves 
 by force only what these men would have freely given 
 them, because for Christians there is no difference 
 between Russians and Germans, Turks and savages. If 
 a Christian live in the midst of a society which is not 
 
WBA Т I BELIE VE. 3 I I 
 
 Christian, and which defends itself by war, and he is 
 called upon to take part in war, then comes his oppor- 
 tunity for helping men who are ignorant of the truth. A 
 Christian only knows the truth, that he may bear witness 
 to it before those who are ignorant of it, and this witness 
 he can bear only by his works. He is bound to abstain 
 from war, to do good to men without distinction between 
 so-called enemies and his own people. 
 
 Not only foreign enemies, however, but evil men 
 among his own people will fall on the family of a 
 Christian, and if he make no defence will rob, torture, 
 and slay him and them. This, again, is not so. If the 
 members of a Christian family devote their lives to the 
 service of others, no madman would be found to deprive 
 them of their substance, or to kill those who were of 
 service to him. The celebrated Maclay settled among 
 tribes of the fiercest savages, and not only was not slain, 
 but was loved and obeyed, because he did not fear, 
 asked nothing from them, but did good to them. If 
 a Christian live in the midst of those who are not 
 Christians, and who defend themselves and their pro- 
 perty by violence, and he be called upon to take part 
 in this defence, then is the moment for him to fulfil the 
 office of his life. He only knows the truth that he may 
 impart it to others, above all, to those with whom he 
 lives, and who arc bound to him by family ties and by 
 friendship ; and he cannot show that truth otherwise 
 than by not falling into the error into which they have 
 fallen, by not ranging himself on the side either of the 
 attacking or the defending party, by giving up all to 
 others, by showing practically that he needs nothing but 
 
312 CHRIST'S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 to fulfil the will of God, and that nothing is terrible to 
 him except to fall away from it. 
 
 But a government cannot allow any member of the 
 society which it rules to deny the foundation of all 
 public order, and to refuse to fulfil the obligations of a 
 citizen. The government requires from a Christian, that 
 he should take oaths, play his part in the administration 
 of justice or in the military service, and on refusal, 
 subjects him to the punishment of transportation, of 
 imprisonment, or even of death. Again, this demand 
 of the government will to a Christian be a call upon him 
 to fulfil the office of his life. To such an one the 
 demand of a government is the demand of men who are 
 ignorant of the truth. Therefore, knowing the truth, 
 he cannot but witness to it before men who know it not. 
 The violence, imprisonment, or death to which he may 
 be subjected, are an occasion for him to witness, not by 
 words, but by works. Every act of violence proceeds, 
 not from the unreasoning forces of nature, but from the 
 errors of men who have no knowledge of the truth ; 
 consequently, the more evil these men do a Christian, 
 the farther are they from truth, the more unhappy, and 
 the more in want of the truth. A Christian cannot give 
 a knowledge of truth to men otherwise than by refrain- 
 ing from the error which misleads them when they harm 
 him, and rendering to them good for evil. In this 
 alone is the office of a Christian's life, in this is its 
 whole meaning, and one which cannot be destroyed b)- 
 death. 
 
 Men bound to one another by deceit, form, as it 
 were, a compact mass. The compactness of this mass 
 
WHA Т I BELIE VE. 3 I 3 
 
 is the evil of the world. The aim of the whole intel- 
 lectual activity of mankind should be to break through 
 and destroy this aggregate of deceit. 
 
 All revolutions are attempts to break up this mass 
 by violence. Men imagine that if they once disperse it, 
 it will cease to exist, and they strike it furiously, in 
 order to break it up, but only weld the atoms more 
 compactly, which must rather each be endowed with an 
 impulsion of its own, before the mass can be finally 
 disintegrated. 
 
 The strength of the bond of union among men rests 
 on a lie, on deceit. The strength which can deliver each 
 particle of this mass is truth. Truth is communicated 
 to men only through the works of truth. 
 
 Only the works of truth, carrying light into the 
 conceptions of every individual man, can destroy this 
 evil attraction, and can detach men one after another 
 from the mass bound together by it. 
 
 During eighteen hundred years this work has been 
 going on. 
 
 From the time that the commandments of Christ 
 were declared to mankind it began, and it will not cease, 
 as Christ has himself said (Matt. v. 18) till all be 
 fulfilled. 
 
 The Church, formed of those who thought to bring 
 about the unity of mankind by affirming, with oaths, 
 that truth was in them, has long been dead. But the 
 Church composed of those who are united into one, not 
 by promises, not by consecration, but by the works of 
 truth and of good, that Church is alive and will live for 
 ever. It is composed now, as formerly, not of men who 
 
ЗН CIIRIST'S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 cry, " Lord, Lord ! " and work iniquity (Matt. viii. 21, 22), 
 but of men who receive Christ's words and obey them. 
 
 The men of this Church know that their Hfe is 
 good, if they do not destroy the unity of the Son of 
 man, and that this good can be destroyed only by dis- 
 regarding the commandments of Christ. They, there- 
 fore, cannot but obey these commandments, and teach 
 others to obey them. 
 
 Be these men few or many now, they are the one 
 Church which nothing can overcome, and the one in 
 which all men will be united. 
 
 " Fear not, little flock ; for it is your Father's good 
 pleasure to give you the kingdom." 
 
 Leo Tolstoi. 
 
 Moscow, 
 22 Jan. 1884 
 
PART III. 
 
 THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST'S 
 TEACHING. 
 
 (A COMMENTARY ON THE ESSENCE OF THE GOSPEL.) 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 This short exposition of the Gospel is extracted from a 
 larger manuscript work, which cannot be published in 
 Russia. The work consists of four parts. 
 
 The contents of the present book have been extracted 
 from the third part, Avhich is an investigation inde- 
 pendent of previous interpretations, and solely according 
 to what has reached us of the teaching of Christ, as 
 attributed to him, and related in the Gospels. 
 
 The Gospels have been harmonized by me according 
 to the sense of their teaching, and in so doing I have 
 had to deviate but little from the order in which they 
 stand ; so that there are rather fewer transpositions of 
 the text in my rendering than in most other harmonies 
 лvith which I am acquainted. The Gospel of John is 
 taken in the same order as the original. 
 
 The division of the Gospel into twelve sections is the 
 natural outcome of the bearing of its teaching, every two 
 sections being united by a link of cause and consequence. 
 
 I have also added the introduction from the first 
 chapter of John's Gospel, in which he gives his view of 
 the meaning of the whole teaching, and the conclusion 
 from his Epistle (probably written before the Gospel), 
 
3l8 CHRIST'S CHRISTIAN/TV. 
 
 which represents a general deduction from all that 
 precedes. The introduction and conclusion do not form 
 an essential part, but only give a general view of the 
 whole teaching ; and though both might be omitted 
 without detriment (the more so that they are the words 
 of John, and not of Jesus), I have preserved them, 
 because, when the teaching of Christ is taken in its 
 plain meaning, these parts, in their connection with the 
 whole and with each other, represent, in opposition to 
 the strange interpretation of the Church, the simplest 
 indication of the spirit in which Christ's meaning must 
 be understood. 
 
 At the head of each section, in addition to a short 
 definition of the contents, I have inserted words corre- 
 sponding to each from the prayer which Jesus gave to 
 his disciples. When my work was ended, I was sur- 
 prised to find that the Lord's prayer is indeed nothing 
 less than the whole teaching of Christ, expressed in the 
 most condensed form, and in the identical system by 
 which I had distributed the sections, every expression 
 of it corresponding with them, in idea and order. In 
 the manuscript of the third part, the Gospel, according 
 to the four evangelists, is related without the least 
 omission ; but in the present work the following passages 
 have been left out : the conception, the birth of John 
 Baptist, his imprisonment and death, the birth of Christ, 
 his flight with Mary into Egypt, his miracles in Cana 
 and Capernaum, the expulsion of demons, the walking 
 on the sea, the withering of the fig tree, the raising of 
 the dead, the resurrection of Christ, and the references 
 to the prophecies fulfilled during his life. All this has 
 
THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST'S TEACHING. 319 
 
 been omitted in the present work, because, not containing 
 any part of the teaching, but only describing events 
 which took place before, during, and after the public life 
 of Christ, these passages Avould render the exposition 
 needlessly intricate ; nor do they contain in themselves 
 either contradiction or proof, though their significance 
 for Christianity has been that, to the eyes of unbelievers, 
 they corroborate the divinity of Jesus ; but by those 
 who, uninfluenced by the account of miracle, are unable, 
 from the nature of the teaching itself, to doubt that 
 divinity, they are naturally set aside, because felt to be 
 needless. 
 
 In the original full exposition, every digression from 
 the accepted translation, all inserted explanations and 
 omissions are justified and proved by a comparison with 
 different versions of the Gospel, by context, and by 
 philological and other considerations. In the present 
 work all these are omitted, because, however precise and 
 correct may be the analysis of separate passages, argu- 
 ment alone will convince no one as to a right under- 
 standing of the teaching itself Such evidence must 
 always lie in its own unity, clearness, simplicity, and 
 completeness, and its force will arise from the sympathy 
 with which it meets the consciousness of every man who 
 is seeking for truth. 
 
 Concerning all deviations from the version accepted 
 by the churches, the reader must understand that the 
 generally accepted notion as to the Gospels being, to 
 the veriest letter, sacred, is not only a most profound 
 error, but also a most gross and harmful deception. He 
 must remember also that Christ himself wrote no book. 
 
320 CHRIST'S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 as did philosophers like Plato or Marcus Aurelius ; never 
 did he, like Socrates, transmit his teaching to learned 
 or even to educated men, but spoke for the most part to 
 an unlettered crowd, and that only long after his death 
 was his teaching and life described. 
 
 It must also not be forgotten that, out of a large 
 number of such descriptive manuscripts, the Church 
 selected at first three, adding later a fourth Gospel 
 (that according to John), that out of the great mass of 
 literature about Christ they could not but have accepted 
 much that was not strictly accurate, and that there are 
 as many doubtful passages in the Canonical gospels as 
 in the rejected Apocryphal writings. Nor does it follow, 
 if the teaching of Christ were inspired, that a certain 
 number of verses and letters in recording it should 
 become so, or that certain selections should be considered 
 sacred by the edict of a man. Let it be considered that 
 these selected Gospels are the work of many human 
 minds, that during centuries they underwent endless 
 revisions, that all the Gospels of the fourth century which 
 have reached us are Avrittcn without punctuation or 
 division into verse and chapter, and that the actual 
 number of different renderings for Gospel passages is 
 estimated at fifty thousand. 
 
 All this must be kept in view by the reader, lest he 
 should be carried away by the idea that the Gospels 
 have been transmitted to us direct from heaven in the 
 identical form in which we at present accept them, and 
 he must admit that it is not only unblamable to omit 
 from them unnecessary passages, but that it is most 
 unreasonable to be withheld from doing so by the 
 
THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST S TEACHING. 32 I 
 
 sentiment that considers sacred an appointed number of 
 verses and syllables. 
 
 On the other hand, I would not have it understood 
 that because I do not consider the Gospels to be sacred 
 books, directly descended from heaven, that therefore 
 I regard them as mere monuments in the history of 
 religious literature. I am conscious of both their 
 theological and historical bearing, but I desire to 
 contemplate neither ; what I see in Christianity is not 
 an exclusively divine revelation, nor a mere historical 
 phenomenon, but a teaching which gives the meaning of 
 life. 
 
 When at the age of fifty, having asked all the reputed 
 philosophers about me as to the meaning of life, and of 
 myself, and having been told by them that life was an 
 evil, and without meaning, and I myself an accidental 
 concatenation of particles, I fell into despair, and thought 
 to kill myself, I was brought to Christianity by the 
 remembrance of a past time ; how in my childhood I 
 and those about mc, chiefly men uncorrupted by wealth, 
 had a faith and saw a purpose, and with the light of this 
 reality I called to question the wisdom of those of my 
 own class, and tried to understand the answer of 
 Christianity to believers. 
 
 On studying the various forms of Christian religions, 
 I found them to consist in large measure of the strangest 
 superstitions, which, however, did not prevent many 
 from finding life in their teaching. I then began to 
 consider the source from which they were derived, and 
 found in the Gospels an explanation of the meaning of 
 life that perfectly satisfied me, one higher than anything 
 
 Y 
 
322 CHRIST'S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 I had known, or could imagine. And here, dazzled in 
 new-found light, I found full answer for all questioning 
 as to the meaning and purpose of my life and that of 
 others, that explained the solutions of every other 
 nation, and to my mind excelled them. I had sought a 
 reply, not to some historic or theologic difficulty, but to 
 the question of life ; and therefore to me now the chief 
 matter is, not whether Jesus Christ was God, or from 
 whom descended the Holy Ghost, or when and by whom 
 was a certain Gospel written, or if it may not even be 
 attributed to Christ ; but the light itself is of importance 
 to me, that it still shines upon me after eighteen hundred 
 years with undimmed brightness ; but how to call it, or 
 of what it consist, or who gave it existence, is immaterial 
 to me. 
 
 This introduction might here conclude if the Gospels 
 were books but lately discovered, or if the teaching of 
 Christ had not undergone eighteen centuries of misinter- 
 pretation. In order to understand it, it is well to acquire 
 a clear apprehension of the various systems with which 
 it has been overlaid. 
 
 The commonest and most subtle of these is the 
 substitution, under the name of Christian doctrine, of 
 the teaching of the Church for that of Christ which it 
 professes to be, though composed from the explanations 
 of most contradictory writings, in which the teaching of 
 Christ forms but a small part, and that contorted and 
 strained to accord with the explanation of the rest of 
 the document. 
 
 According to this misinterpretation, the teaching of 
 Jesus is only one link in the chain of revelation that 
 
THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST'S TEACHING. 323 
 
 commenced with the creation of man, and continues in 
 the Church to the present day. By it Jesus is called 
 God, but such acceptance does not place in his teaching 
 a deeper import than that contained in the words of 
 Moses, in the Psalms, the Acts of the Apostles, the 
 Epistles, the Apocalypse, the Decrees of the Councils, 
 and the writings of the Fathers ; no understanding of 
 the teaching of Christ is admitted which does not accord 
 with that of the preceding and following revelation, and 
 in furtherance of this object the least contradictory 
 meaning for passages most hopelessly at variance in 
 the Pentateuch, Psalms, Gospels, etc., is eagerly sought 
 for. 
 
 There naturally may be an innumerable number of 
 such interpretations having for their object not the truth, 
 but the reconciliation of contradictions in the Old and 
 New Testaments, every man having a solution of his 
 own, and an assertion that such is a continued revelation 
 of the Holy Ghost, as the Epistles of Paul, the Decrees 
 of the Councils, commencing, "We and the Holy 
 Ghost," the edicts of the popes, synods, and of all sects 
 and persons who claim and proclaim that they are the 
 mouthpiece of the Holy Spirit. All adopt the same 
 groundless subterfuge for sanction as to the truth of 
 their own interpretation, and they forget that a like 
 method may be, and has been, employed by others who 
 contradict them. 
 
 Without entering into an analysis of the faiths so 
 formed, each with its own declaration of truth, it is easy 
 to see that the common ground of all, the equal inspira- 
 tion of both Old and New Testament, forms an insur- 
 
324 CHRIST'S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 mountable, self-erected obstacle to understanding the 
 teaching of Christ, and that hence emanates the possi- 
 bility — nay, even the necessity — of a large number of 
 hostile sects, whose formation can only be prevented by 
 a reconciliation of all the varied revelations, or by a 
 right conception of the teaching of one man, believed to 
 be God. The teaching of him who has descended to 
 earth for the very sake of our instruction cannot be 
 variously understood. If it was indeed God, He at 
 least would have so disclosed the truth that all might 
 understand ; if He failed to do so, how then is He 
 God } or if, indeed, the truths of God are such that 
 even He cannot make them intelligible, how can men 
 do so ? 
 
 If Christ were not God, a great man only, then still 
 less can his teaching engender sects ; for a great man 
 is only great so far as he expresses clearly what others 
 have rendered incomprehensible. His words may be 
 dark, but never misty, and there will, and must be, many 
 ways into the darkness, but all will tend towards elucida- 
 tion. All clear, deep insight into his obscurity, at one 
 with the spirit of his teaching, uncontradicted by the 
 plainer facts of it, and bringing the whole into conformity, 
 will be accepted eagerly by all, and cannot of itself form 
 sects, or rouse animosity. False interpretation will shed 
 itself in time ; and that alone which claims a source in 
 the supernatural, which asserts itself as a revelation of 
 the Holy Ghost, demanding recognition as the sole truth, 
 and condemnation for every other, can become sectarian ; 
 for the sectarianism of Christianity has its root in the 
 idea that the Gospels are to be understood, not by 
 
THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST'S ТЕ AC HI NQ. 325 
 
 themselves, but in accordance with all so-called Holy 
 Writings, and in the fact that the Church, professing a 
 revelation of the Holy Ghost, which from its first descent 
 upon the Apostles has been constantly transmitted by 
 its own elected representatives, nov/here expresses clearly 
 and finally what this revelation may be, and yet upon 
 its supposed continuity builds a faith — and calls it 
 Christ's. 
 
 Like the Mahometans, who hold to the revelations 
 of Moses, Christ, and Mahomet, these Churchmen admit 
 three also — of Moses, of Christ, and of the Holy Ghost ; 
 but unlike the former, who subordinate those of Moses 
 and of Christ to that of Mahomet, who, as the last 
 revelation, explained all that preceded him, and claimed 
 from faithful believers absolute credence ; they would 
 accept all three, and call themselves after the name of 
 the second, in order to combine the license of their own 
 teaching with the authority of Christ's. 
 
 Those who accept the revelation of Paul, of the 
 Councils, of the Fathers, of the Pope, or of the Patriarchs, 
 should state unmistakably that they do so, and should 
 call their creed by the name of the last revealer. Far 
 from doing so, they preach doctrines most alien to 
 Christ, and yet so claim his countenance that one might 
 gather from them that it was Christ who declared 
 that it was by his blood he had redeemed the world, 
 that God was a Trinity, that the Holy Ghost descended 
 upon the Apostles, and was transmitted to the priest- 
 hood by the laying on of hand.:, that for salvation 
 seven sacraments arc needed, that the communion 
 must be celebrated in two aspects, and so forth ; 
 
32б CHRIST'S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 whereas in all Christ's teaching there is no hint even 
 at all this. 
 
 Such a faith might be called that of the Holy Ghost, 
 for only one that acknowledges the revelation of Jesus 
 Christ as final and in itself complete should be called by 
 his name. 
 
 Argument on such a point may appear needless, yet 
 up to the present the teaching of Christ has never been 
 separated from an artificial and altogether unwarrantable 
 connection with the Old Testament on the one hand 
 and on the other from such arbitrary additions to, and 
 perversions of, its reality as are continually made in the 
 name of the Holy Ghost. 
 
 Up to the present time, some, conceiving Christ to be 
 the second person of the Trinity, accept his teaching 
 only as it accords with that pseudo-revelation of the 
 Holy Ghost which they find in the Old Testament, the 
 Epistles, the Edicts of the Councils, and the Patristic 
 writings, and preach a strange creed founded thereon 
 which they assert to be the faith of Christ. Others who 
 do not believe Christ to be God, understand his teaching 
 by the interpretation of Paul and others ; believing him 
 to have been a man, they would, however, deprive him 
 of the right every man may claim of being only answer- 
 able for his own words, and in trying to explain his 
 teaching credit him with what he would never have 
 dreamt of saying. This school of critics, well represented 
 by Renan, without giving themselves the trouble of ex- 
 tricating in the teaching of Jesus what he taught him- 
 self from what is ascribed to him, without endeavouring 
 to obtain from it any deep meaning, explain his appear- 
 
THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST'S TEACHING. 327 
 
 ance and the propagation of his faith, by incidents in 
 his life, and from the circumstances of his time. The 
 problem, however, which they have failed to explain is, 
 that eighteen hundred years ago there appeared a poor 
 man Avho taught, was beaten, and executed ; and though 
 since his time many others have in like manner perished 
 for their belief, this one man is still thought by thousands 
 to be — God. Churchmen tell us that he is so considered 
 because so he is ; but if he be not, how can the fact be 
 explained ? 
 
 And it is entirely overlooked by the critics of this 
 school, who diligently investigate all the details of the 
 life of Christ, that, however much they may disclose by 
 such a process, they do in reality discover nothing ; could 
 they even establish the minutest details of his life, they 
 would be as far as ever from the secret of his influence, 
 which is hid, not with the people amongst whom he 
 abode, nor by the history and superstition of the times, 
 but in the nature of this man's teaching which made 
 humanity single him out from amongst all other 
 preachers, and accept him as God. 
 
 Explanation can only come from a special study of 
 his teaching. And the solution is simple ; but it must 
 be undertaken independently of the many false inter- 
 pretations volunteered by men who neither wished nor 
 were able to understand him. 
 
 The modern school of criticism to which I have 
 referred was so pleased with its own assertion of the 
 non-divinity of Christ, that it has since directed all its 
 efforts to complete the proof of his humanity, forgetting 
 that the more successful be the process, the more difficult 
 
328 CHRIST'S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 will the final solution be as to the reason of his influence. 
 In order clearly to understand this singular error, it is 
 only necessary to read an article by Havet, one of the 
 imitators of Renan, who asserts that " Jesus n'avait rien 
 de Chretien," or to find in Sourris a proposition which 
 seems to give him pleasure — that Jesus Christ was a 
 very rough and stupid man. 
 
 It is not a contradiction of the divinity of Christ that 
 is required, but an exposition of his teaching in all its 
 purity, so lofty and so simple as to obtain for its founder 
 the title of God. 
 
 And therefore, if the reader belong to that large 
 number of educated men, who, having been brought up 
 in the religion of the Church, have recoiled from its con- 
 tradiction of common sense and the conscience; and if 
 he have not lost all love and respect for the spirit of 
 Christ's teaching, I would ask him to consider that what 
 has alienated him is equally foreign to Christ, who has 
 been made responsible for all the monstrous parasitic 
 tradition that has fastened about his words, and that to 
 judge of Christ's Christianity he must study its effect 
 upon its Founder ; and if he do so, he will discover that 
 it has no admixture of elements, no sympathy with 
 superstition, no dregs, no darknesses ; but that it is the 
 strictest, purest, and fullest system of metaphysical 
 ethics, above the most ambitious ascent of human reason, 
 and in the wide circle of which moves to its achievement 
 all highest human effort. 
 
 If the reader is one of those who profess the religion 
 of the Church not for the attainment of personal ad- 
 vantage, but for their own inner welfare, I would ask 
 
THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST'S TEACHING. 329 
 
 him to consider how different a thing, despite its simi- 
 larity of name, is the teaching in this book from that 
 Avhich he follows, and to decide, not whether the faith 
 so offered him coincides with his own religion, but 
 which of the two most agrees with his heart and 
 reason. 
 
 But if he belong to those who, professing the doctrines 
 of the Church, hold to them, not from belief, but for con- 
 venience, then let him know that, however many adherents 
 such a method may have, however powerful they may 
 be, on whatever thrones they may seat themselves, or by 
 whatever high names they may be called, they are not 
 the accusers, but the accused. Let such remember that 
 they have long ago said all that for themselves can be 
 said ; that had they succeeded in proving all they desire, 
 the same has been done to its own satisfaction by each 
 of the hundred creeds that on a mutual basis mutually 
 reject each other ; but that now not proof is demanded 
 of them, but that they should justify themselves from 
 the charge of blasphemy in having held the teaching 
 of Esdra, the Councils, the Theophilacts equal to that 
 of Christ the God, and from the charge of calumny 
 against God, in having proclaimed as His teaching 
 the fanaticism of their own hearts, and from the charge 
 of deception in having hid the word of God, and set 
 up in its place their own religion of the Holy Ghost ; 
 and so, depriving millions of men of the good Christ 
 brought for them, have given to the world, for his 
 peace and love, the froward countenance of malice and 
 murder. 
 
 Such have before them two alternatives : the rejection 
 
330 CHRIST'S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 of the falsehood or the persecution* of those who so 
 correct them, for which, while ending my writings, I 
 prepare myself with joy and with fear for my weak- 
 ness. 
 
 * The English reader must remember that the author is still living 
 under a system of religious repression. — Ed. 
 
THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST'S TEACHING. 33; 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 THE GOSPEL. THE GOOD TIDINGS OF JESUS CHRIST 
 THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 The Understanding of Life. 
 
 The announcement of Jesus Christ substituted a con- 
 ception of the meaning of life for faith in an external God. 
 
 The Gospel is the announcement that the source of 
 all is not an external God, as men think, but the Spirit 
 of life. And therefore in the place of what men call 
 God, according to the Gospel, stands this Spirit. 
 
 Without it there is no life, all men are alive only- 
 through it, and those who do not understand this, but 
 suppose the flesh to be the foundation of life, deprive 
 themselves of the true life ; whereas those who under- 
 stand that they are alive not through the flesh, but 
 through the Spirit, have the true Hfe that has been 
 shown by Jesus Christ. 
 
 Having conceived that the true life of man originates 
 in the Spirit, he gave men the teaching and example of 
 that life in the body. 
 
 Previous religions represented a law, stating what 
 was, and what was not to be done for the worship of God. 
 
332 CHRIST'S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 But the teaching of Christ consists in the understanding 
 of life. No one has ever seen or can know an external 
 God, and therefore the worship of an external God 
 cannot direct life. 
 
 Only the acceptance of the source of all, an inward 
 consciousness of the knowledge which flows from that 
 source, points out the way to life. 
 
THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST'S TEACHING. 333 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE SON OF GOD. 
 
 Man, the Son of God, powerless in the flesJi, is free in the 
 spirit. {Our Father.) 
 
 Christ in his childhood called God his Father. 
 There was at that time in Judea a prophet called John, 
 who preached the coming of God upon the earth, if men 
 Avould change their lives, counting all men as equal, 
 would not offend but help each other ; that so his 
 kingdom might be established. Having heard this 
 preaching, Jesus retired from men into the wilderness in 
 order to contemplate the life of man, and his relation to 
 the eternal beginning of all, called God. He accepted 
 as his father the eternal source of all, which John had 
 preached. 
 
 Having stayed in the wilderness forty days without 
 food, he began to suffer from hunger, and thought to 
 himself, I am the Son of God the Almighty, and there- 
 fore I must be as He is ; but lo, I want to eat, and yet 
 bread does not appear at my desire, therefore I am not 
 almighty. Then he said to himself, Though I cannot 
 create bread out of stone, yet I can refrain from bread ; 
 and so, if not almighty in the flesh, I can become so in 
 
334 CHRIST'S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 the spirit, for I can conquer the flesh, and not in it, but 
 in the spirit be the Son of God. But he said again to 
 himself. If I am the son of a spirit, then I can renounce 
 the flesh, and destroy it. And to this he answered, I 
 am born through the spirit into the flesh ; such was the 
 will of my Father, and I may not oppose it. But 
 if thou canst not satisfy the desires of thy flesh, nor 
 renounce it, thou shouldest work for it, and enjoy all 
 the pleasures it can aflbrd thee. And to this he replied, 
 I can neither satisfy the desires of the flesh nor yet 
 renounce it, but my life is almighty in the spirit of my 
 Father, and therefore in the flesh I must serve, and work 
 only for the Spirit, the Father. 
 
 And having become persuaded that the life of man 
 is in the spirit of the Father, Jesus came out of the 
 wilderness, and began to preach unto men. He declared 
 that this spirit was in him, that thenceforth the heavens 
 were opened, and the powers of heaven had united with 
 man, for whom a life of eternity and freedom had com- 
 menced, and that all men, however cursed by the flesh, 
 might attain it. 
 
THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST'S TEACHING. 335 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 And therefore man must zvork, not for the Jiesh, but 
 according to the spirit. ( Which art in heaven^ 
 
 The Jews, considering themselves true believers, wor- 
 shipped an external God, the Creator and Lord of the 
 universe. 
 
 According to them, this God had entered into an 
 agreement with them, in which He promised to help 
 them, and they to worship Him ; one of the chief con- 
 ditions in the agreement being the keeping of the 
 Sabbath. Jesus said, The Sabbath is a human institution. 
 A man who lives in the spirit is above all external rites. 
 The keeping of the Sabbath, like all rites of outward 
 worship, includes a delusion. We cannot do nothing on 
 the Sabbath ; a good deed must be done at any time, 
 and if the Sabbath hinders the doing of a good action, 
 the Sabbath is evidently an error. 
 
 Another condition in this agreement with God was 
 the avoidance of the society of those of another faith. 
 Concerning this, Jesus said that God required not 
 sacrifice but mutual love. He also said, referring to the 
 rule of absolution and purification, that God requires 
 charity before external cleanliness ; all such ceremonies, 
 
ЗЗб CHRIST'S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 he said, were harmful, the very tradition of the Church 
 an evil, as it leads men to neglect the most important 
 deeds of love towards a father or mother, and to justify 
 themselves by tradition. 
 
 Concerning all that is eternal, the rules of the former 
 law, which defined cases of defilement, Jesus said. Know 
 all of you that nothing external can defile a man ; he is 
 defiled only by what he thinks and does. 
 
 After this he went to Jerusalem, the town that was 
 considered sacred, and entering the temple which the 
 orthodox believers of the time considered the abode of 
 God, said that man is more important than the temple, 
 and that it is only necessary to love and to help one's 
 neighbour. Jesus said also that there is no need to 
 worship God in any definite place, but that we must 
 worship the Father by deed, and in the spirit, which is 
 the consciousness in man of his sonship to the external 
 Spirit, which may neither be seen nor shown. 
 
 Temples are needless, for the true temple is the world 
 cemented together with love ; and external worship is 
 both false and hurtful when it encourages evil deeds, 
 like that of the Jews which enjoined murder and the 
 neglecting of parents, and because the man who is exact 
 in the accomplishment of rites becomes self-satisfied, and 
 neglects the doing of love. 
 
 Man is the Son of God by the Spirit, and therefore 
 he must worship the Father in the Spirit. 
 
THE SPIRH OF CHRIST'S TEACHING. 337 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 From the spirit of the Father hath proceeded the life of all 
 men. (^Hallowed be Thy name^ 
 
 The disciples of John asked Jesus, What was his king- 
 dom of God. He said, I and John preach the same 
 kingdom ; it is that all men, however poor, may be 
 blessed. John was the first who gave to the people the 
 kingdom of God, not in an external form, but in the 
 souls of men. 
 
 The orthodox believers went to hear him but under- 
 stood nothing, for such can only conceive what themselves 
 invent about God, and marvel that men refuse their 
 inventions. But John preached the kingdom of God 
 within men, and so out-went his predecessors, that from 
 his time the law, the prophets, and all external worship 
 became unnecessary, since it was disclosed that the 
 kingdom of God was in the hearts of men. 
 
 The beginning and end of all is in the soul. Every 
 man recognizes, besides his bodily conception, a free 
 spirit within himself, with a power of reasoning inde- 
 pendent of the body. This spirit, infinite and proceeding 
 from the infinite, is the beginning of all which we call 
 God, and we know Him only through our knowledge of 
 
 Z 
 
338 CHRIST'S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 Him in ourselves. This spirit is the source of our Hfe, 
 and must be put above all, for by it we live, and having 
 made it the foundation of our being, we receive eternal 
 life. 
 
 The Father who sent His spirit into men did not do 
 so to deceive them with the loss of it, but that they 
 might have it for ever. We cannot choose life and death. 
 
 Life in the spirit is death in the body ; in the spirit is 
 life and good, in the body darkness and evil. 
 
 Belief in the spirit is the doing of good, unbelief is 
 the doing of evil ; the one is life, the other death. God 
 the Creator, the founder of all, we cannot know ; but we 
 may believe that He has sown, in all alike, the spirit, 
 which on good ground grows, and on bad fails. 
 
 Only the spirit gives life to men, and it depends on 
 them whether they keep or lose it. Evil does not 
 exist for the spirit, for it is but the counterfeit of life. 
 Existence or non-existence : for every man, if he choose 
 it, the kingdom of heaven within him. All may enter or 
 refrain ; and he who possesses the life of the spirit has 
 eternal life. 
 
THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST'S TEACHING. 339 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE KINGDOM OF GOD. 
 
 A nd therefore the will of the Father is, that all men should 
 have life and happiness. ( Thy kingdom come.) 
 
 Jesus had pity on men because they knew not true 
 happiness, and he taught them. He said, Blessed are 
 those who have no goods, no fame, and no care for these 
 things, but wretched are they who seek wealth and 
 honours ; for the poor and the oppressed obey the will 
 of the Father, which the rich and the honoured seek only 
 from men in this life. In order to fulfil the will of the 
 Father, we must not fear to be poor and despised ; we 
 must be glad of it, and thus show men in what true 
 happiness consists. 
 
 In order to fulfil the will of the Father, which gives 
 life and happiness to all men, we must fulfil five com- 
 mandments. 
 
 The first commandment — 
 
 To offend no one, and by no act to excite evil in 
 others, for out of evil comes evil. 
 
 The second commandment — 
 
 To be in all things chaste, and not to quit the wife 
 whom луе have taken ; for the abandoning of wives and 
 
340 CHRIST'S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 the changing of them is the cause of all loose living in 
 the world. 
 
 The third commandment — 
 
 Never to take an oath, because we can promise 
 nothing, for man is altogether in the hands of the Father, 
 and oaths are imposed for wicked ends. 
 
 The fourth commandment — 
 
 Not to resist evil, to bear with offences, and to do yet 
 more than is demanded of us ; neither to judge, nor to 
 go to law, for every man is himself full of faults, and 
 cannot teach. By seeking revenge men only teach 
 others to do the same. 
 
 The fifth commandment — 
 
 To make no distinction between our own countrymen 
 and foreigners, for all men are the children of one Father. 
 
 These five commandments should be observed, not 
 to gain praise from man, but for our own sakes, for our 
 own happiness, and therefore neither prayer nor fasting 
 in the sight of man is necessary. The Father knows all 
 we need. So we have nothing to ask Him for, but only 
 to strive to do His will. The will of the Father is this, 
 that we should have no malice in our hearts to any one. 
 
 To fast is unnecessary, because men only fast to 
 obtain the praise of others, and the praise of man is what 
 we should avoid. We have only to care for one thing — 
 to live according to the will of the Father, and the rest 
 will all come of itself If we take care for the things of 
 the flesh, we cannot take care for the things which are of 
 the kingdom of Heaven. A man may live without care 
 for food or dress. The Father will give life. We only 
 need to take care that we are living at the present moment 
 
THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST'S TEACHING. 34 1 
 
 after the will of the Father. The Father gives even to 
 children what they need. We have only to desire the 
 strength of the spirit, which is given by the Father. 
 The five commandments show the way to the kingdom 
 of Heaven. This narrow path alone leads to eternal 
 hope. False teachers, wolves in sheep's clothing, always 
 try to drive men from this road. We must beware of 
 them. It is always easy to recognize these false teachers, 
 because they teach evil in the name of good. If they 
 teach violence and slaughter, they are false teachers. 
 By what they teach they may be known. 
 
 It is not he who calls upon the name of God, but he 
 who does good work, that fulfils the will of the Father. 
 Thus, whoever fulfils these five commandments will 
 have the absolute certainty of a true life which nothing 
 can deprive him of, but whoever does not fulfil them will 
 not have any certainty of life, but a life which he will 
 soon lose, so that nothing will remain to him. The 
 teaching of Jesus astonished and delighted all the people, 
 because it promised liberty to all. 
 
 The teaching of Jesus was the fulfilment of the 
 prophecies of Isaiah, that the chosen of God should 
 bring light unto men, should defeat evil, and should 
 establish truth, not by violence, but by mildness, 
 humility, and goodness. 
 
342 CHRIST'S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE TRUE LIFE. 
 
 The fulfilment of the zvill of the Father gives a true life. 
 {Thy ivill be do7te.) 
 
 The wisdom of life is to understand that we live but as 
 the sons of the Spirit, who is our Father. Men adopt 
 for their lives the aims of the flesh, and through attaining 
 those aims torment themselves and others. By accepting 
 the teaching of the spirit as to life, and by subduing and 
 quieting the flesh, men obtain the full satisfaction in the 
 life of the spirit, of the life which was appointed for 
 them. It happened once that Jesus asked a woman of 
 another faith to give him to drink. The woman refused, 
 under the pretext that she was of another faith. On this 
 Jesus said to her. If thou hadst understood that he is a 
 living man who asks thee for drink, in whom is the spirit 
 of the Father, thou wouldst not have refused, but have 
 sought by doing good to be united in the spirit to the 
 Father, and the spirit of the Father would have given 
 thee water, not such as that which makes men wish to 
 drink again, but water which gives eternal life. It is 
 needless to pray to God in any appointed place ; those 
 
THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST'S TEACHING. 343 
 
 only can serve Him in whom is His spirit, by deeds of 
 love. 
 
 And Jesus said to his disciples, The true food of man 
 is the fulfilment of the will of the Father. The fulfil- 
 ment of that will is always possible. Our whole life is a 
 gathering of the living fruits sown in us by the Father. 
 These fruits are the good which we do unto others. 
 
 We have no need to await anything ; our life must 
 be a ceaseless act of good to man. 
 
 After this Jesus happened to be in Jerusalem. There, 
 there was a bathing-place, and a man lying doing nothing, 
 a sick man waiting to be cured by a miracle. Jesus 
 Avent up to him and said, Wait not to be cured by a 
 miracle, but cure thyself as far as thou hast strength, and 
 mistake not the meaning of life. The sick man listened 
 to Jesus, arose, and went his way. 
 
 On seeing that, the Pharisees began to reproach 
 Jesus for what he had said, and for having cured the sick 
 on the Sabbath. Jesus said unto them : I have done 
 nothing new, I have done only what our common Father, 
 the Great Spirit, does. He lives and gives life to men, 
 and I have done the same. To do this is the vocation of 
 every man. Every man is free to live or not to live. 
 To live, means to fulfil the will of the Father, that is, to 
 do good to others ; not to live, means to fulfil our own 
 will, and to do no good to others. It is in the power 
 of every man to do the one or the other, to obtain life 
 or to destroy it. See what the true life of man is like ; 
 a master gave his slaves a part of a valuable property, 
 and ordered them to labour each with his own share. 
 Some did so, and others did not, but hid what had been 
 
344 CHRIST'S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 given them. The master came to call them to account ; 
 and to those who had done much he gave more than 
 they already had, and from those who had done little he 
 took everything away. 
 
 The share in the valuable property of the master is 
 the spirit of life in man, the son of the Father. He 
 who labours in life for the life of the spirit obtains 
 eternal life, which he Avho labours not, loses the life 
 Avhich was given him. 
 
 The true life is the common life of all, not the life of 
 one. All must labour for the life of others. 
 
 After this Jesus went into the desert, and many of 
 the people followed after him. In the evening the 
 disciples came and said, With what shall we feed all 
 these men ? Among the people there were some who 
 had nothing, and some who had taken with them bread 
 and fish. Then Jesus said to the disciples, Give all the 
 bread you have. He took the bread and gave it to his 
 disciples, and they gave it to others, and then others 
 began to do the same. And all ate what others gave, 
 and all were satisfied, but they had no need to eat all 
 they had. And Jesus said. So also you must do. P2very 
 one must not seek to provide himself with food, but must 
 give to others what he has, as the spirit in man tells him 
 to do. 
 
 The real food of man is the spirit of the Father. 
 Men live only through the spirit. 
 
 We are bound to serve all the functions of life, for to 
 live is not to do our own will, but the will of the Father 
 of life. The will of the Father is, that the life of the 
 spirit which is in every man should remain in him, and 
 
THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST'S TEACHING. 345 
 
 that all should preserve that life till the hour of death. 
 The Father is the spirit which is the source of all life. 
 Life is only the fulfilment of the will of the Father, and 
 therefore for the fulfilment of the will of the spirit it is 
 necessary to give up the things of the flesh. The flesh is 
 food for the life of the spirit, and only by consuming the 
 things of the flesh can the spirit live. 
 
 After this Jesus chose certain disciples and sent them 
 abroad to proclaim everywhere his teaching of the life of 
 the spirit. When he sent them he said, Go and preach 
 the life of the spirit, and therefore give up beforehand all 
 the pleasures of the flesh, have nothing of your own. 
 Make yourselves ready for persecution, privations, and 
 suffering. You will be hated by those who love the life 
 of the flesh, and they will torture and kill you, but be not 
 afraid. If you fulfil the will of the Father, you will have 
 the life of the spirit, and no man can take it from you. 
 
 The disciples set forth, and when they returned they 
 announced that everywhere they had prevailed over evil. 
 
 Then the Pharisees said to Jesus that his teaching, 
 even if it prevailed over evil, was an evil itself, inasmuch 
 as those who professed it had to endure suffering. To 
 this Jesus answered, Evil cannot prevail over evil, for 
 evil can only be overcome by good. Good is the Avill of 
 the Father-Spirit, of the spirit which is common to all 
 men. Every man knows that good exists for him. If 
 he does good to others, if he does what is the will of 
 the Father, he does well. Therefore the fulfilment of 
 the will of the Father- Spirit, is good, although it be 
 accompanied with suffering and death for those who 
 accomplish it. 
 
34б CHRIST'S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 A FALSE LIFE. 
 
 Л nd therefore, in order to attain to a true life, a man on 
 earth niiLSt abstain from the false life of the flesh, and 
 live in the spirit. {On earth as in heaven.) 
 
 For the life of the spirit there can be no difference 
 between relations and strangers. 
 
 Jesus said that his mother and his brothers were 
 nothing to him in their personal relationship, those only 
 were near to him who fulfilled the Avill of the common 
 Father. 
 
 The happiness and the life of man depend, not upon 
 his family ties, but on the life of the spirit. Jesus says, 
 Blessed are they who keep to the knowledge of the 
 Father. A man who lives by the spirit has no home. 
 Jesus said that no home had been appointed for him. 
 For the fulfilment of the will of the Father no appointed 
 place is needed, it is everywhere and always to be 
 found. 
 
 The death of the body cannot be terrible to a man 
 who has surrendered himself to the will of the Father, 
 for the life of the spirit does not depend on the death of 
 
THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST'S TEACHING. 347 
 
 the body. Jesus says that he who bcHevcs in the life of 
 the spirit cannot fear anything. 
 
 No cares can prevent a man Hving the hfe of the 
 spirit. To the man who said that he would perform the 
 will of the Father afterwards, but that he must first bury 
 his father, Jesus answered, Only the dead can trouble 
 about burying the dead ; the living live always by 
 fulfilling the will of the Father. 
 
 Care for family and domestic affairs cannot prevent 
 the life of the spirit. He who troubles himself about the 
 way in which his bodily life will be affected by his 
 fulfilling the will of the Father, is like the tiller who 
 while he ploughs looks behind him and not before. 
 
 The cares for the joys of the life of the flesh, which 
 seem so important to men, are really but a dream. The 
 only real business of life is the announcement of the will 
 of the Father, attention to it, and fulfilment of it. To 
 the reproach of Martha that she was left alone to look 
 after the supper, while her sister Mary, instead of helping 
 her, cared only to listen to his teaching, Jesus replied, In 
 vain dost thou reproach her ; trouble thyself with these 
 things if they are necessary for thee, but let alone those 
 who need not bodily pleasures ; let them do the one thing 
 needful in order to live. 
 
 Jesus said that he who wishes to obtain the true 
 life, which consists in the fulfilment of the will of the 
 Father, must before all things give up his own personal 
 desires. Such an one must not only refrain from fashion- 
 ing his life according to his own wishes, but be ready at 
 any hour to endure all kinds of privation and suffering. 
 
 He who wishes to fashion his bodily life after his own 
 
348 CHRISrS CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 will, will ruin the true life which fulfils the will of the 
 Father. 
 
 And there is no advantage in the accumulation of 
 necessity for the life of the body, if such should ruin the 
 life of the spirit. 
 
 The life of the spirit is destroyed by nothing so surely 
 as by the love of gain, the acquirement of wealth. Men 
 forget that, whatever riches and property they acquire, 
 they may die at any moment, and that property is not 
 needed for their life. Death hangs over each of us. 
 Illness, the murderous violence of men, accident, at any 
 moment may put an end to life. The death of the body 
 is the unavoidable condition of every instant of life. 
 While a man lives he should look upon each hour of his 
 life as a respite granted him by favour. We should 
 remember this, and not say that we do not know it. We 
 know and foresee all that happens on earth and in 
 heaven, but we forget the death which we know awaits 
 us every moment. If we did not forget this, we could 
 not give ourselves up to the life of the body, we could 
 not depend on it. 
 
 Christ went on to say. In order to follow my 
 teaching, you must weigh well the advantages of serving 
 the flesh and your own will against those of fulfilling 
 the will of the Father. He alone who has carefully 
 calculated this can become my pupil, but he who has 
 done so will not prefer a pretended good and a pre- 
 tended life, to a true good and a true life. The true life 
 is given to men, and men know it, and listen to its call, 
 but, ever led away by the cares of the moment, they lose 
 this life. 
 
THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST'S TEACHING. 349 
 
 The true life is like the feast given by a rich man, 
 to which he invited guests. He called to them, as the 
 voice of the Father-Spirit calls unto all. But some of 
 the guests were occupied with their trade, others with 
 their household affairs, others again with their family, 
 and these came not to the feast. The poor, however, 
 who had no earthly cares, went to the feast and were 
 happy. And thus men, led away by their care for the 
 life of the body, deprive themselves of the true life. 
 
 Whoever shall not utterly renounce all the cares and 
 advantages of the life of the body, cannot fulfil the will 
 of the Father, for it is not possible partly to serve our- 
 selves and partly the Father. We must calculate whether 
 it profit us to serve the flesh, whether we are able to 
 fashion our lives as we will. We must do as a man does 
 who would build a house, or who prepares for war. He 
 calculates beforehand, whether he will be able to finish 
 his house, whether he can hope for victory. If he see 
 that both are impossible, he will throw away in vain 
 neither his trouble nor his troops, to be ruined for 
 nothing and to become the laughing-stock of others. 
 Were it possible to regulate the life of the body accord- 
 ing to our own wishes, it might be worth while to serve 
 the flesh ; but as that is impossible, it is better to 
 renounce all that belongs to the flesh and serve only the 
 spirit. Otherwise, it is neither one thing nor the other. 
 Our bodily life we do not secure, and our spiritual life 
 we lose. Therefore, in order to fulfil the will of the 
 Father, we must utterly renounce all the works of the 
 flesh. 
 
 The life of the body is as the imaginary treasure of 
 
350 CHRIST'S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 another entrusted to us, that we may use it so as to 
 procure for ourselves true riches. If a steward serve a 
 rich man, and know that, however long he may serve his 
 master, the latter will call him to account and leave him 
 with nothing, he does wisely, while he still administers 
 his master's wealth, to do good to others. In that case, 
 if his master send him off, those to whom he has done 
 good will receive and keep him. Men should do the 
 same with the life of the body. The life of the body is 
 the treasure of another of which they dispose only for a 
 time. If they use that treasure well, they will obtain 
 true riches for themselves. 
 
 Unless we give up our pretended wealth, we shall 
 obtain no real wealth. We cannot serve both the false 
 life of the flesh and that of the spirit ; we must serve 
 the one or the other. We cannot strive for riches and 
 serve God. What is great in the sight of men is an 
 abomination unto God. Wealth to God is an evil 
 thing. The rich man is wrong in that he eats in 
 abundance and luxury, while the beggar hungers at his 
 gate. All should know that the retaining of property 
 for ourselves is a direct non-fulfilment of the will of the 
 Father. 
 
 There came once to Jesus a rich Pharisee, and he 
 began to boast that he had fulfilled all the command- 
 ments of the law. Jesus reminded him of the command- 
 ment to love all men as we love ourselves, saying that 
 this was the will of the Father. The Pharisee answered 
 that he had ever done this. Then Jesus said that it 
 was not true. If thou didst wish to fulfil the will of the 
 Father, thou wouldst have no property. It is impossible 
 
THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST'S TEACHING. 35 I 
 
 to fulfil the Avill of the Father, if thou hast goods which 
 thou givest not to others. 
 
 And Jesus said to his disciples, It seems to men 
 that without property they cannot live ; but I say unto 
 you, that the true life is in giving of your own unto 
 others. A certain man, by name Zaccheus, heard the 
 teaching of Jesus, believed it, and invited Jesus into his 
 house, saying, The half of my substance I give to the 
 poor, and I will repay fourfold those whom I have 
 offended. And Jesus said. Behold a man in the act of 
 fulfilling the will of the Father ; but there is no position 
 in which the will of the Father is wholly fulfilled ; our 
 Avhole life is but the attempt to fulfil it. 
 
 Good has no measure of comparative value ; we can- 
 not say who has done more, who less. The widow who 
 gives her last mite gives more than the rich man who 
 gives his thousands. Neither can we measure good by 
 utility. 
 
 Let us take as our example of the way to do good 
 the woman who took pity on Jesus, and heedlessly 
 anointed his feet with the most valuable oil. Judas 
 said that she had acted foolishly, that she had expended 
 Avhat might have fed many. But Judas was a thief and 
 a liar, who spoke of the good things of the flesh, and 
 never thought of the poor. It is not worldly advantage, 
 nor the amount of it, that is wanted, but that we should 
 at every instant of our lives love others and give up to 
 them what is our own. 
 
352 CHRIST'S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 I AND THE FATHER ARE ONE. 
 
 The true food of life is the fulfilment of the ivill of the 
 Father^ and union witJi Him. {Give us this day our 
 daily bread?) 
 
 In answer to the demand of the Jews for proof of the 
 truth of his teaching, Jesus said that the proof was this, 
 that he taught not of himself, but of the common 
 Father of all. 
 
 I teach what is good in the sight of the Father of 
 all men, and therefore what is good for all men. Do 
 what I say, fulfil my five commandments, and you will 
 see that Avhat I say is right. The fulfilment of these 
 five commandments delivers the world from evil, and 
 the commandments are true. It is clear that he who 
 teaches, not what is his own personal will, but the will 
 of Him who sent him, teaches truth. The law of Moses 
 teaches the fufilmcnt of the will of man, and therefore 
 it is full of contradictions ; my teaching prescribes the 
 fulfilment of the will of the Father, and therefore it 
 leads in all things to one end. 
 
 The Jews did not understand him, and sought for 
 external evidence that he was the Christ spoken of by 
 
THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST'S TEACHING. 353 
 
 the prophets. To this he answered, Seek not to know 
 who I am, nor whether your prophets wrote of mc or 
 not, but take to heart my teaching and what I say to 
 you of our common Father. Myself, as a man, you need 
 not beheve in, but beheve in what I tell you in the name 
 of the common Father of all men. 
 
 No external proof of whence I came is wanted, but 
 that you should follow my teaching. He who follows 
 that shall obtain a true life. There can be no proof of 
 the truth of my teaching. It is light, and, as light 
 cannot be made light, so the truth of what is true cannot 
 be proved. My teaching is light, and whoever sees it 
 has light and life, and for him all proof is needless. But 
 whoever is in darkness must come to the light. 
 
 But the Jews again asked him who he was after 
 the flesh. He said to them, I am what I told you from 
 the first, a man, and the son of the Father of life. Only 
 he who understands that he is himself a son of this 
 Father (which truth I teach), and who fulfils His will, 
 ceases to be a slave, and becomes free ; for it is only the 
 error which makes us take the life of the body for the 
 real life, that prevents our being free. Only he who 
 understands the truth, that life consists only in the fulfil- 
 ment of the will of his Father, is free and immortal. 
 
 As the slave does not stay in the master's house for 
 ever, whereas the son does always, so the man who lives 
 as a slave to the flesh does not live a life which lasts for 
 ever, but the man who fulfils in the spirit the will of the 
 Father has life eternal. In order to understand me }'ou 
 must understand that my Father is not your Father — is 
 not the one whom you call God. Your father is the 
 
 2 Л 
 
ЗЬ4 CHRIST'S CHRISTIAA4TY. 
 
 god of the flesh, and my Father is the Spirit of life. 
 Your father is the god of vengeance, the slayer of men, 
 he who punishes men, and my Father gives life. We 
 are, therefore, the children of different fathers. I seek 
 the truth, and you desire to slay me in order to please 
 your god. Your god is a devil, the cause pf evil, and 
 if you serve him you serve the devil. My teaching is 
 that we are the sons of the Father of life, and he who 
 believes in my teaching will not see death. The Jews 
 said. How can it be that a man shall not die, when all, 
 even those most pleasing to God, even Abraham himself, 
 died ? How canst thou say that thou thyself, and those 
 who believe in thy teaching, shall not die ? 
 
 To this Jesus answered that he taught nothing of 
 himself. I speak of that first cause of life which you 
 call God, and which is in men. This cause I know, and 
 cannot help knowing ; I know its will and fulfil that 
 will, and of that first cause of life I say, that it has been, 
 is, and will be, and that for it there is no death. 
 
 To require a proof of the truth of my teaching, is as 
 if proof were required of a blind man, why and how he 
 saw light. 
 
 A blind man cured of his blindness, and remaining 
 the same man that he was before, could only say that he 
 had been blind and that now he saw. In the same way, 
 the man who once did not, but now docs, understand the 
 meaning of his life, can say no more. 
 
 Such a man can only say that formerly he did not 
 know true happiness in life, and that now he does. 
 Like the blind man cured of his blindness, if told that 
 he has been cured by wrong treatment, that the man 
 
THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST'S TEACHING. 355 
 
 who cured him is a sinner, that he ought to have been 
 cured differently, he can only reply that he knows 
 nothing- about right or wrong treatment, about the sin- 
 fulness of the man who cured him, or of any other better 
 means of cure ; he knows only that he was blind, and that 
 now he can see. 
 
 It is thus with the man who has attained to an 
 understanding of the meaning of life, of true happiness, 
 and the fulfilment of the will of the Father ; he cannot 
 say whether this teaching is right or not, whether the 
 teacher is a sinner or not, who discovered this teaching, 
 or whether a better happiness can or cannot be known. 
 He says that formerly he saw no meaning in life, and 
 now he does see a meaning : he knows no more. 
 
 And Jesus said, My teaching is the awakening of a 
 life that was asleep. Ые who believes in my teaching 
 wakes to eternal life, and is alive after death. 
 
 My teaching is not to be proved, but men follow it 
 because it alone promises life to them. 
 
 As sheep follow the shepherd who gives them food 
 and life, so men accept my teaching because it gives life 
 to all. As sheep do not follow the thief who climbs into 
 the fold, but flee from him, so men cannot believe in a 
 teaching founded on violence and slaughter. My teach- 
 ing is a door for the sheep, and all those who follow 
 me find a true life. The good shepherd is himself the 
 master, and loves his sheep, and gives his life for them ; 
 the bad shepherd is the hired one, who loves not his 
 sheep. The same with teachers : he only is a true one 
 who docs not pity himself, and he is a bad one who 
 makes self his first object. My teaching is, that we take 
 
35б CHRIST'S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 no care for ourselves, but be ready to give up our bodily 
 life for the life of the spirit ; this is what I teach and 
 what I fulfil. 
 
 The Jews still did not understand him, and still 
 sought for proof whether he were Christ or not, and 
 consequently whether they should believe him or not. 
 They said, Do not perplex us, but say at once, art thou 
 Christ or no } Jesus answered that they should believe 
 not words but deeds. By the works which I teach, you 
 will understand whether I teach the truth or not. Do 
 what I do, and cease to weigh words. Fulfil the will of 
 the Father, then indeed you all will be united with me 
 and with the Father, for I, the Son of Man, am what the 
 Father is. I am that which you call God, and which I 
 call the Father. I and the Father are one. In your 
 scriptures it is written that God said to men, Ye are 
 gods. Every man by the spirit is the son of the 
 Father, and if he lives to fulfil the will of the Father, he 
 is one with the Father. If I fulfil the will of the Father, 
 the Father is in me and I am in the Father. 
 
 After this Jesus asked his disciples how they under- 
 stood his teaching about the Son of Man. Simon Peter 
 answered, Thy teaching is that thou art the Son of the 
 God of life, that God is the life of the spirit in man. 
 And Jesus said to him, Blessed art thou Simon in having 
 understood this, for man indeed could not have revealed 
 this unto thee, but thou hast understood this by the 
 revelation of God within thee. 
 
 The true life of men is founded on this knowledge, 
 and such life knows no death. 
 
THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST'S TEACHING. 357 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 LIFE NOT Ш TIME. 
 
 Therefore a man really lives, zvJien he thinks oiily of 
 
 ' fulfilling the zvill of the Father in the present, and 
 
 leaves all thought of the past and of the future. 
 
 {Give us йоги our daily bread, and forgive 71 s our 
 
 trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us.) 
 
 To the doubts of his disciples, as to what would be 
 their reward for renouncing the life of the flesh, Jesus 
 answered. There can be no reward for the man who 
 understands the meaning of my teaching: firstly, because 
 a man who renounces his relations and those dear to 
 him, and his property, in the name of My teaching, gains 
 a hundredfold more friends and property ; secondly, 
 because a man who seeks a reward, seeks to have more 
 than others, and that is the thing most contrary to the 
 fulfilment of the will of the Father. In the kingdom 
 of Heaven there are neither greater nor less ; all are 
 equal. 
 
 Those who seek a reward for doing good are like 
 workmen, who demand a higher payment than what 
 they have agreed for with the master, on the plea that 
 on their own judgment they are worthier than others. 
 
3S8 CHRIST'S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 Reward and punishment, abasement and exaltation, do 
 not exist for him who understands my teaching. 
 
 No one can be greater or of more importance than 
 another according to the teaching of Christ. 
 
 Every one may fulfil the will of the Father, but by 
 doing so no one becomes superior to, or better than, 
 another. Only kings and those that serve them think 
 themselves so. According to my teaching, says Jesus, 
 there can be no superiors, because he who wishes to be 
 better than others must be their servant, because my 
 teaching is, that life is given a man not for profit of 
 being served, but for devotion of service altogether for 
 the sake of others, and that he who does not follow this 
 teaching, but exalts himself, shall but become lower. 
 
 In order not to think of reward and exaltation of 
 self, we must understand what is the real meaning of 
 life. It lies in the fulfilment of the will of the Father, 
 that what He has given should be returned to Him. As 
 the shepherd leaves the whole flock to search for one 
 lost sheep, as a woman turns over everything to find a 
 lost coin, so the Father shows Himself to us as the One 
 who draws back to Himself what has once been His. 
 
 We must understand what makes life real. True life 
 appears in this, that what is lost returns to the owner, 
 that that which sleeps is awakened. Men who possess a 
 true life, and who have returned to the cause from which 
 they sprang, cannot, like other men, stay to consider who 
 is better and who Avorse, but, being sharers in the life of 
 the Father, can only rejoice over the lost one who returns 
 to the Father. If a son, who has lost his way and 
 wandered from the Father, repent and return to Him, 
 
THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST'S TEACHING. 359 
 
 surely the other sons of the Father cannot envy his joy, 
 and can only be glad of the return of a brother. 
 
 In order to believe in this teaching, to change our 
 lives and fulfil it, no external proofs, no rewards, are 
 needed ; we require a clear understanding of what true 
 life is. If men think that they are the masters of their 
 own lives, that their lives were given them to be spent in 
 the pleasures of the flesh, naturally every act of self- 
 sacrifice for others will appear to them worthy of reward, 
 and unrecompensed they will give up nothing. If the 
 labourers in a garden, who work there on condition of 
 giving the fruits to the master, having forgotten that 
 agreement are required to pay according to it, they will, 
 when the chance occurs, kill him who makes the demand. 
 Those who consider themselves to be masters of their 
 own lives, think like the labourers, and do not under- 
 stand that life is a gift of the Spirit, which requires the 
 fulfilment of its will. In order to believe and act, we 
 must understand that man can do nothing of himself, 
 that if he renounces the life of the flesh for the sake of 
 doing good, he does nothing for which he can claim 
 thanks and reward. We must understand that a man, 
 when he does good, does only what he is bound to do, 
 what he cannot but do. It is only by thus understand- 
 ing his life' that a" man can so believe as really to be 
 capable of doing good works. 
 
 It is this understanding of life which makes the 
 kingdom of Heaven, which is invisible, and not such as 
 can be shown anywhere. The kingdom of Heaven is in 
 the understanding of men. The world lives as it has 
 always done. Men eat, drink, give in marriage, trade 
 
ЗбО CHRIST'S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 and die, and all the while apart from these things there 
 lives in men's thoughts this kingdom. The kingdom of 
 Heaven is the understanding of life, like a tree in spring 
 growing of itself 
 
 The true life through the fulfilment of the will of the 
 Father is not the life which is past, is not that which is 
 to come, but the life of the present moment, what each 
 of us must do now. It follows, therefore, that we must 
 never cease in our efforts to carry out this life. Men 
 are appointed to care not for the life of the past or for 
 that of the future, but for the actual life at any moment, 
 and during that life to fulfil the will of the Father of all 
 men. If they lose their hold of this life, through not 
 fulfilling the will of the Father, they can not again 
 recover it : the watchman appointed to watch through 
 the night does not perform his duty if he fall asleep but 
 for a moment, for in that moment the thief may come. 
 Man, therefore, must apply all his energies to the present 
 hour, for the fulfilment of the Father's will can be 
 achieved only in the present. The will of the Father is 
 the life and the happiness of all men. Therefore the 
 fulfilment of His will is the good of all men. Only 
 those live who do good. Good to men (at the present 
 moment) is life, and unites us to the common Father. 
 
7 HE SPIRIT OF CHRIST'S TEACHING. 36 1 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 TEMPTATIONS. 
 
 TJie delusions of the individual and temporal life hide 
 from men the true life, ivhieh alone is real in uirion 
 zuith the Father. {Lead us not into temptation.) 
 
 Man is born with a knowledge of the true Hfe through 
 the fulfilment of the will of the Father. Children live 
 this life, and in them is seen the will of the Father. In 
 order to understand the teaching of Jesus, we must 
 understand the life of children, and be what they are. 
 
 Children always live according to the will of the 
 Father, and never break the five commandments. They 
 would never break them, were they not led into tempta- 
 tion by their elders. Men corrupt children by leading 
 them into temptation, and by teaching them to break 
 the commandments. When they so do, they behave 
 like one who, tying a millstone around another's neck, 
 casts him into a river. Were there no corruption, the 
 world would have happiness. The world is unhappy 
 only through corruption. Corruption is an evil which 
 men commit for the pretended good of their temporal 
 life. Corruption ruins men, therefore we must sacrifice 
 everything in order not to succumb to it. The tempta- 
 
Зб2 CHRIST'S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 tion to sin against the first commandment is, that men 
 account themselves upright in the sight of their fellows, 
 and others as indebted to them. In order not to fall 
 into this temptation men should remember the infinite 
 debt which all men owe to the Father, and that they 
 can only acquit themselves of this debt by showing 
 forgiveness to their brethren. 
 
 Therefore men must forgive offences against them- 
 selves, and not be moved to anger even though the 
 offender trespass again and again. However many times 
 a man is wronged, he must forgive and bear no malice, 
 for the kingdom of Heaven is only possible where there is 
 forgiveness. If we do not forgive, we do the same as the 
 debtor did. A debtor, who owed much, came to the 
 master, and asked to be forgiven his debts. The master 
 forgave him all. The debtor went forth and tormented 
 another man whose debt to him was small. That we 
 may have life, we must fulfil the will of the Father ; we 
 ask forgiveness from the Father of life for that in which 
 we fail to fulfil His will, and we hope to obtain that 
 forgiveness. What do we, then, when we ourselves do 
 not forgive ? We avoid to do for others that which we 
 crave for ourselves. 
 
 The will of the Father is happiness, and evil is that 
 which separates us from the Father. How should we 
 not, then, try to put an end to evil as quickly as possible, 
 for evil ruins us and deprives us of life? Evil plunges 
 us into bodily ruin. As much as we undo this evil, so 
 much do we acquire of life. If evil does not divide us, 
 and we are united in love, we have all that we can wish 
 to have. 
 
THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST'S TEACHING. 363 
 
 The temptation to sin against the second command- 
 ment is, that we believe ourselves to have been created 
 for the pleasures of the flesh, and that, by leaving- one 
 Avife and taking another, we add to those pleasures. In 
 order not to fall into this temptation, we must remember 
 that the will of the Father is not that a man should find 
 comfort in the beauty of a woman, but that, having 
 chosen a wife, he should form with her one flesh. The will 
 of the Father is, that every man should have a wife, and 
 that every woman should have a husband. If each man 
 have but one wife, all men will have wives, and all wives 
 husbands. Therefore whoever changes his wife, deprives 
 a wife of a husband, and gives occasion to another 
 husband to leave his own wife and take the forsaken 
 one. It is allowable to have no wife, but not to have 
 more than one, for that is contrary to the will of the 
 Father, which consists in the union of one husband and 
 one wife. 
 
 The temptation to sin against the third commandment 
 is, that men, for the happiness of temporal life, have 
 instituted authorities and governments, and require oaths 
 to be taken to fulfil the obligations imposed by them. In 
 order not to fall into this temptation, we must remember 
 that we are bound to answer for our lives to no one but 
 to God. Men should look on these demands of the civil 
 authorities as being acts of violence, and, according to 
 the commandment, not to resist evil, they should give 
 up and fulfil what is required of them, give their property 
 and their labour, but they cannot give promises and 
 oaths which bind their actions. Oaths which arc imposed 
 on men make men evil. A man who believes his life to 
 
364 CHRIST'S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 depend on the will of the Father, cannot promise what 
 his actions shall be, because for such a man nothing is 
 more sacred than his own life. 
 
 The temptation to sin against the fourth command- 
 ment is, that men, when they give way to envy and 
 revenge, think by such means to set others right. If a 
 man offend another, these men think it necessary to 
 punish him, and that it is right to try to condemn him. 
 
 In order not to fall into this temptation, we must 
 remember that men are told not to judge but to save 
 one another, and that they, themselves committing in- 
 justice, cannot judge of what is unjust in others. Men 
 can do but one thing — teach others by giving an example 
 of purity, forgiveness, and love. 
 
 The temptation to sin against the fifth commandment 
 is, that men think there is a difference between their 
 fellow-countrymen and foreigners, and that consequently 
 it is necessary to defend themselves against other nations 
 and to injure them. In order not to fall into this 
 temptation, we must know that all the commandments 
 are expressed in one, the fulfilment of the will of the 
 Father, who gives life and happiness to all men alike, 
 and we must do the same good to all men. If other 
 men make a difference, and nations, because they account 
 each other foreigners, make war on each other, each of 
 us notwithstanding should fulfil the will of the Father, 
 and do good to every man, even though he belong to 
 another nationality and make war on our own. 
 
 In order not to fall into any of the errors by which 
 man is beset, we must keep our minds fixed on spiritual 
 things, and not on those which concern the body. If a 
 
THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST'S TEACHING. 365 
 
 man once understand that only in the will of the Father 
 he has the life which he at the moment lives, no privation, 
 no suffering, nor even death itself can terrify him. Only 
 he really lives \v\\o is ready at any moment to give his 
 bodily life for the fulfilment of the will of the Father. 
 
 In order that all men might understand that there is 
 no death for those who truly live, Jesus said, The life 
 eternal must not be understood as being like the present 
 life. Time and place are not in the true life which is in 
 the will of the Father. 
 
 Those who have awakened to the true life live in the 
 will of the Father, and the will of the Father knows 
 neither time nor place. They are alive for the Father. 
 If they have died for us, they are alive for God. This is 
 why one commandment includes all ; love with all your 
 strength the origin of life, and, as a consequence, every 
 man who bears within himself that origin. 
 
 And Jesus said, That origin of life is the Christ whom 
 you expect. The understanding of this origin of life, 
 for whom there are no persons, no time, and no place, is 
 the very Son of Man of whom I have taught you. 
 Whatever hides from men this origin of life is seduction. 
 There is the seduction of Scribes and Pharisees, give 
 not way to it ; there is the seduction of power, give 
 not way to it ; and there is again the most dangerous 
 seduction, that of the teachers of religion who call them- 
 selves orthodox. Beware of this above all others, because 
 these self-styled teachers have invented a false system 
 of worship, and would allure you from the true God. 
 
 Instead of serving the Father of life by works, they 
 have put words in their place, they teach words and 
 
Збб CIIJ?/ST'S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 themselves do nothing, therefore you can learn nothing 
 but words from them. The Father needs not words but 
 deeds. They have nothing to teach, because they know 
 nothing, but for personal advantage they call themselves 
 teachers. But you know that no one can be a teacher 
 of others. There is but one teacher for all, the Lord 
 of Life, the Spirit. These self-styled teachers, thinking 
 to teach others, deprive themselves of the true life and 
 prevent others from knowing it. They teach men to 
 please their God by external rites, and believe that 
 oaths can bring men to faith. They care only for 
 outward things. If there be but the appearance of faith, 
 they care not for what is in the hearts of men. They 
 are like pompous sepulchres, outside beautiful, and 
 within an abomination. They honour the saints and 
 martyrs with words, but they are the same who formerly 
 put them to death, and now they would kill and torment 
 the saints. From them come all the temptations of the 
 world, for they offer evil in the name of good. Their 
 temptation is the root of all temptation, for they have 
 reviled all that is sacred on earth. They will remain 
 long unconverted, they will continue to practise their 
 deceptions, and to increase the sum of evil in the world ; 
 but the time will come when all their temples will be 
 thrown down, all their outward worship abolished, and 
 then men will understand and be united through love in 
 the service of the one Father of life, and in the fulfilment 
 of His will. 
 
THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST'S TEACHING. 367 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE STRUGGLE AGAINST TEMPTATION. 
 
 Therefore to get rid of evil, we must every hour of our 
 life be in wiity with the Father. {Lead lis not into 
 temptation.) 
 
 The Jews saw that the teaching of Jesus destroyed their 
 state religion and nationality, and saw at the same time 
 that they could not refute his teaching, so they resolved 
 to kill him. The innocence of Jesus and the justice of 
 his cause stayed them for a time, but the High Priest 
 Caiaphas bethought him of a means of having Jesus put 
 to death, notwithstanding his innocence. Caiaphas 
 said, They had no need to inquire whether this man was 
 innocent or not, for the question was whether they 
 wished the Jewish nation to remain one and indivisible, 
 or that it should perish and be lost among others. Our 
 nation will perish and be lost, if we let this man alone 
 and do not kill him. This argument was decisive, and 
 the Pharisees condemned Jesus to death, and called 
 upon the people to seize him as soon as he appeared in 
 Jerusalem. 
 
 Jesus, though he knew of this, came at the feast of 
 Easter to Jerusalem. His disciples would have per- 
 
Зб8 CHRIST'S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 suaded him not to go there, but Jesus said, Whatever 
 the Pharisees may wish to do unto me, whatever others 
 may do, nothing can change what is for me the truth. 
 If I see the Hght, I know where I am, and whither I go. 
 Only he who knows not truth can fear anything or doubt 
 of anything. He alone stumbles who does not see. 
 
 So he went to Jerusalem. On the way he stopped 
 at Bethany. There Mary poured upon him a vessel 
 of costly ointment. Jesus, knowing that bodily death 
 awaited him, said to his disciples, who reproached 
 Mary for having anointed him with ointment so costly 
 as spikenard, that it was a preparation of his body for 
 death. 
 
 When Jesus left Bethany and went to Jerusalem a 
 ereat multitude met him and followed him, and this 
 the more persuaded the Pharisees of the necessity of 
 putting him to death. They only waited for an oppor- 
 tunity of seizing him. He knew that the slightest im- 
 prudent word of his against the law would be the pretext 
 for his punishment, but notwithstanding he entered the 
 temple and again proclaimed that the worship of the 
 Jews, with their sacrifices and oblations, had hitherto 
 been false, and preached his own doctrines. But his 
 teaching, founded on the prophets, was such that the 
 Pharisees were unable to find an offence against the law, 
 for which he might be condemned to death, all the more 
 that the greater part of the people were in his favour. 
 
 Now at the feast there were certain heathen, and 
 they, hearing of the teaching of Jesus, wished to speak 
 with him about it. The disciples, when they heard of 
 this, were frightened. They were afraid that Jesus, in 
 
THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST'S TEACHING. 369 
 
 his conversation with the heathen, would betray himself, 
 and anger the people. At first they wished to prevent 
 Jesus meeting them, but afterwards decided to tell 
 him who wished to speak with him. On hearing this 
 Jesus was disturbed. He understood that, if he 
 preached to gentiles, he would clearly show that he 
 had cast off the whole of the Jewish law, would set 
 the common people against himself, and give occasion 
 to the Pharisees for accusing him of associating with 
 the hated gentiles. Jesus was disturbed, knowing this, 
 but he knew also that his vocation was to explain to 
 men, the sons of one Father, their unity without distinc- 
 tion of faith. He knew that this step \vould ruin him 
 in his bodily life, but that his thus perishing would give 
 men a true understanding of life, and therefore he said 
 As the grain of wheat must perish for the fruit to grow, 
 so a man must lose his life in the body to bring forth the 
 fruit of the spirit. He who keeps the life of the body, 
 loses the true life ; and he who loses the life of the body, 
 . receives the true life. I am troubled by what awaits me, 
 but truly up to this time I have lived only for that, only 
 in order to live till this hour ; how can I not do what I 
 have to do ? Therefore at this hour let the will of the 
 Father be shown in me. 
 
 Then, turning to the people, to the heathen and the 
 Jews, Jesus spoke out clearly what he had said only in 
 private to Nicodemus. He said, The life of mankind 
 with its various faiths and various governments, must 
 cease. All human authorities must come to an end. It 
 is only necessary to understand man's position as a son 
 of the Father of life, and this understanding will destroy 
 
 2 В 
 
3/0 CHRIST'S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 all divisions and authorities made among men, and will 
 unite all men in one whole. 
 
 The Jews said, Thou destroyest all our religion. 
 According to our law, there is a Christ, and thou sayest 
 there is only a Son of Man, and that he must be exalted. 
 What does this mean ? He answered them, To exalt the 
 Son of Man means to live by the light of the under- 
 standing which is in men, in order to live, while there is 
 light, according to it. I 'teach no new faith, but only 
 what every man knows in himself Every man knows 
 that he has life in him, and every man knows that life is 
 given to him and to all men by the Father of life. My 
 teaching is only that you should love the life given by 
 the Father to all men. 
 
 Many of those" not in authority believed Jesus ; but 
 the great men and the rulers did not believe, because 
 they would not judge of his speech by the meaning 
 which it had for eternity ; they considered his doctrines 
 only by their relation to him. They saw that he 
 turned the people away from them and wished to kill 
 him, but were afraid to take him openly, so they desired 
 to take him, not in Jerusalem and in the light of day, 
 but somewhere secretly. 
 
 Then there came to them one of the twelve disciples, 
 called Judas Iscariot, and they gave him money that 
 he should betray Jesus into the hands of the servants 
 when he was not with the people. Judas promised 
 them and again joined Jesus, awaiting the time to 
 betray him. On the first day of the feast, Jesus and 
 the disciples celebrated the passover, and Judas, thinking 
 that Jesus did not know of his treachery, was among 
 
THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST'S TEACHING. 3/1 
 
 them. But Jesus knew that Judas had sold him for a 
 price, and, when they were all seated at table, Jesus took 
 the bread, broke it into twelve parts, and gave a piece 
 to each of the disciples, to Judas among the rest, and 
 Avithout naming any one, said. Take, eat my body. 
 
 Then he took the cup with wine, and gave it to them, 
 that all might drink, and Judas with them, saying, One 
 of you will shed my blood ; drink my blood. 
 
 Then Jesus arose and began to wash the feet of all 
 the disciples and of Judas, and when he had finished, 
 he said, I know that one of you will betray me unto 
 death,'and will shed my blood, but I have given him to 
 eat and to drink, and have washed his feet. I have 
 done this to teach you how you should behave to those 
 who do you evil. If you act thus, you shall be blessed. 
 The disciples still continued to ask which of them should 
 be his betrayer. Jesus, however, would not name him, 
 lest they should punish him. When it grew dark Jesus 
 pointed to Judas, and told him to go out. Judas rose 
 from the table, went out, and no one stopped him. 
 
 Then Jesus said, This is what it is to elevate the 
 Son of Man. To do so means to be loving like the 
 Father, not to those alone who love us, but to all, even 
 to those who do ill to us. Therefore, do not argue about 
 my teaching, do not reason about it as the Pharisees 
 do ; but do what I have always done, what I have now 
 done before you. I give you one commandment — -love 
 all men. My whole teaching lies in this, that ye love 
 men always and to the end. After this, fear fell on the 
 soul of Jesus, and with his disciples in the night he 
 went into a garden to hide himself. On the way he 
 
372 CHRIST'S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 said to them, You are none of you strong, but all timid ; 
 when I am taken you will all flee from me. Then Peter 
 said, No, I will not leave thee, I will defend thee even 
 unto death. And all the disciples said the same. Then 
 Jesus said to them, If it be so, prepare for defence ; collect 
 your stores, for you will have to hide ; take arms in order 
 to defend yourselves. The disciples said that they had 
 two swords. When Jesus heard them speak of swords, 
 he was grieved in his heart, and going to a solitary place 
 he began to pray, telling his disciples to do the same, 
 but they did not understand him. Jesus said. Father, 
 put an end to the struggle of temptation within 
 me. Strengthen me to the fulfilment of Thy will ; I 
 desire not my own will, the defence of the life of my 
 body ; I desire Thy will, in order not to resist evil. The 
 disciples still understood not. He said to them, Think 
 not of the flesh, but strive to raise yourselves in the 
 spirit ; the spirit is strong, but the flesh is weak. And 
 again he said. Father, if this suffering be inevitable, let 
 me bear it ; but in all my suffering I desire only that 
 Thy will, and not mine, be done. The disciples did not 
 understand. Then again Jesus struggled with his 
 temptation, and at length conquered it, and coming to 
 the disciples said, Now all is decided, you may be at 
 peace ; I will not contend, but will give myself into the 
 hands of the men of this world. 
 
THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST'S TEACHING. l"] \ 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THE FAREWELL DISCOURSE. 
 
 Personal life is a deception of the JlesJi, an evil. True life 
 is the life which is common to all men. {Bnt deliver 
 ns from the evil one.) 
 
 Jesus, feeling himself ready for death, went forth to give 
 himself up. Peter stopped him, and asked him whither 
 he was going. Jesus answered, I am going whither 
 thou canst not come. I am ready for death, and thou 
 art not yet ready. Peter said, Not so ; I am now i-eady 
 to lay down my life for thee. Jesus answered that a 
 man can promise nothing. He said to his disciples, I 
 know that death awaits me, but I believe in the life of 
 the Father, and therefore do not fear death. Be not 
 troubled by my death, but believe in the true God and 
 in the Father of life, and then my death will not seem 
 terrible to you. If I am united with the Father of life, I 
 cannot lose life. It is true that I do not tell you the 
 how and the where of life after death, but I show you 
 the way into true life. My teaching does not speak of 
 what life will do, but points out the only true way to life, 
 by union with the Father. The Father is the beginning 
 of life. My teaching is that life is in the will of the 
 
374 CHRIST'S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 Father, and that the fulfihnent of His will gives life and 
 happiness to all men. Your guide, when I am no longer 
 with you, will be your knowledge of the truth. While 
 you fulfil my teaching, you will always feel that you are 
 in the truth, that the Father is in you, and you are in 
 the Father. And you, knowing the Father within you, 
 will feel that peace which nothing can take from you. 
 Therefore, if you know the truth and live in it, neithc 
 my death nor your own can alarm you. 
 
 Men imagine that each has a separate existence in 
 his own individual will ; but this is a deception. The 
 only true life is that which acknowledges the source of 
 life in the will of the Father. My teaching unfolds this 
 unity of life, and represents life, not as consisting of 
 separate branches, but as the one tree from which all 
 branches grow. Only he who lives in the will of the 
 Father, like the branch on a tree, really lives, and he who 
 lives by his own will, perishes like the branch which 
 drops off. The Father gave my life for the triumph of 
 good, and I have taught you to live for this victory. If 
 you fulfil my commandments, you will be blessed. The 
 commandment in which my whole teaching is expressed 
 is this only, that all men should love one another. Love 
 consists in the laying down of our bodily life for others. 
 There is no other explanation of love. When you fulfil 
 my commandment of love, you will not be as slaves that 
 Avithout understanding obey their master's orders, but as 
 free men, free as I myself am, for I have explained to 
 you the meaning of life which follows on the knowledge 
 of the Father of life. You have accepted my teaching, 
 not because you have chosen it by chance, but because 
 
THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST'S TEACHING. 375 
 
 it is the only true teaching, and alone can make men 
 free. 
 
 The teaching of the world is to do evil to men, my 
 teaching is to love one another, and therefore the world 
 has hated you as it has hated me. The world does not 
 understand my teaching, and therefore it will persecute 
 you, and do you evil in the belief that by doing so it is 
 serving God. Be not, then, astonished at this, and 
 understand that this must be so. The world, not under- 
 standing the true God, must persecute you, and you 
 must uphold the truth. 
 
 Do not sorrow because they kill me, for they will do 
 so because I uphold the truth. Therefore, my death is 
 needed that truth may be upheld. My death, in which 
 I do not renounce the truth, shall strengthen you, and 
 you will understand what is false and what is true, and 
 Avhat follows from the knowledge of falsehood and of 
 truth. You will understand that the error lies in this, 
 that men believe in the life of the body and do not 
 believe in the life of the spirit, that the truth lies in 
 union with the Father, and that from this follows the 
 victory of the spirit over the flesh. 
 
 When my life in the body has ceased, my spirit will 
 be with you. But you, like all other men, will not 
 always feel in you the strength of the spirit. You will 
 sometimes grow weak and lose its strength ; you will 
 fall into temptation, and again at times awaken to the 
 true life. You will be often subject to the enslaving 
 enticements of the flesh, but that will be only for a time ; 
 you will have to suffer and to be born again in the spirit ; 
 as a woman suffers in the pains of childbirth, and then 
 
З/б CHRIST'S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 feels the joy of havin.q^ brought a man into the world, so 
 will you feel Avhen, after the enslavements of the flesh, 
 the spirit within you is roused again to life. Then you 
 will feel a happiness and a peace that leaves you nothing 
 more to desire. Know, then, beforehand, that notwith- 
 standing persecution, internal struggles, and the weaken- 
 ing of the spirit, the spirit is alive in you, and that the 
 only true God is the understanding of the will of the 
 Father which has been unfolded to you by me. 
 
 Then addressing himself to the Father-Spirit, Jesus 
 said, I have done what Thou hast commanded me, I 
 have revealed to men that Thou art the beginning of all. 
 And they have understood me. I have taught them 
 that they have all proceeded from one source of infinite 
 life, and that therefore they are all one ; that as the 
 Father is in me, and I in the Father, so are they one 
 with me and with the Father. I have revealed to them 
 that as Thou in love hast sent them into the world, so 
 they through love must live in the world. 
 
THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST'S TEACHING. ^77 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE VICTORY OF THE SPIRIT OVER THE FLESH. 
 
 Therefore for the тал wJlo lives not a personcd Ife, but in 
 the common Ufe ivJiich is through the will of the 
 Father, there is no evil. The deatJi of the body is 
 ■union voith the FatJier. {Thine be the kingdom, the 
 poiuer, and the glory.) 
 
 When Jesus had finished his discourse to his disciples, 
 he arose, and, instead of escaping or defending himself, 
 he went to meet Judas, who had brought soldiers to 
 take him. Jesus went up to him and asked him why 
 he Avas there. Judas gave no reply, and a crowd of 
 soldiers surrounded Jesus. Peter rushed to defend his 
 teacher, and, drawing his sword, began to fight ; but 
 Jesus stopped him, saying that whoso takes the sword 
 shall himself perish by the sword, and ordered him to 
 give up his sword. Then Jesus said to those who came 
 to take him, I formerly went amongst you alone without 
 fear, and now I fear you not, and give myself up unto 
 you. You may do wdth me what you will. And then 
 all the disciples forsook him and fled. Jesus remained 
 alone. The officer ordered the soldiers to bind him 
 and take him to x-\nnas, who had been high priest, and 
 
378 CHRIST'S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 lived in the same house with Caiaphas, the latter b ing 
 the then high priest. It was he who thought of the 
 pretext which decided the Jews to kill Jesus — either they 
 must kill him, or the whole nation must perish. Jesus, 
 feeling himself in the hands of the Father, was ready 
 for death, and did not resist when he was seized, nor 
 did he fear when they led him away. Peter, who had 
 j'list before promised Jesus that he would not abandon 
 him, but would lay down his life for him, who had 
 tried to defend him, now when he saw that Jesus was 
 led away to punishment, was afraid that he might 
 suffer with him, and to the questions of the servants, 
 whether he were not one of Jesus' followers, denied it, 
 and went away, and only afterwards, when he heard the 
 cock crow, did he understand all that Jesus had said to 
 him. He understood that there are two temptations of 
 the flesh, that of fear and that of using violence ; he 
 understood then that Jesus had struggled against these 
 temptations when he prayed in the garden, and invited 
 his disciples to pray. Now he had himself fallen into 
 both these temptations of the flesh against which Jesus 
 had warned him ; he had tried to resist evil by violence, 
 and to defend truth by fighting and evil-doing ; he had 
 been unable to withstand the fear of bodily suffering, 
 and had denied his teacher. Jesus had not given way to 
 the temptations of resistance when his disciples had 
 secured two swords to defend him with, nor to the 
 temptation of fear when he stood before the people in 
 Jerusalem in the presence of the heathen, nor when the 
 soldiers came to bind him and lead him to his trial. 
 
 Jesus was brought to Caiaphas. Caiaphas asked 
 
THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST'S TEACHING. 379 
 
 Jesus as to his teaching, but Jesus, knowing that 
 Caiaphas questioned him, not in order to know what 
 his teaching was, but only in order to accuse him, gave 
 no direct answer, but said, I have concealed nothing, 
 and conceal nothing ; if thou wouldst know what my 
 teaching is, ask of those who have heard and understood 
 it. For this, one of the servitors of the high priest struck 
 Jesus on the cheek, and Jesus asked why he had struck 
 him. The man gave no answer, and the high priest 
 proceeded Avith the trial. They brought witnesses to 
 prove that Jesus had boasted of destroying the Jewish 
 religion. The high priest again questioned Jesus ; but 
 he, seeing that the other questioned him, not to learn 
 anything, but only to keep up the appearance of justice, 
 answered nothing. 
 
 Then the high priest asked him to say if he were 
 Christ, the Son of God. Jesus answered. Yes, I am 
 Christ, the Son of God ; and now, лvhile persecuting me 
 you will see that the Son of Man is equal to God. 
 
 And the high priest rejoiced over these words, and 
 said to the other judges. Are not these words sufficient 
 to condemn him t And the judges answered that they 
 were, and condemned him to death. When they had 
 said this, the crowd threw themselves upon Jesus, and 
 they beat him, spat in his face, and abused him, but 
 he held his peace. 
 
 The Jews had no power to put a man to death, they 
 required a decision from the Roman governor ; and there- 
 fore, having condemned Jesus according to their law, 
 and abused him, they brought him before Pilate, that 
 he should order him to be put to death. Pilate asked 
 
38о CHJ^IST'S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 why they wished for his death, and they answered, 
 Because he is an evil man. Pilate said, If he is an 
 evil doer, judge him according to your law. They 
 replied, We desire that thou shouldst put him to death, 
 because he has sinned against Caesar: he is a rebel, 
 he has set the people at variance, he forbids tribute to 
 be paid to Caesar, and calls himself the King of the 
 Jews. Pilate called Jesus to him. and said, What means 
 this } how art thou King of the Jews ? Jesus said, 
 Wouldst thou really know what my kingdom is, or dost 
 thou ask me only for appearance sake ? Pilate answered, 
 I am no Jew, and it is the same to me whether thou 
 callest thyself the King of. the Jews or not ; but I ask 
 thee what man art thou, and why do they say that 
 thou art a King .-• Jesus said. They say truly that I call 
 myself a King. I am a King, but my kingdom is not 
 of this world but of heaven. Earthly kings kill and 
 fight, and they have soldiers to aid them, but thou seest 
 that I do not resist, though I have been bound and 
 beaten. I am a heavenly King, and all-powerful in the 
 spirit. 
 
 Pilate said, Then it is true that thou callest thyself 
 a King? Jesus answered. Thou knowest it thyself 
 Every man who lives in the truth is free. By this alone 
 I live, and for this alone I teach ; I reveal to men the 
 truth that they are free through the spirit. Pilate said. 
 Thou teachest truth, but no one knows what truth is, 
 and each has his own conception of the truth. And 
 having said this, he turned from Jesus and went again 
 unto the Jews, and said to them, I find no fault in this 
 man. Why would you put him to death ? The priests 
 
THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST'S TEACHING. 38 1 
 
 answered that he deserved death because he roused the 
 people to revolt. Then Pilate, in the presence of the 
 high priests, began to question Jesus ; but Jesus, seeing 
 that he was only questioned for form's sake, answered 
 nothing. Then Pilate said, I alone cannot condemn 
 him ; take him before Herod. 
 
 In Herod's court Jesus gave no answer to the ac- 
 cusations of the high priests ; and Herod, taking him for 
 an idle boaster, ordered him to be arrayed in a gorgeous 
 garment, and sent him back to Pilate. Pilate pitied 
 Jesus, and would have persuaded the high priest to 
 pardon him, if but in honour of the feast ; but the priests 
 held to what they had said, and they and all the people 
 after them cried aloud. Let him be crucified ! Pilate a 
 second time tried to persuade them to let Jesus go, but 
 the priests and the people still cried that he must be 
 put to death. They said. He is guilty in that he calls 
 himself the Son of God. Pilate again called Jesus 
 before him, and asked him, What does it mean that 
 thou callest thyself the Son of God ? Who art thou ? 
 Jesus answered nothing. Then Pilate said. Why dost 
 thou not answer me, when I have power to put thee to 
 death or to set thee free ? Jesus answered. Thou hast 
 no power over me. Power cometh only from above. 
 Then Pilate for the third time tried to persuade the 
 Jews to let Jesus go, but they said, If thou dost not 
 put to death this man whom we have shown to be a 
 rebel against Caesar, thou thyself art not a friend but 
 an enemy of Caesar. On hearing these words Pilate 
 gave way, and ordered Jesus to be put to death ; but 
 first he had him stripped and scourged, and then again 
 
382 CHRIST'S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 clothed him in a gorgeous robe, when he was beaten, 
 mocked, and abused. Then they gave him a cross to 
 carry, brought him to the place of punishment, and 
 crucified him. And when Jesus was hanging on the 
 cross all the people reviled him. To all this he answered. 
 Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. 
 And again, when death was near, he said, My Father, 
 into Thy hands I give my spirit ; and bending his head 
 he gave up the ghost. 
 
THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST'S TEACHING. 383 
 
 THE CONCLUSION. 
 
 TO UNDERSTAND LIFE IS TO DO GOOD. 
 
 TJic good tidings of Jesus Christ is the reve/atioji of the 
 understandijig of life. 
 
 To understand life we must know that the source of life 
 is infinite good, and that consequently the life of man is 
 the same. To understand this source we must know 
 that the spirit of life in man proceeds from it. Man, 
 who before did not exist, was called into being by this 
 cause of life. This cause gave happiness to man, and 
 therefore happiness is in its nature. 
 
 In order not to be led away from the source of his 
 life, man must keep to the only property of this source 
 which he can understand, the happiness of the works of 
 love. Therefore the life of man must be devoted to 
 happiness, i.e. to good works and to love. Man can do 
 good to none but his fellow-men. All individual desires 
 of the flesh are irreconcilable with the source of good, 
 and therefore man must renounce them, and sacrifice the 
 life of his body to the cause of goodness, and to active 
 love from his neighbour. From the understanding of life 
 as revealed by Jesus Christ, follows love to our neighbour. 
 There are two proofs of the truth of this understanding ; 
 
384 CHRIST'S CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 one is that, for those who do not accept it, the cause of 
 life appears an illusion which leads men to desire such 
 life and happiness as they cannot attain ; the other is, 
 that man in his heart feels love and good to his 
 neighbour to be the only true, free, and eternal life. 
 
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