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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 43794 ***
+
+  Transcriber's Notes:
+
+  Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.
+
+  Blank pages have been eliminated.
+
+  Greek and Hebrew characters have been transliterated to English
+  characters. The transliterations are denoted by [Greek: [Hebrew:
+
+  Variations in spelling and hyphenation have been left as in the
+  original.
+
+  A few typographical errors have been corrected.
+
+
+
+
+  MY RELIGION.
+
+
+  BY
+  COUNT LEO TOLSTOI.
+
+
+  _TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH._
+
+
+  NEW YORK:
+  THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO.,
+  13 ASTOR PLACE.
+
+
+  Copyright by
+  THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO.,
+  1885.
+
+
+
+
+TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.
+
+
+TO one not familiar with the Russian language the accessible data
+relative to the external life of Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoi, the author of
+this book, are, to say the least, not voluminous. His name does not
+appear in that heterogeneous record of celebrities known as _The Men of
+the Time_, nor is it to be found in M. Vapereau's comprehensive
+_Dictionnaire des Contemporains_. And yet Count Leo Tolstoi is
+acknowledged by competent critics to be a man of extraordinary genius,
+who, certainly in one instance, has produced a masterpiece of literature
+which will continue to rank with the great artistic productions of this
+age.
+
+Perhaps it is enough for us to know that he was born on his father's
+estate in the Russian province of Tula, in the year 1828; that he
+received a good home education and studied the oriental languages at the
+University of Kasan; that he was for a time in the army, which he
+entered at the age of twenty-three as an officer of artillery, serving
+later on the staff of Prince Gortschakof; and that subsequently he
+alternated between St. Petersburg and Moscow, leading the existence of
+super-refined barbarism and excessive luxury, characteristic of the
+Russian aristocracy. He saw life in country and city, in camp and court.
+He was numbered among the defenders of Sebastopol in the Crimean War,
+and the impressions then gathered he used as material for a series of
+_War Sketches_ that attracted attention in the pages of the magazine
+where they first appeared; and when, a little later, they were published
+in book form, their author, then twenty-eight years of age, acquired at
+once a wide popularity. Popularity became fame with the publication,
+also in 1856, of _Childhood and Youth_, remarkable alike for its artless
+revelations concerning the genesis and growth of ideas and emotions in
+the minds of the young, for its idyllic pictures of domestic life, and
+for its graceful descriptions of nature. This was followed by _The
+Cossacks_, a wild romance of the steppes, vigorously realistic in
+details, and, like all of Count Tolstoi's works, poetic in conception
+and inspired with a dramatic intensity. In 1860 appeared _War and
+Peace_, an historical romance in many volumes, dealing with the
+Napoleonic invasion of 1812 and the events that immediately followed the
+retreat from Moscow. According to M. C. Courrière,[1] it was seized upon
+with avidity and produced a profound sensation.
+
+     [1] _Histoire de la littérature contemporaine en Russie._
+
+"The stage is immense and the actors are innumerable; among them three
+emperors with their ministers, their marshals, and their generals, and
+then a countless retinue of minor officers, soldiers, nobles, and
+peasants. We are transported by turns from the salons of St. Petersburg
+to the camps of war, from Moscow to the country. And all these diverse
+and varied scenes are joined together with a controlling purpose that
+brings everything into harmony. Each one of the prolonged series of
+constantly changing tableaux is of remarkable beauty and palpitating
+with life."
+
+Pierre Besushkof, one of the three heroes of _War and Peace_, has,
+rightly or wrongly, long been regarded as in some respects an
+autobiographical study, but the personal note is always clearly
+perceptible in Count Tolstoi's writings, if we are to believe the
+reports of the enthusiastic purveyors of literary information who have
+made known some of their many attractive qualities. It is plain also
+that a common purpose runs through them all, a purpose which only in the
+author's latest production finds full expression. There are hints of it
+in _Childhood and Youth_; in _War and Peace_, and in a subsequent
+romance, _Anna Karenin_, it becomes very distinct. In the two works last
+named Count Tolstoi is pitiless in his portrayal of the vices and
+follies of the wealthy, aristocratic class, and warm in his praise of
+simplicity and unpretending virtue. Pierre Besushkof is represented as
+the product of a transition period, one who sees clearly that the future
+must be different from the past, but unable to interpret the prophecies
+of its coming. M. Courrière speaks of him very happily as "an overgrown
+child who seems to be lost in a wholly unfamiliar world." For a time
+Pierre finds mental tranquility in the tenets of freemasonry, and the
+author gives us a vivid account, humorous and pathetic by turns, of the
+young man's efforts to carry the newly acquired doctrines into practice.
+He determines to better the condition of the peasants on his estates;
+but instead of looking after the affair himself, he leaves the
+consummation of his plans to his stewards, with the result that "the
+cleverest among them listened with attention, but considered one thing
+only,--how to carry out their own private ends under the pretense of
+executing his commands." Later on we are shown Pierre wandering
+aimlessly about the streets of burning Moscow, until taken into custody
+by the French. Then he learns the true meaning of life from a simple
+soldier, a fellow-prisoner, and thereby realizes that safety for the
+future is to be obtained only by bringing life to the standard of rude
+simplicity adopted by the common people, by recognizing, in act as well
+as in deed, the brotherhood of man.
+
+We cannot here enter into the question as to whether this mental
+attitude, by no means unusual among Russians of cultivation and
+liberality, arises from the lack of social gradation between the noble
+and the peasant, which forces the social philosopher of rank to accept
+an existence of pure worldliness and empty show, or to adopt the
+primitive aspirations and humble toil of the tillers of the soil. At any
+rate, it is plain that Count Tolstoi sides with the latter. The doctrine
+of simplification has many adherents in Russia, and when, some time
+ago, it was announced that the author of _War and Peace_ had retired to
+the country and was leading a life of frugality and unaffected toil in
+the cultivation of his estates, the surprise to his own countrymen could
+not have been very great. In this book he tells us how the decision was
+formed. He bases his conclusions on a direct and literal interpretation
+of the teachings of Jesus as expressed in the Sermon on the Mount.
+
+The interpretation is not new in theory, but never before has it been
+carried out with so much zeal, so much determination, so much sincerity,
+and, granting the premises, with logic so unanswerable, as in this
+beautiful confession of faith. How movingly does he depict the doubts
+and fears of the searcher after the better life; how impressive his
+earnest inquiry for truth; how inspiring his confidence in the natural
+goodness, as opposed to the natural depravity of man; how convincing his
+argument that the doctrine of Jesus is simple, practicable, and
+conducive to the highest happiness; how terrifying his enumeration of
+the sufferings of "the martyrs to the doctrine of the world"; how
+pitiless his arraignment of the Church for its complacent indifference
+to the welfare of humanity here in this present stage of existence; how
+sublime his prophecy of the golden age when men shall dwell together in
+the bonds of love, and sin and suffering shall be no more the common lot
+of mankind! We read, and are thrilled with a divine emotion; but which
+of us is willing to accept the truth here unfolded as the veritable
+secret of life?
+
+Shall we take seriously this eloquent enunciation of faith in humility,
+in self-denial, in fraternal love, or shall we regard it only as a
+beautiful and peaceful phase in the career of a man of genius who, after
+the storm and stress of a life of sin and suffering, has turned back to
+the ideals of youth and innocence, and sought to make them once more the
+objects of desire? Fanaticism, do you say? Ah, yes; but did not Jesus
+and his disciples practise just such fanaticism as this? Does any one
+deny that all that is best in this modern world (and there is so much of
+the best, after all), that all that is best has come from the great
+moral impulse generated by a little group of fanatics in an obscure
+corner of Asia eighteen centuries ago? That impulse we still feel, in
+spite of all the obstructions that have been put in its way to nullify
+its action; and if any would seek for strength from the primary source
+of power, who shall say him nay? And so although we may smile at the
+artlessness of this Russian evangelist in his determination to find in
+the gospels the categorical imperative of self-renunciation, although we
+may regard with wonder the magnificent audacity of his exegetical
+speculations, we cannot refuse to admire a faith so sincere, so intense,
+and, in many respects, so elevating and so noble.
+
+       HUNTINGTON SMITH.
+
+       DORCHESTER, MASS.,
+       Nov. 19, 1885.
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION.
+
+
+I HAVE not always been possessed of the religious ideas set forth in
+this book. For thirty-five years of my life I was, in the proper
+acceptation of the word, a nihilist,--not a revolutionary socialist, but
+a man who believed in nothing. Five years ago faith came to me; I
+believed in the doctrine of Jesus, and my whole life underwent a sudden
+transformation. What I had once wished for I wished for no longer, and I
+began to desire what I had never desired before. What had once appeared
+to me right now became wrong, and the wrong of the past I beheld as
+right. My condition was like that of a man who goes forth upon some
+errand, and having traversed a portion of the road, decides that the
+matter is of no importance, and turns back. What was at first on his
+right hand is now on his left, and what was at his left hand is now on
+his right; instead of going away from his abode, he desires to get back
+to it as soon as possible. My life and my desires were completely
+changed; good and evil interchanged meanings. Why so? Because I
+understood the doctrine of Jesus in a different way from that in which I
+had understood it before.
+
+It is not my purpose to expound the doctrine of Jesus; I wish only to
+tell how it was that I came to understand what there is in this doctrine
+that is simple, clear, evident, indisputable; how I understand that part
+of it which appeals to all men, and how this understanding refreshed my
+soul and gave me happiness and peace.
+
+I do not intend to comment on the doctrine of Jesus; I desire only that
+all comment shall be forever done away with. The Christian sects have
+always maintained that all men, however unequal in education and
+intelligence, are equal before God; that divine truth is accessible to
+every one. Jesus has even declared it to be the will of God that what is
+concealed from the wise shall be revealed to the simple. Not every one
+is able to understand the mysteries of dogmatics, homiletics, liturgics,
+hermeneutics, apologetics; but every one is able and ought to understand
+what Jesus Christ said to the millions of simple and ignorant people who
+have lived, and who are living to-day. Now, the things that Jesus said
+to simple people who could not avail themselves of the comments of Paul,
+of Clement, of Chrysostom, and of others, are just what I did not
+understand, and which, now that I have come to understand them, I wish
+to make plain to all.
+
+The thief on the cross believed in the Christ, and was saved. If the
+thief, instead of dying on the cross, had descended from it, and told
+all men of his belief in the Christ, would not the result have been of
+great good? Like the thief on the cross, I believe in the doctrine of
+Jesus, and this belief has made me whole. This is not a vain comparison,
+but a truthful expression of my spiritual condition; my soul, once
+filled with despair of life and fear of death, is now full of happiness
+and peace.
+
+Like the thief, I knew that my past and present life was vile; I saw
+that the majority of men about me lived unworthy lives. I knew, like the
+thief, that I was wretched and suffering, that all those about me
+suffered and were wretched; and I saw before me nothing but death to
+save me from this condition. As the thief was nailed to his cross, so I
+was nailed to a life of suffering and evil by an incomprehensible power.
+And as the thief saw before him, after the sufferings of a foolish life,
+the horrible shadows of death, so I beheld the same vista opening before
+me.
+
+In all this I felt that I was like the thief. There was, however, a
+difference in our conditions; he was about to die, and I--I still lived.
+The dying thief thought perhaps to find his salvation beyond the grave,
+while I had before me life and its mystery this side the grave. I
+understood nothing of this life; it seemed to me a frightful thing, and
+then--I understood the words of Jesus, and life and death ceased to be
+evil; instead of despair, I tasted joy and happiness that death could
+not take away.
+
+Will any one, then, be offended if I tell the story of how all this came
+about?
+
+       LEO TOLSTOI.
+
+       MOSCOW, Jan. 22, 1884.
+
+
+
+
+MY RELIGION.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+I SHALL explain elsewhere, in two voluminous treatises, why I did not
+understand the doctrine of Jesus, and how at length it became clear to
+me. These works are a criticism of dogmatic theology and a new
+translation of the four Gospels, followed by a concordance. In these
+writings I seek methodically to disentangle everything that tends to
+conceal the truth from men; I translate the four Gospels anew, verse by
+verse, and I bring them together in a new concordance. The work has
+lasted for six years. Each year, each month, I discover new meanings
+which corroborate the fundamental idea; I correct the errors which have
+crept in, and I put the last touches to what I have already written. My
+life, whose final term is not far distant, will doubtless end before I
+have finished my work; but I am convinced that the work will be of great
+service; so I shall do all that I can to bring it to completion.
+
+I do not now concern myself with this outward work upon theology and the
+Gospels, but with an inner work of an entirely different nature. I have
+to do now with nothing systematic or methodical, only with that sudden
+light which showed me the Gospel doctrine in all its simple beauty.
+
+The process was something similar to that experienced by one who,
+following an erroneous model, seeks to restore a statue from broken bits
+of marble, and who with one of the most refractory fragments in hand
+perceives the hopelessness of his ideal; then he begins anew, and
+instead of the former incongruities he finds, as he observes the
+outlines of each fragment, that all fit well together and form one
+consistent whole. That is exactly what happened to me, and is what I
+wish to relate. I wish to tell how I found the key to the true meaning
+of the doctrine of Jesus, and how by this meaning doubt was absolutely
+driven from my soul. The discovery came about in this way.
+
+From my childhood, from the time I first began to read the New
+Testament, I was touched most of all by that portion of the doctrine of
+Jesus which inculcates love, humility, self-denial, and the duty of
+returning good for evil. This, to me, has always been the substance of
+Christianity; my heart recognized its truth in spite of scepticism and
+despair, and for this reason I submitted to a religion professed by a
+multitude of toilers, who find in it the solution of life,--the religion
+taught by the Orthodox Church. But in making my submission to the
+Church, I soon saw that I should not find in its creed the confirmation
+of the essence of Christianity; what was to me essential seemed to be in
+the dogma of the Church merely an accessory. What was to me the most
+important of the teachings of Jesus was not so regarded by the Church.
+No doubt (I thought) the Church sees in Christianity, aside from its
+inner meaning of love, humility, and self-denial, an outer, dogmatic
+meaning, which, however strange and even repulsive to me, is not in
+itself evil or pernicious. But the further I went on in submission to
+the doctrine of the Church, the more clearly I saw in this particular
+point something of greater importance than I had at first realized. What
+I found most repulsive in the doctrine of the Church was the strangeness
+of its dogmas and the approval, nay, the support, which it gave to
+persecutions, to the death penalty, to wars stirred up by the
+intolerance common to all sects; but my faith was chiefly shattered by
+the indifference of the Church to what seemed to me essential in the
+teachings of Jesus, and its partiality for what seemed to me of
+secondary importance. I felt that something was wrong; but I could not
+see where the fault lay, because the doctrine of the Church did not deny
+what seemed to me essential in the doctrine of Jesus; this essential was
+fully recognized, yet in such a way as not to give it the first place. I
+could not accuse the Church of denying the essence of the doctrine of
+Jesus, but it was recognized in a way which did not satisfy me. The
+Church did not give me what I expected from her. I had passed from
+nihilism to the Church simply because I felt it to be impossible to live
+without religion, that is, without a knowledge of good and evil aside
+from animal instincts. I hoped to find this knowledge in Christianity;
+but Christianity I then saw only as a vague spiritual tendency, from
+which it was impossible to deduce any clear and peremptory rules for the
+guidance of life. These I sought and these I demanded of the Church. The
+Church offered me rules wherein I not only sought in vain the practice
+of the Christian life so dear to me, but which drove me still further
+away. I could not become a disciple of the Church. An existence based
+upon Christian truth was to me indispensable, and the Church only
+offered me rules completely at variance with the truth that I loved. The
+rules of the Church touching articles of faith, dogmas, the observance
+of the sacrament, fasts, prayers, were not necessary to me, and did not
+seem to be based on Christian truth. Moreover, the rules of the Church
+weakened and sometimes destroyed the Christian disposition of soul which
+alone gave meaning to my life.
+
+I was troubled most that the miseries of humanity, the habit of judging
+one another, of passing judgment upon nations and religions, and the
+wars and massacres which resulted in consequence, all went on with the
+approbation of the Church. The doctrine of Jesus,--judge not, be humble,
+forgive offences, deny self, love,--this doctrine was extolled by the
+Church in words, but at the same time the Church approved what was
+incompatible with the doctrine. Was it possible that the doctrine of
+Jesus admitted of such contradiction? I could not believe so.
+
+Another astonishing thing about the Church was that the passages upon
+which it based affirmation of its dogmas were those which were most
+obscure. On the other hand, the passages from which came the moral laws
+were the most clear and precise. And yet the dogmas and the duties
+depending upon them were definitely formulated by the Church, while the
+recommendation to obey the moral law was put in the most vague and
+mystical terms. Was this the intention of Jesus? The Gospels alone could
+dissipate my doubts. I read them once and again.
+
+Of all the other portions of the Gospels, the Sermon on the Mount always
+had for me an exceptional importance. I now read it more frequently than
+ever. Nowhere does Jesus speak with greater solemnity, nowhere does he
+propound moral rules more definitely and practically, nor do these rules
+in any other form awaken more readily an echo in the human heart;
+nowhere else does he address himself to a larger multitude of the common
+people. If there are any clear and precise Christian principles, one
+ought to find them here. I therefore sought the solution of my doubts in
+Matthew v., vi., and vii., comprising the Sermon on the Mount. These
+chapters I read very often, each time with the same emotional ardor, as
+I came to the verses which exhort the hearer to turn the other cheek, to
+give up his cloak, to be at peace with all the world, to love his
+enemies,--but each time with the same disappointment. The divine words
+were not clear. They exhorted to a renunciation so absolute as to
+entirely stifle life as I understood it; to renounce everything,
+therefore, could not, it seemed to me, be essential to salvation. And
+the moment this ceased to be an absolute condition, clearness and
+precision were at an end.
+
+I read not only the Sermon on the Mount; I read all the Gospels and all
+the theological commentaries on the Gospels. I was not satisfied with
+the declarations of the theologians that the Sermon on the Mount was
+only an indication of the degree of perfection to which man should
+aspire; that man, weighed down by sin, could not reach such an ideal;
+and that the salvation of humanity was in faith and prayer and grace. I
+could not admit the truth of these propositions. It seemed to me a
+strange thing that Jesus should propound rules so clear and admirable,
+addressed to the understanding of every one, and still realize man's
+inability to carry his doctrine into practice.
+
+Then as I read these maxims I was permeated with the joyous assurance
+that I might that very hour, that very moment, begin to practise them.
+The burning desire I felt led me to the attempt, but the doctrine of the
+Church rang in my ears,--_Man is weak, and to this he cannot
+attain_;--my strength soon failed. On every side I heard, "You must
+believe and pray"; but my wavering faith impeded prayer. Again I heard,
+"You must pray, and God will give you faith; this faith will inspire
+prayer, which in turn will invoke faith that will inspire more prayer,
+and so on, indefinitely." Reason and experience alike convinced me that
+such methods were useless. It seemed to me that the only true way was
+for me to try to follow the doctrine of Jesus.
+
+And so, after all this fruitless search and careful meditation over all
+that had been written for and against the divinity of the doctrine of
+Jesus, after all this doubt and suffering, I came back face to face with
+the mysterious Gospel message. I could not find the meanings that others
+found, neither could I discover what I sought. It was only after I had
+rejected the interpretations of the wise critics and theologians,
+according to the words of Jesus, "_Except ye... become as little
+children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven_" (Matt. xviii.
+3),--it was only then that I suddenly understood what had been so
+meaningless before. I understood, not through exegetical fantasies or
+profound and ingenious textual combinations; I understood everything,
+because I put all commentaries out of my mind. This was the passage that
+gave me the key to the whole:--
+
+"_Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth
+for a tooth: But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil._" (Matt. v.
+38, 39.)
+
+One day the exact and simple meaning of these words came to me; I
+understood that Jesus meant neither more nor less than what he said.
+What I saw was nothing new; only the veil that had hidden the truth from
+me fell away, and the truth was revealed in all its grandeur.
+
+"_Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth
+for a tooth: But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil._"
+
+These words suddenly appeared to me as if I had never read them before.
+Always before, when I had read this passage, I had, singularly enough,
+allowed certain words to escape me, "_But I say unto you, that ye resist
+not evil_." To me it had always been as if the words just quoted had
+never existed, or had never possessed a definite meaning. Later on, as I
+talked with many Christians familiar with the Gospel, I noticed
+frequently the same blindness with regard to these words. No one
+remembered them, and often in speaking of this passage, Christians took
+up the Gospel to see for themselves if the words were really there.
+Through a similar neglect of these words I had failed to understand the
+words that follow:--
+
+"_But whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the
+other also_," etc. (Matt. v. 39, _et seq._)
+
+Always these words had seemed to me to demand long-suffering and
+privation contrary to human nature. They touched me; I felt that it
+would be noble to follow them, but I also felt that I had not the
+strength to put them into practice. I said to myself, "If I turn the
+other cheek, I shall get another blow; if I give, all that I have will
+be taken away. Life would be an impossibility. Since life is given to
+me, why should I deprive myself of it? Jesus cannot demand as much as
+that." Thus I reasoned, persuaded that Jesus, in exalting long-suffering
+and privation, made use of exaggerated terms lacking in clearness and
+precision; but when I understood the words "_Resist not evil_," I saw
+that Jesus did not exaggerate, that he did not demand suffering for
+suffering, but that he had formulated with great clearness and precision
+exactly what he wished to say.
+
+"_Resist not evil_," knowing that you will meet with those who, when
+they have struck you on one cheek and met with no resistance, will
+strike you on the other; who, having taken away your coat, will take
+away your cloak also; who, having profited by your labor, will force you
+to labor still more without reward. And yet, though all this should
+happen to you, "_Resist not evil_"; do good to them that injure you.
+When I understood these words as they are written, all that had been
+obscure became clear to me, and what had seemed exaggerated I saw to be
+perfectly reasonable. For the first time I grasped the pivotal idea in
+the words "_Resist not evil_"; I saw that what followed was only a
+development of this command; I saw that Jesus did not exhort us to turn
+the other cheek that we might endure suffering, but that his exhortation
+was, "_Resist not evil_," and that he afterward declared suffering to be
+the possible consequence of the practice of this maxim.
+
+A father, when his son is about to set out on a far journey, commands
+him not to tarry by the way; he does not tell him to pass his nights
+without shelter, to deprive himself of food, to expose himself to rain
+and cold. He says, "Go thy way, and tarry not, though thou should'st be
+wet or cold." So Jesus does not say, "Turn the other cheek and suffer."
+He says, "_Resist not evil_"; no matter what happens, "_Resist not_."
+
+These words, "_Resist not evil_," when I understood their significance,
+were to me the key that opened all the rest. Then I was astonished that
+I had failed to comprehend words so clear and precise.
+
+"_Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth
+for a tooth: But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil._"
+
+Whatever injury the evil-disposed may inflict upon you, bear it, give
+all that you have, but resist not. Could anything be more clear, more
+definite, more intelligible than that? I had only to grasp the simple
+and exact meaning of these words, just as they were spoken, when the
+whole doctrine of Jesus, not only as set forth in the Sermon on the
+Mount, but in the entire Gospels, became clear to me; what had seemed
+contradictory was now in harmony; above all, what had seemed superfluous
+was now indispensable. Each portion fell into harmonious unison and
+filled its proper part, like the fragments of a broken statue when
+adjusted in harmony with the sculptor's design. In the Sermon on the
+Mount, as well as throughout the whole Gospel, I found everywhere
+affirmation of the same doctrine, "_Resist not evil_."
+
+In the Sermon on the Mount, as well as in many other places, Jesus
+represents his disciples, those who observe the rule of non-resistance
+to evil, as turning the other cheek, giving up their cloaks, persecuted,
+used despitefully, and in want. Everywhere Jesus says that he who taketh
+not up his cross, he who does not renounce worldly advantage, he who is
+not ready to bear all the consequences of the commandment, "_Resist not
+evil_," cannot become his disciple.
+
+To his disciples Jesus says, Choose to be poor; bear all things without
+resistance to evil, even though you thereby bring upon yourself
+persecution, suffering, and death.
+
+Prepared to suffer death rather than resist evil, he reproved the
+resentment of Peter, and died exhorting his followers not to resist and
+to remain always faithful to his doctrine. The early disciples observed
+this rule, and passed their lives in misery and persecution, without
+rendering evil for evil.
+
+It seems, then, that Jesus meant precisely what he said. We may declare
+the practice of such a rule to be very difficult; we may deny that he
+who follows it will find happiness; we may say with the unbelievers that
+Jesus was a dreamer, an idealist who propounded impracticable maxims;
+but it is impossible not to admit that he expressed in a manner at once
+clear and precise what he wished to say; that is, that according to his
+doctrine a man must not resist evil, and, consequently, that whoever
+adopts his doctrine will not resist evil. And yet neither believers nor
+unbelievers will admit this simple and clear interpretation of Jesus'
+words.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+WHEN I apprehended clearly the words "_Resist not evil_," my conception
+of the doctrine of Jesus was entirely changed; and I was astounded, not
+that I had failed to understand it before, but that I had misunderstood
+it so strangely. I knew, as we all know, that the true significance of
+the doctrine of Jesus was comprised in the injunction to love one's
+neighbor. When we say, "_Turn the other cheek_," "_Love your enemies_,"
+we express the very essence of Christianity. I knew all that from my
+childhood; but why had I failed to understand aright these simple words?
+Why had I always sought for some ulterior meaning? "_Resist not evil_"
+means, never resist, never oppose violence; or, in other words, never do
+anything contrary to the law of love. If any one takes advantage of this
+disposition and affronts you, bear the affront, and do not, above all,
+have recourse to violence. This Jesus said in words so clear and simple
+that it would be impossible to express the idea more clearly. How was it
+then, that believing or trying to believe these to be the words of God,
+I still maintained the impossibility of obeying them? If my master says
+to me, "Go; cut some wood," and I reply, "It is beyond my strength," I
+say one of two things: either I do not believe what my master says, or I
+do not wish to obey his commands. Should I then say of God's
+commandment that I could not obey it without the aid of a supernatural
+power? Should I say this without having made the slightest effort of my
+own to obey? We are told that God descended to earth to save mankind;
+that salvation was secured by the second person of the Trinity, who
+suffered for men, thereby redeeming them from sin, and gave them the
+Church as the shrine for the transmission of grace to all believers; but
+aside from this, the Saviour gave to men a doctrine and the example of
+his own life for their salvation. How, then, could I say that the rules
+of life which Jesus has formulated so clearly and simply for every
+one--how could I say that these rules were difficult to obey, that it
+was impossible to obey them without the assistance of a supernatural
+power? Jesus saw no such impossibility; he distinctly declared that
+those who did not obey could not enter into the kingdom of God. Nowhere
+did he say that obedience would be difficult; on the contrary, he said
+in so many words, "_My yoke is easy and my burden is light_" (Matt. xi.
+30). And John, the evangelist, says, "_His commandments are not
+grievous_" (1 John v. 3). Since God declared the practice of his law to
+be easy, and himself practised it in human form, as did also his
+disciples, how dared I speak of the impossibility of obedience without
+the aid of a supernatural power?
+
+If one bent all his energies to overthrow any law, what could he say of
+greater force than that the law was essentially impracticable, and that
+the maker of the law knew it to be impracticable and unattainable
+without the aid of a supernatural power? Yet that is exactly what I had
+been thinking of the command, "_Resist not evil_." I endeavored to find
+out how it was that I got the idea that Jesus' law was divine, but that
+it could not be obeyed; and as I reviewed my past history, I perceived
+that the idea had not been communicated to me in all its crudeness (it
+would then have been revolting to me), but insensibly I had been imbued
+with it from childhood, and all my after life had only confirmed me in
+error.
+
+From my childhood I had been taught that Jesus was God, and that his
+doctrine was divine, but at the same time I was taught to respect as
+sacred the institutions which protected me from violence and evil. I was
+taught to resist evil, that it was humiliating to submit to evil, and
+that resistance to it was praiseworthy. I was taught to judge, and to
+inflict punishment. Then I was taught the soldier's trade, that is, to
+resist evil by homicide; the army to which I belonged was called "The
+Christophile Army," and it was sent forth with a Christian benediction.
+From infancy to manhood I learned to venerate things that were in direct
+contradiction to the law of Jesus,--to meet an aggressor with his own
+weapons, to avenge myself by violence for all offences against my
+person, my family, or my race. Not only was I not blamed for this; I
+learned to regard it as not at all contrary to the law of Jesus. All
+that surrounded me, my personal security and that of my family and my
+property--depended then upon a law which Jesus reproved,--the law of "a
+tooth for a tooth." My spiritual instructors taught me that the law of
+Jesus was divine, but, because of human weakness, impossible of
+practice, and that the grace of Jesus Christ alone could aid us to
+follow its precepts. And this instruction agreed with what I received in
+secular institutions and from the social organization about me. I was so
+thoroughly possessed with this idea of the impracticability of the
+divine doctrine, and it harmonized so well with my desires, that not
+till the time of awakening did I realize its falsity. I did not see how
+impossible it was to confess Jesus and his doctrine, "_Resist not
+evil_," and at the same time deliberately assist in the organization of
+property, of tribunals, of governments, of armies; to contribute to the
+establishment of a polity entirely contrary to the doctrine of Jesus,
+and at the same time pray to Jesus to help us to obey his commands, to
+forgive our sins, and to aid us that we resist not evil. I did not see,
+what is very clear to me now, how much more simple it would be to
+organize a method of living conformable to the law of Jesus, and then to
+pray for tribunals, and massacres, and wars, and all other things
+indispensable to our happiness.
+
+Thus I came to understand the source of error into which I had fallen. I
+had confessed Jesus with my lips, but my heart was still far from him.
+The command, "_Resist not evil_," is the central point of Jesus'
+doctrine; it is not a mere verbal affirmation; it is a rule whose
+practice is obligatory. It is verily the key to the whole mystery; but
+the key must be thrust to the bottom of the lock. When we regard it as a
+command impossible of performance, the value of the entire doctrine is
+lost. Why should not a doctrine seem impracticable, when we have
+suppressed its fundamental proposition? It is not strange that
+unbelievers look upon it as totally absurd. When we declare that one may
+be a Christian without observing the commandment, "_Resist not evil_,"
+we simply leave out the connecting link which transmits the force of the
+doctrine of Jesus into action.
+
+Some time ago I was reading in Hebrew, the fifth chapter of Matthew with
+a Jewish rabbi. At nearly every verse the rabbi said, "This is in the
+Bible," or "This is in the Talmud," and he showed me in the Bible and in
+the Talmud sentences very like the declarations of the Sermon on the
+Mount. When we reached the words, "_Resist not evil_," the rabbi did not
+say, "This is in the Talmud," but he asked me, with a smile, "Do the
+Christians obey this command? Do they turn the other cheek?" I had
+nothing to say in reply, especially as at that particular time,
+Christians, far from turning the other cheek, were smiting the Jews upon
+both cheeks. I asked him if there were anything similar in the Bible or
+in the Talmud. "No," he replied, "there is nothing like it; but tell me,
+do the Christians obey this law?" It was only another way of saying that
+the presence in the Christian doctrine of a commandment which no one
+observed, and which Christians themselves regarded as impracticable, is
+simply an avowal of the foolishness and nullity of that law. I could say
+nothing in reply to the rabbi.
+
+Now that I understand the exact meaning of the doctrine, I see clearly
+the strangely contradictory position in which I was placed. Having
+recognized the divinity of Jesus and of his doctrine, and having at the
+same time organized a life wholly contrary to that doctrine, what
+remained for me but to look upon the doctrine as impracticable? In words
+I had recognized the doctrine of Jesus as sacred; in actions, I had
+professed a doctrine not at all Christian, and I had recognized and
+reverenced the anti-Christian customs which hampered my life upon every
+side. The persistent message of the Old Testament is that misfortunes
+came upon the Hebrew people because they believed in false gods and
+denied Jehovah. Samuel (I. viii.-xii.) accuses the people of adding to
+their other apostasies the choice of a man, upon whom they depended for
+deliverance instead of upon Jehovah, who was their true King. "Turn not
+aside after _tohu_, after vain things," Samuel says to the people (I.
+xii. 21); "turn not aside after vain things, which cannot profit nor
+deliver; for they are _tohu_, are vain." "Fear Jehovah and serve him....
+But if ye shall still do wickedly, ye shall be consumed, both ye and
+your king" (I. xii. 24, 25). And so with me, faith in _tohu_, in vain
+things, in empty idols, had concealed the truth from me. Across the
+path which led to the truth, _tohu_, the idol of vain things, rose
+before me, cutting off the light, and I had not the strength to beat it
+down.
+
+On a certain day, at this time, I was walking in Moscow towards the
+Borovitzky Gate, where was stationed an old lame beggar, with a dirty
+cloth wrapped about his head. I took out my purse to bestow an alms; but
+at the same moment I saw a young soldier emerging from the Kremlin at a
+rapid pace, head well up, red of face, wearing the State insignia of
+military dignity. The beggar, on perceiving the soldier, arose in fear,
+and ran with all his might towards the Alexander Garden. The soldier,
+after a vain attempt to come up with the fugitive, stopped, shouting
+forth an imprecation upon the poor wretch who had established himself
+under the gateway contrary to regulations. I waited for the soldier.
+When he approached me, I asked him if he knew how to read.
+
+"Yes; why do you ask?"
+
+"Have you read the New Testament?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And do you remember the words, 'If thine enemy hunger, feed him...'?"
+
+I repeated the passage. He remembered it, and heard me to the end. I saw
+that he was uneasy. Two passers-by stopped and listened. The soldier
+seemed to be troubled that he should be condemned for doing his duty in
+driving persons away from a place where they had been forbidden to
+linger. He thought himself at fault, and sought for an excuse. Suddenly
+his eye brightened; he looked at me over his shoulder, as if he were
+about to move away.
+
+"And the military regulation, do you know anything about that?" he
+demanded.
+
+"No," I said.
+
+"In that case, you have nothing to say to me," he retorted, with a
+triumphant wag of the head, and elevating his plume once more, he
+marched away to his post. He was the only man that I ever met who had
+solved, with an inflexible logic, the question which eternally
+confronted me in social relations, and which rises continually before
+every man who calls himself a Christian.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+WE are wrong when we say that the Christian doctrine is concerned only
+with the salvation of the individual, and has nothing to do with
+questions of State. Such an assertion is simply a bold affirmation of an
+untruth, which, when we examine it seriously, falls of itself to the
+ground. It is well (so I said); I will resist not evil; I will turn the
+other cheek in private life; but hither comes the enemy, or here is an
+oppressed nation, and I am called upon to do my part in the struggle
+against evil, to go forth and kill. I must decide the question, to serve
+God or _tohu_, to go to war or not to go. Perhaps I am a peasant; I am
+appointed mayor of a village, a judge, a juryman; I am obliged to take
+the oath of office, to judge, to condemn. What ought I to do? Again I
+must choose between the divine law and the human law. Perhaps I am a
+monk living in a monastery; the neighboring peasants trespass upon our
+pasturage, and I am appointed to resist evil, to plead for justice
+against the wrong-doers. Again I must choose. It is a dilemma from which
+no man can escape.
+
+I do not speak of those whose entire lives are passed in resisting evil,
+as military authorities, judges, or governors. No one is so obscure that
+he is not obliged to choose between the service of God and the service
+of _tohu_, in his relation to the State. My very existence, entangled
+with that of the State and the social existence organized by the State,
+exacts from me an anti-Christian activity directly contrary to the
+commandments of Jesus. In fact, with conscription and compulsory jury
+service, this pitiless dilemma arises before every one. Every one is
+forced to take up murderous weapons; and even if he does not get as far
+as murder, his weapons must be ready, his carbine loaded, and his sword
+keen of edge, that he may declare himself ready for murder. Every one is
+forced into the service of the courts to take part in meting out
+judgment and sentence; that is, to deny the commandment of Jesus,
+"_Resist not evil_," in acts as well as in words.
+
+The soldier's problem, the Gospel or military regulations, divine law or
+human law, is before mankind to-day as it was in the time of Samuel. It
+was forced upon Jesus and upon his disciples; it is forced in these
+times upon all who would be Christians; and it was forced upon me.
+
+The law of Jesus, with its doctrine of love, humility, and self-denial,
+touched my heart more deeply than ever before. But everywhere, in the
+annals of history, in the events that were going on about me, in my
+individual life, I saw the law opposed in a manner revolting to
+sentiment, conscience, and reason, and encouraging to brute instincts. I
+felt that if I adopted the law of Jesus, I should be alone; I should
+pass many unhappy hours; I should be persecuted and afflicted as Jesus
+had said. But if I adopted the human law, everybody would approve; I
+should be in peace and safety, with all the resources of civilization at
+my command to put my conscience at ease. As Jesus said, I should laugh
+and be glad. I felt all this, and so I did not analyze the meaning of
+the doctrine of Jesus, but sought to understand it in such a way that it
+might not interfere with my life as an animal. That is, I did not wish
+to understand it at all. This determination not to understand led me
+into delusions which now astound me. As an instance in point, let me
+explain my former understanding of these words:--
+
+"_Judge not, that ye be not judged._" (Matt. vii. 1.)
+
+"_Judge not, and ye shall not be judged; condemn not, and ye shall not
+be condemned._" (Luke vi. 37.)
+
+The courts in which I served, and which insured the safety of my
+property and my person, seemed to be institutions so indubitably sacred
+and so entirely in accord with the divine law, it had never entered into
+my head that the words I have quoted could have any other meaning than
+an injunction not to speak ill of one's neighbor. It never occurred to
+me that Jesus spoke in these words of the courts of human law and
+justice. It was only when I understood the true meaning of the words,
+"_Resist not evil_," that the question arose as to Jesus' advice with
+regard to tribunals. When I understood that Jesus would denounce them, I
+asked myself, Is not this the real meaning: Not only do not judge your
+neighbor, do not speak ill of him, but do not judge him in the courts,
+do not judge him in any of the tribunals that you have instituted? Now
+in Luke (vi. 37-49) these words follow immediately the doctrine that
+exhorts us to resist not evil and to do good to our enemies. And after
+the injunction, "_Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is
+merciful_," Jesus says, "_Judge not, and ye shall not be judged; condemn
+not, and ye shall not be condemned_." "_Judge not_;" does not this mean,
+Institute no tribunals for the judgment of your neighbor? I had only to
+bring this boldly before myself when heart and reason united in an
+affirmative reply.
+
+To show how far I was before from the true interpretation, I shall
+confess a foolish pleasantry for which I still blush. When I was reading
+the New Testament as a divine book at the time that I had become a
+believer, I was in the habit of saying to my friends who were judges or
+attorneys, "And you still judge, although it is said, 'Judge not, and ye
+shall not be judged'?" I was so sure that these words could have no
+other meaning than a condemnation of evil-speaking that I did not
+comprehend the horrible blasphemy which I thus committed. I was so
+thoroughly convinced that these words did not mean what they did mean,
+that I quoted them in their true sense in the form of a pleasantry.
+
+I shall relate in detail how it was that all doubt with regard to the
+true meaning of these words was effaced from my mind, and how I saw
+their purport to be that Jesus denounced the institution of all human
+tribunals, of whatever sort; that he meant to say so, and could not have
+expressed himself otherwise. When I understood the command, "_Resist
+not evil_," in its proper sense, the first thing that occurred to me was
+that tribunals, instead of conforming to this law, were directly opposed
+to it, and indeed to the entire doctrine; and therefore that if Jesus
+had thought of tribunals at all, he would have condemned them.
+
+Jesus said, "_Resist not evil_"; the sole aim of tribunals is to resist
+evil. Jesus exhorted us to return good for evil; tribunals return evil
+for evil. Jesus said that we were to make no distinction between those
+who do good and those who do evil; tribunals do nothing else. Jesus
+said, Forgive, forgive not once or seven times, but without limit; love
+your enemies, do good to them that hate you--but tribunals do not
+forgive, they punish; they return not good but evil to those whom they
+regard as the enemies of society. It would seem, then, that Jesus
+denounced judicial institutions. Perhaps (I said) Jesus never had
+anything to do with courts of justice, and so did not think of them. But
+I saw that such a theory was not tenable. Jesus, from his childhood to
+his death, was concerned with the tribunals of Herod, of the Sanhedrim,
+and of the High Priests. I saw that Jesus must have regarded courts of
+justice as wrong. He told his disciples that they would be dragged
+before the judges, and gave them advice as to how they should comport
+themselves. He said of himself that he should be condemned by a
+tribunal, and he showed what the attitude toward judges ought to be.
+Jesus, then, must have thought of the judicial institutions which
+condemned him and his disciples; which have condemned and continue to
+condemn millions of men.
+
+Jesus saw the wrong and faced it. When the sentence against the woman
+taken in adultery was about to be carried into execution, he absolutely
+denied the possibility of human justice, and demonstrated that man could
+not be the judge since man himself was guilty. And this idea he has
+propounded many times, as where it is declared that one with a beam in
+his eye cannot see the mote in another's eye, or that the blind cannot
+lead the blind. He even pointed out the consequences of such
+misconceptions,--the disciple would be above his Master.
+
+Perhaps, however, after having denounced the incompetency of human
+justice as displayed in the case of the woman taken in adultery, or
+illustrated in the parable of the mote and the beam; perhaps, after all,
+Jesus would admit of an appeal to the justice of men where it was
+necessary for protection against evil; but I soon saw that this was
+inadmissible. In the Sermon on the Mount, he says, addressing the
+multitude,
+
+"_And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let
+him have thy cloak also."_ (Matt. v. 40.)
+
+Once more, perhaps Jesus spoke only of the personal bearing which a man
+should have when brought before judicial institutions, and did not
+condemn justice, but admitted the necessity in a Christian society of
+individuals who judge others in properly constituted forms. But I saw
+that this view was also inadmissible. When he prayed, Jesus besought all
+men, without exception, to forgive others, that their own trespasses
+might be forgiven. This thought he often expresses. He who brings his
+gift to the altar with prayer must first grant forgiveness. How, then,
+could a man judge and condemn when his religion commanded him to forgive
+all trespasses, without limit? So I saw that according to the doctrine
+of Jesus no Christian judge could pass sentence of condemnation.
+
+But might not the relation between the words "_Judge not, and ye shall
+not be judged_" and the preceding or subsequent passages permit us to
+conclude that Jesus, in saying "_Judge not_," had no reference whatever
+to judicial institutions? No; this could not be so; on the contrary, it
+is clear from the relation of the phrases that in saying "_Judge not_,"
+Jesus did actually speak of judicial institutions. According to Matthew
+and Luke, before saying "_Judge not, condemn not_," his command was to
+resist not evil. And prior to this, as Matthew tells us, he repeated the
+ancient criminal law of the Jews, "_An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a
+tooth_." Then, after this reference to the old criminal law, he added,
+"_But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil_"; and, after that,
+"_Judge not_." Jesus did, then, refer directly to human criminal law,
+and reproved it in the words, "_Judge not_." Moreover, according to
+Luke, he not only said, "_Judge not_," but also, "_Condemn not_." It
+was not without a purpose that he added this almost synonymous word; it
+shows clearly what meaning should be attributed to the other. If he had
+wished to say "Judge not your neighbor," he would have said "neighbor";
+but he added the words which are translated "_Condemn not_," and then
+completed the sentence, "_And ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye
+shall be forgiven_." But some may still insist that Jesus, in expressing
+himself in this way, did not refer at all to the tribunals, and that I
+have read my own thoughts into his teachings. Let the apostles tell us
+what they thought of courts of justice, and if they recognized and
+approved of them. The apostle James says (iv. 11, 12):--
+
+"_Speak not evil one of another, brethren. He that speaketh evil of his
+brother, and judgeth his brother, speaketh evil of the law, and judgeth
+the law: but if thou judge the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but
+a judge. There is one lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy: who
+art thou that judgest another?_"
+
+The word translated "speak evil" is the verb [Greek: katalaleô], which
+means "to speak against, to accuse"; this is its true meaning, as any
+one may find out for himself by opening a dictionary. In the translation
+we read, "_He that speaketh evil of his brother, ... speaketh evil of
+the law_." Why so? is the question that involuntarily arises. I may
+speak evil of my brother, but I do not thereby speak evil of the law.
+If, however, I _accuse_ my brother, if I bring him to justice, it is
+plain that I thereby accuse the law of Jesus of insufficiency: I accuse
+and judge the law. It is clear, then, that I do not practise the law,
+but that I make myself a judge of the law. "_Not to judge, but to save_"
+is Jesus' declaration. How then shall I, who cannot save, become a judge
+and punish? The entire passage refers to human justice, and denies its
+authority. The whole epistle is permeated with the same idea. In the
+second chapter we read:--
+
+"_For he shall have judgment without mercy, that hath shewed no mercy;
+and mercy is exalted above judgment._"[2] (Jas. ii. 13.)
+
+     [2] Count Tolstoi's rendering.
+
+(The last phrase has been translated in such a way as to declare that
+judgment is compatible with Christianity, but that it ought to be
+merciful.)
+
+James exhorts his brethren to have no respect of persons. If you have
+respect of the condition of persons, you are guilty of sin; you are like
+the untrustworthy judges of the tribunals. You look upon the beggar as
+the refuse of society, while it is the rich man who ought to be so
+regarded. He it is who oppresses you and draws you before the
+judgment-seats. If you live according to the law of love for your
+neighbor, according to the law of mercy (which James calls "_the law of
+liberty_," to distinguish it from all others)--if you live according to
+this law, it is well. But if you have respect of persons, you transgress
+the law of mercy. Then (doubtless thinking of the case of the woman
+taken in adultery, who, when she was brought before Jesus, was about to
+be put to death according to the law), thinking, no doubt, of that case,
+James says that he who inflicts death upon the adulterous woman would
+himself be guilty of murder, and thereby transgress the eternal law; for
+the same law forbids both adultery and murder.
+
+"_So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of
+liberty. For he shall have judgment without mercy, that hath shewed no
+mercy; and mercy is exalted above judgment._" (Jas. ii. 12, 13.)
+
+Could the idea be expressed in terms more clear and precise? Respect of
+persons is forbidden, as well as any judgment that shall classify
+persons as good or bad; human judgment is declared to be inevitably
+defective, and such judgment is denounced as criminal when it condemns
+for crime; judgment is blotted out by the eternal law, the law of mercy.
+
+I open the epistles of Paul, who had been a victim of tribunals, and in
+the letter to the Romans I read the admonitions of the apostle for the
+vices and errors of those to whom his words are addressed; among other
+matters he speaks of courts of justice:--
+
+"_Who, knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things
+are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them
+that do them._" (Rom. i. 32.)
+
+"_Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that
+judgest: for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself; for
+thou that judgest doest the same things._" (Rom. ii. 1.)
+
+"_Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and
+long-suffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to
+repentance?_" (Rom. ii. 4.)
+
+Such was the opinion of the apostles with regard to tribunals, and we
+know that human justice was among the trials and sufferings that they
+endured with steadfastness and resignation to the will of God. When we
+think of the situation of the early Christians, surrounded by
+unbelievers, we can understand that a denial of the right to judge
+persecuted Christians before the tribunals was not considered. The
+apostles spoke of it only incidentally as an evil, and denied its
+authority on every occasion.
+
+I examined the teachings of the early Fathers of the Church, and found
+them to agree in obliging no one to judge or to condemn, and in urging
+all to bear the inflictions of justice. The martyrs, by their acts,
+declared themselves to be of the same mind. I saw that Christianity
+before Constantine regarded tribunals only as an evil which was to be
+endured with patience; but it never could have occurred to any early
+Christian that he could take part in the administration of the courts of
+justice. It is plain, therefore, that Jesus' words, "_Judge not,
+condemn not_," were understood by his first disciples, as they ought to
+be understood now, in their direct and literal meaning: judge not in
+courts of justice; take no part in them.
+
+All this seemed absolutely to corroborate my conviction that the words,
+"_Judge not, condemn not_," referred to the justice of tribunals. Yet
+the meaning, "Speak not evil of your neighbor," is so firmly
+established, and courts of justice flaunt their decrees with so much
+assurance and audacity in all Christian societies, with the support even
+of the Church, that for a long time still I doubted the wisdom of my
+interpretation. If men have understood the words in this way (I
+thought), and have instituted Christian tribunals, they must certainly
+have some reason for so doing; there must be a good reason for regarding
+these words as a denunciation of evil-speaking, and there is certainly a
+basis of some sort for the institution of Christian tribunals; perhaps,
+after all, I am in the wrong.
+
+I turned to the Church commentaries. In all, from the fifth century
+onward, I found the invariable interpretation to be, "Accuse not your
+neighbor"; that is, avoid evil-speaking. As the words came to be
+understood exclusively in this sense, a difficulty arose,--How to
+refrain from judgment? It being impossible not to condemn evil, all the
+commentators discussed the question, What is blamable and what is not
+blamable? Some, such as Chrysostom and Theophylact, said that, as far
+as servants of the Church were concerned, the phrase could not be
+construed as a prohibition of censure, since the apostles themselves
+were censorious. Others said that Jesus doubtless referred to the Jews,
+who accused their neighbors of shortcomings, and were themselves guilty
+of great sins.
+
+Nowhere a word about human institutions, about tribunals, to show how
+they were affected by the warning, "_Judge not_." Did Jesus sanction
+courts of justice, or did he not? To this very natural question I found
+no reply--as if it was evident that from the moment a Christian took his
+seat on the judge's bench he might not only judge his neighbor, but
+condemn him to death.
+
+I turned to other writers, Greek, Catholic, Protestant, to the Tübingen
+school, to the historical school. Everywhere, even by the most liberal
+commentators, the words in question were interpreted as an injunction
+against evil-speaking.
+
+But why, contrary to the spirit of the whole doctrine of Jesus, are
+these words interpreted in so narrow a way as to exclude courts of
+justice from the injunction, "_Judge not_"? Why the supposition that
+Jesus in forbidding the comparatively light offence of speaking evil of
+one's neighbor did not forbid, did not even consider, the more
+deliberate judgment which results in punishment inflicted upon the
+condemned? To all this I got no response; not even an allusion to the
+least possibility that the words "to judge" could be used as referring
+to a court of justice, to the tribunals from whose punishments so many
+millions have suffered.
+
+Moreover, when the words, "_Judge not, condemn not_," are under
+discussion, the cruelty of judging in courts of justice is passed over
+in silence, or else commended. The commentators all declare that in
+Christian societies tribunals are necessary, and in no way contrary to
+the law of Jesus.
+
+Realizing this, I began to doubt the sincerity of the commentators; and
+I did what I should have done in the first place; I turned to the
+textual translations of the words which we render "to judge" and "to
+condemn." In the original these words are [Greek: krinô] and [Greek:
+katadikazô]. The defective translation in James of [Greek: katalaleô],
+which is rendered "to speak evil," strengthened my doubts as to the
+correct translation of the others. When I looked through different
+versions of the Gospels, I found [Greek: katadikazô] rendered in the
+Vulgate by _condemnare_, "to condemn"; in the Sclavonic text the
+rendering is equivalent to that of the Vulgate; Luther has _verdammen_,
+"to speak evil of." These divergent renderings increased my doubts, and
+I was obliged to ask again the meaning of [Greek: krinô], as used by the
+two evangelists, and of [Greek: katadikazô], as used by Luke who,
+scholars tell us, wrote very correct Greek.
+
+How would these words be translated by a man who knew nothing of the
+evangelical creed, and who had before him only the phrases in which they
+are used?
+
+Consulting the dictionary, I found that the word [Greek: krinô] had
+several different meanings, among the most used being "to condemn in a
+court of justice," and even "to condemn to death," but in no instance
+did it signify "to speak evil." I consulted a dictionary of New
+Testament Greek, and found that was often used in the sense "to condemn
+in a court of justice," sometimes in the sense "to choose," never as
+meaning "to speak evil." From which I inferred that the word [Greek:
+krinô] might be translated in different ways, but that the rendering "to
+speak evil" was the most forced and far-fetched.
+
+I searched for the word [Greek: katadikazô], which follows [Greek:
+krinô], evidently to define more closely the sense in which the latter
+is to be understood. I looked for [Greek: katadikazô] in the dictionary,
+and found that it had no other signification than "to condemn in
+judgment," or "to judge worthy of death." I found that the word was used
+four times in the New Testament, each time in the sense "to condemn
+under sentence, to judge worthy of death." In James (v. 6) we read, "_Ye
+have condemned and killed the just_." The word rendered "condemned" is
+this same [Greek: katadikazô], and is used with reference to Jesus, who
+was condemned to death by a court of justice. The word is never used in
+any other sense, in the New Testament or in any other writing in the
+Greek language.
+
+What, then, are we to say to all this? Is my conclusion a foolish one?
+Is not every one who considers the fate of humanity filled with horror
+at the sufferings inflicted upon mankind by the enforcement of criminal
+codes,--a scourge to those who condemn as well as to the
+condemned,--from the slaughters of Genghis Khan to those of the French
+Revolution and the executions of our own times? He would indeed be
+without compassion who could refrain from feeling horror and repulsion,
+not only at the sight of human beings thus treated by their kind, but at
+the simple recital of death inflicted by the knout, the guillotine, or
+the gibbet.
+
+The Gospel, of which every word is sacred to you, declares distinctly
+and without equivocation: "You have from of old a criminal law, An eye
+for an eye, a tooth for a tooth; but a new law is given you, That you
+resist not evil. Obey this law; render not evil for evil, but do good to
+every one, forgive every one, under all circumstances." Further on comes
+the injunction, "_Judge not_," and that these words might not be
+misunderstood, Jesus added, "_Condemn not_; condemn not in justice the
+crimes of others."
+
+"No more death-warrants," said an inner voice--"no more death-warrants,"
+said the voice of science; "evil cannot suppress evil." The Word of God,
+in which I believed, told me the same thing. And when in reading the
+doctrine, I came to the words, "_Condemn not, and ye shall not be
+condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven_," could I look upon them
+as meaning simply that I was not to indulge in gossip and evil-speaking,
+and should continue to regard tribunals as a Christian institution, and
+myself as a Christian judge?
+
+I was overwhelmed with horror at the grossness of the error into which I
+had fallen.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+I NOW understood the words of Jesus: "_Ye have heard that it hath been
+said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: but I say unto you,
+That ye resist not evil._" Jesus' meaning is: "You have thought that you
+were acting in a reasonable manner in defending yourself by violence
+against evil, in tearing out an eye for an eye, by fighting against evil
+with criminal tribunals, guardians of the peace, armies; but I say unto
+you, Renounce violence; have nothing to do with violence; do harm to no
+one, not even to your enemy." I understood now that in saying "_Resist
+not evil_," Jesus not only told us what would result from the observance
+of this rule, but established a new basis for society conformable to his
+doctrine and opposed to the social basis established by the law of
+Moses, by Roman law, and by the different codes in force to-day. He
+formulated a new law whose effect would be to deliver humanity from its
+self-inflicted woes. His declaration was: "You believe that your laws
+reform criminals; as a matter of fact, they only make more criminals.
+There is only one way to suppress evil, and that is to return good for
+evil, without respect of persons. For thousands of years you have tried
+the other method; now try mine, try the reverse."
+
+Strange to say, in these later days, I talked with different persons
+about this commandment of Jesus, "_Resist not evil_," and rarely found
+any one to coincide with my opinion! Two classes of men would never,
+even by implication, admit the literal interpretation of the law. These
+men were at the extreme poles of the social scale,--they were the
+conservative Christian patriots who maintained the infallibility of the
+Church, and the atheistic revolutionists. Neither of these two classes
+was willing to renounce the right to resist by violence what they
+regarded as evil. And the wisest and most intelligent among them would
+not acknowledge the simple and evident truth, that if we once admit the
+right of any man to resist by violence what he regards as evil, every
+other man has equally the right to resist by violence what he regards as
+evil.
+
+Not long ago I had in my hands an interesting correspondence between an
+orthodox Slavophile and a Christian revolutionist. The one advocated
+violence as a partisan of a war for the relief of brother Slavs in
+bondage; the other, as a partisan of revolution, in the name of our
+brothers the oppressed Russian peasantry. Both invoked violence, and
+each based himself upon the doctrine of Jesus. The doctrine of Jesus is
+understood in a hundred different ways; but never, unhappily, in the
+simple and direct way which harmonizes with the inevitable meaning of
+Jesus' words.
+
+Our entire social fabric is founded upon principles that Jesus reproved;
+we do not wish to understand his doctrine in its simple and direct
+acceptation, and yet we assure ourselves and others that we follow his
+doctrine, or else that his doctrine is not expedient for us. Believers
+profess that Christ as God, the second person of the Trinity, descended
+upon earth to teach men by his example how to live; they go through the
+most elaborate ceremonies for the consummation of the sacraments, the
+building of temples, the sending out of missionaries, the establishment
+of priesthoods, for parochial administration, for the performance of
+rituals; but they forget one little detail,--the practice of the
+commandments of Jesus. Unbelievers endeavor in every possible way to
+organize their existence independent of the doctrine of Jesus, they
+having decided _a priori_ that this doctrine is of no account. But to
+endeavor to put his teachings in practice, this each refuses to do; and
+the worst of it is, that without any attempt to put them in practice,
+both believers and unbelievers decide _a priori_ that it is impossible.
+
+Jesus said, simply and clearly, that the law of resistance to evil by
+violence, which has been made the basis of society, is false, and
+contrary to man's nature; and he gave another basis, that of
+non-resistance to evil, a law which, according to his doctrine, would
+deliver man from wrong. "You believe" (he says in substance) "that your
+laws, which resort to violence, correct evil; not at all; they only
+augment it. For thousands of years you have tried to destroy evil by
+evil, and you have not destroyed it; you have only augmented it. Do as I
+command you, follow my example, and you will know that my doctrine is
+true." Not only in words, but by his acts, by his death, did Jesus
+propound his doctrine, "_Resist not evil_."
+
+Believers listen to all this. They hear it in their churches, persuaded
+that the words are divine; they worship Jesus as God, and then they say:
+"All this is admirable, but it is impossible; as society is now
+organized, it would derange our whole existence, and we should be
+obliged to give up the customs that are so dear to us. We believe it
+all, but only in this sense: That it is the ideal toward which humanity
+ought to move; the ideal which is to be attained by prayer, and by
+believing in the sacraments, in the redemption, and in the resurrection
+of the dead."
+
+The others, the unbelievers, the free-thinkers who comment on the
+doctrine of Jesus, the historians of religions, the Strausses, the
+Renans,--completely imbued with the teachings of the Church, which says
+that the doctrine of Jesus accords with difficulty with our conceptions
+of life,--tell us very seriously that the doctrine of Jesus is the
+doctrine of a visionary, the consolation of feeble minds; that it was
+all very well preached in the fishermen's huts by Galilee; but that for
+us it is only the sweet dream of one whom Renan calls the "charmant
+docteur."
+
+In their opinion, Jesus could not rise to the heights of wisdom and
+culture attained by our civilization. If he had been on an intellectual
+level with his modern critics, he never would have uttered his charming
+nonsense about the birds of the air, the turning of the other cheek, the
+taking no thought for the morrow. These historical critics judge of the
+value of Christianity by what they see of it as it now exists. The
+Christianity of our age and civilization approves of society as it now
+is, with its prison-cells, its factories, its houses of infamy, its
+parliaments; but as for the doctrine of Jesus, which is opposed to
+modern society, it is only empty words. The historical critics see this,
+and, unlike the so-called believers, having no motives for concealment,
+submit the doctrine to a careful analysis; they refute it
+systematically, and prove that Christianity is made up of nothing but
+chimerical ideas.
+
+It would seem that before deciding upon the doctrine of Jesus, it would
+be necessary to understand of what it consisted; and to decide whether
+his doctrine is reasonable or not, it would be well first to realize
+that he said exactly what he did say. And this is precisely what we do
+not do, what the Church commentators do not do, what the free-thinkers
+do not do--and we know very well why. We know perfectly well that the
+doctrine of Jesus is directed at and denounces all human errors, all
+_tohu_, all the empty idols that we try to except from the category of
+errors, by dubbing them "Church," "State," "Culture," "Science," "Art,"
+"Civilization." But Jesus spoke precisely of all these, of these and all
+other _tohu_. Not only Jesus, but all the Hebrew prophets, John the
+Baptist, all the true sages of the world denounced the Church and State
+and culture and civilization of their times as sources of man's
+perdition.
+
+Imagine an architect who says to a house-owner, "Your house is good for
+nothing; you must rebuild it," and then describes how the supports are
+to be cut and fastened. The proprietor turns a deaf ear to the words,
+"Your house is good for nothing," and only listens respectfully when the
+architect begins to discuss the arrangement of the rooms. Evidently, in
+this case, all the subsequent advice of the architect will seem to be
+impracticable; less respectful proprietors would regard it as
+nonsensical. But it is precisely in this way that we treat the doctrine
+of Jesus. I give this illustration for want of a better. I remember now
+that Jesus in teaching his doctrine made use of the same comparison.
+"_Destroy this temple_," he said, "_and in three days I will raise it
+up_." It was for this they put him on the cross, and for this they now
+crucify his doctrine.
+
+The least that can be asked of those who pass judgment upon any doctrine
+is that they shall judge of it with the same understanding as that with
+which it was propounded. Jesus understood his doctrine, not as a vague
+and distant ideal impossible of attainment, not as a collection of
+fantastic and poetical reveries with which to charm the simple
+inhabitants on the shores of Galilee; to him his doctrine was a doctrine
+of action, of acts which should become the salvation of mankind. This he
+showed in his manner of applying his doctrine. The crucified one who
+cried out in agony of spirit and died for his doctrine was not a
+dreamer; he was a man of action. They are not dreamers who have died,
+and still die, for his doctrine. No; that doctrine is not a chimera!
+
+All doctrine that reveals the truth is chimerical to the blind. We may
+say, as many people do say (I was of the number), that the doctrine of
+Jesus is chimerical because it is contrary to human nature. It is
+against nature, we say, to turn the other cheek when we have been
+struck, to give all that we possess, to toil not for ourselves but for
+others. It is natural, we say, for a man to defend his person, his
+family, his property; that is to say, it is the nature of man to
+struggle for existence. A learned person has proved scientifically that
+the most sacred duty of man is to defend his rights, that is, to fight.
+
+But the moment we detach ourselves from the idea that the existing
+organization established by man is the best, is sacred, the moment we do
+this, the objection that the doctrine of Jesus is contrary to human
+nature turns immediately upon him who makes it. No one will deny that
+not only to kill or torture a man, but to torture a dog, to kill a fowl
+or a calf, is to inflict suffering reproved by human nature. (I have
+known of farmers who had ceased to eat meat solely because it had
+fallen to their lot to slaughter animals.) And yet our existence is so
+organized that every personal enjoyment is purchased at the price of
+human suffering contrary to human nature.
+
+We have only to examine closely the complicated mechanism of our
+institutions that are based upon coercion to realize that coercion and
+violence are contrary to human nature. The judge who has condemned
+according to the code, is not willing to hang the criminal with his own
+hands; no clerk would tear a villager from his weeping family and cast
+him into prison; the general or the soldier, unless he be hardened by
+discipline and service, will not undertake to slay a hundred Turks or
+Germans or destroy a village, would not, if he could help it, kill a
+single man. Yet all these things are done, thanks to the administrative
+machinery which divides responsibility for misdeeds in such a way that
+no one feels them to be contrary to nature.
+
+Some make the laws, others execute them; some train men by discipline to
+automatic obedience; and these last, in their turn, become the
+instruments of coercion, and slay their kind without knowing why or to
+what end. But let a man disentangle himself for a moment from this
+complicated network, and he will readily see that coercion is contrary
+to his nature. Let us abstain from affirming that organized violence, of
+which we make use to our own profit, is a divine, immutable law, and we
+shall see clearly which is most in harmony with human nature,--the
+doctrine of violence or the doctrine of Jesus.
+
+What is the law of nature? Is it to know that my security and that of my
+family, all my amusements and pleasures, are purchased at the expense of
+misery, deprivation, and suffering to thousands of human beings--by the
+terror of the gallows; by the misfortune of thousands stifling within
+prison walls; by the fear inspired by millions of soldiers and guardians
+of civilization, torn from their homes and besotted by discipline, to
+protect our pleasures with loaded revolvers against the possible
+interference of the famishing? Is it to purchase every fragment of bread
+that I put in my mouth and the mouths of my children by the numberless
+privations that are necessary to procure my abundance? Or is it to be
+certain that my piece of bread only belongs to me when I know that every
+one else has a share, and that no one starves while I eat?
+
+It is only necessary to understand that, thanks to our social
+organization, each one of our pleasures, every minute of our cherished
+tranquility, is obtained by the sufferings and privations of thousands
+of our fellows--it is only necessary to understand this, to know what is
+conformable to human nature; not to our animal nature alone, but the
+animal and spiritual nature which constitutes man. When we once
+understand the doctrine of Jesus in all its bearings, with all its
+consequences, we shall be convinced that his doctrine is not contrary to
+human nature; but that its sole object is to supplant the chimerical
+law of the struggle against evil by violence--itself the law contrary
+to human nature and productive of so many evils.
+
+Do you say that the doctrine of Jesus, "_Resist not evil_," is vain?
+What, then, are we to think of the lives of those who are not filled
+with love and compassion for their kind,--of those who make ready for
+their fellow-men punishment at the stake, by the knout, the wheel, the
+rack, chains, compulsory labor, the gibbet, dungeons, prisons for women
+and children, the hecatombs of war, or bring about periodical
+revolutions; of those who carry these horrors into execution; of those
+who benefit by these calamities or prepare reprisals,--are not such
+lives vain?
+
+We need only understand the doctrine of Jesus, to be convinced that
+existence,--not the reasonable existence which gives happiness to
+humanity, but the existence men have organized to their own hurt,--that
+such an existence is a vanity, the most savage and horrible of vanities,
+a veritable delirium of folly, to which, once reclaimed, we do not again
+return.
+
+God descended to earth, became incarnate to redeem Adam's sin, and (so
+we were taught to believe) said many mysterious and mystical things
+which are difficult to understand, which it is not possible to
+understand except by the aid of faith and grace--and suddenly the words
+of God are found to be simple, clear, and reasonable! God said, Do no
+evil, and evil will cease to exist. Was the revelation from God really
+so simple--nothing but that? It would seem that every one might
+understand it, it is so simple!
+
+The prophet Elijah, a fugitive from men, took refuge in a cave, and was
+told that God would appear to him. There came a great wind that
+devastated the forest; Elijah thought that the Lord had come, but the
+Lord was not in the wind. After the wind came the thunder and the
+lightning, but God was not there. Then came the earthquake: the earth
+belched forth fire, the rocks were shattered, the mountain was rent to
+its foundations; Elijah looked for the Lord, but the Lord was not in the
+earthquake. Then, in the calm that followed, a gentle breeze came to the
+prophet, bearing the freshness of the fields; and Elijah knew that God
+was there. It is a magnificent illustration of the words, "_Resist not
+evil_."
+
+They are very simple, these words; but they are, nevertheless, the
+expression of a law divine and human. If there has been in history a
+progressive movement for the suppression of evil, it is due to the men
+who understood the doctrine of Jesus--who endured evil, and resisted not
+evil by violence. The advance of humanity towards righteousness is due,
+not to the tyrants, but to the martyrs. As fire cannot extinguish fire,
+so evil cannot suppress evil. Good alone, confronting evil and resisting
+its contagion, can overcome evil. And in the inner world of the human
+soul, the law is as absolute as it was for the hearers by Galilee, more
+absolute, more clear, more immutable. Men may turn aside from it, they
+may hide its truth from others; but the progress of humanity towards
+righteousness can only be attained in this way. Every step must be
+guided by the command, "_Resist not evil_." A disciple of Jesus may say
+now, with greater assurance than they of Galilee, in spite of
+misfortunes and threats: "And yet it is not violence, but good, that
+overcomes evil." If the progress is slow, it is because the doctrine of
+Jesus (which, through its clearness, simplicity, and wisdom, appeals so
+inevitably to human nature), because the doctrine of Jesus has been
+cunningly concealed from the majority of mankind under an entirely
+different doctrine falsely called by his name.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+THE true meaning of the doctrine of Jesus was revealed to me; everything
+confirmed its truth. But for a long time I could not accustom myself to
+the strange fact, that after the eighteen centuries during which the law
+of Jesus had been professed by millions of human beings, after the
+eighteen centuries during which thousands of men had consecrated their
+lives to the study of this law, I had discovered it for myself anew. But
+strange as it seemed, so it was. Jesus' law, "_Resist not evil_," was to
+me wholly new, something of which I had never had any conception before.
+I asked myself how this could be; I must certainly have had a false idea
+of the doctrine of Jesus to cause such a misunderstanding. And a false
+idea of it I unquestionably had. When I began to read the Gospel, I was
+not in the condition of one who, having heard nothing of the doctrine of
+Jesus, becomes acquainted with it for the first time; on the contrary, I
+had a preconceived theory as to the manner in which I ought to
+understand it. Jesus did not appeal to me as a prophet revealing the
+divine law, but as one who continued and amplified the absolute divine
+law which I already knew; for I had very definite and complex notions
+about God, the creator of the world and of man, and about the
+commandments of God given to men through the instrumentality of Moses.
+
+When I came to the words, "_Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye
+for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you, That ye resist
+not evil_,"--the words, "_An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth_,"
+expressed the law given by God to Moses; the words, "_But I say unto
+you, That ye resist not evil_," expressed the new law, which was a
+negation of the first. If I had seen Jesus' words, simply, in their true
+sense, and not as a part of the theological theory that I had imbibed at
+my mother's breast, I should have understood immediately that Jesus
+abrogated the old law, and substituted for it a new law. But I had been
+taught that Jesus did not abrogate the law of Moses, that, on the
+contrary, he confirmed it to the slightest iota, and that he made it
+more complete. Verses 17-20 of the fifth chapter of Matthew always
+impressed me, when I read the Gospel, by their obscurity, and they
+plunged me into doubt. I knew the Old Testament, particularly the last
+books of Moses, very thoroughly, and recalling certain passages in which
+minute doctrines, often absurd and even cruel in their purport, are
+preceded by the words, "And the Lord said unto Moses," it seemed to me
+very singular that Jesus should confirm all these injunctions; I could
+not understand why he did so. But I allowed the question to pass without
+solution, and accepted with confidence the explanations inculcated in my
+infancy,--that the two laws were equally inspired by the Holy Spirit,
+that they were in perfect accord, and that Jesus confirmed the law of
+Moses while completing and amplifying it. I did not concern myself with
+accounting for the process of this amplification, with the solution of
+the contradictions apparent throughout the whole Gospel, in verses 17-20
+of the fifth chapter, in the words, "_But I say unto you_."
+
+Now that I understood the clear and simple meaning of the doctrine of
+Jesus, I saw clearly that the two laws are directly opposed to one
+another; that they can never be harmonized; that, instead of
+supplementing one by the other, we must inevitably choose between the
+two; and that the received explanation of the verses, Matthew v. 17-20,
+which had impressed me by their obscurity, must be incorrect.
+
+When I now came to read once more the verses that had before impressed
+me as obscure, I was astonished at the clear and simple meaning which
+was suddenly revealed to me. This meaning was revealed, not by any
+combination and transposition, but solely by rejecting the factitious
+explanations with which the words had been encumbered. According to
+Matthew, Jesus said (v. 17-18):--
+
+"_Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets_ (the
+doctrine of the prophets): _I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For
+verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle
+shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled._"
+
+And in verse 20 he added:--
+
+"_For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the
+righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter
+into the kingdom of heaven._"
+
+I am not come (Jesus said) to destroy the eternal law of whose
+fulfilment your books of prophecy foretell. I am come to teach you the
+fulfilment of the eternal law; not of the law that your scribes and
+pharisees call the divine law, but of that eternal law which is more
+immutable than the earth and the heavens.
+
+I have expressed the idea in other words in order to detach the thoughts
+of my readers from the traditional false interpretation. If this false
+interpretation had never existed, the idea expressed in the verses could
+not be rendered in a better or more definite manner.
+
+The view that Jesus did not abrogate the old law arises from the
+arbitrary conclusion that "law" in this passage signifies the written
+law instead of the law eternal, the reference to the iota--jot and
+tittle--perhaps furnishing the grounds for such an opinion. But if Jesus
+had been speaking of the written law, he would have used the expression
+"the law and the prophets," which he always employed in speaking of the
+written law; here, however, he uses a different expression,--"the law
+_or_ the prophets." If Jesus had meant the written law, he would have
+used the expression, "the law and the prophets," in the verses that
+follow and that continue the thought; but he says, briefly, "the law."
+Moreover, according to Luke, Jesus made use of the same phraseology, and
+the context renders the meaning inevitable. According to Luke, Jesus
+said to the Pharisees, who assumed the justice of their written law:--
+
+"_Ye are they which justify yourselves before men; but God knoweth your
+hearts: for that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in
+the sight of God. The law and the prophets were until John: since that
+time the kingdom of God is preached, and every man presseth into it. And
+it is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of the law to
+fail._" (Luke xvi. 15-17.)
+
+In the words, "_The law and the prophets were until John_," Jesus
+abrogated the written law; in the words, "_And it is easier for heaven
+and earth to pass, than one tittle of the law to fail_," Jesus confirmed
+the law eternal. In the first passage cited he said, "the law _and_ the
+prophets," that is, the written law; in the second he said "the law"
+simply, therefore the law eternal. It is clear, then, that the eternal
+law is opposed to the written law,[3] exactly as in the context of
+Matthew where the eternal law is defined by the phrase, "the law _or_
+the prophets."
+
+     [3] More than this, as if to do away with all doubt about the law
+     to which he referred, Jesus cites immediately, in connection with
+     this passage, the most decisive instance of the negation of the law
+     of Moses by the eternal law, the law of which not the smallest jot
+     is to fail: "_Whosoever putteth away his wife, and marrieth
+     another, committeth adultery._" (Luke xvi. 18.) That is, according
+     to the written law divorce is permissible; according to the eternal
+     law it is forbidden.
+
+The history of the variants of the text of these verses is quite worthy
+of notice. The majority of texts have simply "the law," without the
+addition, "and the prophets," thus avoiding a false interpretation in
+the sense of the written law. In other texts, notably that of
+Tischendorf, and in the canonical versions, we find the word "prophets"
+used, not with the conjunction "and," but with the conjunction
+"or,"--"the law _or_ the prophets,"--which also excludes any question of
+the written law, and indicates, as the proper signification, the law
+eternal. In several other versions, not countenanced by the Church, we
+find the word "prophets" used with the conjunction "and," not with "or";
+and in these versions every repetition of the words "the law" is
+followed by the phrase, "and the prophets," which would indicate that
+Jesus spoke only of the written law.
+
+The history of the commentaries on the passage in question coincides
+with that of the variants. The only clear meaning is that authorized by
+Luke,--that Jesus spoke of the eternal law. But among the copyists of
+the Gospel were some who desired that the written law of Moses should
+continue to be regarded as obligatory. They therefore added to the words
+"the law" the phrase "and the prophets," and thereby changed the
+interpretation of the text.
+
+Other Christians, not recognizing to the same degree the authority of
+the books of Moses, suppressed the added phrase, and replaced the
+particle [Greek: kai], "and," with [Greek: ê], "or"; and with this
+substitution the passage was admitted to the canon. Nevertheless, in
+spite of the unequivocal clearness of the text as thus written, the
+commentators perpetuated the interpretation supported by the phrase
+which had been rejected in the canon. The passage evoked innumerable
+comments, which stray from the true signification in proportion to the
+lack, on the part of the commentators, of fidelity to the simple and
+obvious meaning of Jesus' doctrine. Most of them recognize the reading
+rejected by the canonical text.
+
+To be absolutely convinced that Jesus spoke only of the eternal law, we
+need only examine the true meaning of the word which has given rise to
+so many false interpretations. The word "law" (in Greek [Greek: nomos],
+in Hebrew [Hebrew: torah], _torah_) has in all languages two principal
+meanings: one, law in the abstract sense, independent of formulæ; the
+other, the written statutes which men generally recognize as law. In the
+Greek of Paul's Epistles the distinction is indicated by the use of the
+article. Without the article Paul uses [Greek: nomos] the most
+frequently in the sense of the divine eternal law. By the ancient
+Hebrews, as in books of Isaiah and the other prophets, [Hebrew: torah],
+_torah_, is always used in the sense of an eternal revelation, a divine
+intuition. It was not till the time of Esdras, and later in the Talmud,
+that "Torah" was used in the same sense in which we use the word
+"Bible"--with this difference, that while we have words to distinguish
+between the Bible and the divine law, the Jews employed the same word to
+express both meanings.
+
+And so Jesus sometimes speaks of law as the divine law (of Isaiah and
+the other prophets), in which case he confirms it; and sometimes in the
+sense of the written law of the Pentateuch, in which case he rejects it.
+To distinguish the difference, he always, in speaking of the written
+law, adds, "and the prophets," or prefixes the word "your,"--"your law."
+
+When he says: "_Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should
+do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets_"
+(Matt. vii. 12), he speaks of the written law. The entire written law,
+he says, may be reduced to this expression of the eternal law, and by
+these words he abrogated the eternal law. When he says, "_The law and
+the prophets were until John_" (Luke xvi. 16), he speaks of the written
+law, and abrogates it. When he says, "_Did not Moses give you the law,
+and yet none of you keepeth the law_" (John vii. 19), "_It is also
+written in your law_" (John viii. 17), "_that the word might be
+fulfilled that is written in their law_" (John xv. 25), he speaks of the
+written law, the law whose authority he denied, the law that condemned
+him to death: "_The Jews answered him, We have a law, and by our law he
+ought to die_" (John xix. 7). It is plain that this Jewish law, which
+authorized condemnation to death, was not the law of Jesus. But when
+Jesus says, "I am not come to destroy the law, but to teach you the
+fulfilment of the law; for nothing of this law shall be changed, but all
+shall be fulfilled," then he speaks, not of the written law, but of the
+divine and eternal law.
+
+Admit that all this is merely formal proof; admit that I have carefully
+combined contexts and variants, and excluded everything contrary to my
+theory; admit that the commentators of the Church are clear and
+convincing, that, in fact, Jesus did not abrogate the law of Moses, but
+upheld it--admit this: then the question is, what were the teachings of
+Jesus?
+
+According to the Church, he taught that he was the second person of the
+Trinity, the Son of God, and that he came into the world to atone by his
+death for Adam's sin. Those, however, who have read the Gospels know
+that Jesus taught nothing of the sort, or at least spoke but very
+vaguely on these topics. The passages in which Jesus affirms that he is
+the second person of the Trinity, and that he was to atone for the sins
+of humanity, form a very inconsiderable and very obscure portion of the
+Gospels. In what, then, does the rest of Jesus' doctrine consist? It is
+impossible to deny, for all Christians have recognized the fact, that
+the doctrine of Jesus aims summarily to regulate the lives of men, to
+teach them how they ought to live with regard to one another. But to
+realize that Jesus taught men a new way of life, we must have some idea
+of the condition of the people to whom his teachings were addressed.
+
+When we examine into the social development of the Russians, the
+English, the Chinese, the Indians, or even the races of insular
+savages, we find that each people invariably has certain practical rules
+or laws which govern its existence; consequently, if any one would
+inculcate a new law, he must at the same time abolish the old; in any
+race or nation this would be inevitable. Laws that we are accustomed to
+regard as almost sacred would assuredly be abrogated; with us, perhaps,
+it might happen that a reformer who taught a new law would abolish only
+our civil laws, the official code, our administrative customs, without
+touching what we consider as our divine laws, although it is difficult
+to believe that such could be the case. But with the Jewish people, who
+had but one law, and that recognized as divine,--a law which enveloped
+life to its minutest details,--what could a reformer accomplish if he
+declared in advance that the existing law was inviolable?
+
+Admit that this argument is not conclusive, and try to interpret the
+words of Jesus as an affirmation of the entire Mosaic law; in that case,
+who were the Pharisees, the scribes, the doctors of the law, denounced
+by Jesus during the whole of his ministry? Who were they that rejected
+the doctrine of Jesus and, their High Priests at their head, crucified
+him? If Jesus approved the law of Moses, where were the faithful
+followers of that law, who practised it sincerely, and must thereby have
+obtained Jesus' approval? Is it possible that there was not one such?
+The Pharisees, we are told, constituted a sect; where, then, were the
+righteous?
+
+In the Gospel of John the enemies of Jesus are spoken of directly as
+"the Jews." They are opposed to the doctrine of Jesus; they are hostile
+because they are Jews. But it is not only the Pharisees and the
+Sadducees who figure in the Gospels as the enemies of Jesus: we also
+find mention of the doctors of the law, the guardians of the law of
+Moses, the scribes, the interpreters of the law, the ancients, those who
+are always considered as representatives of the people's wisdom. Jesus
+said, "_I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to
+repentance_," to change their way of life ([Greek: metanoia]). But where
+were the righteous? Was Nicodemus the only one? He is represented as a
+good, but misguided man.
+
+We are so habituated to the singular opinion that Jesus was crucified by
+the Pharisees and a number of Jewish shopkeepers, that we never think to
+ask, Where were the true Jews, the good Jews, the Jews that practised
+the law? When we have once propounded this query, everything becomes
+perfectly clear. Jesus, whether he was God or man, brought his doctrine
+to a people possessing rules, called the divine law, governing their
+whole existence. How could Jesus avoid denouncing that law?
+
+Every prophet, every founder of a religion, inevitably meets, in
+revealing the divine law to men, with institutions which are regarded as
+upheld by the laws of God. He cannot, therefore, avoid a double use of
+the word "law," which expresses what his hearers wrongfully consider the
+law of God ("your law"), and the law he has come to proclaim, the true
+law, the divine and eternal law. A reformer not only cannot avoid the
+use of the word in this manner; often he does not wish to avoid it, but
+purposely confounds the two ideas, thus indicating that, in the law
+confessed by those whom he would convert, there are still some eternal
+truths. Every reformer takes these truths, so well known to his hearers,
+as the basis of his teaching. This is precisely what Jesus did in
+addressing the Jews, by whom the two laws were vaguely grouped together
+as "Torah." Jesus recognized that the Mosaic law, and still more the
+prophetical books, especially the writings of Isaiah, whose words he
+constantly quotes,--Jesus recognized that these contained divine and
+eternal truths in harmony with the eternal law, and these he takes as
+the basis of his own doctrine. This method was many times referred to by
+Jesus; thus he said, "_What is written in the law? how readest thou?_"
+(Luke x. 26). That is, one may find eternal truth in the law, if one
+reads it aright. And more than once he affirms that the commandments of
+the Mosaic law, to love the Lord and one's neighbor, are also
+commandments of the eternal law. At the conclusion of the parables by
+which Jesus explained the meaning of his doctrine to his disciples, he
+pronounced words that have a bearing upon all that precedes:--
+
+"_Therefore every scribe which is instructed unto the kingdom of heaven_
+(the truth) _is like unto a man that is a householder, which bringeth
+forth out of his treasure_ (without distinction) _things new and old_."
+(Matt. xiii. 52.)
+
+The Church understands these words, as they were understood by Irenæus;
+but at the same time, in defiance of the true signification, it
+arbitrarily attributes to them the meaning that everything old is
+sacred. The manifest meaning is this: He who seeks for the good, takes
+not only the new, but also the old; and because a thing is old, he does
+not therefore reject it. By these words Jesus meant that he did not deny
+what was eternal in the old law. But when they spoke to him of the whole
+law, or of the formalities exacted by the old law, his reply was that
+new wine should not be put into old bottles. Jesus could not affirm the
+whole law; neither could he deny the entire teachings of the law and the
+prophets,--the law which says, "_love thy neighbor as thyself_," the
+prophets whose words often served to express his own thoughts. And yet,
+in place of this clear and simple explanation of Jesus' words, we are
+offered a vague interpretation which introduces needless contradictions,
+which reduces the doctrine of Jesus to nothingness, and which
+re-establishes the doctrine of Moses in all its savage cruelty.
+
+Commentators of the Church, particularly those who have written since
+the fifth century, tell us that Jesus did not abolish the written law;
+that, on the contrary, he affirmed it. But in what way? How is it
+possible that the law of Jesus should harmonize with the law of Moses?
+To these inquiries we get no response. The commentators all make use of
+a verbal juggle to the effect that Jesus fulfilled the law of Moses, and
+that the sayings of the prophets were fulfilled in his person; that
+Jesus fulfilled the law as our mediator by our faith in him. And the
+essential question for every believer--How to harmonize two conflicting
+laws, each designed to regulate the lives of men?--is left without the
+slightest attempt at explanation. Thus the contradiction between the
+verse where it is said that Jesus did not come to destroy the law, but
+to fulfil the law, and Jesus' saying, "_Ye have heard that it hath been
+said, An eye for an eye_... _But I say unto you_,"--the contradiction
+between the doctrine of Jesus and the very spirit of the Mosaic
+doctrine,--is left without any mitigation.
+
+Let those who are interested in the question look through the Church
+commentaries touching this passage from the time of Chrysostom to our
+day. After a perusal of the voluminous explanations offered, they will
+be convinced not only of the complete absence of any solution for the
+contradiction, but of the presence of a new, factitious contradiction
+arising in its place. Let us see what Chrysostom says in reply to those
+who reject the law of Moses:--
+
+"He made this law, not that we might strike out one another's eyes, but
+that fear of suffering by others might restrain us from doing any such
+thing to them. As therefore He threatened the Ninevites with overthrow,
+not that He might destroy them (for had that been His will, He ought to
+have been silent), but that He might by fear make them better, and so
+quiet His wrath: so also hath He appointed a punishment for those who
+wantonly assail the eyes of others, that if good principle dispose them
+not to refrain from such cruelty, fear may restrain them from injuring
+their neighbors' sight.
+
+"And if this be cruelty, it is cruelty also for the murderer to be
+restrained, and the adulterer checked. But these are the sayings of
+senseless men, and of those that are mad to the extreme of madness. For
+I, so far from saying that this comes of cruelty, should say that the
+contrary to this would be unlawful, according to men's reckoning. And
+whereas thou sayest, 'Because He commanded to pluck out _an eye for an
+eye_, therefore He is cruel'; I say that if He had not given this
+commandment, then He would have seemed, in the judgment of most men, to
+be that which thou sayest He is."
+
+Chrysostom clearly recognized the law. _An eye for an eye_, as divine,
+and the contrary of that law, that is, the doctrine of Jesus, _Resist
+not evil_, as an iniquity. "For let us suppose," says Chrysostom
+further:--
+
+"For let us suppose that this law had been altogether done away, and
+that no one feared the punishment ensuing thereupon, but that license
+had been given to all the wicked to follow their own dispositions in all
+security to adulterers, and to murderers, to perjured persons, and to
+parricides; would not all things have been turned upside down? would
+not cities, market-places and houses, sea and land, and the whole world
+have been filled with unnumbered pollutions and murders? Every one sees
+it. For if, when there are laws, and fear, and threatening, our evil
+dispositions are hardly checked; were even this security taken away,
+what is there to prevent men's choosing vice? and what degree of
+mischief would not then come revelling upon the whole of human life?
+
+"The rather, since cruelty lies not only in allowing the bad to do what
+they will, but in another thing too quite as much,--to overlook, and
+leave uncared for, him who hath done no wrong, but who is without cause
+or reason suffering ill. For tell me; were any one to gather together
+wicked men from all quarters, and arm them with swords, and bid them go
+about the whole city, and massacre all that came in their way, could
+there be anything more like a wild beast than he? And what if some
+others should bind, and confine with the utmost strictness, those whom
+that man had armed, and should snatch from those lawless hands them who
+were on the point of being butchered; could anything be greater humanity
+than this?"
+
+Chrysostom does not say what would be the estimate of these others in
+the opinion of the wicked. And what if these others were themselves
+wicked and cast the innocent into prison? Chrysostom continues:--
+
+"Now then, I bid thee transfer these examples to the Law likewise; for
+He that commands to pluck out _an eye for an eye_ hath laid the fear as
+a kind of strong chain upon the souls of the bad, and so resembles him
+who detains those assassins in prison; whereas he who appoints no
+punishment for them, doth all but arm them by such security, and acts
+the part of that other, who was putting the swords in their hands, and
+letting them loose over the whole city." ("Homilies on the Gospel of St.
+Matthew," xvi.)
+
+If Chrysostom had understood the law of Jesus, he would have said, Who
+is it that strikes out another's eyes? who is it that casts men into
+prison? If God, who made the law, does this, then there is no
+contradiction; but it is men who carry out the decrees, and the Son of
+God has said to men that they must abstain from violence. God commanded
+to strike out, and the Son of God commanded not to strike out. We must
+accept one commandment or the other; and Chrysostom, like all the rest
+of the Church, accepted the commandment of Moses and denied that of the
+Christ, whose doctrine he nevertheless claims to believe.
+
+Jesus abolished the Mosaic law, and gave his own law in its place. To
+one who really believes in Jesus there is not the slightest
+contradiction; such an one will pay no attention to the law of Moses,
+but will practise the law of Jesus, which he believes. To one who
+believes in the law of Moses there is no contradiction. The Jews looked
+upon the words of Jesus as foolishness, and believed in the law of
+Moses. The contradiction is only for those who would follow the law of
+Moses under the cover of the law of Jesus--for those whom Jesus
+denounced as hypocrites, as a generation of vipers.
+
+Instead of recognizing as divine truth the one or the other of the two
+laws, the law of Moses or that of Jesus, we recognize the divine quality
+of both. But when the question comes with regard to the acts of
+every-day life, we reject the law of Jesus and follow that of Moses. And
+this false interpretation, when we realize its importance, reveals the
+source of that terrible drama which records the struggle between evil
+and good, between darkness and light.
+
+To the Jewish people, trained to the innumerable formal regulations
+instituted by the Levites in the rubric of divine laws, each preceded by
+the words, "And the Lord said unto Moses"--to the Jewish people Jesus
+appeared. He found everything, to the minutest detail, prescribed by
+rule; not only the relation of man with God, but his sacrifices, his
+feasts, his fasts, his social, civil, and family duties, the details of
+personal habits, circumcision, the purification of the body, of domestic
+utensils, of clothing--all these regulated by laws recognized as
+commandments of God, and therefore as divine.
+
+Excluding the question of Jesus' divine mission, what could any prophet
+or reformer do who wished to establish his own doctrines among a people
+so enveloped in formalism--what but abolish the law by which all these
+details were regulated? Jesus selected from what men considered as the
+law of God the portions which were really divine; he took what served
+his purpose, rejected the rest, and upon this foundation established the
+eternal law. It was not necessary to abolish all, but inevitable to
+abrogate much that was looked upon as obligatory. This Jesus did, and
+was accused of destroying the divine law; for this he was condemned and
+put to death. But his doctrine was cherished by his disciples, traversed
+the centuries, and is transmitted to other peoples. Under these
+conditions it is again hidden beneath heterogeneous dogmas, obscure
+comments, and factitious explanations. Pitiable human sophisms replace
+the divine revelation. For the formula, "And the Lord said unto Moses,"
+we substitute "Thus saith the Holy Spirit." And again formalism hides
+the truth. Most astounding of all, the doctrine of Jesus is amalgamated
+with the written law, whose authority he was forced to deny. This
+_Torah_, this written law, is declared to have been inspired by the Holy
+Spirit, the spirit of truth; and thus Jesus is taken in the snare of his
+own revelation--his doctrine is reduced to nothingness.
+
+This is why, after eighteen hundred years, it so singularly happened
+that I discovered the meaning of the doctrine of Jesus as some new
+thing. But no; I did not discover it; I did simply what all must do who
+seek after God and His law; I sought for the eternal law amid the
+incongruous elements that men call by that name.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+WHEN I understood the law of Jesus as the law of Jesus, and not as the
+law of Jesus and of Moses, when I understood the commandment of this law
+which absolutely abrogated the law of Moses, then the Gospels, before to
+me so obscure, diffuse, and contradictory, blended into a harmonious
+whole, the substance of whose doctrine, until then incomprehensible, I
+found to be formulated in terms simple, clear, and accessible to every
+searcher after truth.[4]
+
+     [4] Matt. v. 21-48, especially 38
+
+Throughout the Gospels we are called upon to consider the commandments
+of Jesus and the necessity of practising them. All the theologians
+discuss the commandments of Jesus; but what are these commandments? I
+did not know before. I thought that the commandment of Jesus was to love
+God, and one's neighbor as one's self. I did not see that this could not
+be a new commandment of Jesus, since it was given by them of old in
+Deuteronomy and Leviticus. The words:--
+
+"_Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and
+shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of
+heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called
+great in the kingdom of heaven_," (Matt. v. 19.)--these words I believed
+to relate to the Mosaic law. But it never had occurred to me that Jesus
+had propounded, clearly and precisely, new laws. I did not see that in
+the passage where Jesus declares, "_Ye have heard that it was said....
+But I say unto you_," he formulated a series of very definite
+commandments--five entirely new, counting as one the two references to
+the ancient law against adultery. I had heard of the beatitudes of Jesus
+and of their number; their explanation and enumeration had formed a part
+of my religious instruction; but the commandments of Jesus--I had never
+heard them spoken of. To my great astonishment, I now discovered them
+for myself. In the fifth chapter of Matthew I found these verses:--
+
+"_Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not
+kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment: But I
+say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause
+shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his
+brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall
+say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of the Gehenna of fire. Therefore if
+thou bring thy gift to 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, while thou art in the way with
+him; lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the
+judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison. Verily
+I say unto thee, Thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou hast
+paid the uttermost farthing._" (Matt. v. 21-26.)
+
+When I understood the commandment, "_Resist not evil_," it seemed to me
+that these verses must have a meaning as clear and intelligible as has
+the commandment just cited. The meaning I had formerly given to the
+passage was, that every one ought to avoid angry feelings against
+others, ought never to utter abusive language, and ought to live in
+peace with all men, without exception. But there was in the text a
+phrase which excluded this meaning, "Whosoever shall be angry with his
+brother _without a cause_"--the words could not then be an exhortation
+to absolute peace. I was greatly perplexed, and I turned to the
+commentators, the theologians, for the removal of my doubts. To my
+surprise I found that the commentators were chiefly occupied with the
+endeavor to define under what conditions anger was permissible. All the
+commentators of the Church dwelt upon the qualifying phrase "_without a
+cause_," and explained the meaning to be that one must not be offended
+without a reason, that one must not be abusive, but that anger is not
+always unjust; and, to confirm their view, they quoted instances of
+anger on the part of saints and apostles. I saw plainly that the
+commentators who authorized anger "for the glory of God" as not
+reprehensible, although entirely contrary to the spirit of the Gospel,
+based their argument on the phrase "without a cause," in the
+twenty-second verse. These words change entirely the meaning of the
+passage.
+
+Be not angry without cause? Jesus exhorts us to pardon every one, to
+pardon without restriction or limit. He pardoned all who did him wrong,
+and chided Peter for being angry with Malchus when the former sought to
+defend his Master at the time of the betrayal, when, if at any time, it
+would seem that anger might have been justifiable. And yet did this same
+Jesus formally teach men not to be angry "without a cause," and thereby
+sanction anger for a cause? Did Jesus enjoin peace upon all men, and
+then, in the phrase "without a cause," interpolate the reservation that
+this rule did not apply to all cases; that there were circumstances
+under which one might be angry with a brother, and so give the
+commentators the right to say that anger is sometimes expedient?
+
+But who is to decide when anger is expedient and when it is not
+expedient? I never yet encountered an angry person who did not believe
+his wrath to be justifiable. Every one who is angry thinks anger
+legitimate and serviceable. Evidently the qualifying phrase "without a
+cause" destroys the entire force of the verse. And yet there were the
+words in the sacred text, and I could not efface them. The effect was
+the same as if the word "good" had been added to the phrase. "Love thy
+neighbor"--love thy good neighbor, the neighbor that agrees with thee!
+
+The entire signification of the passage was changed by this phrase,
+"without a cause." Verses 23 and 24, which exhort us to be reconciled
+with all men before appealing for divine aid, also lost their direct and
+imperative meaning and acquired a conditional import through the
+influence of the foregoing qualification. It had seemed to me, however,
+that Jesus forbade all anger, all evil sentiment, and, that it might not
+continue in our hearts, exhorted us before entering into communion with
+God to ask ourselves if there were any person who might be angry with
+us. If such were the case, whether this anger were with cause or without
+cause, he commanded us to be reconciled. In this manner I had
+interpreted the passage; but it now seemed, according to the
+commentators, that the injunction must be taken as a conditional
+affirmation. The commentators all explained that we ought to try to be
+at peace with everybody; but, they added, if this is impossible, if,
+actuated by evil instincts, any one is at enmity with you, try to be
+reconciled with him in spirit, in idea, and then the enmity of others
+will be no obstacle to divine communion.
+
+Nor was this all. The words, "Whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca,
+shall be in danger of the council," always seemed to me strange and
+absurd. If we are forbidden to be abusive, why this example with its
+ordinary and harmless epithet; why this terrible threat against those
+that utter abuse so feeble as that implied in the word _raca_, which
+means a good-for-nothing? All this was obscure to me.
+
+I was convinced that I had before me a problem similar to that which had
+confronted me in the words, "_Judge not_." I felt that here again the
+simple, grand, precise, and practical meaning of Jesus had been hidden,
+and that the commentators were groping in gloom. It seemed to me that
+Jesus, in saying, "_be reconciled to thy brother_," could not have
+meant, "be reconciled in idea,"--an explanation not at all clear,
+supposing it were true. I understood what Jesus meant when, using the
+words of the prophet, he said, "_I will have mercy, and not sacrifice_;"
+that is, I will that men shall love one another. If you would have your
+acts acceptable to God, then, before offering prayer, interrogate your
+conscience; and if you find that any one is angry with you, go and make
+your peace with him, and then pray as you desire. After this clear
+interpretation, what was I to understand by the comment, "be reconciled
+in idea"?
+
+I saw that what seemed to me the only clear and direct meaning of the
+verse was destroyed by the phrase, "without a cause." If I could
+eliminate that, there would be no difficulty in the way of a lucid
+interpretation. But all the commentators were united against any such
+course; and the canonical text authorized the rendering to which I
+objected. I could not drop these words arbitrarily, and yet, if they
+were excluded, everything would become clear. I therefore sought for
+some interpretation which would not conflict with the sense of the
+entire passage.
+
+I consulted the dictionary. In ordinary Greek, the word [Greek: eikê]
+means "heedlessly, inconsiderately." I tried to find some term that
+would not destroy the sense; but the words, "without a cause," plainly
+had the meaning attributed to them. In New Testament Greek the
+signification of [Greek: eikê] is exactly the same. I consulted the
+concordances. The word occurs but once in the Gospels, namely, in this
+passage. In the first epistle to the Corinthians, xv. 2, it occurs in
+exactly the same sense. It is impossible to interpret it otherwise, and
+if we accept it, we must conclude that Jesus uttered in vague words a
+commandment easily so construed as to be of no effect. To admit this
+seemed to me equivalent to rejecting the entire Gospel. There remained
+one more resource--was the word to be found in all the manuscripts? I
+consulted Griesbach, who records all recognized variants, and discovered
+to my joy that the passage in question was not invariable, and that the
+variation depended upon the word [Greek: eikê]. In most of the Gospel
+texts and the citations of the Fathers, this word does not occur. I
+consulted Tischendorf for the most ancient reading: the word [Greek:
+eikê] did not appear.
+
+This word, so destructive to the meaning of the doctrine of Jesus, is
+then an interpolation which had not crept into the best copies of the
+Gospel as late as the fifth century. Some copyist added the word; others
+approved it and undertook its explanation. Jesus did not utter, could
+not have uttered, this terrible word; and the primary meaning of the
+passage, its simple, direct, impressive meaning, is the true
+interpretation.
+
+Now that I understood Jesus to forbid anger, whatever the cause, and
+without distinction of persons, the warning against the use of the words
+"raca" and "fool" had a purport quite distinct from any prohibition with
+regard to the utterance of abusive epithets. The strange Hebrew word,
+_raca_, which is not translated in the Greek text, serves to reveal the
+meaning. _Raca_ means, literally, "vain, empty, that which does not
+exist." It was much used by the Hebrews to express exclusion. It is
+employed in the plural form in Judges ix. 4, in the sense, "empty and
+vain." This word Jesus forbids us to apply to any one, as he forbids us
+to use the word "fool," which, like "raca," relieves us of all the
+obligations of humanity. We get angry, we do evil to men, and then to
+excuse ourselves we say that the object of our anger is an empty person,
+the refuse of a man, a fool. It is precisely such words as these that
+Jesus forbids us to apply to men. He exhorts us not to be angry with any
+one, and not to excuse our anger with the plea that we have to do with a
+vain person, a person bereft of reason.
+
+And so in place of insignificant, vague, and uncertain phrases subject
+to arbitrary interpretation, I found in Matthew v. 21-26 the first
+commandment of Jesus: Live in peace with all men. Do not regard anger as
+justifiable under any circumstances. Never look upon a human being as
+worthless or as a fool. Not only refrain from anger yourself, but do
+not regard the anger of others toward you as vain. If any one is angry
+with you, even without reason, be reconciled to him, that all hostile
+feelings may be effaced. Agree quickly with those that have a grievance
+against you, lest animosity prevail to your loss.
+
+The first commandment of Jesus being thus freed from obscurity, I was
+able to understand the second, which also begins with a reference to the
+ancient law:--
+
+"_Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not
+commit adultery: But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman
+to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.
+And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee:
+for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and
+not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. And if thy right hand
+offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for
+thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body
+should be cast into hell. It hath been said,[5] Whosoever shall put away
+his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit
+adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth
+adultery._ (Matt. v. 27-32.)
+
+     [5] Deut. xxiv. 1.
+
+By these words I understood that a man ought not, even in imagination,
+to admit that he could approach any woman save her to whom he had once
+been united, and her he might never abandon to take another, although
+permitted to do so by the Mosaic law.
+
+In the first commandment, Jesus counselled us to extinguish the germ of
+anger, and illustrated his meaning by the fate of the man who is
+delivered to the judges; in the second commandment, Jesus declares that
+debauchery arises from the disposition of men and women to regard one
+another as instruments of voluptuousness, and, this being so, we ought
+to guard against every idea that excites to sensual desire, and, once
+united to a woman, never to abandon her on any pretext, for women thus
+abandoned are sought by other men, and so debauchery is introduced into
+the world.
+
+The wisdom of this commandment impressed me profoundly. It would
+suppress all the evils in the world that result from the sexual
+relations. Convinced that license in the sexual relations leads to
+contention, men, in obedience to this injunction, would avoid every
+cause for voluptuousness, and, knowing that the law of humanity is to
+live in couples, would so unite themselves, and never destroy the bond
+of union. All the evils arising from dissensions caused by sexual
+attraction would be suppressed, since there would be neither men nor
+women deprived of the sexual relation.
+
+But I was much more impressed, as I read the Sermon on the Mount, with
+the words, "Saving for the cause of fornication," which permitted a man
+to repudiate his wife in case of infidelity. The very form in which the
+idea was expressed seemed to me unworthy of the dignity of the
+occasion, for here, side by side with the profound truths of the Sermon
+on the Mount, occurred, like a note in a criminal code, this strange
+exception to the general rule; but I shall not dwell upon the question
+of form; I shall speak only of the exception itself, so entirely in
+contradiction with the fundamental idea.
+
+I consulted the commentators; all, Chrysostom and the others, even
+authorities on exegesis like Reuss, all recognized the meaning of the
+words to be that Jesus permitted divorce in case of infidelity on the
+part of the woman, and that, in the exhortation against divorce in the
+nineteenth chapter of Matthew, the same words had the same
+signification. I read the thirty-second verse of the fifth chapter again
+and again, and reason refused to accept the interpretation. To verify my
+doubts I consulted the other portions of the New Testament texts, and I
+found in Matthew (xix.), Mark (x.), Luke (xvi.), and in the first
+epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, affirmation of the doctrine of the
+indissolubility of marriage. In Luke (xvi. 18) it is said:--
+
+"_Whosoever putteth away his wife, and marrieth another, committeth
+adultery: and whosoever marrieth her that is put away from her husband
+committeth adultery._"
+
+In Mark (x. 5-12) the doctrine is also proclaimed without any exception
+whatever:--
+
+"_For the hardness of your heart he_ [Moses] _wrote you this precept.
+But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female.
+For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to
+his wife; And they twain shall be one flesh: so then they are no more
+twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not
+man put asunder. And in the house his disciples asked him again of the
+same matter. And he said unto them, Whosoever shall put away his wife,
+and marry another, committeth adultery against her. And if a woman shall
+put away her husband, and be married to another, she committeth
+adultery._"
+
+The same idea is expressed in Matt. xix. 4-9. Paul, in the first epistle
+to the Corinthians (vii. 1-11), develops systematically the idea that
+the only way of preventing debauchery is that every man have his own
+wife, and every woman have her own husband, and that they mutually
+satisfy the sexual instinct; then he says, without equivocation, "_Let
+not the wife depart from her husband: But and if she depart, let her
+remain unmarried, or be reconciled to her husband: and let not the
+husband put away his wife_."
+
+According to Mark, and Luke, and Paul, divorce is forbidden. It is
+forbidden by the assertion repeated in two of the Gospels, that husband
+and wife are one flesh whom God hath joined together. It is forbidden by
+the doctrine of Jesus, who exhorts us to pardon every one, without
+excepting the adulterous woman. It is forbidden by the general sense of
+the whole passage, which explains that divorce is provocative of
+debauchery, and for this reason that divorce with an adulterous woman is
+prohibited.
+
+Upon what, then, is based the opinion that divorce is permissible in
+case of infidelity on the part of the woman? Upon the words which had so
+impressed me in Matt. v. 32; the words every one takes to mean that
+Jesus permits divorce in case of adultery by the woman; the words,
+repeated in Matt. xix. 9, in a number of copies of the Gospel text, and
+by many Fathers of the Church,--the words, "unless for the cause of
+adultery." I studied these words carefully anew. For a long time I could
+not understand them. It seemed to me that there must be a defect in the
+translation, and an erroneous exegesis; but where was the source of the
+error? I could not find it; and yet the error itself was very plain.
+
+In opposition to the Mosaic law, which declares that if a man take an
+aversion to his wife he may write her a bill of divorcement and send her
+out of his house--in opposition to this law Jesus is made to declare,
+"_But I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for
+the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery_." I saw
+nothing in these words to allow us to affirm that divorce was either
+permitted or forbidden. It is said that whoever shall put away his wife
+causes her to commit adultery, and then an exception is made with regard
+to a woman guilty of adultery. This exception, which throws the guilt of
+marital infidelity entirely upon the _woman_ is, in general, strange and
+unexpected; but here, in relation to the context, it is simply absurd,
+for even the very doubtful meaning which might otherwise be attributed
+to it is wholly destroyed. Whoever puts away his wife exposes her to the
+crime of adultery, and yet a man is permitted to put away a wife guilty
+of adultery, as if a woman guilty of adultery would no more commit
+adultery after she were put away.
+
+But this is not all; when I had examined this passage attentively, I
+found it also to be lacking in grammatical meaning. The words are,
+"Whoever shall put away his wife, except for the fault of adultery,
+exposes her to the commission of adultery,"--and the proposition is
+complete. It is a question of the husband, of him who in putting away
+his wife exposes her to the commission of the crime of adultery; what,
+then, is the purport of the qualifying phrase, "except for the fault of
+adultery"? If the proposition were in this form: Whoever shall put away
+his wife is guilty of adultery, unless the wife herself has been
+unfaithful--it would be grammatically correct. But as the passage now
+stands, the subject "whoever" has no other predicate than the word
+"exposes," with which the phrase "except for the fault of adultery"
+cannot be connected. What, then, is the purport of this phrase? It is
+plain that whether for or without the fault of adultery on the part of
+the woman, the husband who puts away his wife exposes her to the
+commission of adultery.
+
+The proposition is analogous to the following sentence: Whoever refuses
+food to his son, besides the fault of spitefulness, exposes him to the
+possibility of being cruel. This sentence evidently cannot mean that a
+father may refuse food to his son if the latter is spiteful. It can only
+mean that a father who refuses food to his son, besides being spiteful
+towards his son, exposes his son to the possibility of becoming cruel.
+And in the same way, the Gospel proposition would have a meaning if we
+could replace the words, "the fault of adultery," by libertinism,
+debauchery, or some similar phrase, expressing not an act but a quality.
+
+And so I asked myself if the meaning here was not simply that whoever
+puts away his wife, besides being himself guilty of libertinism (since
+no one puts away his wife except to take another), exposes his wife to
+the commission of adultery? If, in the original text, the word
+translated "adultery" or "fornication" had the meaning of libertinism,
+the meaning of the passage would be clear. And then I met with the same
+experience that had happened to me before in similar instances. The text
+confirmed my suppositions and entirely effaced my doubts.
+
+The first thing that occurred to me in reading the text was that the
+word [Greek: porneia], translated in common with [Greek: moichasthai],
+"adultery" or "fornication," is an entirely different word from the
+latter. But perhaps these two words are used as synonyms in the Gospels?
+I consulted the dictionary, and found that the word [Greek: porneia],
+corresponding in Hebrew to _zanah_, in Latin to _fornicatio_, in German
+to _hurerei_, in French to _libertinage_, has a very precise meaning,
+and that it never has signified, and never can signify, the act of
+adultery, _ehebruch_, as Luther and the Germans after him have rendered
+the word. It signifies a state of depravity,--a quality, and not an
+act,--and never can be properly translated by "adultery" or
+"fornication." I found, moreover, that "adultery" is expressed
+throughout the Gospel, as well as in the passage under consideration, by
+the word [Greek: moicheuô]. I had only to correct the false translation,
+which had evidently been made intentionally, to render absolutely
+inadmissible the meaning attributed by commentators to the text, and to
+show the proper grammatical relation of [Greek: porneia] to the subject
+of the sentence.
+
+A person acquainted with Greek would construe as follows: [Greek:
+parektos], "except, outside," [Greek: logou], "the matter, the cause,"
+[Greek: porneias], "of libertinism," [Greek: poiei], "obliges," [Greek:
+autên], "her," [Greek: moichasthai], "to be an adulteress"--which
+rendering gives, word for word, Whoever puts away his wife, besides the
+fault of libertinism, obliges her to be an adulteress.
+
+We obtain the same meaning from Matt. xix. 9. When we correct the
+unauthorized translation of [Greek: porneia], by substituting
+"libertinism" for "fornication," we see at once that the phrase [Greek:
+ei mê epi porneia] cannot apply to "wife." And as the words [Greek:
+parektos logou porneias] could signify nothing else than the fault of
+libertinism on the part of the husband, so the words [Greek: ei mê epi
+porneia], in the nineteenth chapter, can have no other than the same
+meaning. The phrase [Greek: ei mê epi porneia] is, word for word, "if
+this is not through libertinism" (to give one's self up to
+libertinism). The meaning then becomes clear. Jesus replies to the
+theory of the Pharisees, that a man who abandons his wife to marry
+another without the intention of giving himself up to libertinism does
+not commit adultery--Jesus replies to this theory that the abandonment
+of a wife, that is, the cessation of sexual relations, even if not for
+the purpose of libertinism, but to marry another, is none the less
+adultery. Thus we come at the simple meaning of this commandment--a
+meaning which accords with the whole doctrine, with the words of which
+it is the complement, with grammar, and with logic. This simple and
+clear interpretation, harmonizing so naturally with the doctrine and the
+words from which it was derived, I discovered after the most careful and
+prolonged research. Upon a premeditated alteration of the text had been
+based an exegesis which destroyed the moral, religious, logical, and
+grammatical meaning of Jesus' words.
+
+And thus once more I found a confirmation of the terrible fact that the
+meaning of the doctrine of Jesus is simple and clear, that its
+affirmations are emphatic and precise, but that commentaries upon the
+doctrine, inspired by a desire to sanction existing evil, have so
+obscured it that determined effort is demanded of him who would know the
+truth. If the Gospels had come down to us in a fragmentary condition, it
+would have been easier (so it seemed to me) to restore the true meaning
+of the text than to find that meaning now, beneath the accumulations of
+fallacious comments which have apparently no purpose save to conceal the
+doctrine they are supposed to expound. With regard to the passage under
+consideration, it is plain that to justify the divorce of some Byzantine
+emperor this ingenious pretext was employed to obscure the doctrine
+regulating the relations between the sexes. When we have rejected the
+suggestions of the commentators, we escape from the mist of uncertainty,
+and the second commandment of Jesus becomes precise and clear. "Guard
+against libertinism. Let every man justified in entering into the sexual
+relation have one wife, and every wife one husband, and under no pretext
+whatever let this union be violated by either."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Immediately after the second commandment is another reference to the
+ancient law, followed by the third commandment:--
+
+"_Again, ye have heard that it hath been said[6] by them of old time,
+Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine
+oaths: But I say unto you, Swear not at all; neither by heaven; for it
+is God's throne: Nor by the earth; for it is his footstool: neither by
+Jerusalem; for it is the city of the great king. Neither shalt thou
+swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black.
+But let your communications be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is
+more than these cometh of evil._" (Matt. v. 33-37.)
+
+     [6] Levit. xix. 12; Deut. xxiii. 21, 34.
+
+This passage always troubled me when I read it. It did not trouble me by
+its obscurity, like the passage about divorce; or by conflicting with
+other passages, like the authorization of anger for cause; or by the
+difficulty in the way of obedience, as in the case of the command to
+turn the other cheek;--it troubled me rather by its very clearness,
+simplicity, and practicality. Side by side with rules whose magnitude
+and importance I felt profoundly, was this saying, which seemed to me
+superfluous, frivolous, weak, and without consequence to me or to
+others. I naturally did not swear, either by Jerusalem, or by heaven, or
+by anything else, and it cost me not the least effort to refrain from
+doing so; on the other hand, it seemed to me that whether I swore or did
+not swear could not be of the slightest importance to any one. And
+desiring to find an explanation of this rule, which troubled me through
+its very simplicity, I consulted the commentators. They were in this
+case of great assistance to me.
+
+The commentators all found in these words a confirmation of the third
+commandment of Moses,--not to swear by the name of the Lord; but, in
+addition to this, they explained that this commandment of Jesus against
+an oath was not always obligatory, and had no reference whatever to the
+oath which citizens are obliged to take before the authorities. And they
+brought together Scripture citations, not to support the direct meaning
+of Jesus' commandment, but to prove when it ought and ought not to be
+obeyed. They claimed that Jesus had himself sanctioned the oath in
+courts of justice by his reply, "_Thou hast said_," to the words of the
+High Priest, "_I adjure thee by the living God_;" that the apostle Paul
+invoked God to witness the truth of his words, which invocation was
+evidently equivalent to an oath; that the law of Moses proscribing the
+oath was not abrogated by Jesus; and that Jesus forbade only false
+oaths, the oaths of Pharisees and hypocrites. When I had read these
+comments, I understood that unless I excepted from the oaths forbidden
+by Jesus the oath of fidelity to the State, the commandment was as
+insignificant as superficial, and as easy to practise as I had supposed.
+
+And I asked myself the question, Does this passage contain an
+exhortation to abstain from an oath that the commentators of the Church
+are so zealous to justify? Does it not forbid us to take the oath
+indispensable to the assembling of men into political groups and the
+formation of a military caste? The soldier, that special instrument of
+violence, goes in Russia by the nickname of _prissaiaga_ (sworn in). If
+I had asked the soldier at the Borovitzky Gate how he solved the
+contradiction between the Gospels and military regulations, he would
+have replied that he had taken the oath, that is, that he had sworn by
+the Gospels. This is the reply that soldiers always make. The oath is so
+indispensable to the horrors of war and armed coercion that in France,
+where Christianity is out of favor, the oath remains in full force. If
+Jesus did not say in so many words, "Do not take an oath," the
+prohibition ought to be a consequence of his teaching. He came to
+suppress evil, and, if he did not condemn the oath, he left a terrible
+evil untouched. It may be said, perhaps, that at the time at which Jesus
+lived this evil passed unperceived; but this is not true. Epictetus and
+Seneca declare against the taking of oaths. A similar rule is inscribed
+in the laws of Mani. The Jews of the time of Jesus made proselytes, and
+obliged them to take the oath. How could it be said that Jesus did not
+perceive this evil when he forbade it in clear, direct, and
+circumstantial terms? He said, "_Swear not at all_." This expression is
+as simple, clear, and absolute as the expression, "_Judge not, condemn
+not_," and is as little subject to explanation; moreover, he added to
+this, "_Let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is
+more than these cometh of evil_."
+
+If obedience to the doctrine of Jesus consists in perpetual observance
+of the will of God, how can a man swear to observe the will of another
+man or other men? The will of God cannot coincide with the will of man.
+And this is precisely what Jesus said in Matt. v. 36:--
+
+"_Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one
+hair white or black._"
+
+And the apostle James says in his epistle, v. 12:--
+
+"_But above all things, my brethren, swear not, neither by heaven,
+neither by earth, neither by any other oath: but let your yea be yea;
+and your nay, nay; lest ye fall into condemnation._"
+
+The apostle tells us clearly why we must not swear: the oath in itself
+may be unimportant, but by it men are condemned, and so we ought not to
+swear at all. How could we express more clearly the saying of Jesus and
+his apostle?
+
+My ideas had become so confused that for a long time I had kept before
+me the question, Do the words and the meaning of this passage agree?--it
+does not seem possible. But, after having read the commentaries
+attentively, I saw that the impossible had become a fact. The
+explanations of the commentators were in harmony with those they had
+offered concerning the other commandments of Jesus: judge not, be not
+angry, do not violate the marital bonds.
+
+We have organized a social order which we cherish and look upon as
+sacred. Jesus, whom we recognize as God, comes and tells us that our
+social organization is wrong. We recognize him as God, but we are not
+willing to renounce our social institutions. What, then, are we to do?
+Add, if we can, the words "without a cause" to render void the command
+against anger; mutilate the sense of another law, as audacious
+prevaricators have done by substituting for the command absolutely
+forbidding divorce, phraseology which permits divorce; and if there is
+no possible way of deriving an equivocal meaning, as in the case of the
+commands, "_Judge not, condemn not_," and "_Swear not at all_," then
+with the utmost effrontery openly violate the rule while affirming that
+we obey it.
+
+In fact, the principal obstacle to a comprehension of the truth that the
+Gospel forbids all manner of oaths exists in the fact that our
+pseudo-Christian commentators themselves, with unexampled audacity, take
+oath upon the Gospel itself. They make men swear by the Gospel, that is
+to say, they do just the contrary of what the Gospel commands. Why does
+it never occur to the man who is made to take an oath upon the cross and
+the Gospel that the cross was made sacred only by the death of one who
+forbade all oaths, and that in kissing the sacred book he perhaps is
+pressing his lips upon the very page where is recorded the clear and
+direct commandment, "_Swear not at all_"?
+
+But I was troubled no more with regard to the meaning of the passage
+comprised in Matt. v. 33-37 when I found the plain declaration of the
+third commandment, that we should take no oath, since all oaths are
+imposed for an evil purpose.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After the third commandment comes the fourth reference to the ancient
+law and the enunciation of the fourth commandment:--
+
+"_Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth
+for a tooth: But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever
+shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if
+any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have
+thy cloak also. And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with
+him twain. Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow
+of thee turn not thou away._" (Matt. V. 38-42.)
+
+I have already spoken of the direct and precise meaning of these words;
+I have already said that we have no reason whatever for basing upon them
+an allegorical explanation. The comments that have been made upon them,
+from the time of Chrysostom to our day, are really surprising. The words
+are pleasing to every one, and they inspire all manner of profound
+reflections save one,--that these words express exactly what Jesus meant
+to say. The Church commentators, not at all awed by the authority of one
+whom they recognize as God, boldly distort the meaning of his words.
+They tell us, of course, that these commandments to bear offences and to
+refrain from reprisals are directed against the vindictive character of
+the Jews; they not only do not exclude all general measures for the
+repression of evil and the punishment of evil-doers, but they exhort
+every one to individual and personal effort to sustain justice, to
+apprehend aggressors, and to prevent the wicked from inflicting evil
+upon others,--for, otherwise (they tell us) these spiritual commandments
+of the Saviour would become, as they became among the Jews, a dead
+letter, and would serve only to propagate evil and to suppress virtue.
+The love of the Christian should be patterned after the love of God; but
+divine love circumscribes and reproves evil only as may be required for
+the glory of God and the safety of his servants. If evil is propagated,
+we must set bounds to evil and punish it,--now this is the duty of
+authorities.[7]
+
+     [7] This citation is taken from the _Commentaries on the Gospel_,
+     by the Archbishop Michael, a work based upon the writings of the
+     Fathers of the Church.
+
+Christian scholars and free-thinkers are not embarrassed by the meaning
+of these words of Jesus, and do not hesitate to correct them. The
+sentiments here expressed, they tell us, are very noble, but are
+completely inapplicable to life; for if we practised to the letter the
+commandment, "_Resist not evil_," our entire social fabric would be
+destroyed. This is what Renan, Strauss, and all the liberal commentators
+tell us. If, however, we take the words of Jesus as we would take the
+words of any one who speaks to us, and admit that he says exactly what
+he does say, all these profound circumlocutions vanish away. Jesus says,
+"Your social system is absurd and wrong. I propose to you another." And
+then he utters the teachings reported by Matthew (v. 38-42). It would
+seem that before correcting them one ought to understand them; now this
+is exactly what no one wishes to do. We decide in advance that the
+social order which controls our existence, and which is abolished by
+these words, is the superior law of humanity.
+
+For my part, I consider our social order to be neither wise nor sacred;
+and that is why I have understood this commandment when others have not.
+And when I had understood these words just as they are written, I was
+struck with their truth, their lucidity, and their precision. Jesus
+said, "You wish to suppress evil by evil; this is not reasonable. To
+abolish evil, avoid the commission of evil." And then he enumerates
+instances where we are in the habit of returning evil for evil, and says
+that in these cases we ought not so to do.
+
+This fourth commandment was the one that I first understood; and it
+revealed to me the meaning of all the others. This simple, clear, and
+practical fourth commandment says: "Never resist evil by force, never
+return violence for violence: if any one beat you, bear it; if one would
+deprive you of anything, yield to his wishes; if any one would force you
+to labor, labor; if any one would take away your property, abandon it at
+his demand."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After the fourth commandment we find a fifth reference to the ancient
+law, followed by the fifth commandment:--
+
+"_Ye have heard that it hath been said,[8] Thou shall love thy neighbor
+and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them
+that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which
+despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of
+your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the
+evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.
+For if ye love them which 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 publicans so? Be ye therefore perfect, even
+as your Father which is in heaven is perfect._" (Matt. v. 43-48.)
+
+     [8] See Levit. xix. 17, 18.
+
+These verses I had formerly regarded as a continuation, an exposition,
+an enforcement, I might almost say an exaggeration, of the words,
+"_Resist not evil_." But as I had found a simple, precise, and practical
+meaning in each of the passages beginning with a reference to the
+ancient law, I anticipated a similar experience here. After each
+reference of this sort had thus far come a commandment, and each
+commandment had been important and distinct in meaning; it ought to be
+so now. The closing words of the passage, repeated by Luke, which are to
+the effect that God makes no distinction of persons, but lavishes his
+gifts upon all, and that we, following his precepts, ought to regard all
+men as equally worthy, and to do good to all,--these words were clear;
+they seemed to me to be a confirmation and exposition of some definite
+law--but what was this law? For a long time I could not understand it.
+
+To love one's enemies?--this was impossible. It was one of those sublime
+thoughts that we must look upon only as an indication of a moral ideal
+impossible of attainment. It demanded all or nothing. We might, perhaps,
+refrain from doing injury to our enemies--but to love them!--no; Jesus
+did not command the impossible. And besides, in the words referring to
+the ancient law, "_Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt ...
+hate thine enemy_," there was cause for doubt. In other references
+Jesus cited textually the terms of the Mosaic law; but here he
+apparently cites words that have no such authority; he seems to
+calumniate the law of Moses.
+
+As with regard to my former doubts, so now the commentators gave me no
+explanation of the difficulty. They all agreed that the words "_hate
+thine enemy_" were not in the Mosaic law, but they offered no suggestion
+as to the meaning of the unauthorized phrase. They spoke of the
+difficulty of loving one's enemies, that is, wicked men (thus they
+emended Jesus' words); and they said that while it is impossible to love
+our enemies, we may refrain from wishing them harm and from inflicting
+injury upon them. Moreover, they insinuated that we might and should
+"convince" our enemies, that is, resist them; they spoke of the
+different degrees of love for our enemies which we might attain--from
+all of which the final conclusion was that Jesus, for some inexplicable
+reason, quoted as from the law of Moses words not to be found therein,
+and then uttered a number of sublime phrases which at bottom are
+impracticable and empty of meaning.
+
+I could not agree with this conclusion. In this passage, as in the
+passages containing the first four commandments, there must be some
+clear and precise meaning. To find this meaning, I set myself first of
+all to discover the purport of the words containing the inexact
+reference to the ancient law, "_Ye have heard that it hath been said,
+Thou shalt... hate thine enemy_." Jesus had some reason for placing at
+the head of each of his commandments certain portions of the ancient law
+to serve as the antitheses of his own doctrine. If we do not understand
+what is meant by the citations from the ancient law, we cannot
+understand what Jesus proscribed. The commentators say frankly (it is
+impossible not to say so) that Jesus in this instance made use of words
+not to be found in the Mosaic law, but they do not tell us why he did so
+or what meaning we are to attach to the words thus used.
+
+It seemed to me above all necessary to know what Jesus had in view when
+he cited these words which are not to be found in the law. I asked
+myself what these words could mean. In all other references of the sort,
+Jesus quotes a single rule from the ancient law: "Thou shalt not
+kill"--"Thou shalt not commit adultery"--"Thou shalt not forswear
+thyself"--"An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth"--and with regard to
+each rule he propounds his own doctrine. In the instance under
+consideration, he cites two contrasting rules: "_Ye have heard that it
+hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thine
+enemy_,"--from which it would appear that the contrast between these two
+rules of the ancient law, relative to one's neighbor and one's enemy,
+should be the basis of the new law. To understand clearly what this
+contrast was, I sought for the meanings of the words "neighbor" and
+"enemy," as used in the Gospel text. After consulting dictionaries and
+Biblical texts, I was convinced that "neighbor" in the Hebrew language
+meant, invariably and exclusively, a Hebrew. We find the same meaning
+expressed in the Gospel parable of the Samaritan. From the inquiry of
+the Jewish scribe (Luke x. 29), "_And who is my neighbor?_" it is plain
+that he did not regard the Samaritan as such. The word "neighbor" is
+used with the same meaning in Acts vii. 27. "Neighbor," in Gospel
+language, means a compatriot, a person belonging to the same
+nationality. And so the antithesis used by Jesus in the citation, "_love
+thy neighbor, hate thine enemy_," must be in the distinction between the
+words "compatriot" and "foreigner." I then sought for the Jewish
+understanding of "enemy," and I found my supposition confirmed. The word
+"enemy" is nearly always employed in the Gospels in the sense, not of a
+personal enemy, but, in general, of a "hostile people" (Luke i. 71, 74;
+Matt. xxii. 44; Mark xii. 36; Luke xx. 43, etc.). The use of the word
+"enemy" in the singular form, in the phrase "_hate thine enemy_,"
+convinced me that the meaning is a "hostile people." In the Old
+Testament, the conception "hostile people" is nearly always expressed in
+the singular form.
+
+When I understood this, I understood why Jesus, who had before quoted
+the authentic words of the law, had here cited the words "_hate thine
+enemy_." When we understand the word "enemy" in the sense of "hostile
+people," and "neighbor" in the sense of "compatriot," the difficulty is
+completely solved. Jesus spoke of the manner in which Moses directed
+the Hebrews to act toward "hostile peoples." The various passages
+scattered through the different books of the Old Testament, prescribing
+the oppression, slaughter, and extermination of other peoples, Jesus
+summed up in one word, "hate,"--make war upon the enemy. He said, in
+substance: "You have heard that you must love those of your own race,
+and hate foreigners; but I say unto you, love every one without
+distinction of nationality." When I had understood these words in this
+way, I saw immediately the force of the phrase, "_Love your enemies_."
+It is impossible to love one's personal enemies; but it is perfectly
+possible to love the citizens of a foreign nation equally with one's
+compatriots. And I saw clearly that in saying, "_Ye have heard that it
+hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy. But
+I say unto you, Love your enemies_," Jesus meant to say that men are in
+the habit of looking upon compatriots as neighbors, and foreigners as
+enemies; and this he reproved. His meaning was that the law of Moses
+established a difference between the Hebrew and the foreigner--the
+hostile peoples; but he forbade any such difference. And then, according
+to Matthew and Luke, after giving this commandment, he said that with
+God all men are equal, all are warmed by the same sun, all profit by the
+same rain. God makes no distinction among peoples, and lavishes his
+gifts upon all men; men ought to act exactly in the same way toward one
+another, without distinction of nationality, and not like the heathen,
+who divide themselves into distinct nationalities.
+
+Thus once more I found confirmed on all sides the simple, clear,
+important, and practical meaning of the words of Jesus. Once more, in
+place of an obscure sentence, I had found a clear, precise, important,
+and practical rule: To make no distinction between compatriots and
+foreigners, and to abstain from all the results of such
+distinction,--from hostility towards foreigners, from wars, from all
+participation in war, from all preparations for war; to establish with
+all men, of whatever nationality, the same relations granted to
+compatriots. All this was so simple and so clear, that I was astonished
+that I had not perceived it from the first.
+
+The cause of my error was the same as that which had perplexed me with
+regard to the passages relating to judgments and the taking of oaths. It
+is very difficult to believe that tribunals upheld by professed
+Christians, blest by those who consider themselves the guardians of the
+law of Jesus, could be incompatible with the Christian religion; could
+be, in fact, diametrically opposed to it. It is still more difficult to
+believe that the oath which we are obliged to take by the guardians of
+the law of Jesus, is directly reproved by this law. To admit that
+everything in life that is considered essential and natural, as well as
+what is considered the most noble and grand,--love of country, its
+defence, its glory, battle with its enemies,--to admit that all this is
+not only an infraction of the law of Jesus, but is directly denounced by
+Jesus,--this, I say, is difficult.
+
+Our existence is now so entirely in contradiction with the doctrine of
+Jesus, that only with the greatest difficulty can we understand its
+meaning. We have been so deaf to the rules of life that he has given us,
+to his explanations,--not only when he commands us not to kill, but when
+he warns us against anger, when he commands us not to resist evil, to
+turn the other cheek, to love our enemies; we are so accustomed to speak
+of a body of men especially organized for murder, as a Christian army,
+we are so accustomed to prayers addressed to the Christ for the
+assurance of victory, we who have made the sword, that symbol of murder,
+an almost sacred object (so that a man deprived of this symbol, of his
+sword, is a dishonored man); we are so accustomed, I say, to this, that
+the words of Jesus seem to us compatible with war. We say, "If he had
+forbidden it, he would have said so plainly." We forget that Jesus did
+not foresee that men having faith in his doctrine of humility, love, and
+fraternity, could ever, with calmness and premeditation, organize
+themselves for the murder of their brethren.
+
+Jesus did not foresee this, and so he did not forbid a Christian to
+participate in war. A father who exhorts his son to live honestly, never
+to wrong any person, and to give all that he has to others, would not
+forbid his son to kill people upon the highway. None of the apostles, no
+disciple of Jesus during the first centuries of Christianity, realized
+the necessity of forbidding a Christian that form of murder which we
+call war.
+
+Here, for example, is what Origen says in his reply to Celsus:[9]--
+
+     [9] _Contra Celsum_, book VIII. chap. LXXIII.
+
+"In the next place, Celsus urges us 'to help the king with all our
+might, and to labor with him in the maintenance of justice, to fight for
+him; and, if he requires it, to fight under him, or lead an army along
+with him.' To this, our answer is that we do, when occasion requires,
+give help to kings, and that, so to say, a divine help, 'putting on the
+whole armour of God.' And this we do in obedience to the injunction of
+the apostle, 'I exhort, therefore, that first of all, supplications,
+prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men, for
+kings, and for all that are in authority'; and the more any one excels
+in piety, the more effective help does he render to kings, even more
+than is given by soldiers, who go forth to fight and slay as many of the
+enemy as they can. And to those enemies of our faith who require us to
+bear arms for the commonwealth, and to slay men, we can reply: 'Do not
+those who are priests at certain shrines, and those who attend on
+certain gods, as you account them, keep their hands free from blood,
+that they may with hands unstained and free from human blood, offer the
+appointed sacrifices to your gods? and even when war is upon you, you
+never enlist the priests in the army. If that, then, is a laudable
+custom, how much more so, that while others are engaged in battle, these
+too should engage as the priests and ministers of God, keeping their
+hands pure, and wrestling in prayers to God on behalf of those who are
+fighting in a righteous cause, and for the king who reigns righteously,
+that whatever is opposed to those who act righteously may be
+destroyed!'"
+
+And at the close of the chapter, in explaining that Christians, through
+their peaceful lives, are much more helpful to kings than soldiers are,
+Origen says:--
+
+"And none fight better for the king than we do. We do not, indeed, fight
+under him, although he require it; but we fight on his behalf, forming a
+special army,--an army of piety,--by offering our prayers to God."
+
+This is the way in which the Christians of the first centuries regarded
+war, and such was the language that their leaders addressed to the
+rulers of the earth at a period when martyrs perished by hundreds and by
+thousands for having confessed the religion of Jesus, the Christ.
+
+And now is not the question settled as to whether a Christian may or may
+not go to war? All young men brought up according to the doctrine of the
+Church called Christian, are obliged at a specified date during every
+autumn, to report at the bureaus of conscription and, under the guidance
+of their spiritual directors, deliberately to renounce the religion of
+Jesus. Not long ago, there was a peasant who refused military service
+on the plea that it was contrary to the Gospel. The doctors of the
+Church explained to the peasant his error; but, as the peasant had
+faith, not in their words, but in those of Jesus, he was thrown into
+prison, where he remained until he was ready to renounce the law of
+Christ. And all this happened after Christians had heard for eighteen
+hundred years the clear, precise, and practical commandment of their
+Master, which teaches not to consider men of different nationality as
+enemies, but to consider all men as brethren, and to maintain with them
+the same relations existing among compatriots; to refrain not only from
+killing those who are called enemies, but to love them and to minister
+to their needs.
+
+When I had understood these simple and precise commandments of Jesus,
+these commandments so ill adapted to the ingenious distortions of
+commentators,--I asked myself what would be the result if the whole
+Christian world believed in them, believed not only in reading and
+chanting them for the glory of God, but also in obeying them for the
+good of humanity? What would be the result if men believed in the
+observance of these commandments at least as seriously as they believe
+in daily devotions, in attendance on Sunday worship, in weekly fasts, in
+the holy sacrament? What would be the result if the faith of men in
+these commandments were as strong as their faith in the requirements of
+the Church? And then I saw in imagination a Christian society living
+according to these commandments and educating the younger generation to
+follow their precepts. I tried to picture the results if we taught our
+children from infancy, not what we teach them now--to maintain personal
+dignity, to uphold personal privileges against the encroachments of
+others (which we can never do without humiliating or offending
+others)--but to teach them that no man has a right to privileges, and
+can neither be above or below any one else; that he alone debases and
+demeans himself who tries to domineer over others; that a man can be in
+a no more contemptible condition than when he is angry with another;
+that what may seem to be foolish and despicable in another is no excuse
+for wrath or enmity. I sought to imagine the results if, instead of
+extolling our social organization as it now is, with its theatres, its
+romances, its sumptuous methods for stimulating sensuous desires--if,
+instead of this, we taught our children by precept and by example, that
+the reading of lascivious romances and attendance at theatres and balls
+are the most vulgar of all distractions, and that there is nothing more
+grotesque and humiliating than to pass one's time in the collection and
+arrangement of personal finery to make of one's body an object of show.
+I endeavored to imagine a state of society where, instead of permitting
+and approving libertinism in young men before marriage, instead of
+regarding the separation of husband and wife as natural and desirable,
+instead of giving to women the legal right to practise the trade of
+prostitution, instead of countenancing and sanctioning divorce--if,
+instead of this, we taught by words and actions that the state of
+celibacy, the solitary existence of a man properly endowed for, and who
+has not renounced the sexual relation, is a monstrous and opprobrious
+wrong; and that the abandonment of wife by husband or of husband by wife
+for the sake of another, is an act against nature, an act bestial and
+inhuman.
+
+Instead of regarding it as natural that our entire existence should be
+controlled by coercion; that every one of our amusements should be
+provided and maintained by force; that each of us from childhood to old
+age should be by turns victim and executioner--instead of this I tried
+to picture the results if, by precept and example, we endeavored to
+inspire the world with the conviction that vengeance is a sentiment
+unworthy of humanity; that violence is not only debasing, but that it
+deprives us of all capacity for happiness; that the true pleasures of
+life are not those maintained by force; and that our greatest
+consideration ought to be bestowed, not upon those who accumulate riches
+to the injury of others, but upon those who best serve others and give
+what they have to lessen the woes of their kind. If instead of regarding
+the taking of an oath and the placing of ourselves and our lives at the
+disposition of another as a rightful and praiseworthy act,--I tried to
+imagine what would be the result if we taught that the enlightened will
+of man is alone sacred; and that if a man place himself at the
+disposition of any one, and promise by oath anything whatever, he
+renounces his rational manhood and outrages his most sacred right. I
+tried to imagine the results, if, instead of the national hatred with
+which we are inspired under the name of "patriotism"; if, in place of
+the glory associated with that form of murder which we call war,--if, in
+place of this, we were taught, on the contrary, horror and contempt for
+all the means--military, diplomatic, and political--which serve to
+divide men; if we were educated to look upon the division of men into
+political States, and a diversity of codes and frontiers, as an
+indication of barbarism; and that to massacre others is a most horrible
+forfeit, which can only be exacted of a depraved and misguided man, who
+has fallen to the lowest level of the brute. I imagined that all men had
+arrived at these convictions, and I considered what I thought would be
+the result.
+
+Up to this time (I said), what have been the practical results of the
+doctrine of Jesus as I understand it? and the involuntary reply was,
+Nothing. We continue to pray, to partake of the sacraments, to believe
+in the redemption, and in our personal salvation as well as that of the
+world by Jesus the Christ,--and yet that this salvation will never come
+by our efforts, but will come because the period set for the end of the
+world will have arrived when the Christ will appear in his glory to
+judge the quick and the dead, and the kingdom of heaven will be
+established.
+
+Now the doctrine of Jesus, as I understood it, had an entirely different
+meaning. The establishment of the kingdom of God depended upon our
+personal efforts in the practice of Jesus' doctrine as propounded in the
+five commandments, which instituted the kingdom of God upon earth. The
+kingdom of God upon earth consists in this, that all men should be at
+peace with one another. It was thus that the Hebrew prophets conceived
+of the rule of God. Peace among men is the greatest blessing that can
+exist upon this earth, and it is within reach of all men. This ideal is
+in every human heart. The prophets all brought to men the promise of
+peace. The whole doctrine of Jesus has but one object, to establish
+peace--the kingdom of God--among men.
+
+In the Sermon on the Mount, in the interview with Nicodemus, in the
+instructions given to his disciples, in all his teachings, Jesus spoke
+only of this, of the things that divided men, that kept them from peace,
+that prevented them from entering into the kingdom of heaven. The
+parables make clear to us what the kingdom of heaven is, and show us the
+only way of entering therein, which is to love our brethren, and to be
+at peace with all. John the Baptist, the forerunner of Jesus, proclaimed
+the approach of the kingdom of God, and declared that Jesus was to bring
+it upon earth. Jesus himself said that his mission was to bring peace:--
+
+"_Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world
+giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it
+be afraid_" (John xiv. 27).
+
+And the observance of his five commandments will bring peace upon the
+earth. They all have but one object,--the establishment of peace among
+men. If men will only believe in the doctrine of Jesus and practise it,
+the reign of peace will come upon earth,--not that peace which is the
+work of man, partial, precarious, and at the mercy of chance; but the
+peace that is all-pervading, inviolable, and eternal.
+
+The first commandment tells us to be at peace with every one and to
+consider none as foolish or unworthy. If peace is violated, we are to
+seek to re-establish it. The true religion is in the extinction of
+enmity among men. We are to be reconciled without delay, that we may not
+lose that inner peace which is the true life (Matt. v. 22-24).
+Everything is comprised in this commandment; but Jesus knew the worldly
+temptations that prevent peace among men. The first temptation perilous
+to peace is that of the sexual relation. We are not to consider the body
+as an instrument of lust; each man is to have one wife, and each woman
+one husband, and one is never to forsake the other under any pretext
+(Matt. v. 28-32). The second temptation is that of the oath, which draws
+men into sin; this is wrong, and we are not to be bound by any such
+promise (Matt. v. 34-37). The third temptation is that of vengeance,
+which we call human justice; this we are not to resort to under any
+pretext; we are to endure offences and never to return evil for evil
+(Matt. v. 38-42). The fourth temptation is that arising from difference
+in nationalities, from hostility between peoples and States; but we are
+to remember that all men are brothers, and children of the same Father,
+and thus take care that difference in nationality leads not to the
+destruction of peace (Matt. v. 43-48).
+
+If men abstain from practising any one of these commandments, peace will
+be violated. Let men practise all these commandments, which exclude evil
+from the lives of men, and peace will be established upon earth. The
+practice of these five commandments would realize the ideal of human
+life existing in every human heart. All men would be brothers, each
+would be at peace with others, enjoying all the blessings of earth to
+the limit of years accorded by the Creator. Men would beat their swords
+into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks, and then would
+come the kingdom of God,--that reign of peace foretold by all the
+prophets, which was foretold by John the Baptist as near at hand, and
+which Jesus proclaimed in the words of Isaiah:--
+
+"'_The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to
+preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the broken
+hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight
+to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the
+acceptable year of the Lord.'[10]... And he began to say unto them,
+To-day hath this Scripture been fulfilled in your ears_" (Luke iv. 18,
+19, 21).
+
+     [10] Isaiah lxi. 1, 2.
+
+The commandments for peace given by Jesus,--those simple and clear
+commandments, foreseeing all possibilities of discussion, and
+anticipating all objections,--these commandments proclaimed the kingdom
+of God upon earth. Jesus, then, was, in truth, the Messiah. He fulfilled
+what had been promised. But we have not fulfilled the commands we must
+fulfil if the kingdom of God is to be established upon earth,--that
+kingdom which men in all ages have earnestly desired, and have sought
+for continually, all their days.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+WHY is it that men have not done as Jesus commanded them, and thus
+secured the greatest happiness within their reach, the happiness they
+have always longed for and still desire? The reply to this inquiry is
+always the same, although expressed in different ways. The doctrine of
+Jesus (we are told) is admirable, and it is true that if we practised
+it, we should see the kingdom of God established upon earth; but to
+practise it is difficult, and consequently this doctrine is
+impracticable. The doctrine of Jesus, which teaches men how they should
+live, is admirable, is divine; it brings true happiness, but it is
+difficult to practise. We repeat this, and hear it repeated so many,
+many times, that we do not observe the contradiction contained in these
+words.
+
+It is natural to each human being to do what seems to him best. Any
+doctrine teaching men how they should live instructs them only as to
+what is best for each. If we show men what they have to do to attain
+what is best for each, how can they say that they would like to do it,
+but that it is impossible of attainment? According to the law of their
+nature they cannot do what is worse for each, and yet they declare that
+they cannot do what is best.
+
+The reasonable activity of man, from his earliest existence, has been
+applied to the search for what is best among the contradictions that
+envelop human life. Men struggled for the soil, for objects which are
+necessary to them; then they arrived at the division of goods, and
+called this property; finding that this arrangement, although difficult
+to establish, was best, they maintained ownership. Men fought with one
+another for the possession of women, they abandoned their children; then
+they found it was best that each should have his own family; and
+although it was difficult to sustain a family, they maintained the
+family, as they did ownership and many other things. As soon as they
+discover that a thing is best, however difficult of attainment, men do
+it. What, then, is the meaning of the saying that the doctrine of Jesus
+is admirable, that a life according to the doctrine of Jesus would be
+better than the life which men now lead, but that men cannot lead this
+better life because it is difficult?
+
+If the word "difficult," used in this way, is to be understood in the
+sense that it is difficult to renounce the fleeting satisfaction of
+sensual desires that we may obtain a greater good, why do we not say
+that it is difficult to labor for bread, difficult to plant a tree that
+we may enjoy the fruit? Every being endowed with even the most
+rudimentary reason knows that he must endure difficulties to procure any
+good, superior to that which he has enjoyed before. And yet we say that
+the doctrine of Jesus is admirable, but impossible of practice, because
+it is difficult! Now it is difficult, because in following it we are
+obliged to deprive ourselves of many things that we have hitherto
+enjoyed. Have we never heard that it is far more to our advantage to
+endure difficulties and privations than to satisfy all our desires? Man
+may fall to the level of the beasts, but he ought not to make use of his
+reason to devise an apology for his bestiality. From the moment that he
+begins to reason, he is conscious of being endowed with reason, and this
+consciousness stimulates him to distinguish between the reasonable and
+the unreasonable. Reason does not proscribe; it enlightens.
+
+Suppose that I am shut into a dark room, and in searching for the door I
+continually bruise myself against the walls. Some one brings me a light,
+and I see the door. I ought no longer to bruise myself when I see the
+door; much less ought I to affirm that, although it is best to go out
+through the door, it is difficult to do so, and that, consequently, I
+prefer to bruise myself against the walls.
+
+In this marvellous argument that the doctrine of Jesus is admirable, and
+that its practice would give the world true happiness, but that men are
+weak and sinful, that they would do the best and do the worst, and so
+cannot do the best,--in this strange plea there is an evident
+misapprehension; there is something else besides defective reasoning;
+there is also a chimerical idea. Only a chimerical idea, mistaking
+reality for what does not exist, and taking the non-existent for
+reality, could lead men to deny the possibility of practising that which
+by their own avowal would be for their true welfare.
+
+The chimerical idea which has reduced men to this condition is that of
+the dogmatic Christian religion, as it is taught through the various
+catechisms, to all who profess the Christianity of the Church. This
+religion, according to the definition of it given by its followers,
+consists in accepting as real that which does not exist--these are
+Paul's words,[11] and they are repeated in all the theologies and
+catechisms as the best definition of faith. It is this faith in the
+reality of what does not exist that leads men to make the strange
+affirmation that the doctrine of Jesus is excellent for all men, but is
+worth nothing as a guide to their way of living. Here is an exact
+summary of what this religion teaches:--
+
+     [11] Heb. ii. 2. Literally, "Faith is the _support_ of the hoped
+     for, the _conviction_ of the unseen."
+
+A personal God, who is from all eternity--one of three persons--decided
+to create a world of spirits. This God of goodness created the world of
+spirits for their own happiness, but it so happened that one of the
+spirits became spontaneously wicked. Time passed, and God created a
+material world, created man for man's own happiness, created man happy,
+immortal, and without sin. The felicity of man consisted in the
+enjoyment of life without toil; his immortality was due to the promise
+that this life should last forever; his innocence was due to the fact
+that he had no conception of evil.
+
+Man was beguiled in paradise by one of the spirits of the first
+creation, who had become spontaneously wicked. From this dates the fall
+of man, who engendered other men fallen like himself, and from this time
+men have endured toil, sickness, suffering, death, the physical and
+moral struggle for existence; that is to say, the fantastic being
+preceding the fall became real, as we know him to be, as we have no
+right or reason to imagine him not to be. The state of man who toils,
+who suffers, who chooses what is for his own welfare and rejects what
+would be injurious to him, who dies,--this state, which is the real and
+only conceivable state, is not, according to the doctrine of this
+religion, the normal state of man, but a state which is unnatural and
+temporary.
+
+Although this state, according to the doctrine, has lasted for all
+humanity since the expulsion of Adam from paradise, that is, from the
+commencement of the world until the birth of Jesus, and has continued
+since the birth of Jesus under exactly the same conditions, the faithful
+are asked to believe that this is an abnormal and temporary state.
+According to this doctrine, the Son of God, the second person of the
+Trinity, who was himself God, was sent by God into the world in the garb
+of humanity to rescue men from this temporary and abnormal state; to
+deliver them from the pains with which they had been stricken by this
+same God because of Adam's sin; and to restore them to their former
+normal state of felicity,--that is to immortality, innocence, and
+idleness. The second person of the Trinity (according to this doctrine),
+by suffering death at the hands of man, atoned for Adam's sin, and put
+an end to that abnormal state which had lasted from the commencement of
+the world. And from that time onward, the men who have had faith in
+Jesus have returned to the state of the first man in paradise; that is,
+have become immortal, innocent, and idle.
+
+The doctrine does not concern itself too closely with the practical
+result of the redemption, in virtue of which the earth after Jesus'
+coming ought to have become once more, at least for believers,
+everywhere fertile, without need of human toil; sickness ought to have
+ceased, and mothers have borne children without pain;--since it is
+difficult to assure even believers who are worn by excessive labor and
+broken down by suffering, that toil is light, and suffering easy to
+endure.
+
+But that portion of the doctrine which proclaims the abrogation of death
+and of sin, is affirmed with redoubled emphasis. It is asserted that the
+dead continue to live. And as the dead cannot bear witness that they are
+dead or prove that they are living (just as a stone is unable to affirm
+either that it can or cannot speak), this absence of denial is admitted
+as proof, and it is affirmed that dead men are not dead. It is affirmed
+with still more solemnity and assurance that, since the coming of Jesus,
+the man who has faith in him is free from sin; that is, that since the
+coming of Jesus, it is no longer necessary that man should guide his
+life by reason, and choose what is best for himself. He has only to
+believe that Jesus has redeemed his sins and he then becomes infallible,
+that is, perfect. According to this doctrine, men ought to believe that
+reason is powerless, and that for this cause they are without sin, that
+is, cannot err. A faithful believer ought to be convinced that since the
+coming of Jesus, the earth brings forth without labor, that childbirth
+no longer entails suffering, that diseases no longer exist, and that
+death and sin, that is, error, are destroyed; in a word, that what is,
+is not, and what is not, is.
+
+Such is the rigorously logical theory of Christian theology. This
+doctrine, by itself, seems to be innocent. But deviations from truth are
+never inoffensive, and the significance of their consequences is in
+proportion to the importance of the subject to which these errors are
+applied. And here the subject at issue is the whole life of man. What
+this doctrine calls the true life, is a life of personal happiness,
+without sin, and eternal; that is, a life that no one has ever known,
+and which does not exist. But the life that is, the only life that we
+know, the life that we live and that all humanity lives and has lived,
+is, according to this doctrine, a degraded and evil existence, a mere
+phantasmagoria of the happy life which is our due.
+
+Of the struggle between animal instincts and reason, which is the
+essence of human life, this doctrine takes no account. The struggle that
+Adam underwent in paradise, in deciding whether to eat or not to eat
+the fruit of the tree of knowledge, is, according to this doctrine, no
+longer within the range of human experience. The question was decided,
+once for all, by Adam in paradise. Adam sinned for all; in other words,
+he did wrong, and all men are irretrievably degraded; and all our
+efforts to live by reason are vain and even impious. This I ought to
+know, for I am irreparably bad. My salvation does not depend upon living
+by the light of reason, and, after distinguishing between good and evil,
+choosing the good; no, Adam, once for all, sinned for me, and Jesus,
+once for all, has atoned for the wrong committed by Adam; and so I
+ought, as a looker-on, to mourn over the fall of Adam and rejoice at the
+redemption through Jesus.
+
+All the love for truth and goodness in the heart of man, all his efforts
+to illuminate his spiritual life by the light of reason, are not only of
+slight importance, according to this doctrine; they are a temptation, an
+incitement to pride. Life as it is upon this earth, with all its joys
+and its splendors, its struggles of reason with darkness,--the life of
+all men that have lived before me, my own life with its inner struggles
+and triumphs,--all this is not the true life; it is the fallen life, a
+life irretrievably bad. The true life, the life without sin, is only in
+faith, that is, in imagination, that is, in lunacy.
+
+Let any one break the habit contracted from infancy of believing in all
+this; let him look boldly at this doctrine as it is; let him endeavor to
+put himself in the position of a man without prejudice, educated
+independently of this doctrine--and then let him ask himself if this
+doctrine would not appear to such a man as a product of absolute
+insanity.
+
+However strange and shocking all this might appear to me, I was obliged
+to examine into it, for here alone I found the explanation of the
+objection, so devoid of logic and common-sense, that I heard everywhere
+with regard to the impossibility of practising the doctrine of Jesus: It
+is admirable, and would give true happiness to men, but men are not able
+to obey it.
+
+Only a conviction that reality does not exist, and that the non-existent
+is real, could lead men to this surprising contradiction. And this false
+conviction I found in the pseudo-Christian religion which men had been
+teaching for fifteen hundred years.
+
+The objection that the doctrine of Jesus is excellent but impracticable,
+comes not only from believers, but from sceptics, from those who do not
+believe, or think that they do not believe, in the dogmas of the fall of
+man and the redemption; from men of science and philosophers who
+consider themselves free from all prejudice. They believe, or imagine
+that they believe, in nothing, and so consider themselves as above such
+a superstition as the dogma of the fall and the redemption. At first it
+seemed to me that all such persons had serious motives for denying the
+possibility of practising the doctrine of Jesus. But when I came to look
+into the source of their negation, I was convinced that the sceptics,
+in common with the believers, have a false conception of life; to them
+life is not what it is, but what they imagine it ought to be,--and this
+conception rests upon the same foundation as does that of the believers.
+It is true that the sceptics, who pretend to believe in nothing, believe
+not in God, or in Jesus, or in Adam; but they believe in a fundamental
+idea which is at the basis of their misconception,--in the rights of man
+to a life of happiness,--much more firmly than do the theologians.
+
+In vain do science and philosophy pose as the arbiters of the human
+mind, of which they are in fact only the servants. Religion has provided
+a conception of life, and science travels in the beaten path. Religion
+reveals the meaning of life, and science only applies this meaning to
+the course of circumstances. And so, if religion falsifies the meaning
+of human life, science, which builds upon the same foundation, can only
+make manifest the same fantastic ideas.
+
+According to the doctrine of the Church, men have a right to happiness,
+and this happiness is not the result of their own efforts, but of
+external causes. This conception has become the base of science and
+philosophy. Religion, science, and public opinion all unite in telling
+us that the life we now live is bad, and at the same time they affirm
+that the doctrine which teaches us how we can succeed in ameliorating
+life by becoming better, is an impracticable doctrine. Religion says
+that the doctrine of Jesus, which provides a reasonable method for the
+improvement of life by our own efforts, is impracticable because Adam
+fell and the world was plunged into sin. Philosophy says that the
+doctrine of Jesus is impracticable because human life is developed
+according to laws that are independent of the human will. In other
+words, the conclusions of science and philosophy are exactly the same as
+the conclusion reached by religion in the dogmas of original sin and the
+redemption.
+
+There are two leading theses at the basis of the doctrine of the
+redemption: (1) the normal life of man is a life of happiness, but our
+life on earth is one of misery, and it can never be bettered by our own
+efforts; (2) our salvation is in faith, which enables us to escape from
+this life of misery. These two theses are the source of the religious
+conceptions of the believers and sceptics who make up our
+pseudo-Christian societies. The second thesis gave birth to the Church
+and its organization; from the first is derived the received tenets of
+public opinion and our political and philosophical theories. The germ of
+all political and philosophical theories that seek to justify the
+existing order of things--such as Hegelianism and its offshoots--is in
+this second thesis. Pessimism, which demands of life what it cannot give
+and then denies its value, has also its origin in the same dogmatic
+proposition. Materialism, with its strange and enthusiastic affirmation
+that man is the product of natural forces and nothing more, is the
+legitimate result of the doctrine that teaches that life on earth is a
+degraded existence. Spiritism, with its learned adherents, is the best
+proof we have that the conclusions of philosophy and science are based
+upon the religious doctrine of that eternal happiness which should be
+the natural heritage of man.
+
+This false conception of life has had a deplorable influence upon all
+reasonable human activity. The dogma of the fall and the redemption has
+debarred man from the most important and legitimate field for the
+exercise of his powers, and has deprived him entirely of the idea that
+he can of himself do anything to make his life happier or better.
+Science and philosophy, proudly believing themselves hostile to
+pseudo-Christianity, only carry out its decrees. Science and philosophy
+concern themselves with everything except the theory that man can do
+anything to make himself better or happier. Ethical and moral
+instruction have disappeared from our pseudo-Christian society without
+leaving a trace.
+
+Believers and sceptics who concern themselves so little with the problem
+how to live, how to make use of the reason with which we are endowed,
+ask why our earthly life is not what they imagine it ought to be, and
+when it will become what they wish. This singular phenomenon is due to
+the false doctrine which has penetrated into the very marrow of
+humanity. The effects of the knowledge of good and evil, which man so
+unhappily acquired in paradise, do not seem to have been very lasting;
+for, neglecting the truth that life is only a solution of the
+contradictions between animal instincts and reason, he stolidly
+refrains from applying his reason to the discovery of the historical
+laws that govern his animal nature.
+
+Excepting the philosophical doctrines of the pseudo-Christian world, all
+the philosophical and religious doctrines of which we have
+knowledge--Judaism, the doctrine of Confucius, Buddhism, Brahmanism, the
+wisdom of the Greeks--all aim to regulate human life, and to enlighten
+men with regard to what they must do to improve their condition. The
+doctrine of Confucius teaches the perfecting of the individual; Judaism,
+personal fidelity to an alliance with God; Buddhism, how to escape from
+a life governed by animal instincts; Socrates taught the perfecting of
+the individual through reason; the Stoics recognized the independence of
+reason as the sole basis of the true life.
+
+The reasonable activity of man has always been--it could not be
+otherwise--to light by the torch of reason his progress toward
+beatitude. Philosophy tells us that free-will is an illusion, and then
+boasts of the boldness of such a declaration. Free-will is not only an
+illusion; it is an empty word invented by theologians and experts in
+criminal law; to refute it would be to undertake a battle with a
+wind-mill. But reason, which illuminates our life and impels us to
+modify our actions, is not an illusion, and its authority can never be
+denied. To obey reason in the pursuit of good is the substance of the
+teachings of all the masters of humanity, and it is the substance of the
+doctrine of Jesus; it is reason itself, and we cannot deny reason by
+the use of reason.
+
+Making use of the phrase "son of man," Jesus teaches that all men have a
+common impulse toward good and toward reason, which leads to good. It is
+superfluous to attempt to prove that "son of man" means "Son of God." To
+understand by the words "son of man" anything different from what they
+signify is to assume that Jesus, to say what he wished to say,
+intentionally made use of words which have an entirely different
+meaning. But even if, as the Church says, "son of man" means "Son of
+God," the phrase "son of man" applies none the less to man, for Jesus
+himself called all men "the sons of God."
+
+The doctrine of the "son of man" finds its most complete expression in
+the interview with Nicodemus. Every man, Jesus says, aside from his
+consciousness of his material, individual life and of his birth in the
+flesh, has also a consciousness of a spiritual birth (John iii. 5, 6,
+7), of an inner liberty, of something within; this comes from on high,
+from the infinite that we call God (John iii. 14-17); now it is this
+inner consciousness born of God, the son of God in man, that we must
+possess and nourish if we would possess true life. The son of man is
+homogeneous (of the same race) with God.
+
+Whoever lifts up within himself this son of God, whoever identifies his
+life with the spiritual life, will not deviate from the true way. Men
+wander from the way because they do not believe in this light which is
+within them, the light of which John speaks when he says, "_In him was
+life; and the life was the light of men_." Jesus tells us to lift up the
+son of man, who is the son of God, for a light to all men. When we have
+lifted up the son of man, we shall then know that we can do nothing
+without his guidance (John viii. 28). Asked, "Who is this son of man?"
+Jesus answers:--
+
+"_Yet a little while is the light in you.[12] Walk while ye have the
+light, lest darkness come upon you: for he that walketh in darkness
+knoweth not whither he goeth._" (John xii. 35.)
+
+     [12] In all the translations authorized by the Church, we find here
+     a perhaps intentional error. The words [Greek: en hymin], _in you_,
+     are invariably rendered _with you_.
+
+The son of man is the light in every man that ought to illuminate his
+life. "_Take heed therefore, that the light which is in thee be not
+darkness_," is Jesus' warning to the multitude (Luke xi. 35).
+
+In all the different ages of humanity we find the same thought, that man
+is the receptacle of the divine light descended from heaven, and that
+this light is reason, which alone should be the object of our worship,
+since it alone can show the way to true well-being. This has been said
+by the Brahmins, by the Hebrew prophets, by Confucius, by Socrates, by
+Marcus Aurelius, by Epictetus, and by all the true sages,--not by
+compilers of philosophical theories, but by men who sought goodness for
+themselves and for others.[13] And yet we declare, in accordance with
+the dogma of the redemption, that it is entirely superfluous to think of
+the light that is in us, and that we ought not to speak of it at all!
+
+     [13] Marcus Aurelius says: "Reverence that which is best in the
+     universe; and this is that which makes use of all things and
+     directs all things. And in like manner also reverence that which is
+     best in thyself; and this is of the same kind as that. For in
+     thyself, also, that which makes use of everything else, is this,
+     and thy life is directed by this." (Meditations v. 21.)
+
+     Epictetus says: "From God have descended the seeds not only to my
+     father and grandfather, but to all beings which are generated on
+     the earth and are produced, and particularly to rational beings;
+     for these only are by their nature formed to have communion with
+     God, being by means of reason conjoined with him." (Discourses,
+     chap. ix.)
+
+     Confucius says: "The law of the great learning consists in
+     developing and re-establishing the luminous principle of reason
+     which we have received from on high." This sentence is repeated
+     many times, and constitutes the basis of Confucius' doctrine.
+
+We must, say the believers, study the three persons of the Trinity; we
+must know the nature of each of these persons, and what sacraments we
+ought or ought not to perform, for our salvation depends, not on our own
+efforts, but on the Trinity and the regular performance of the
+sacraments. We must, say the sceptics, know the laws by which this
+infinitesimal particle of matter was evolved in infinite space and
+infinite time; but it is absurd to believe that by reason alone we can
+secure true well-being, because the amelioration of man's condition does
+not depend upon man himself, but upon the laws that we are trying to
+discover.
+
+I firmly believe that, a few centuries hence, the history of what we
+call the scientific activity of this age will be a prolific subject for
+the hilarity and pity of future generations. For a number of centuries,
+they will say, the scholars of the western portion of a great continent
+were the victims of epidemic insanity; they imagined themselves to be
+the possessors of a life of eternal beatitude, and they busied
+themselves with divers lucubrations in which they sought to determine in
+what way this life could be realized, without doing anything themselves,
+or even concerning themselves with what they ought to do to ameliorate
+the life which they already had. And what to the future historian will
+seem much more melancholy, it will be found that this group of men had
+once had a master who had taught them a number of simple and clear
+rules, pointing out what they must do to render their lives happy,--and
+that the words of this master had been construed by some to mean that he
+would come on a cloud to re-organize human society, and by others as
+admirable doctrine, but impracticable, since human life was not what
+they conceived it to be, and consequently was not worthy of
+consideration; as to human reason, it must concern itself with the study
+of the laws of an imaginary existence, without concerning itself about
+the welfare of the individual man.
+
+The Church says that the doctrine of Jesus cannot be literally practised
+here on earth, because this earthly life is naturally evil, since it is
+only a shadow of the true life. The best way of living is to scorn this
+earthly existence, to be guided by faith (that is, by imagination) in a
+happy and eternal life to come, and to continue to live a bad life here
+and to pray to the good God.
+
+Philosophy, science, and public opinion all say that the doctrine of
+Jesus is not applicable to human life as it now is, because the life of
+man does not depend upon the light of reason, but upon general laws;
+hence it is useless to try to live absolutely conformable to reason; we
+must live as we can with the firm conviction that according to the laws
+of historical and sociological progress, after having lived very
+imperfectly for a very long time, we shall suddenly find that our lives
+have become very good.
+
+People come to a farm; they find there all that is necessary to sustain
+life,--a house well furnished, barns filled with grain, cellars and
+store-rooms well stocked with provisions, implements of husbandry,
+horses and cattle,--in a word, all that is needed for a life of comfort
+and ease. Each wishes to profit by this abundance, but each for himself,
+without thinking of others, or of those who may come after him. Each
+wants the whole for himself, and begins to seize upon all that he can
+possibly grasp. Then begins a veritable pillage; they fight for the
+possession of the spoils; oxen and sheep are slaughtered; wagons and
+other implements are broken up into firewood; they fight for the milk
+and grain; they grasp more than they can consume. No one is able to sit
+down to the tranquil enjoyment of what he has, lest another take away
+the spoils already secured, to surrender them in turn to some one
+stronger. All these people leave the farm, bruised and famished.
+Thereupon the Master puts everything to rights, and arranges matters so
+that one may live there in peace. The farm is again a treasury of
+abundance. Then comes another group of seekers, and the same struggle
+and tumult is repeated, till these in their turn go away bruised and
+angry, cursing the Master for providing so little and so ill. The good
+Master is not discouraged; he again provides for all that is needed to
+sustain life,--and the same incidents are repeated over and over again.
+
+Finally, among those who come to the farm, is one who says to his
+companions: "Comrades, how foolish we are! see how abundantly everything
+is supplied, how well everything is arranged! There is enough here for
+us and for those who will come after us; let us act in a reasonable
+manner. Instead of robbing each other, let us help one another. Let us
+work, plant, care for the dumb animals, and every one will be
+satisfied." Some of the company understand what this wise person says;
+they cease from fighting and from robbing one another, and begin to
+work. But others, who have not heard the words of the wise man, or who
+distrust him, continue their former pillage of the Master's goods. This
+condition of things lasts for a long time. Those who have followed the
+counsels of the wise man say to those about them: "Cease from fighting,
+cease from wasting the Master's goods; you will be better off for doing
+so; follow the wise man's advice." Nevertheless, a great many do not
+hear and will not believe, and matters go on very much as they did
+before.
+
+All this is natural, and will continue as long as people do not believe
+the wise man's words. But, we are told, a time will come when every one
+on the farm will listen to and understand the words of the wise man, and
+will realize that God spoke through his lips, and that the wise man was
+himself none other than God in person; and all will have faith in his
+words. Meanwhile, instead of living according to the advice of the wise
+man, each struggles for his own, and they slay each other without pity,
+saying, "The struggle for existence is inevitable; we cannot do
+otherwise."
+
+What does it all mean? Even the beasts graze in the fields without
+interfering with each other's needs, and men, after having learned the
+conditions of the true life, and after being convinced that God himself
+has shown them how to live the true life, follow still their evil ways,
+saying that it is impossible to live otherwise. What should we think of
+the people at the farm if, after having heard the words of the wise man,
+they had continued to live as before, snatching the bread from each
+other's mouths, fighting, and trying to grasp everything, to their own
+loss? We should say that they had misunderstood the wise man's words,
+and imagined things to be different from what they really were. The wise
+man said to them, "Your life here is bad; amend your ways, and it will
+become good." And they imagined that the wise man had condemned their
+life on the farm, and had promised them another and a better life
+somewhere else. They decided that the farm was only a temporary
+dwelling-place, and that it was not worth while to try to live well
+there; the important thing was not to be cheated out of the other life
+promised them elsewhere. This is the only way in which we can explain
+the strange conduct of the people on the farm, of whom some believed
+that the wise man was God, and others that he was a man of wisdom, but
+all continued to live as before in defiance of the wise man's words.
+They understood everything but the one significant truth in the wise
+man's teachings,--that they must work out for themselves their own peace
+and happiness there on the farm, which they took for a temporary abode
+thinking all the time of the better life they were to possess elsewhere.
+
+Here is the origin of the strange declaration that the precepts of the
+wise man were admirable, even divine, but that they were difficult to
+practise.
+
+Oh, if men would only cease from evil ways while waiting for the Christ
+to come in his chariot of fire to their aid; if they would only cease to
+invoke the law of the differentiation or integration of forces, or any
+historical law whatever! None will come to their aid if they do not aid
+themselves. And to aid ourselves to a better life, we need expect
+nothing from heaven or from earth; we need only to cease from ways that
+result in our own loss.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+IF it be admitted that the doctrine of Jesus is perfectly reasonable,
+and that it alone can give to men true happiness, what would be the
+condition of a single follower of that doctrine in the midst of a world
+that did not practise it at all? If all men would decide at the same
+time to obey, its practice would then be possible. But one man alone
+cannot act in defiance of the whole world; and so we hear continually
+this plea: "If, among men who do not practise the doctrine of Jesus, I
+alone obey it; if I give away all that I possess; if I turn the other
+cheek; if I refuse to take an oath or to go to war, I should find myself
+in profound isolation; if I did not die of hunger, I should be beaten;
+if I survived that, I should be cast into prison; I should be shot, and
+all the happiness of my life--my life itself--would be sacrificed in
+vain."
+
+This plea is founded upon the doctrine of _quid pro quo_, which is the
+basis of all arguments against the possibility of practising the
+doctrine of Jesus. It is the current objection, and I sympathized with
+it in common with all the rest of the world, until I finally broke
+entirely away from the dogmas of the Church which prevented me from
+understanding the true significance of the doctrine of Jesus. Jesus
+prepared his doctrine as a means of salvation from the life of
+perdition organized by men contrary to his precepts; and I declared that
+I should be very glad to follow this doctrine if it were not for fear of
+this very perdition. Jesus offered me the true remedy against a life of
+perdition, and I clung to the life of perdition! from which it was plain
+that I did not consider this life as a life of perdition, but as
+something good, something real. The conviction that my personal, worldly
+life was something real and good constituted the misunderstanding, the
+obstacle, that prevented me from comprehending Jesus' doctrine. Jesus
+knew the disposition of men to regard their personal, worldly life as
+real and good, and so, in a series of apothegms and parables, he taught
+them that they had no right to life, and that they were given life only
+that they might assure themselves of the true life by renouncing their
+worldly and fantastic organization of existence.
+
+To understand what is meant by "saving" one's life, according to the
+doctrine of Jesus, we must first understand what the prophets, what
+Solomon, what Buddha, what all the wise men of the world have said about
+the personal life of man. But, as Pascal says, we cannot endure to think
+upon this theme, and so we carry always before us a screen to conceal
+the abyss of death, toward which we are constantly moving. It suffices
+to reflect on the isolation of the personal life of man, to be convinced
+that this life, in so far as it is personal, is not only of no account
+to each separately, but that it is a cruel jest to heart and reason. To
+understand the doctrine of Jesus, we must, before all, return to
+ourselves, reflect soberly, undergo the [Greek: metanoia] of which John
+the Baptist, the precursor of Jesus, speaks, when addressing himself to
+men of clouded judgment. "Repent" (such was his preaching); "repent,
+have another mind, or you shall all perish. The axe is laid unto the
+root of the trees. Death and perdition await each one of you. Be warned,
+turn back, repent." And Jesus declared, "_Except ye repent, ye shall all
+likewise perish_." When Jesus was told of the death of the Galileans
+massacred by Pilate, he said:--
+
+"_Suppose ye that these Galileans were sinners above all the Galileans,
+because they suffered such things? I tell you, Nay: but, except ye
+repent, ye shall all likewise perish. Or those eighteen upon whom the
+tower in Siloam fell, and slew them, think ye that they were sinners
+above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you. Nay: but, except ye
+repent, ye shall all likewise perish._" (Luke xiii. 1-5.)
+
+If he had lived in our day, in Russia, he would have said: "Think you
+that those who perished in the circus at Berditchef or on the slopes of
+Koukouyef were sinners above all others? I tell you, No; but you, if you
+do not repent, if you do not arouse yourselves, if you do not find in
+your life that which is imperishable, you also shall perish. You are
+horrified by the death of those crushed by the tower, burned in the
+circus; but your death, equally as frightful and as inevitable, is here,
+before you. You are wrong to conceal it or to forget it; unlocked for,
+it is only more hideous."
+
+To the people of his own time he said:--
+
+"_When ye see a cloud rise out of the west, straightway ye say, There
+cometh a shower; and so it is. And when ye see the south wind blow, ye
+say, There will be heat; and it cometh to pass. Ye hypocrites, ye can
+discern the face of the sky and of the earth; but how is it that ye do
+not discern this time? Yea, and why even of yourselves judge ye not what
+is right?_" (Luke xii. 54-57.)
+
+We know how to interpret the signs of the weather; why, then, do we not
+see what is before us? It is in vain that we fly from danger, and guard
+our material life by all imaginable means; in spite of all, death is
+before us, if not in one way, then in another; if not by massacre, or
+the falling of a tower, then in our beds, amidst much greater suffering.
+
+Make a simple calculation, as those do who undertake any worldly
+project, any enterprise whatever, such as the construction of a house,
+or the purchase of an estate, such as those make who labor with the hope
+of seeing their calculations realized.
+
+"_For which of you intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first,
+and counteth the cost whether he have sufficient to finish it? Lest
+haply, after he hath laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it,
+all that behold it begin to mock him, saying, This man began to build,
+and was not able to finish. Or what king, going to make war against
+another king, sitteth not down first and consulteth whether he be able
+with ten thousand to meet him that cometh against him with twenty
+thousand?_" (Luke xiv. 28-31.)
+
+Is it not the act of a madman to labor at what, under any circumstances,
+one can never finish? Death will always come before the edifice of
+worldly prosperity can be completed. And if we knew beforehand that,
+however we may struggle with death, it is not we, but death, that will
+triumph; is it not an indication that we ought not to struggle with
+death, or to set our hearts upon that which will surely perish, but to
+seek to perform the task whose results cannot be destroyed by our
+inevitable departure?
+
+"_And he said unto his disciples, Therefore I say unto you, Take no
+thought for your life what ye shall eat; neither for the body, what ye
+shall put on. The life is more than meat and the body is more than
+raiment. Consider the ravens: for they neither sow nor reap; which
+neither have storehouse nor barn; and God feedeth them: How much more
+are ye better than the fowls? And which of you with taking thought can
+add to his stature one cubit? If ye then be not able to do that thing
+which is least, why take ye thought for the rest? Consider the lilies
+how they grow: they toil not, they spin not; and yet I say unto you that
+Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these._" (Luke xii.
+22-27.)
+
+Whatever pains we may take for our nourishment, for the care of the
+body, we cannot prolong life by a single hour.[14] Is it not folly to
+trouble ourselves about a thing that we cannot possibly accomplish? We
+know perfectly well that our material life will end with death, and we
+give ourselves up to evil to procure riches. Life cannot be measured by
+what we possess; if we think so, we only delude ourselves. Jesus tells
+us that the meaning of life does not lie in what we possess or in what
+we can accumulate, but in something entirely different. He says:--
+
+     [14] The words of verse 25 are incorrectly translated; the word
+     [Greek: hêlikian] means _age, age of life_: consequently the whole
+     phrase should be rendered: can add one hour to his life.
+
+"_The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully: And he
+thought within himself, saying, What shall I do, because I have no room
+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 fruits and
+my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods lead up
+for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry. But God said
+unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then
+whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided? So is he that
+layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God._" (Luke xii.
+16-21.)
+
+Death threatens us every moment; Jesus says:--
+
+"_Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning; and ye
+yourselves like unto men that wait for their lord, when he will return
+from the wedding; that, when he cometh and knocketh, they may open unto
+him immediately. Blessed are those servants, whom the lord when he
+cometh shall find watching; ...And if he shall come in the second watch,
+or come in the third watch, and find them so, blessed are those
+servants. And this know, that if the goodman of the house had known
+what hour the thief would come, he would have watched, and not have
+suffered his house to be broken through. Be ye therefore ready also: for
+the son of man cometh at an hour when ye think not._" (Luke xii. 35-40.)
+
+The parable of the virgins waiting for the bridegroom, that of the
+consummation of the age and the last judgment, as the commentators all
+agree, are designed to teach that death awaits us at every moment. Death
+awaits us at every moment. Life is passed in sight of death. If we labor
+for ourselves alone, for our personal future, we know that what awaits
+us in the future is death. And death will destroy all the fruits of our
+labor. Consequently, a life for self can have no meaning. The reasonable
+life is different; it has another aim than the poor desires of a single
+individual. The reasonable life consists in living in such a way that
+life cannot be destroyed by death. We are troubled about many things,
+but only one thing is necessary.
+
+From the moment of his birth, man is menaced by an inevitable peril,
+that is, by a life deprived of meaning, and a wretched death, if he does
+not discover the thing essential to the true life. Now it is precisely
+this one thing which insures the true life that Jesus reveals to men. He
+invents nothing, he promises nothing through divine power; side by side
+with this personal life, which is a delusion, he simply reveals to men
+the truth.
+
+In the parable of the husbandmen (Matt. xxi. 33-42), Jesus explains the
+cause of that blindness in men which conceals the truth from them, and
+which impels them to take the apparent for the real, their personal life
+for the true life. Certain men, having leased a vineyard, imagined that
+they were its masters. And this delusion leads them into a series of
+foolish and cruel actions, which ends in their exile. So each one of us
+imagines that life is his personal property, and that he has a right to
+enjoy it in such a way as may seem to him good, without recognizing any
+obligation to others. And the inevitable consequence of this delusion is
+a series of foolish and cruel actions followed by exclusion from life.
+And as the husbandmen killed the servants and at last the son of the
+householder, thinking that the more cruel they were, the better able
+they would be to gain their ends, so we imagine that we shall obtain the
+greatest security by means of violence.
+
+Expulsion, the inevitable sentence visited upon the husbandmen for
+having taken to themselves the fruits of the vineyard, awaits also all
+men who imagine that the personal life is the true life. Death expels
+them from life; they are replaced by others, as a consequence of the
+error which led them to misconceive the meaning of life. As the
+husbandmen forgot, or did not wish to remember, that they had received a
+vineyard already hedged about and provided with winepress and tower,
+that some one had labored for them and expected them to labor in their
+turn for others;--so the men who would live for themselves forget, or do
+not wish to remember, all that has been done for them during their
+life; they forget that they are under an obligation to labor in their
+turn, and that all the blessings of life which they enjoy are fruits
+that they ought to divide with others.
+
+This new manner of looking at life, this [Greek: metanoia], or
+repentance, is the corner-stone of the doctrine of Jesus. According to
+this doctrine, men ought to understand and feel that they are insolvent,
+as the husbandmen should have understood and felt that they were
+insolvent to the householder, unable to pay the debt contracted by
+generations past, present, and to come, with the overruling power. They
+ought to feel that every hour of their existence is only a mortgage upon
+this debt, and that every man who, by a selfish life, rejects this
+obligation, separates himself from the principle of life, and so
+forfeits life. Each one should remember that in striving to save his own
+life, his personal life, he loses the true life, as Jesus so many times
+said. The true life is the life which adds something to the store of
+happiness accumulated by past generations, which increases this heritage
+in the present, and hands it down to the future. To take part in this
+true life, man should renounce his personal will for the will of the
+Father, who gives this life to man. In John viii. 35, we read:--
+
+"_And the servant abideth not in the house forever: but the son abideth
+forever._"
+
+That is, only the son who observes the will of the father shall have
+eternal life. Now, the will of the Father of Life is not the personal,
+selfish life, but the filial life of the son of man; and so a man saves
+his life when he considers it as a pledge, as something confided to him
+by the Father for the profit of all, as something with which to live the
+life of the son of man.
+
+A man, about to travel into a far country, called his servants together
+and divided among them his goods. Although receiving no precise
+instructions as to the manner in which they were to use these goods,
+some of the servants understood that the goods still belonged to the
+master, and that they ought to employ them for the master's gain. And
+the servants who had labored for the good of the master were rewarded,
+while the others, who had not so labored, were despoiled even of what
+they had received. (Matt. xxv. 14-46.)
+
+The life of the son of man has been given to all men, and they know not
+why. Some of them understand that life is not for their personal use,
+but that they must use it for the good of the son of man; others,
+feigning not to understand the true object of life, refuse to labor for
+the son of man; and those that labor for the true life will be united
+with the source of life; those that do not so labor, will lose the life
+they already have. Jesus tells us in what the service of the son of man
+consists and what will be the recompense of that service. The son of
+man, endowed with kingly authority, will call upon the faithful to
+inherit the true life; they have fed the hungry, given drink to the
+thirsty, clothed and consoled the wretched, and in so doing they have
+ministered to the son of man, who is the same in all men; they have not
+lived the personal life, but the life of the son of man, and they are
+given the life eternal.
+
+According to all the Gospels, the object of Jesus' teaching was the life
+eternal. And, strange as it may seem, Jesus, who is supposed to have
+been raised in person, and to have promised a general resurrection,
+--Jesus not only said nothing in affirmation of individual
+resurrection and individual immortality beyond the grave, but on the
+contrary, every time that he met with this superstition (introduced at
+this period into the Talmud, and of which there is not a trace in the
+records of the Hebrew prophets), he did not fail to deny its truth. The
+Pharisees and the Sadducees were constantly discussing the subject of
+the resurrection of the dead. The Pharisees believed in the resurrection
+of the dead, in angels, and in spirits (Acts xxiii. 8), but the
+Sadducees did not believe in resurrection, or angel, or spirit. We do
+not know the source of the difference in belief, but it is certain that
+it was one of the polemical subjects among the secondary questions of
+the Hebraic doctrine that were constantly under discussion in the
+Synagogues. And Jesus not only did not recognize the resurrection, but
+denied it every time he met with the idea. When the Sadducees demanded
+of Jesus, supposing that he believed with the Pharisees in the
+resurrection, to which of the seven brethren the woman should belong, he
+refuted with clearness and precision the idea of individual
+resurrection, saying that on this subject they erred, knowing neither
+the Scriptures nor the power of God. Those who are worthy of
+resurrection, he said, will remain like the angels of heaven (Mark xii.
+21-24); and with regard to the dead:--
+
+"_Have ye not read in the book of Moses, how in the bush God spake unto
+him, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God
+of Jacob?[15] He is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living:
+ye, therefore, do greatly err._" (Mark xii. 26, 27.)
+
+     [15] Exod. iii. 6.
+
+Jesus' meaning was that the dead are living in God. God said to Moses,
+"I am the God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob." To God, all those
+who have lived the life of the son of man, are living. Jesus affirmed
+only this, that whoever lives in God, will be united to God; and he
+admitted no other idea of the resurrection. As to personal resurrection,
+strange as it may appear to those who have never carefully studied the
+Gospels for themselves, Jesus said nothing about it whatever.
+
+If, as the theologians teach, the foundation of the Christian faith is
+the resurrection of Jesus, is it not strange that Jesus, knowing of his
+own resurrection, knowing that in this consisted the principal dogma of
+faith in him--is it not strange that Jesus did not speak of the matter
+at least once, in clear and precise terms? Now, according to the
+canonical Gospels, he not only did not speak of it in clear and precise
+terms; he did not speak of it at all, not once, not a single word.
+
+The doctrine of Jesus consisted in the elevation of the son of man, that
+is, in the recognition on the part of man, that he, man, was the son of
+God. In his own individuality Jesus personified the man who has
+recognized the filial relation with God. He asked his disciples whom men
+said that he was--the son of man? His disciples replied that some took
+him for John the Baptist, and some for Elijah. Then came the question,
+"_But whom say ye that I am?_" And Peter answered, "_Thou art the
+Messiah, the son of the living God._" Jesus responded, "_Flesh and blood
+hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven_;"
+meaning that Peter understood, not through faith in human explanations,
+but because, feeling himself to be the son of God, he understood that
+Jesus was also the son of God. And after having explained to Peter that
+the true faith is founded upon the perception of the filial relation to
+God, Jesus charged his other disciples that they should tell no man that
+he was the Messiah. After this, Jesus told them that although he might
+suffer many things and be put to death, he, that is his doctrine, would
+be triumphantly re-established. And these words are interpreted as a
+prophecy of the resurrection (Matt. xvi. 13-21).
+
+Of the thirteen passages[16] which are interpreted as prophecies of
+Jesus in regard to his own resurrection, two refer to Jonah in the
+whale's belly, another to the rebuilding of the temple. The others
+affirm that the son of man shall not be destroyed; but there is not a
+word about the resurrection of Jesus. In none of these passages is the
+word "resurrection" found in the original text. Ask any one who is
+ignorant of theological interpretations, but who knows Greek, to
+translate them, and he will never agree with the received versions. In
+the original we find two different words, _[Greek: anistêmi]_ and
+[Greek: egeirô], which are rendered in the sense of resurrection; one of
+these words means to "re-establish"; the other means "to awaken, to rise
+up, to arouse one's self." But neither the one nor the other can ever,
+in any case, mean to "resuscitate"--to raise from the dead. With regard
+to these Greek words and the corresponding Hebrew word, _qum_, we have
+only to examine the scriptural passages where these words are employed,
+as they are very frequently, to see that in no case is the meaning "to
+resuscitate" admissible. The word _voskresnovit_, _auferstehn_,
+_resusciter_--"to resuscitate"--did not exist in the Greek or Hebrew
+tongues, for the reason that the conception corresponding to this word
+did not exist. To express the idea of resurrection in Greek or in
+Hebrew, it is necessary to employ a periphrasis, meaning, "is arisen,
+has awakened among the dead." Thus, in the Gospel of Matthew (xiv. 2)
+where reference is made to Herod's belief that John the Baptist had been
+resuscitated, we read, [Greek: autos êgerthê apo tôn nekrôn], "has
+awakened among the dead." In the same manner, in Luke (xvi. 31), at the
+close of the parable of Lazarus, where it said that if men believe not
+the prophets, they would not believe even though one be resuscitated, we
+find the periphrasis, [Greek: ean tis ek nekrôn anastê], "if one arose
+among the dead." But, if in these passages the words "among the dead"
+were not added to the words "arose or awakened," the last two could
+never signify resuscitation. When Jesus spoke of himself, he did not
+once use the words "among the dead" in any of the passages quoted in
+support of the affirmation that Jesus foretold his own resurrection.
+
+     [16] John xi. 19-22; Matt. xii. 40; Luke xi. 30; Matt. xvi. 21;
+     Mark viii. 31; Luke ix. 22; Matt. xvii. 23; Mark ix. 31; Matt. xx.
+     19; Mark x. 34; Luke xviii. 33; Matt. xxvi. 32; Mark xiv. 25.
+
+Our conception of the resurrection is so entirely foreign to any idea
+that the Hebrews possessed with regard to life, that we cannot even
+imagine how Jesus would have been able to talk to them of the
+resurrection, and of an eternal, individual life, which should be the
+lot of every man. The idea of a future eternal life comes neither from
+Jewish doctrine nor from the doctrine of Jesus, but from an entirely
+different source. We are obliged to believe that belief in a future life
+is a primitive and crude conception based upon a confused idea of the
+resemblance between death and sleep,--an idea common to all savage
+races.
+
+The Hebraic doctrine (and much more the Christian doctrine) was far
+above this conception. But we are so convinced of the elevated character
+of this superstition, that we use it as a proof of the superiority of
+our doctrine to that of the Chinese or the Hindus, who do not believe
+in it at all. Not the theologians only, but the free-thinkers, the
+learned historians of religions, such as Tiele, and Max Müller, make use
+of the same argument. In their classification of religions, they give
+the first place to those which recognize the superstition of the
+resurrection, and declare them to be far superior to those not
+professing that belief. Schopenhauer boldly denounced the Hebraic
+religion as the most despicable of all religions because it contains not
+a trace of this belief. Not only the idea itself, but all means of
+expressing it, were wanting to the Hebraic religion. Eternal life is in
+Hebrew _hayail eolam_. By _olam_ is meant the infinite, that which is
+permanent in the limits of time; _olam_ also means "world" or "cosmos."
+Universal life, and much more _hayai leolam_, "eternal life," is,
+according to the Jewish doctrine, the attribute of God alone. God is the
+God of life, the living God. Man, according to the Hebraic idea, is
+always mortal. God alone is always living. In the Pentateuch, the
+expression "eternal life" is twice met with; once in Deuteronomy and
+once in Genesis. God is represented as saying:--
+
+  "_See now that I, even I, am he,
+   And there is no god with me:
+   I kill, and I make alive;
+   I have wounded, and I heal:
+   And there is none that can deliver out of my hand.
+   For I lift up my hand to heaven,
+   And say, As I live forever._"
+
+       (Deut. xxxii. 39, 40.)
+
+"_And Jehovah said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good
+and evil; and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also the tree of
+life, and live forever._" (Gen. iii. 22.)
+
+These two sole instances of the use of the expression "eternal life" in
+the Old Testament (with the exception of another instance in the
+apocryphal book of Daniel) determine clearly the Hebraic conception of
+the life of man and the life eternal. Life itself, according to the
+Hebrews, is eternal, is in God; but man is always mortal: it is his
+nature to be so. According to the Jewish doctrine, man as man, is
+mortal. He has life only as it passes from one generation to another,
+and is so perpetuated in a race. According to the Jewish doctrine, the
+faculty of life exists in the _people_. When God said, "Ye may live, and
+not die," he addressed these words to the people. The life that God
+breathed into man is mortal for each separate human being; this life is
+perpetuated from generation to generation, if men fulfil the union with
+God, that is, obey the conditions imposed by God. After having
+propounded the Law, and having told them that this Law was to be found
+not in heaven, but in their own hearts, Moses said to the people:--
+
+"_See, I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and
+evil; in that I command thee this day to love the Eternal, to walk in
+his ways, and to keep his commandments, that thou mayest live.... I call
+heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that I have set before
+thee life and death, the blessing and the curse: therefore choose life,
+that thou mayest live, thou and thy seed: to love the Eternal, to obey
+his voice, and to cleave unto him: for he is thy life, and the length of
+thy days._" (Deut. xxx. 15-19.)
+
+The principal difference between our conception of human life and that
+possessed by the Jews is, that while we believe that our mortal life,
+transmitted from generation to generation, is not the true life, but a
+fallen life, a life temporarily depraved,--the Jews, on the contrary,
+believed this life to be the true and supreme good, given to man on
+condition that he obey the will of God. From our point of view, the
+transmission of the fallen life from generation to generation is the
+transmission of a curse; from the Jewish point of view, it is the
+supreme good to which man can attain, on condition that he accomplish
+the will of God. It is precisely upon the Hebraic conception of life
+that Jesus founded his doctrine of the true or eternal life, which he
+contrasted with the personal and mortal life. Jesus said to the Jews:--
+
+"_Search the Scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and
+they are they which testify of me._" (John v. 39.)
+
+To the young man who asked what he must do to have eternal life, Jesus
+said in reply, "_If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments_."
+He did not say "the eternal life," but simply "the life" (Matt. xix.
+17). To the same question propounded by the scribe, the answer was,
+"_This do, and thou shalt live_" (Luke x. 28), once more promising life,
+but saying nothing of eternal life. From these two instances, we know
+what Jesus meant by eternal life; whenever he made use of the phrase in
+speaking to the Jews, he employed it in exactly the same sense in which
+it was expressed in their own law,--the accomplishment of the will of
+God. In contrast with the life that is temporary, isolated, and
+personal, Jesus taught of the eternal life promised by God to
+Israel--with this difference, that while the Jews believed the eternal
+life was to be perpetuated solely by their chosen people, and that
+whoever wished to possess this life must follow the exceptional laws
+given by God to Israel,--the doctrine of Jesus holds that the eternal
+life is perpetuated in the son of man, and that to obtain it we must
+practise the commandments of Jesus, who summed up the will of God for
+all humanity.
+
+As opposed to the personal life, Jesus taught us, not of a life beyond
+the grave, but of that universal life which comprises within itself the
+life of humanity, past, present, and to come. According to the Jewish
+doctrine, the personal life could be saved from death only by
+accomplishing the will of God as propounded in the Mosaic law. On this
+condition only the life of the Jewish race would not perish, but would
+pass from generation to generation of the chosen people of God.
+According to the doctrine of Jesus, the personal life is saved from
+death by the accomplishment of the will of God as propounded in the
+commandments of Jesus. On this condition alone the personal life does
+not perish, but becomes eternal and immutable, in union with the son of
+man. The difference is, that while the religion given by Moses was that
+of a people for a national God, the religion of Jesus is the expression
+of the aspirations of all humanity. The perpetuity of life in the
+posterity of a people is doubtful, because the people itself may
+disappear, and perpetuity depends upon a posterity in the flesh.
+Perpetuity of life, according to the doctrine of Jesus, is indubitable,
+because life, according to his doctrine, is an attribute of all humanity
+in the son of man who lives in harmony with the will of God.
+
+If we believe that Jesus' words concerning the last judgment and the
+consummation of the age, and other words reported in the Gospel of John,
+are a promise of a life beyond the grave for the souls of men,--if we
+believe this, it is none the less true that his teachings in regard to
+the light of life and the kingdom of God have the same meaning for us
+that they had for his hearers eighteen centuries ago; that is, that the
+only real life is the life of the son of man conformable to the will of
+the Giver of Life. It is easier to admit this than to admit that the
+doctrine of the true life, conformable to the will of the Giver of Life,
+contains the promise of the immortality of life beyond the grave.
+
+Perhaps it is right to think that man, after this terrestrial life
+passed in the satisfaction of personal desires, will enter upon the
+possession of an eternal personal life in paradise, there to taste all
+imaginable enjoyments; but to believe that this is so, to endeavor to
+persuade ourselves that for our good actions we shall be recompensed
+with eternal felicity, and for our bad actions punished with eternal
+torments,--to believe this, does not aid us in understanding the
+doctrine of Jesus, but, on the contrary, takes away the principal
+foundation of that doctrine. The entire doctrine of Jesus inculcates
+renunciation of the personal, imaginary life, and a merging of this
+personal life in the universal life of humanity, in the life of the son
+of man. Now the doctrine of the individual immortality of the soul does
+not impel us to renounce the personal life; on the contrary, it affirms
+the continuance of individuality forever.
+
+The Jews, the Chinese, the Hindus, all men who do not believe in the
+dogma of the fall and the redemption, conceive of life as it is. A man
+lives, is united with a woman, engenders children, cares for them, grows
+old, and dies. His life continues in his children, and so passes on from
+one generation to another, like everything else in the world,--stones,
+metals, earth, plants, animals, stars. Life is life, and we must make
+the best of it.
+
+To live for self alone, for the animal life, is not reasonable. And so
+men, from their earliest existence, have sought for some reason for
+living aside from the gratification of their own desires; they live for
+their children, for their families, for their nation, for humanity, for
+all that does not die with the personal life.
+
+But according to the doctrine of the Church, human life, the supreme
+good that we possess, is but a very small portion of another life of
+which we are deprived for a season. Our life is not the life that God
+intended to give us or such as is our due. Our life is degenerate and
+fallen, a mere fragment, a mockery, compared with the real life to which
+we think ourselves entitled. The principal object of life is not to try
+to live this mortal life conformably to the will of the Giver of Life;
+or to render it eternal in the generations, as the Hebrews believed; or
+to identify ourselves with the will of God, as Jesus taught; no, it is
+to believe that after this unreal life the true life will begin.
+
+Jesus did not speak of the imaginary life that we believe to be our due,
+and that God did not give to us for some unexplained reason. The theory
+of the fall of Adam, of eternal life in paradise, of an immortal soul
+breathed by God into Adam, was unknown to Jesus; he never spoke of it,
+never made the slightest allusion to its existence. Jesus spoke of life
+as it is, as it must be for all men; we speak of an imaginary life that
+has never existed. How, then, can we understand the doctrine of Jesus?
+
+Jesus did not anticipate such a singular change of view in his
+disciples. He supposed that all men understood that the destruction of
+the personal life is inevitable, and he revealed to them an imperishable
+life. He offers true peace to them that suffer; but to those who believe
+that they are certain to possess more than Jesus gives, his doctrine can
+be of no value. How shall I persuade a man to toil in return for food
+and clothing if this man is persuaded that he already possesses great
+riches? Evidently he will pay no attention to my exhortations. So it is
+with regard to the doctrine of Jesus. Why should I toil for bread when I
+can be rich without labor? Why should I trouble myself to live this life
+according to the will of God when I am sure of a personal life for all
+eternity?
+
+That Jesus Christ, as the second person of the Trinity, as God made
+manifest in the flesh, was the salvation of men; that he took upon
+himself the penalty for the sin of Adam and the sins of all men; that he
+atoned to the first person of the Trinity for the sins of humanity; that
+he instituted the Church and the sacraments for our salvation--believing
+this, we are saved, and shall enter into the possession of personal,
+eternal life beyond the grave. But meanwhile we cannot deny that he has
+saved and still saves men by revealing to them their inevitable loss,
+showing them that he is the way, the truth, and the life, the true way
+to life instead of the false way to the personal life that men had
+heretofore followed.
+
+If there are any who doubt the life beyond the grave and salvation based
+upon redemption, no one can doubt the salvation of all men, and of each
+individual man, if they will accept the evidence of the destruction of
+the personal life, and follow the true way to safety by bringing their
+personal wills into harmony with the will of God. Let each man endowed
+with reason ask himself, What is life? and What is death? and let him
+try to give to life and death any other meaning than that revealed by
+Jesus, and he will find that any attempt to find in life a meaning not
+based upon the renunciation of self, the service of humanity, of the son
+of man, is utterly futile. It cannot be doubted that the personal life
+is condemned to destruction, and that a life conformable to the will of
+God alone gives the possibility of salvation. It is not much in
+comparison with the sublime belief in the future life! It is not much,
+but it is sure.
+
+I am lost with my companions in a snow-storm. One of them assures me
+with the utmost sincerity that he sees a light in the distance, but it
+is only a mirage which deceives us both; we strive to reach this light,
+but we never can find it. Another resolutely brushes away the snow; he
+seeks and finds the road, and he cries to us, "Go not that way, the
+light you see is false, you will wander to destruction; here is the
+road, I feel it beneath my feet; we are saved." It is very little, we
+say. We had faith in that light that gleamed in our deluded eyes, that
+told us of a refuge, a warm shelter, rest, deliverance,--and now in
+exchange for it we have nothing but the road. Ah, but if we continue to
+travel toward the imaginary light, we shall perish; if we follow the
+road, we shall surely arrive at a haven of safety.
+
+What, then, must I do if I alone understand the doctrine of Jesus, and I
+alone have trust in it among a people who neither understand it nor obey
+it? What ought I to do, to live like the rest of the world, or to live
+according to the doctrine of Jesus? I understood the doctrine of Jesus
+as expressed in his commandments, and I believed that the practice of
+these commandments would bring happiness to me and to all men. I
+understood that the fulfilment of these commandments is the will of God,
+the source of life. More than this, I saw that I should die like a brute
+after a farcical existence if I did not fulfil the will of God, and that
+the only chance of salvation lay in the fulfilment of His will. In
+following the example of the world about me, I should unquestionably act
+contrary to the welfare of all men, and, above all, contrary to the will
+of the Giver of Life; I should surely forfeit the sole possibility of
+bettering my desperate condition. In following the doctrine of Jesus, I
+should continue the work common to all men who had lived before me; I
+should contribute to the welfare of my fellows, and of those who were to
+live after me; I should obey the command of the Giver of Life; I should
+seize upon the only hope of salvation.
+
+The circus at Berditchef[17] is in flames. A crowd of people are
+struggling before the only place of exit,--a door that opens inward.
+Suddenly, in the midst of the crowd, a voice rings out: "Back, stand
+back from the door; the closer you press against it, the less the chance
+of escape; stand back; that is your only chance of safety!" Whether I am
+alone in understanding this command, or whether others with me also hear
+and understand, I have but one duty, and that is, from the moment I have
+heard and understood, to fall back from the door and to call upon every
+one to obey the voice of the saviour. I may be suffocated, I may be
+crushed beneath the feet of the multitude, I may perish; my sole chance
+of safety is to do the one thing necessary to gain an exit. And I can do
+nothing else. A saviour should be a saviour, that is, one who saves. And
+the salvation of Jesus is the true salvation. He came, he preached his
+doctrine, and humanity is saved.
+
+     [17] A city in Russia become famous by a recent catastrophe.
+
+The circus may burn in an hour, and those penned up in it may have no
+time to escape. But the world has been burning for eighteen hundred
+years; it has burned ever since Jesus said, "_I am come to send fire on
+the earth_;" and I suffer as it burns, and it will continue to burn
+until humanity is saved. Was not this fire kindled that men might have
+the felicity of salvation? Understanding this, I understood and believed
+that Jesus is not only the Messiah, that is, the Anointed One, the
+Christ, but that he is in truth the Saviour of the world. I know that he
+is the only way, that there is no other way for me or for those who are
+tormented with me in this life. I know, that for me as for all, there
+is no other safety than the fulfilment of the commandments of Jesus, who
+gave to all humanity the greatest conceivable sum of benefits.
+
+Would there be great trials to endure? Should I die in following the
+doctrine of Jesus? This question did not alarm me. It might seem
+frightful to any one who does not realize the nothingness and absurdity
+of an isolated personal life, and who believes that he will never die.
+But I know that my life, considered in relation to my individual
+happiness, is, taken by itself, a stupendous farce, and that this
+meaningless existence will end in a stupid death. Knowing this, I have
+nothing to fear. I shall die as others die who do not observe the
+doctrine of Jesus; but my life and my death will have a meaning for
+myself and for others. My life and my death will have added something to
+the life and salvation of others, and this will be in accordance with
+the doctrine of Jesus.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+
+LET all the world practise the doctrine of Jesus, and the reign of God
+will come upon earth; if I alone practise it, I shall do what I can to
+better my own condition and the condition of those about me. There is no
+salvation aside from the fulfilment of the doctrine of Jesus. But who
+will give me the strength to practise it, to follow it without ceasing,
+and never to fail? "_Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief._" The
+disciples called upon Jesus to strengthen their faith. "_When I would do
+good_," says the apostle Paul, "_evil is present with me_." It is hard
+to work out one's salvation.
+
+A drowning man calls for aid. A rope is thrown to him, and he says:
+"Strengthen my belief that this rope will save me. I believe that the
+rope will save me; but help my unbelief." What is the meaning of this?
+If a man will not seize upon his only means of safety, it is plain that
+he does not understand his condition.
+
+How can a Christian who professes to believe in the divinity of Jesus
+and of his doctrine, whatever may be the meaning that he attaches
+thereto, say that he wishes to believe, and that he cannot believe? God
+comes upon earth, and says, "Fire, torments, eternal darkness await you;
+and here is your salvation--fulfil my doctrine." It is not possible
+that a believing Christian should not believe and profit by the
+salvation thus offered to him; it is not possible that he should say,
+"Help my unbelief." If a man says this, he not only does not believe in
+his perdition, but he must be certain that he shall not perish.
+
+A number of children have fallen from a boat into the water. For an
+instant their clothes and their feeble struggles keep them on the
+surface of the stream, and they do not realize their danger. Those in
+the boat throw out a rope. They warn the children against their peril,
+and urge them to grasp the rope (the parables of the woman and the piece
+of silver, the shepherd and the lost sheep, the marriage feast, the
+prodigal son, all have this meaning), but the children do not believe;
+they refuse to believe, not in the rope, but that they are in danger of
+drowning. Children as frivolous as themselves have assured them that
+they can continue to float gaily along even when the boat is far away.
+The children do not believe; but when their clothes are saturated, the
+strength of their little arms exhausted, they will sink and perish. This
+they do not believe, and so they do not believe in the rope of safety.
+
+Just as the children in the water will not grasp the rope that is thrown
+to them, persuaded that they will not perish, so men who believe in the
+resurrection of the soul, convinced that there is no danger, do not
+practise the commandments of Jesus. They do not believe in what is
+certain, simply because they do believe in what is uncertain. It is for
+this cause they cry, "Lord, strengthen our faith, lest we perish." But
+this is impossible. To have the faith that will save them from
+perishing, they must cease to do what will lead them to perdition, and
+they must begin to do something for their own safety; they must grasp
+the rope of safety. Now this is exactly what they do not wish to do;
+they wish to persuade themselves that they will not perish, although
+they see their comrades perishing one after another before their very
+eyes. They wish to persuade themselves of the truth of what does not
+exist, and so they ask to be strengthened in faith. It is plain that
+they have not enough faith, and they wish for more.
+
+When I understood the doctrine of Jesus, I saw that what these men call
+faith is the faith denounced by the apostle James:[18]--
+
+     [18] The epistle of James was for a long time rejected by the
+     Church, and when accepted, was subjected to various alterations:
+     certain words are omitted, others are transposed, or translated in
+     an arbitrary way. I have restored the defective passages after the
+     text authorized by Tischendorf.
+
+"_What doth it profit, my brethren, if a man believe he hath faith, but
+hath 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, 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. But some one will say, Thou hast faith, and I have works:
+Shew me thy faith which is without works, and I, by my works, will show
+thee my faith. Thou believest there is one God; thou doest well: the
+demons also believe, and tremble. But wilt thou know, O vain man, that
+faith without works is dead? Was not Abraham our father justified by
+works when he offered up Isaac his son upon the altar? Thou seest that
+faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect.... Ye
+see that by works a man is justified, and not only by faith.... For as
+the body without the spirit is dead, so faith is dead without works._"
+(James ii. 14-26.)
+
+James says that the indication of faith is the acts that it inspires,
+and consequently that a faith which does not result in acts is of words
+merely, with which one cannot feed the hungry, or justify belief, or
+obtain salvation. A faith without acts is not faith. It is only a
+disposition to believe in something, a vain affirmation of belief in
+something in which one does not really believe. Faith, as the apostle
+James defines it, is the motive power of actions, and actions are a
+manifestation of faith.
+
+The Jews said to Jesus: "_What signs shewest thou then, that we may see,
+and believe thee? what dost thou work?_" (John vi. 30. See also Mark xv.
+32; Matt. xxvii. 42). Jesus told them that their desire was vain, and
+that they could not be made to believe what they did not believe. "_If I
+tell you,_" he said, "_ye will not believe_" (Luke xxii. 67); "_I told
+you, and ye believed not.... But ye believe not because ye are not of my
+sheep_" (John x. 25, 26).
+
+The Jews asked exactly what is asked by Christians brought up in the
+Church; they asked for some outward sign which should make them believe
+in the doctrine of Jesus. Jesus explained that this was impossible, and
+he told them why it was impossible. He told them that they could not
+believe because they were not of his sheep; that is, they did not follow
+the road he had pointed out. He explained why some believed, and why
+others did not believe, and he told them what faith really was. He said:
+"_How can ye believe which receive your doctrine_ ([Greek: doxa][19])
+_one of another, and seek not the doctrine that cometh only from God?_"
+(John v. 44).
+
+     [19] Here, as in other passages, [Greek: doxa] has been incorrectly
+     translated "honor"; [Greek: doxa], from the verb [Greek: dokeô],
+     means "manner of seeing, judgment, _doctrine_."
+
+To believe, Jesus says, we must seek for the doctrine that comes from
+God alone.
+
+"_He that speaketh of himself seeketh_ (to extend) _his own doctrine,
+[Greek: doxan tên idian], but he that seeketh_ (to extend) _the doctrine
+of him that sent him, the same is true, and no untruth is in him._"
+(John vii. 18.)
+
+The doctrine of life, [Greek: doxa], is the foundation of faith, and
+actions result spontaneously from faith. But there are two doctrines of
+life: Jesus denies the one and affirms the other. One of these
+doctrines, a source of all error, consists of the idea that the personal
+life is one of the essential and real attributes of man. This doctrine
+has been followed, and is still followed, by the majority of men; it is
+the source of divergent beliefs and acts. The other doctrine, taught by
+Jesus and by all the prophets, affirms that our personal life has no
+meaning save through fulfilment of the will of God. If a man confess a
+doctrine that emphasizes his own personal life, he will consider that
+his personal welfare is the most important thing in the world, and he
+will consider riches, honors, glory, pleasure, as true sources of
+happiness; he will have a faith in accordance with his inclination, and
+his acts will always be in harmony with his faith. If a man confess a
+different doctrine, if he find the essence of life in fulfilment of the
+will of God in accordance with the example of Abraham and the teaching
+and example of Jesus, his faith will accord with his principles, and his
+acts will be conformable to his faith. And so those who believe that
+true happiness is to be found in the personal life can never have faith
+in the doctrine of Jesus. All their efforts to fix their faith upon it
+will be always vain. To believe in the doctrine of Jesus, they must look
+at life in an entirely different way. Their actions will coincide always
+with their faith and not with their intentions and their words.
+
+In men who demand of Jesus that he shall work miracles we may recognize
+a desire to believe in his doctrine; but this desire never can be
+realized in life, however arduous the efforts to obtain it. In vain they
+pray, and observe the sacraments, and give in charity, and build
+churches, and convert others; they cannot follow the example of Jesus
+because their acts are inspired by a faith based upon an entirely
+different doctrine from that which they confess. They could not
+sacrifice an only son as Abraham was ready to do, although Abraham had
+no hesitation whatever as to what he should do, just as Jesus and his
+disciples were moved to give their lives for others, because such action
+alone constituted for them the true meaning of life. This incapacity to
+understand the substance of faith explains the strange moral state of
+men, who, acknowledging that they ought to live in accordance with the
+doctrine of Jesus, endeavor to live in opposition to this doctrine,
+conformably to their belief that the personal life is a sovereign good.
+
+The basis of faith is the meaning that we derive from life, the meaning
+that determines whether we look upon life as important and good, or
+trivial and corrupt. Faith is the appreciation of good and of evil. Men
+with a faith based upon their own doctrines do not succeed at all in
+harmonizing this faith with the faith inspired by the doctrine of Jesus;
+and so it was with the early disciples. This misapprehension is
+frequently referred to in the Gospels in clear and decisive terms.
+Several times the disciples asked Jesus to strengthen their faith in his
+words (Matt. xx. 20-28; Mark x. 35-48). After the message, so terrible
+to every man who believes in the personal life and who seeks his
+happiness in the riches of this world, after the words, "_How hardly
+shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God_," and after
+words still more terrible for men who believe only in the personal life,
+"_Sell whatsoever thou hast and give to the poor_;" after these warning
+words Peter asked, "_Behold, we have forsaken all and followed thee;
+what shall we have therefore?_" Then James and John and, according to
+the Gospel of Matthew, their mother, asked him that they might be
+allowed to sit with him in glory. They asked Jesus to strengthen their
+faith with a promise of future recompense. To Peter's question Jesus
+replied with a parable (Matt. xx. 1-16); to James he replied that they
+did not know what they asked; that they asked what was impossible; that
+they did not understand the doctrine, which meant a renunciation of the
+personal life, while they demanded personal glory, a personal
+recompense; that they should drink the cup he drank of (that is, live as
+he lived), but to sit upon his right hand and upon his left was not his
+to give. And Jesus added that the great of this world had their profit
+and enjoyment of glory and personal power only in the worldly life; but
+that his disciples ought to know that the true meaning of human life is
+not in personal happiness, but in ministering to others; "_the son of
+man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his
+life a ransom for many_." In reply to the unreasonable demands which
+revealed their slowness to understand his doctrine, Jesus did not
+command his disciples to have faith in his doctrine, that is, to modify
+the ideas inspired by their own doctrine (he knew that to be
+impossible), but he explained to them the meaning of that life which is
+the basis of true faith, that is, taught them how to discern good from
+evil, the important from the secondary.
+
+To Peter's question, "_What shall we receive?_" Jesus replies with the
+parable of the laborers in the vineyard (Matt. xx. 1-16), beginning with
+the words "_For the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is a
+householder_," and by this means Jesus explains to Peter that failure to
+understand the doctrine is the cause of lack of faith; and that
+remuneration in proportion to the amount of work done is important only
+from the point of view of the personal life.
+
+This faith is based upon the presumption of certain imaginary rights;
+but a man has a right to nothing; he is under obligations for the good
+he has received, and so he can exact nothing. Even if he were to give up
+his whole life to the service of others, he could not pay the debt he
+has incurred, and so he cannot complain of injustice. If a man sets a
+value upon his rights to life, if he keeps a reckoning with the
+Overruling Power from whom he has received life, he proves simply that
+he does not understand the meaning of life. Men who have received a
+benefit act far otherwise. The laborers employed in the vineyard were
+found by the householder idle and unhappy; they did not possess life in
+the proper meaning of the term. And then the householder gave them the
+supreme welfare of life,--work. They accepted the benefits offered, and
+were discontented because their remuneration was not graduated according
+to their imaginary deserts. They did the work, believing in their false
+doctrine of life and work as a right, and consequently with an idea of
+the remuneration to which they were entitled. They did not understand
+that work is the supreme good, and that they should be thankful for the
+opportunity to work, instead of exacting payment. And so all men who
+look upon life as these laborers looked upon it, never can possess true
+faith. This parable of the laborers, related by Jesus in response to the
+request by his disciples that he strengthen their faith, shows more
+clearly than ever the basis of the faith that Jesus taught.
+
+When Jesus told his disciples that they must forgive a brother who
+trespassed against them not only once, but seventy times seven times,
+the disciples were overwhelmed at the difficulty of observing this
+injunction, and said, "_Increase our faith_," just as a little while
+before they had asked, "_What shall we receive?_" Now they uttered the
+language of would-be Christians: "We wish to believe, but cannot;
+strengthen our faith that we may be saved; make us believe" (as the Jews
+said to Jesus when they demanded miracles); "either by miracles or
+promises of recompense, make us to have faith in our salvation."
+
+The disciples said what we all say: "How pleasant it would be if we
+could live our selfish life, and at the same time believe that it is far
+better to practise the doctrine of God by living for others." This
+disposition of mind is common to us all; it is contrary to the meaning
+of the doctrine of Jesus, and yet we are astonished at our lack of
+faith. Jesus disposed of this misapprehension by means of a parable
+illustrating true faith. Faith cannot come of confidence in his words;
+faith can come only of a consciousness of our condition; faith is based
+only upon the dictates of reason as to what is best to do in a given
+situation. He showed that this faith cannot be awakened in others by
+promises of recompense or threats of punishment, which can only arouse a
+feeble confidence that will fail at the first trial; but that the faith
+which removes mountains, the faith that nothing can shatter, is inspired
+by the consciousness of our inevitable loss if we do not profit by the
+salvation that is offered.
+
+To have faith, we must not count on any promise of recompense; we must
+understand that the only way of escape from a ruined life is a life
+conformable to the will of the Master. He who understands this will not
+ask to be strengthened in his faith, but will work out his salvation
+without the need of any exhortation. The householder, when he comes from
+the fields with his workman, does not ask the latter to sit down at once
+to dinner, but directs him to attend first to other duties and to wait
+upon him, the master, and then to take his place at the table and dine.
+This the workman does without any sense of being wronged; he does not
+boast of his labor nor does he demand recognition or recompense, for he
+knows that labor is the inevitable condition of his existence and the
+true welfare of his life. So Jesus says that when we have done all that
+we are commanded to do, we have only fulfilled our duty. He who
+understands his relations to his master will understand that he has life
+only as he obeys the master's will; he will know in what his welfare
+consists, and he will have a faith that does not demand the impossible.
+This is the faith taught by Jesus, which has for its foundation a
+thorough perception of the true meaning of life. The source of faith is
+light:--
+
+"_That was the true light which lighteth every man that cometh 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 his own received him not. But as
+many as received him, to them gave he the right to become the children
+of God, even to them that believe on his name._" (John i. 9-12.)
+
+"_And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and
+men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For
+every 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 they have been
+wrought in God._" (John iii. 19-21.)
+
+He who understands the doctrine of Jesus will not ask to be strengthened
+in his faith. The doctrine of Jesus teaches that faith is inspired by
+the light of truth. Jesus never asked men to have faith in his person;
+he called upon them to have faith in truth. To the Jews he said:--
+
+"_Ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth which I have
+heard of God._" (John viii. 40.)
+
+"_Which of you convicteth me of sin? If I say truth, why do ye not
+believe me?_" (John viii. 46.)
+
+"_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 heareth my voice._" (John xviii. 37.)
+
+To his disciples he said:--
+
+"_I am the way, and the truth, and the life._" (John xiv. 6.)
+
+"_The Father ... shall give you another Comforter, that he may be with
+you forever, 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._" (John xiv. 16, 17.)
+
+Jesus' doctrine, then, is truth, and he himself is truth. The doctrine
+of Jesus is the doctrine of truth. Faith in Jesus is not belief in a
+system based upon his personality, but a consciousness of truth. No one
+can be persuaded to believe in the doctrine of Jesus, nor can any one be
+stimulated by any promised reward to practise it. He who understands the
+doctrine of Jesus will have faith in him, because this doctrine is true.
+He who knows the truth indispensable to his happiness must believe in
+it, just as a man who knows that he is drowning grasps the rope of
+safety. Thus, the question, What must I do to believe? is an indication
+that he who asks it does not understand the doctrine of Jesus.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+
+WE say, It is difficult to live according to the doctrine of Jesus! And
+why should it not be difficult, when by our organization of life we
+carefully hide from ourselves our true situation; when we endeavor to
+persuade ourselves that our situation is not at all what it is, but that
+it is something else? We call this faith, and regarding it as sacred, we
+endeavor by all possible means, by threats, by flattery, by falsehood,
+by stimulating the emotions, to attract men to its support. In this mad
+determination to believe what is contrary to sense and reason, we reach
+such a degree of aberration that we are ready to take as an indication
+of truth the very absurdity of the object in whose behalf we solicit the
+confidence of men. Are there not Christians who are ready to declare
+with enthusiasm "Credo quia absurdum," supposing that the absurd is the
+best medium for teaching men the truth? Not long ago a man of
+intelligence and great learning said to me that the Christian doctrine
+had no importance as a moral rule of life. Morality, he said, must be
+sought in the teachings of the Stoics and the Brahmins, and in the
+Talmud. The essence of the Christian doctrine is not in morality, he
+said, but in the theosophical doctrine propounded in its dogmas.
+According to this I ought to prize in the Christian doctrine not what it
+contains of eternal good to humanity, not its teachings indispensable to
+a reasonable life; I ought to regard as the most important element of
+Christianity that portion of it which it is impossible to understand,
+and therefore useless,--and this in the name of thousands of men who
+have perished for their faith.
+
+We have a false conception of life, a conception based upon wrong doing
+and inspired by selfish passions, and we consider our faith in this
+false conception (which we have in some way attached to the doctrine of
+Jesus), as the most important and necessary thing with which we are
+concerned. If men had not for centuries maintained faith in what is
+untrue, this false conception of life, as well as the truth of the
+doctrine of Jesus, would long ago have been revealed.
+
+It is a terrible thing to say, but it seems to me that if the doctrine
+of Jesus, and that of the Church which has been foisted upon it, had
+never existed, those who to-day call themselves Christians would be much
+nearer than they are to the truth of the doctrine of Jesus; that is, to
+the reasonable doctrine which teaches the true meaning of life. The
+moral doctrines of all the prophets of the world would not then be
+closed to them. They would have their little ideas of truth, and would
+regard them with confidence. Now, all truth is revealed, and this truth
+has so horrified those whose manner of life it condemned, that they
+have disguised it in falsehood, and men have lost confidence in the
+truth.
+
+In our European society, the words of Jesus, "_To this end I am come
+into the world, that I shall bear witness unto the truth. Every one that
+is of the truth heareth my voice_,"--have been for a long time
+supplanted by Pilate's question, "_What is truth?_" This question,
+quoted as a bitter and profound irony against a Roman, we have taken as
+of serious purport, and have made of it an article of faith.
+
+With us, all men live not only without truth, not only without the least
+desire to know truth, but with the firm conviction that, among all
+useless occupations, the most useless is the endeavor to find the truth
+that governs human life. The rule of life, the doctrine that all
+peoples, excepting our European societies, have always considered as the
+most important thing, the rule of which Jesus spoke as the one thing
+needful, is an object of universal disdain. An institution called the
+Church, in which no one, not even if he belong to it, really believes,
+has for a long time usurped the place of this rule.
+
+The only source of light for those who think and suffer is hidden. For a
+solution of the questions, What am I? what ought I to do? I am not
+allowed to depend upon the doctrine of him who came to save; I am told
+to obey the authorities, and believe in the Church. But why is life so
+full of evil? Why so much wrong-doing? May I not abstain from taking
+part therein? Is it impossible to lighten this heavy load that weighs me
+down? The reply is that this is impossible, that the desire to live
+well and to help others to live well is only a temptation of pride; that
+one thing is possible,--to save one's soul for the future life. He who
+is not willing to take part in this miserable life may keep aloof from
+it; this way is open to all; but, says the doctrine of the Church, he
+who chooses this way can take no part in the life of the world; he
+ceases to live. Our masters tell us that there are only two ways,--to
+believe in and obey the powers that be, to participate in the organized
+evil about us, or to forsake the world and take refuge in convent or
+monastery; to take part in the offices of the Church, doing nothing for
+men, and declaring the doctrine of Jesus impossible to practise,
+accepting the iniquity of life sanctioned by the Church, or to renounce
+life for what is equivalent to slow suicide.
+
+However surprising the belief that the doctrine of Jesus is excellent,
+but impossible of practice, there is a still more surprising tradition
+that he who wishes to practise this doctrine, not in word, but in deed,
+must retire from the world. This erroneous belief that it is better for
+a man to retire from the world than to expose himself to temptations,
+existed amongst the Hebrews of old, but is entirely foreign, not only to
+the spirit of Christianity, but to that of the Jewish religion. The
+charming and significant story of the prophet Jonah, which Jesus so
+loved to quote, was written in regard to this very error. The prophet
+Jonah, wishing to remain upright and virtuous, retires from the perverse
+companionship of men. But God shows him that as a prophet he ought to
+communicate to misguided men a knowledge of the truth, and so ought not
+to fly from men, but ought rather to live in communion with them. Jonah,
+disgusted with the depravity of the inhabitants of Nineveh, flies from
+the city; but he cannot escape his vocation. He is brought back, and the
+will of God is accomplished; the Ninevites receive the words of Jonah
+and are saved. Instead of rejoicing that he has been made the instrument
+of God's will, Jonah is angry, and condemns God for the mercy shown the
+Ninevites, arrogating to himself alone the exercise of reason and
+goodness. He goes out into the desert and makes him a shelter, whence he
+addresses his reproaches to God. Then a gourd comes up over Jonah and
+protects him from the sun, but the next day it withers. Jonah, smitten
+by the heat, reproaches God anew for allowing the gourd to wither. Then
+God says to him:--
+
+"_Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not labored,
+neither madest it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a
+night: and should I not have pity on Nineveh, that great city; wherein
+are more than six score thousand persons that cannot discern between
+their right hand and their left hand?_"
+
+Jesus knew this story, and often referred to it. In the Gospels we find
+it related how Jesus, after the interview with John, who had retired
+into the desert, was himself subjected to the same temptation before
+beginning his mission. He was led by the Spirit into the wilderness,
+and there tempted by the Devil (error), over which he triumphed and
+returned to Galilee. Thereafter he mingled with the most depraved men,
+and passed his life among publicans, Pharisees, and fishermen, teaching
+them the truth.[20]
+
+     [20] Jesus is led into the desert to be tempted of error. Error
+     suggests to Jesus that he is not the Son of God if he cannot make
+     stones into bread. Jesus replies that he lives, not by bread alone,
+     but by the word of God. Then Error says that if he lives by the
+     word or spirit of God, the flesh may be destroyed, but the spirit
+     will not perish. Jesus' reply is that life in the flesh is the will
+     of God; to destroy the flesh is to act contrary to the will of God,
+     to tempt God. Error then suggests that if this be true, he should,
+     like the rest of the world, place himself at the service of the
+     flesh, and the flesh will give him satisfaction. Jesus' reply is
+     that he can serve God only because the true life is spiritual, and
+     has been placed in the flesh by the will of God. Jesus then leaves
+     the desert and returns to the world. (Matt. iv. 1-11; Luke iv.
+     1-13.)
+
+Even according to the doctrine of the Church, Jesus, as God in man, has
+given us the example of his life. All of his life that is known to us
+was passed in the company of publicans, of the downfallen, and of
+Pharisees. The principal commandments of Jesus are that his followers
+shall love others and spread his doctrine. Both exact constant communion
+with the world. And yet the deduction is made that the doctrine of Jesus
+permits retirement from the world. That is, to imitate Jesus we may do
+exactly contrary to what he taught and did himself.
+
+As the Church explains it, the doctrine of Jesus offers itself to men of
+the world and to dwellers in monasteries, not as a rule of life for
+bettering one's own condition and the condition of others, but as a
+doctrine which teaches the man of the world how to live an evil life and
+at the same time gain for himself another life, and the monk how to
+render existence still more difficult than it naturally is. But Jesus
+did not teach this. Jesus taught the truth, and if metaphysical truth is
+the truth, it will remain such in practice. If life in God is the only
+true life, and is in itself profitable, then it is so here in this world
+in spite of all that may happen. If in this world a life in accordance
+with the doctrine of Jesus is not profitable, his doctrine cannot be
+true.
+
+Jesus did not ask us to pass from better to worse, but, on the contrary,
+from worse to better. He had pity upon men, who to him were like sheep
+without a shepherd. He said that his disciples would be persecuted for
+his doctrine, and that they must bear the persecutions of the world with
+resolution. But he did not say that those who followed his doctrine
+would suffer more than those who followed the world's doctrine; on the
+contrary, he said that those who followed the world's doctrine would be
+wretched, and that those who followed his doctrine would have joy and
+peace. Jesus did not teach salvation by faith in asceticism or voluntary
+torture, but he taught us a way of life which, while saving us from the
+emptiness of the personal life, would give us less of suffering and more
+of joy. Jesus told men that in practising his doctrine among unbelievers
+they would be, not more unhappy, but, on the contrary, much more happy,
+than those who did not practise it. There was, he said, one infallible
+rule, and that was to have no care about the worldly life. When Peter
+said to Jesus, "_We have forsaken all, and followed thee; what then
+shall we have?_" Jesus replied:--
+
+"_There is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or
+mother, or father, or children, or lands, for my sake, and for the
+gospel's sake, but he shall receive a hundred fold more in this time,
+houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands,
+with persecutions; and in the age to come eternal life._" (Mark x.
+28-30.)
+
+Jesus declared, it is true, that those who follow his doctrine must
+expect to be persecuted by those who do not follow it, but he did not
+say that his disciples will be the worse off for that reason; on the
+contrary, he said that his disciples would have, here, in this world,
+more benefits than those who did not follow him. That Jesus said and
+thought this is beyond a doubt, as the clearness of his words on this
+subject, the meaning of his entire doctrine, his life and the life of
+his disciples, plainly show. But was his teaching in this respect true?
+
+When we examine the question as to which of the two conditions would be
+the better, that of the disciples of Jesus or that of the disciples of
+the world, we are obliged to conclude that the condition of the
+disciples of Jesus ought to be the most desirable, since the disciples
+of Jesus, in doing good to every one, would not arouse the hatred of
+men. The disciples of Jesus, doing evil to no one, would be persecuted
+only by the wicked. The disciples of the world, on the contrary, are
+likely to be persecuted by every one, since the law of the disciples of
+the world is the law of each for himself, the law of struggle; that is,
+of mutual persecution. Moreover, the disciples of Jesus would be
+prepared for suffering, while the disciples of the world use all
+possible means to avoid suffering; the disciples of Jesus would feel
+that their sufferings were useful to the world; but the disciples of the
+world do not know why they suffer. On abstract grounds, then, the
+condition of the disciples of Jesus would be more advantageous than that
+of the disciples of the world. But is it so in reality? To answer this,
+let each one call to mind all the painful moments of his life, all the
+physical and moral sufferings that he has endured, and let him ask
+himself if he has suffered these calamities in behalf of the doctrine of
+the world or in behalf of the doctrine of Jesus. Every sincere man will
+find in recalling his past life that he has never once suffered for
+practising the doctrine of Jesus. He will find that the greater part of
+the misfortunes of his life have resulted from following the doctrines
+of the world. In my own life (an exceptionally happy one from a worldly
+point of view) I can reckon up as much suffering caused by following the
+doctrine of the world as many a martyr has endured for the doctrine of
+Jesus. All the most painful moments of my life,--the orgies and duels
+in which I took part as a student, the wars in which I have
+participated, the diseases that I have endured, and the abnormal and
+insupportable conditions under which I now live,--all these are only so
+much martyrdom exacted by fidelity to the doctrine of the world. But I
+speak of a life exceptionally happy from a worldly point of view. How
+many martyrs have suffered for the doctrine of the world torments that I
+should find difficulty in enumerating!
+
+We do not realize the difficulties and dangers entailed by the practice
+of the doctrine of the world, simply because we are persuaded that we
+could not do otherwise than follow that doctrine. We are persuaded that
+all the calamities that we inflict upon ourselves are the result of the
+inevitable conditions of life, and we cannot understand that the
+doctrine of Jesus teaches us how we may rid ourselves of these
+calamities and render our lives happy. To be able to reply to the
+question, Which of these two conditions is the happier? we must, at
+least for the time being, put aside our prejudices and take a careful
+survey of our surroundings.
+
+Go through our great cities and observe the emaciated, sickly, and
+distorted specimens of humanity to be found therein; recall your own
+existence and that of all the people with whose lives you are familiar;
+recall the instances of violent deaths and suicides of which you have
+heard,--and then ask yourself for what cause all this suffering and
+death, this despair that leads to suicide, has been endured. You will
+find, perhaps to your surprise, that nine-tenths of all human suffering
+endured by men is useless, and ought not to exist, that, in fact, the
+majority of men are martyrs to the doctrine of the world.
+
+One rainy autumn day I rode on the tramway by the Sukhareff Tower in
+Moscow. For the distance of half a verst the vehicle forced its way
+through a compact crowd which quickly reformed its ranks. From morning
+till night these thousands of men, the greater portion of them starving
+and in rags, tramped angrily through the mud, venting their hatred in
+abusive epithets and acts of violence. The same sight may be seen in all
+the market-places of Moscow. At sunset these people go to the taverns
+and gaming-houses; their nights are passed in filth and wretchedness.
+Think of the lives of these people, of what they abandon through choice
+for their present condition; think of the heavy burden of labor without
+reward which weighs upon these men and women, and you will see that they
+are true martyrs. All these people have forsaken houses, lands, parents,
+wives, and children; they have renounced all the comforts of life, and
+they have come to the cities to acquire that which according to the
+gospel of the world is indispensable to every one. And all these tens of
+thousands of unhappy people sleep in hovels, and subsist upon strong
+drink and wretched food. But aside from this class, all, from factory
+workman, cab-driver, sewing girl, and lorette, to merchant and
+government official, all endure the most painful and abnormal
+conditions without being able to acquire what, according to the doctrine
+of the world, is indispensable to each.
+
+Seek among all these men, from beggar to millionaire, one who is
+contented with his lot, and you will not find one such in a thousand.
+Each one spends his strength in pursuit of what is exacted by the
+doctrine of the world, and of what he is unhappy not to possess, and
+scarcely has he obtained one object of his desires when he strives for
+another, and still another, in that infinite labor of Sisyphus which
+destroys the lives of men. Run over the scale of individual fortunes,
+ranging from a yearly income of three hundred roubles to fifty thousand
+roubles, and you will rarely find a person who is not striving to gain
+four hundred roubles if he have three hundred, five hundred if he have
+four hundred, and so on to the top of the ladder. Among them all you
+will scarcely find one who, with five hundred roubles, is willing to
+adopt the mode of life of him who has only four hundred. When such an
+instance does occur, it is not inspired by a desire to make life more
+simple, but to amass money and make it more sure. Each strives
+continually to make the heavy burden of existence still more heavy, by
+giving himself up body and soul to the practice of the doctrine of the
+world. To-day we must buy an overcoat and galoches, to-morrow, a watch
+and chain; the next day we must install ourselves in an apartment with a
+sofa and a bronze lamp; then we must have carpets and velvet gowns;
+then a house, horses and carriages, paintings and decorations, and
+then--then we fall ill of overwork and die. Another continues the same
+task, sacrifices his life to this same Moloch, and then dies also,
+without realizing for what he has lived.
+
+But possibly this existence is in itself attractive? Compare it with
+what men have always called happiness, and you will see that it is
+hideous. For what, according to the general estimate, are the principal
+conditions of earthly happiness? One of the first conditions of
+happiness is that the link between man and nature shall not be severed,
+that is, that he shall be able to see the sky above him, and that he
+shall be able to enjoy the sunshine, the pure air, the fields with their
+verdure, their multitudinous life. Men have always regarded it as a
+great unhappiness to be deprived of all these things. But what is the
+condition of those men who live according to the doctrine of the world?
+The greater their success in practising the doctrine of the world, the
+more they are deprived of these conditions of happiness. The greater
+their worldly success, the less they are able to enjoy the light of the
+sun, the freshness of the fields and woods, and all the delights of
+country life. Many of them--including nearly all the women--arrive at
+old age without having seen the sun rise or the beauties of the early
+morning, without having seen a forest except from a seat in a carriage,
+without ever having planted a field or a garden, and without having the
+least idea as to the ways and habits of dumb animals.
+
+These people, surrounded by artificial light instead of sunshine, look
+only upon fabrics of tapestry and stone and wood fashioned by the hand
+of man; the roar of machinery, the roll of vehicles, the thunder of
+cannon, the sound of musical instruments, are always in their ears; they
+breathe an atmosphere heavy with distilled perfumes and tobacco smoke;
+because of the weakness of their stomachs and their depraved tastes they
+eat rich and highly spiced food. When they move about from place to
+place, they travel in closed carriages. When they go into the country,
+they have the same fabrics beneath their feet; the same draperies shut
+out the sunshine; and the same array of servants cut off all
+communication with the men, the earth, the vegetation, and the animals
+about them. Wherever they go, they are like so many captives shut out
+from the conditions of happiness. As prisoners sometimes console
+themselves with a blade of grass that forces its way through the
+pavement of their prison yard, or make pets of a spider or a mouse, so
+these people sometimes amuse themselves with sickly plants, a parrot, a
+poodle, or a monkey, to whose needs however they do not themselves
+administer.
+
+Another inevitable condition of happiness is work: first, the
+intellectual labor that one is free to choose and loves; secondly, the
+exercise of physical power that brings a good appetite and tranquil and
+profound sleep. Here, again, the greater the imagined prosperity that
+falls to the lot of men according to the doctrine of the world, the more
+such men are deprived of this condition of happiness. All the prosperous
+people of the world, the men of dignity and wealth, are as completely
+deprived of the advantages of work as if they were shut up in solitary
+confinement. They struggle unsuccessfully with the diseases caused by
+the need of physical exercise, and with the ennui which pursues
+them--unsuccessfully, because labor is a pleasure only when it is
+necessary, and they have need of nothing; or they undertake work that is
+odious to them, like the bankers, solicitors, administrators, and
+government officials, and their wives, who plan receptions and routs and
+devise toilettes for themselves and their children. (I say odious,
+because I never yet met any person of this class who was contented with
+his work or took as much satisfaction in it as the porter feels in
+shovelling away the snow from before their doorsteps.) All these
+favorites of fortune are either deprived of work or are obliged to work
+at what they do not like, after the manner of criminals condemned to
+hard labor.
+
+The third undoubted condition of happiness is the family. But the more
+men are enslaved by worldly success, the more certainly are they cut off
+from domestic pleasures. The majority of them are libertines, who
+deliberately renounce the joys of family life and retain only its cares.
+If they are not libertines, their children, instead of being a source
+of pleasure, are a burden, and all possible means are employed to render
+marriage unfruitful. If they have children, they make no effort to
+cultivate the pleasures of companionship with them. They leave their
+children almost continually to the care of strangers, confiding them
+first to the instruction of persons who are usually foreigners, and then
+sending them to public educational institutions, so that of family life
+they have only the sorrows, and the children from infancy are as unhappy
+as their parents and wish their parents dead that they may become the
+heirs.[21] These people are not confined in prisons, but the
+consequences of their way of living with regard to the family are more
+melancholy than the deprivation from the domestic relations inflicted
+upon those who are kept in confinement under sentence of the law.
+
+     [21] The justification of this existence made by parents is very
+     curious. "I need nothing for myself," the father says; "this way of
+     living is very distasteful to me; but, because of affection for my
+     children, I endure its burdens." In plain terms his argument would
+     be: "I know by experience that my way of living is a source of
+     unhappiness, consequently I am training my children to the same
+     unhappy method of existence. For love of them, I bring them into a
+     city permeated with physical and moral miasma; I give them into the
+     care of strangers, who regard the education of the young as a
+     lucrative enterprise; I surround my children with physical, moral,
+     and intellectual corruption." And this reasoning must serve as a
+     justification of the absurd existence led by the parents
+     themselves.
+
+The fourth condition of happiness is sympathetic and unrestricted
+intercourse with all classes of men. And the higher a man is placed in
+the social scale, the more certainly is he deprived of this essential
+condition of happiness. The higher he goes, the narrower becomes his
+circle of associates; the lower sinks the moral and intellectual level
+of those to whose companionship he is restrained.
+
+The peasant and his wife are free to enter into friendly relations with
+every one, and if a million men will have nothing to do with them, there
+remain eighty millions of people with whom they may fraternize, from
+Archangel to Astrakhan, without waiting for a ceremonious visit or an
+introduction. A clerk and his wife will find hundreds of people who are
+their equals; but the clerks of a higher rank will not admit them to a
+footing of social equality, and they, in their turn, are excluded by
+others. The wealthy man of the world reckons by dozens the families with
+whom he is willing to maintain social ties--all the rest of the world
+are strangers. For the cabinet minister and the millionaire there are
+only a dozen people as rich and as important as themselves. For kings
+and emperors, the circle is still more narrow. Is not the whole system
+like a great prison where each inmate is restricted to association with
+a few fellow-convicts?
+
+Finally, the fifth condition of happiness is bodily health. And once
+more we find that as we ascend the social scale this condition of
+happiness is less and less within the reach of the followers of the
+doctrine of the world. Compare a family of medium social status with a
+family of peasants. The latter toil unremittingly and are robust of
+body; the former is made up of men and women more or less subject to
+disease. Recall to mind the rich men and women whom you have known; are
+not most of them invalids? A person of that class whose physical
+disabilities do not oblige him to take a periodical course of hygienic
+and medical treatment is as rare as is an invalid among the laboring
+classes. All these favorites of fortune are the victims and
+practitioners of sexual vices that have become a second nature, and they
+are toothless, gray, and bald at an age when a workingman is in the
+prime of manhood. Nearly all are afflicted with nervous or other
+diseases arising from excesses in eating, drunkenness, luxury, and
+perpetual medication. Those who do not die young, pass half of their
+lives under the influence of morphine or other drugs, as melancholy
+wrecks of humanity incapable of self-attention, leading a parasitic
+existence like that of a certain species of ants which are nourished by
+their slaves. Here is the death list. One has blown out his brains,
+another has rotted away from the effects of syphilitic poison; this old
+man succumbed to sexual excesses, this young man to a wild outburst of
+sensuality; one died of drunkenness, another of gluttony, another from
+the abuse of morphine, another from an induced abortion. One after
+another they perished, victims of the doctrine of the world. And a
+multitude presses on behind them, like an army of martyrs, to undergo
+the same sufferings, the same perdition.
+
+To follow the doctrine of Jesus is difficult! Jesus said that they who
+would forsake houses, and lands, and brethren, and follow his doctrine
+should receive a hundred-fold in houses, and lands, and brethren, and
+besides all this, eternal life. And no one is willing even to make the
+experiment. The doctrine of the world commands its followers to leave
+houses, and lands, and brethren; to forsake the country for the filth of
+the city, there to toil as a bath-keeper soaping the backs of others; as
+an apprentice in a little underground shop passing life in counting
+kopecks; as a prosecuting attorney to serve in bringing unhappy wretches
+under condemnation of the law; as a cabinet minister, perpetually
+signing documents of no importance; as the head of an army, killing
+men.--"Forsake all and live this hideous life ending in a cruel death,
+and you shall receive nothing in this world or the other," is the
+command, and every one listens and obeys. Jesus tells us to take up the
+cross and follow him, to bear submissively the lot apportioned out to
+us. No one hears his words or follows his command. But let a man in a
+uniform decked out with gold lace, a man whose speciality is to kill his
+fellows, say, "Take, not your cross, but your knapsack and carbine, and
+march to suffering and certain death,"--and a mighty host is ready to
+receive his orders. Leaving parents, wives, and children, clad in
+grotesque costumes, subject to the will of the first comer of a higher
+rank, famished, benumbed, and exhausted by forced marches, they go, like
+a herd of cattle to the slaughter-house, not knowing where,--and yet
+these are not cattle, they are men.
+
+With despair in their hearts they move on, to die of hunger, or cold, or
+disease, or, if they survive, to be brought within range of a storm of
+bullets and commanded to kill. They kill and are killed, none of them
+knows why or to what end. An ambitious stripling has only to brandish
+his sword and shout a few magniloquent words to induce them to rush to
+certain death. And yet no one finds this to be difficult. Neither the
+victims, nor those whom they have forsaken, find anything difficult in
+such sacrifices, in which parents encourage their children to take part.
+It seems to them not only that such things should be, but that they
+could not be otherwise, and that they are altogether admirable and
+moral.
+
+If the practice of the doctrine of the world were easy, agreeable, and
+without danger, we might perhaps believe that the practice of the
+doctrine of Jesus is difficult, frightful, and cruel. But the doctrine
+of the world is much more difficult, more dangerous, and more cruel,
+than is the doctrine of Jesus. Formerly, we are told, there were martyrs
+for the cause of Jesus; but they were exceptional. We cannot count up
+more than about three hundred and eighty thousand of them, voluntary and
+involuntary, in the whole course of eighteen hundred years; but who
+shall count the martyrs to the doctrine of the world? For each Christian
+martyr there have been a thousand martyrs to the doctrine of the world,
+and the sufferings of each one of them have been a hundred times more
+cruel than those endured by the others. The number of the victims of
+wars in our century alone amounts to thirty millions of men. These are
+the martyrs to the doctrine of the world, who would have escaped
+suffering and death even if they had refused to follow the doctrine of
+the world, to say nothing of following the doctrine of Jesus.
+
+If a man will cease to have faith in the doctrine of the world and not
+think it indispensable to wear varnished boots and a gold chain, to
+maintain a useless salon, or to do the various other foolish things the
+doctrine of the world demands, he will never know the effects of
+brutalizing occupations, of unlimited suffering, of the anxieties of a
+perpetual struggle; he will remain in communion with nature; he will be
+deprived neither of the work he loves, or of his family, or of his
+health, and he will not perish by a cruel and brutish death.
+
+The doctrine of Jesus does not exact martyrdom similar to that of the
+doctrine of the world; it teaches us rather how to put an end to the
+sufferings that men endure in the name of the false doctrine of the
+world. The doctrine of Jesus has a profound metaphysical meaning; it has
+a meaning as an expression of the aspirations of humanity; but it has
+also for each individual a very simple, very clear, and very practical
+meaning with regard to the conduct of his own life. In fact, we might
+say that Jesus taught men not to do foolish things. The meaning of the
+doctrine of Jesus is simple and accessible to all.
+
+Jesus said that we were not to be angry, and not to consider ourselves
+as better than others; if we were angry and offended others, so much the
+worse for us. Again, he said that we were to avoid libertinism, and to
+that end choose one woman, to whom we should remain faithful. Once more,
+he said that we were not to bind ourselves by promises or oaths to the
+service of those who may constrain us to commit acts of folly and
+wickedness. Then he said that we were not to return evil for evil, lest
+the evil rebound upon ourselves with redoubled force. And, finally, he
+says that we are not to consider men as foreigners because they dwell in
+another country and speak a language different from our own. And the
+conclusion is, that if we avoid doing any of these foolish things, we
+shall be happy.
+
+This is all very well (we say), but the world is so organized that, if
+we place ourselves in opposition to it, our condition will be much more
+calamitous than if we live in accordance with its doctrine. If a man
+refuses to perform military service, he will be shut up in a fortress,
+and possibly will be shot. If a man will not do what is necessary for
+the support of himself and his family, he and his family will starve.
+Thus argue the people who feel themselves obliged to defend the existing
+social organization; but they do not believe in the truth of their own
+words. They only say this because they cannot deny the truth of the
+doctrine of Jesus which they profess, and because they must justify
+themselves in some way for their failure to practise it. They not only
+do not believe in what they say; they have never given any serious
+consideration to the subject. They have faith in the doctrine of the
+world, and they only make use of the plea they have learned from the
+Church,--that much suffering is inevitable for those who would practise
+the doctrine of Jesus; and so they have never tried to practise the
+doctrine of Jesus at all.
+
+We see enough of the frightful suffering endured by men in following the
+doctrine of the world, but in these times we hear nothing of suffering
+in behalf of the doctrine of Jesus. Thirty millions of men have perished
+in wars, fought in behalf of the doctrine of the world; thousands of
+millions of beings have perished, crushed by a social system organized
+on the principle of the doctrine of the world; but where, in our day,
+shall we find a million, a thousand, a dozen, or a single one, who has
+died a cruel death, or has even suffered from hunger and cold, in behalf
+of the doctrine of Jesus? This fear of suffering is only a puerile
+excuse that proves how little we really know of Jesus' doctrine. We not
+only do not follow it; we do not even take it seriously. The Church has
+explained it in such a way that it seems to be, not the doctrine of a
+happy life, but a bugbear, a source of terror.
+
+Jesus calls men to drink of a well of living water, which is free to
+all. Men are parched with thirst, they have eaten of filth and drunk
+blood, but they have been told that they will perish if they drink of
+this water that is offered them by Jesus, and men believe in the
+warnings of superstition. They die in torment, with the water that they
+dare not touch within their reach. If they would only have faith in
+Jesus' words, and go to this well of living water and quench their
+thirst, they would realize how cunning has been the imposture practised
+upon them by the Church, and how needlessly their sufferings have been
+prolonged. If they would only accept the doctrine of Jesus, frankly and
+simply, they would see at once the horrible error of which we are each
+and all the victims.
+
+One generation after another strives to find the security of its
+existence in violence, and by violence to protect its privileges. We
+believe that the happiness of our life is in power, and domination, and
+abundance of worldly goods. We are so habituated to this idea that we
+are alarmed at the sacrifices exacted by the doctrine of Jesus, which
+teaches that man's happiness does not depend upon fortune and power, and
+that the rich cannot enter into the kingdom of God. But this is a false
+idea of the doctrine of Jesus, which teaches us, not to do what is the
+worst, but to do what is the best for ourselves here in this present
+life. Inspired by his love for men, Jesus taught them not to depend upon
+security based upon violence, and not to seek after riches, just as we
+teach the common people to abstain, for their own interest, from
+quarrels and intemperance. He said that if men lived without defending
+themselves against violence, and without possessing riches, they would
+be more happy; and he confirms his words by the example of his life. He
+said that a man who lives according to his doctrine must be ready at any
+moment to endure violence from others, and, possibly, to die of hunger
+and cold. But this warning, which seems to exact such great and
+unbearable sacrifices, is simply a statement of the conditions under
+which men always have existed, and always will continue to exist.
+
+A disciple of Jesus should be prepared for everything, and especially
+for suffering and death. But is the disciple of the world in a more
+desirable situation? We are so accustomed to believe in all we do for
+the so-called security of life (the organization of armies, the building
+of fortresses, the provisioning of troops), that our wardrobes, our
+systems of medical treatment, our furniture, and our money, all seem
+like real and stable pledges of our existence. We forget the fate of him
+who resolved to build greater storehouses to provide an abundance for
+many years: he died in a night. Everything that we do to make our
+existence secure is like the act of the ostrich, when she hides her head
+in the sand, and does not see that her destruction is near. But we are
+even more foolish than the ostrich. To establish the doubtful security
+of an uncertain life in an uncertain future, we sacrifice a life of
+certainty in a present that we might really possess.
+
+The illusion is in the firm conviction that our existence can be made
+secure by a struggle with others. We are so accustomed to this illusory
+so-called security of our existence and our property, that we do not
+realize what we lose by striving after it. We lose everything,--we lose
+life itself. Our whole life is taken up with anxiety for personal
+security, with preparations for living, so that we really never live at
+all.
+
+If we take a general survey of our lives, we shall see that all our
+efforts in behalf of the so-called security of existence are not made at
+all for the assurance of security, but simply to help us to forget that
+existence never has been, and never can be, secure. But it is not enough
+to say that we are the dupes of our own illusions, and that we forfeit
+the true life for an imaginary life; our efforts for security often
+result in the destruction of what we most wish to preserve. The French
+took up arms in 1870 to make their national existence secure, and the
+attempt resulted in the destruction of hundreds of thousands of
+Frenchmen. All people who take up arms undergo the same experience. The
+rich man believes that his existence is secure because he possesses
+money, and his money attracts a thief who kills him. The invalid thinks
+to make his life secure by the use of medicines, and the medicines
+slowly poison him; if they do not bring about his death, they at least
+deprive him of life, till he is like the impotent man who waited
+thirty-five years at the pool for an angel to come down and trouble the
+waters. The doctrine of Jesus, which teaches us that we cannot possibly
+make life secure, but that we must be ready to die at any moment, is
+unquestionably preferable to the doctrine of the world, which obliges us
+to struggle for the security of existence. It is preferable because the
+impossibility of escaping death, and the impossibility of making life
+secure, is the same for the disciples of Jesus as it is for the
+disciples of the world; but, according to the doctrine of Jesus, life
+itself is not absorbed in the idle attempt to make existence secure. To
+the follower of Jesus life is free, and can be devoted to the end for
+which it is worthy,--its own welfare and the welfare of others. The
+disciple of Jesus will be poor, but that is only saying that he will
+always enjoy the gifts that God has lavished upon men. He will not ruin
+his own existence. We make the word poverty a synonym for calamity, but
+it is in truth a source of happiness, and however much we may regard it
+as a calamity, it remains a source of happiness still. To be poor means
+not to live in cities, but in the country, not to be shut up in close
+rooms, but to labor out of doors, in the woods and fields, to have the
+delights of sunshine, of the open heavens, of the earth, of observing
+the habits of dumb animals; not to rack our brains with inventing dishes
+to stimulate an appetite, and not to endure the pangs of indigestion. To
+be poor is to be hungry three times a day, to sleep without passing
+hours tossing upon the pillow a victim of insomnia, to have children,
+and have them always with us, to do nothing that we do not wish to do
+(this is essential), and to have no fear for anything that may happen.
+The poor person will be ill and will suffer; he will die like the rest
+of the world; but his sufferings and his death will probably be less
+painful than those of the rich; and he will certainly live more happily.
+Poverty is one of the conditions of following the doctrine of Jesus, a
+condition indispensable to those who would enter into the kingdom of God
+and be happy.
+
+The objection to this is, that no one will care for us, and that we
+shall be left to die of hunger. To this objection we may reply in the
+words of Jesus, (words that have been interpreted to justify the
+idleness of the clergy):--
+
+"_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 laborer
+is worthy of his food_" (Matt. x. 10).
+
+"_And into whatsoever house ye shall enter, ... in that same house
+remain, eating and drinking such things as they give: for the laborer is
+worthy of his hire_" (Luke x. 5, 7).
+
+The laborer is worthy of ([Greek: axios esti] means, word for word, can
+and ought to have) his food. It is a very short sentence, but he who
+understands it as Jesus understood it, will no longer have any fear of
+dying of hunger. To understand the true meaning of these words we must
+get rid of that traditional idea which we have developed from the
+doctrine of the redemption that man's felicity consists in idleness. We
+must get back to that point of view natural to all men who are not
+fallen, that work, and not idleness, is the indispensable condition of
+happiness for every human being; that man cannot, in fact, refrain from
+work. We must rid ourselves of the savage prejudice which leads us to
+think that a man who has an income from a place under the government,
+from landed property, or from stocks and bonds, is in a natural and
+happy position because he is relieved from the necessity of work. We
+must get back into the human brain the idea of work possessed by
+undegenerate men, the idea that Jesus has, when he says that the laborer
+is worthy of his food. Jesus did not imagine that men would regard work
+as a curse, and consequently he did not have in mind a man who would not
+work, or desired not to work. He supposed that all his disciples would
+work, and so he said that if a man would work, his work would bring him
+food. He who makes use of the labor of another will provide food for him
+who labors, simply because he profits by that labor. And so he who works
+will always have food; he may not have property, but as to food, there
+need be no uncertainty whatever.
+
+With regard to work there is a difference between the doctrine of Jesus
+and the doctrine of the world. According to the doctrine of the world,
+it is very meritorious in a man to be willing to work; he is thereby
+enabled to enter into competition with others, and to demand wages
+proportionate to his qualifications. According to the doctrine of Jesus,
+labor is the inevitable condition of human life, and food is the
+inevitable consequence of labor. Labor produces food, and food produces
+labor. However cruel and grasping the employer may be, he will always
+feed his workman, as he will always feed his horse; he feeds him that he
+may get all the work possible, and in this way he contributes to the
+welfare of the workman.
+
+"_For verily the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to
+minister and to give his life a ransom for many._"
+
+According to the doctrine of Jesus, every individual will be the happier
+the more clearly he understands that his vocation consists, not in
+exacting service from others, but in ministering to others, in giving
+his life for the ransom of many. A man who does this will be worthy of
+his food and will not fail to have it. By the words, "_came not to be
+ministered unto but to minister_," Jesus established a method which
+would insure the material existence of man; and by the words, "_the
+laborer is worthy of his food_," he answered once for all the objection
+that a man who should practise the doctrine of Jesus in the midst of
+those who do not practise it would be in danger of perishing from hunger
+and cold. Jesus practised his own doctrine amid great opposition, and he
+did not perish from hunger and cold. He showed that a man does not
+insure his own subsistence by amassing worldly goods at the expense of
+others, but by rendering himself useful and indispensable to others. The
+more necessary he is to others, the more will his existence be made
+secure.
+
+There are in the world as it is now organized millions of men who
+possess no property and do not practise the doctrine of Jesus by
+ministering unto others, but they do not die of hunger. How, then, can
+we object to the doctrine of Jesus, that those who practise it by
+working for others will perish for want of food? Men cannot die of
+hunger while the rich have bread. In Russia there are millions of men
+who possess nothing and subsist entirely by their own toil. The
+existence of a Christian would be as secure among pagans as it would be
+among those of his own faith. He would labor for others; he would be
+necessary to them, and therefore he would be fed. Even a dog, if he be
+useful, is fed and cared for; and shall not a man be fed and cared for
+whose service is necessary to the whole world?
+
+But those who seek by all possible means to justify the personal life
+have another objection. They say that if a man be sick, even if he have
+a wife, parents, and children dependent upon him,--if this man cannot
+work, he will not be fed. They say so, and they will continue to say so;
+but their own actions prove that they do not believe what they say.
+These same people who will not admit that the doctrine of Jesus is
+practicable, practise it to a certain extent themselves. They do not
+cease to care for a sick sheep, a sick ox, or a sick dog. They do not
+kill an old horse, but they give him work in proportion to his strength.
+They care for all sorts of animals without expecting any benefit in
+return; and can it be that they will not care for a useful man who has
+fallen sick, that they will not find work suited to the strength of the
+old man and the child, that they will not care for the very babes who
+later on will be able to work for them in return? As a matter of fact
+they do all this. Nine-tenths of men are cared for by the other tenth,
+like so many cattle. And however great the darkness in which this
+one-tenth live, however mistaken their views in regard to the other
+nine-tenths of humanity, the tenth, even if they had the power, would
+not deprive the other nine-tenths of food. The rich will not deprive the
+poor of what is necessary, because they wish them to multiply and work,
+and so in these days the little minority of rich people provide directly
+or indirectly for the nourishment of the majority, that the latter may
+furnish the maximum of work, and multiply, and bring up a new supply of
+workers. Ants care for the increase and welfare of their slaves. Shall
+not men care for those whose labor they find necessary? Laborers are
+necessary. And those who profit by labor will always be careful to
+provide the means of labor for those who are willing to work.
+
+The objection concerning the possibility of practising the doctrine of
+Jesus, that if men do not acquire something for themselves and have
+wealth in reserve no one will take care of their families, is true, but
+it is true only in regard to idle and useless and obnoxious people such
+as make up the majority of our opulent classes. No one (with the
+exception of foolish parents) takes the trouble to care for lazy people,
+because lazy people are of no use to any one, not even to themselves; as
+for the workers, the most selfish and cruel of men will contribute to
+their welfare. People breed and train and care for oxen, and a man, as a
+beast of burden, is much more useful than an ox, as the tariff of the
+slave-mart shows. This is why children will never be left without
+support.
+
+Man is not in the world to work for himself; he is in the world to work
+for others, and the laborer is worthy of his hire. These truths are
+justified by universal experience; now, always, and everywhere, the man
+who labors receives the means of bodily subsistence. This subsistence is
+assured to him who works against his will; for such a workman desires
+only to relieve himself of the necessity of work, and acquires all that
+he possibly can in order that he may take the yoke from his own neck and
+place it upon the neck of another. A workman like this--envious,
+grasping, toiling against his will--will never lack for food and will be
+happier than one, who without labor, lives upon the labor of others. How
+much more happy, then, will that laborer be who labors in obedience to
+the doctrine of Jesus with the object of accomplishing all the work of
+which he is capable and wishing for it the least possible return? How
+much more desirable will his condition be, as, little by little, he sees
+his example followed by others. For services rendered he will then be
+the recipient of equal services in return.
+
+The doctrine of Jesus with regard to labor and the fruits of labor is
+expressed in the story of the loaves and fishes, wherein it was shown
+that man enjoys the greatest sum of the benefits accessible to humanity,
+not by appropriating all that he can possibly grasp and using what he
+has for his personal pleasure, but by administering to the needs of
+others, as Jesus did by the borders of Galilee.
+
+There were several thousand men and women to be fed. One of the
+disciples told Jesus that there was a lad who had five loaves and two
+fishes. Jesus understood that some of the people coming from a distance
+had brought provisions with them and that some had not, for after all
+were filled, the disciples gathered up twelve basketsful of fragments.
+(If no one but the boy had brought anything, how could so much have been
+left after so many were fed?) If Jesus had not set them an example, the
+people would have acted as people of the world act now. Some of those
+who had food would have eaten all that they had through gluttony or
+avidity, and some, after eating what they could eat, would have taken
+the rest to their homes. Those who had nothing would have been famished,
+and would have regarded their more fortunate companions with envy and
+hatred; some of them would perhaps have tried to take food by force from
+them who had it, and so hunger and anger and quarrels would have been
+the result. That is, the multitude would have acted just as people act
+nowadays.
+
+But Jesus knew exactly what to do. He asked that all be made to sit
+down, and then commanded his disciples to give of what they had to those
+who had nothing, and to request others to do the same. The result was
+that those who had food followed the example of Jesus and his disciples,
+and offered what they had to others. Every one ate and was satisfied,
+and with the broken pieces that remained the disciples filled twelve
+baskets.
+
+Jesus teaches every man to govern his life by the law of reason and
+conscience, for the law of reason is as applicable to the individual as
+it is to humanity at large. Work is the inevitable condition of human
+life, the true source of human welfare. For this reason a refusal to
+divide the fruits of one's labor with others is a refusal to accept the
+conditions of true happiness. To give of the fruits of one's labor to
+others is to contribute to the welfare of all men. The retort is made
+that if men did not wrest food from others, they would die of hunger. To
+me it seems more reasonable to say, that if men do wrest their food from
+one another, some of them will die of hunger, and experience confirms
+this view.
+
+Every man, whether he lives according to the doctrine of Jesus or
+according to the doctrine of the world, lives only by the sufferance and
+care of others. From his birth, man is cared for and nourished by
+others. According to the doctrine of the world, man has a right to
+demand that others should continue to nourish and care for him and for
+his family, but, according to the doctrine of Jesus, he is only entitled
+to care and nourishment on the condition that he do all he can for the
+service of others, and so render himself useful and indispensable to
+mankind. Men who live according to the doctrine of the world are usually
+anxious to rid themselves of any one who is useless and whom they are
+obliged to feed; at the first possible opportunity they cease to feed
+such a one, and leave him to die, because of his uselessness; but him
+who lives for others according to the doctrine of Jesus, all men,
+however wicked they may be, will always nourish and care for, that he
+may continue to labor in their behalf.
+
+Which, then, is the more reasonable; which offers the more joy and the
+greater security, a life according to the doctrine of the world, or a
+life according to the doctrine of Jesus?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+
+THE doctrine of Jesus is to bring the kingdom of God upon earth. The
+practice of this doctrine is not difficult; and not only so, its
+practice is a natural expression of the belief of all who recognize its
+truth. The doctrine of Jesus offers the only possible chance of
+salvation for those who would escape the perdition that threatens the
+personal life. The fulfilment of this doctrine not only will deliver men
+from the privations and sufferings of this life, but will put an end to
+nine-tenths of the suffering endured in behalf of the doctrine of the
+world.
+
+When I understood this I asked myself why I had never practised a
+doctrine which would give me so much happiness and peace and joy; why,
+on the other hand, I always had practised an entirely different
+doctrine, and thereby made myself wretched? Why? The reply was a simple
+one. Because I never had known the truth. The truth had been concealed
+from me.
+
+When the doctrine of Jesus was first revealed to me, I did not believe
+that the discovery would lead me to reject the doctrine of the
+Church.[22] I dreaded this separation, and in the course of my studies
+I did not attempt to search out the errors in the doctrine of the
+Church. I sought, rather, to close my eyes to propositions that seemed
+to be obscure and strange, provided they were not in evident
+contradiction with what I regarded as the substance of the Christian
+doctrine.
+
+     [22] See Appendix.
+
+But the further I advanced in the study of the Gospels, and the more
+clearly the doctrine of Jesus was revealed to me, the more inevitable
+the choice became. I must either accept the doctrine of Jesus, a
+reasonable and simple doctrine in accordance with my conscience and my
+hope of salvation; or I must accept an entirely different doctrine, a
+doctrine in opposition to reason and conscience and that offered me
+nothing except the certainty of my own perdition and that of others. I
+was therefore forced to reject, one after another, the dogmas of the
+Church. This I did against my will, struggling with the desire to
+mitigate as much as possible my disagreement with the Church, that I
+might not be obliged to separate from the Church, and thereby deprive
+myself of communion with fellow-believers, the greatest happiness that
+religion can bestow. But when I had completed my task, I saw that in
+spite of all my efforts to maintain a connecting-link with the Church,
+the separation was complete. I knew before that the bond of union, if it
+existed at all, must be a very slight one, but I was soon convinced that
+it did not exist at all.
+
+My son came to me one day, after I had completed my examination of the
+Gospels, and told me of a discussion that was going on between two
+domestics (uneducated persons who scarcely knew how to read) concerning
+a passage in some religious book which maintained that it was not a sin
+to put criminals to death, or to kill enemies in war. I could not
+believe that an assertion of this sort could be printed in any book, and
+I asked to see it. The volume bore the title of "_A Book of Selected
+Prayers_; third edition; eighth ten thousand; Moscow: 1879." On page 163
+of this book I read:--
+
+"What is the sixth commandment of God?
+
+"Thou shalt not kill.
+
+"What does God forbid by this commandment?
+
+"He forbids us to kill, to take the life of any man.
+
+"Is it a sin to punish a criminal with death according to the law, or to
+kill an enemy in war?
+
+"No; that is not a sin. We take the life of the criminal to put an end
+to the wrong that he commits; we slay an enemy in war, because in war we
+fight for our sovereign and our native land."
+
+And in this manner was enjoined the abrogation of the law of God! I
+could scarcely believe that I had read aright.
+
+My opinion was asked with regard to the subject at issue. To the one who
+maintained that the instruction given by the book was true, I said that
+the explanation was not correct.
+
+"Why, then, do they print untrue explanations contrary to the law?" was
+his question, to which I could say nothing in reply.
+
+I kept the volume and looked over its contents. The book contained
+thirty-one prayers with instructions concerning genuflexions and the
+joining of the fingers; an explanation of the _Credo_; a citation from
+the fifth chapter of Matthew without any explanation whatever, but
+headed, "Commands for those who would possess the Beatitudes"; the ten
+commandments accompanied by comments that rendered most of them void;
+and hymns for every saint's day.
+
+As I have said, I not only had sought to avoid censure of the religion
+of the Church; I had done my best to see only its most favorable side;
+and knowing its academic literature from beginning to end, I had paid no
+attention whatever to its popular literature. This book of devotion,
+spread broadcast in an enormous number of copies, awakening doubts in
+the minds of the most unlearned people, set me to thinking. The contents
+of the book seemed to me so entirely pagan, so wholly out of accord with
+Christianity, that I could not believe it to be the deliberate purpose
+of the Church to propagate such a doctrine. To verify my belief, I
+bought and read all the books published by the synod with its
+"benediction" (_blagoslovnia_), containing brief expositions of the
+religion of the Church for the use of children and the common people.
+
+Their contents were to me almost entirely new, for at the time when I
+received my early religious instruction, they had not yet appeared. As
+far as I could remember there were no commandments with regard to the
+beatitudes, and there was no doctrine which taught that it was not a sin
+to kill. No such teachings appeared in the old catechisms; they were
+not to be found in the catechism of Peter Mogilas, or in that of
+Beliokof, or the abridged Catholic catechisms. The innovation was
+introduced by the metropolitan Philaret, who prepared a catechism with
+proper regard for the susceptibilities of the military class, and from
+this catechism the _Book of Selected Prayers_ was compiled. Philaret's
+work is entitled, _The Christian Catechism of the Orthodox Church, for
+the Use of all Orthodox Christians_, and is published, "by order of his
+Imperial Majesty."[23]
+
+     [23] This book has been in use in all the schools and churches of
+     Russia since 1839.--TR.
+
+The book is divided into three parts, "Concerning Faith," "Concerning
+Hope," and "Concerning Love." The first part contains the analysis of
+the symbol of faith as given by the Council of Nice. The second part is
+made up of an exposition of the _Pater Noster_, and the first eight
+verses of the fifth chapter of Matthew, which serve as an introduction
+to the Sermon on the Mount, and are called (I know not why) "Commands
+for those who would possess the Beatitudes." These first two parts treat
+of the dogmas of the Church, prayers, and the sacraments, but they
+contain no rules with regard to the conduct of life. The third part,
+"Concerning Love," contains an exposition of Christian duties, based not
+on the commandments of Jesus, but upon the ten commandments of Moses.
+This exposition of the commandments of Moses seems to have been made for
+the especial purpose of teaching men not to obey them. Each commandment
+is followed by a reservation which completely destroys its force. With
+regard to the first commandment, which enjoins the worship of God alone,
+the catechism inculcates the worship of saints and angels, to say
+nothing of the Mother of God and the three persons of the Trinity
+("Special Catechism," pp. 107, 108). With regard to the second
+commandment, against the worship of idols, the catechism enjoins the
+worship of images (p. 108). With regard to the third commandment, the
+catechism enjoins the taking of oaths as the principal token of
+legitimate authority (p. 111). With regard to the fourth commandment,
+concerning the observance of the Sabbath, the catechism inculcates the
+observance of Sunday, of the thirteen principal feasts, of a number of
+feasts of less importance, the observance of Lent, and of fasts on
+Wednesdays and Fridays (pp. 112-115). With regard to the fifth
+commandment, "_Honor thy father and thy mother_," the catechism
+prescribes honor to the sovereign, the country, spiritual fathers, all
+persons in authority, and of these last gives an enumeration in three
+pages, including college authorities, civil, judicial, and military
+authorities, and owners of serfs, with instructions as to the manner of
+honoring each of these classes (pp. 116-119). My citations are taken
+from the sixty-fourth edition of the catechism, dated 1880. Twenty years
+have passed since the abolition of serfdom, and no one has taken the
+trouble to strike out the phrase which, in connection with the
+commandment of God to honor parents, was introduced into the catechism
+to sustain and justify slavery.
+
+With regard to the sixth commandment, "_Thou shalt not kill_," the
+instructions of the catechism are from the first in favor of murder.
+
+"_Question._--What does the sixth commandment forbid?
+
+"_Answer._--It forbids manslaughter, to take the life of one's neighbor
+in any manner whatever.
+
+"_Question._--Is all manslaughter a transgression of the law?
+
+"_Answer._--Manslaughter is not a transgression of the law when life is
+taken in pursuance of its mandate. For example:
+
+"1st. When a criminal condemned in justice is punished by death.
+
+"2d. When we kill _in war_ for the sovereign and our country."
+
+The italics are in the original. Further on we read:--
+
+"_Question._--With regard to manslaughter, when is the law transgressed?
+
+"_Answer._--When any one conceals a murderer or sets him at liberty"
+(_sic_).
+
+All this is printed in hundreds of thousands of copies, and under the
+name of Christian doctrine is taught by compulsion to every Russian, who
+is obliged to receive it under penalty of castigation. This is taught to
+all the Russian people. It is taught to the innocent children,--to the
+children whom Jesus commanded to be brought to him as belonging to the
+kingdom of God; to the children whom we must resemble, in ignorance of
+false doctrines, to enter into the kingdom of God; to the children whom
+Jesus tried to protect in proclaiming woe on him who should cause one of
+the little ones to stumble! And the little children are obliged to learn
+all this, and are told that it is the only and sacred law of God. These
+are not proclamations sent out clandestinely, whose authors are punished
+with penal servitude; they are proclamations which inflict the
+punishment of penal servitude upon all those who do not agree with the
+doctrines they inculcate.
+
+As I write these lines, I experience a feeling of insecurity, simply
+because I have allowed myself to say that men cannot render void the
+fundamental law of God inscribed in all the codes and in all hearts, by
+such words as these:--
+
+"Manslaughter is not a transgression of the law when life is taken in
+pursuance of its mandate... when we kill in war for our sovereign and
+our country."
+
+I tremble because I have allowed myself to say that such things should
+not be taught to children.
+
+It was against such teachings as these that Jesus warned men when he
+said:--
+
+"_Look, therefore, whether the light that is in thee be not darkness._"
+(Luke xi. 35.)
+
+The light that is in us has become darkness; and the darkness of our
+lives is full of terror.
+
+"_Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye shut the
+kingdom of heaven against men: for ye enter not in yourselves, neither
+suffer ye them that are entering in to enter. Woe unto you, scribes and
+Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows' houses, even while for a
+pretense ye make long prayers: therefore ye shall receive greater
+condemnation. 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 twofold more a son of hell than yourselves. Woe unto you, ye
+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, ice 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 ye
+up, then, the measure of your fathers.... 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 you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth,
+from the blood of Abel...._
+
+"_Every sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men; but the blasphemy
+against the Spirit shall not be forgiven._"
+
+Of a truth we might say that all this was written but yesterday, not
+against men who no longer compass sea and land to blaspheme against the
+Spirit, or to convert men to a religion that renders its proselytes
+worse than they were before, but against men who deliberately force
+people to embrace their religion, and persecute and bring to death all
+the prophets and the righteous who seek to reveal their falsehoods to
+mankind. I became convinced that the doctrine of the Church, although
+bearing the name of "Christian," is one with the darkness against which
+Jesus struggled, and against which he commanded his disciples to strive.
+
+The doctrine of Jesus, like all religious doctrines, is regarded in two
+ways,--first, as a moral and ethical system which teaches men how they
+should live as individuals, and in relation to each other; second, as a
+metaphysical theory which explains why men should live in a given manner
+and not otherwise. One necessitates the other. Man should live in this
+manner because such is his destiny; or, man's destiny is this way, and
+consequently he should follow it. These two methods of doctrinal
+expression are common to all the religions of the world, to the religion
+of the Brahmins, to that of Confucius, to that of Buddha, to that of
+Moses, and to that of the Christ. But, with regard to the doctrine of
+Jesus, as with regard to all other doctrines, men wander from its
+precepts, and they always find some one to justify their deviations.
+Those who, as Jesus said, sit in Moses' seat, explain the metaphysical
+theory in such a way that the ethical prescriptions of the doctrine
+cease to be regarded as obligatory, and are replaced by external forms
+of worship, by ceremonial. This is a condition common to all religions,
+but, to me, it seems that it never has been manifested with so much pomp
+as in connection with Christianity,--and for two reasons: first, because
+the doctrine of Jesus is the most elevated of all doctrines (the most
+elevated because the metaphysical and ethical portions are so closely
+united that one cannot be separated from the other without destroying
+the vitality of the whole); second, because the doctrine of Jesus is in
+itself a protest against all forms, a negation not only of Jewish
+ceremonial, but of all exterior rites of worship. Therefore, the
+arbitrary separation of the metaphysical and ethical aspects of
+Christianity entirely disfigures the doctrine, and deprives it of every
+sort of meaning. The separation began with the preaching of Paul, who
+knew but imperfectly the ethical doctrine set forth in the Gospel of
+Matthew, and who preached a metaphysico-cabalistic theory entirely
+foreign to the doctrine of Jesus; and this theory was perfected under
+Constantine, when the existing pagan social organization was proclaimed
+Christian simply by covering it with the mantle of Christianity. After
+Constantine, that arch-pagan, whom the Church in spite of all his crimes
+and vices admits to the category of the saints, after Constantine began
+the domination of the councils, and the centre of gravity of
+Christianity was permanently displaced till only the metaphysical
+portion was left in view. And this metaphysical theory with its
+accompanying ceremonial deviated more and more from its true and
+primitive meaning, until it has reached its present stage of
+development, as a doctrine which explains the mysteries of a celestial
+life beyond the comprehension of human reason, and, with all its
+complicated formulas, gives no religious guidance whatever with regard
+to the regulation of this earthly life.
+
+All religions, with the exception of the religion of the Christian
+Church, demand from their adherents aside from forms and ceremonies, the
+practice of certain actions called good, and abstinence from certain
+actions that are called bad. The Jewish religion prescribed
+circumcision, the observance of the Sabbath, the giving of alms, the
+feast of the Passover. Mohammedanism prescribes circumcision, prayer
+five times a day, the giving of tithes to the poor, pilgrimage to the
+tomb of the Prophet, and many other things. It is the same with all
+other religions. Whether these prescriptions are good or bad, they are
+prescriptions which exact the performance of certain actions.
+Pseudo-Christianity alone prescribes nothing. There is nothing that a
+Christian is obliged to observe except fasts and prayers, which the
+Church itself does not recognize as obligatory. All that is necessary to
+the pseudo-Christian is the sacrament. But the sacrament is not
+fulfilled by the believer; it is administered to him by others. The
+pseudo-Christian is obliged to do nothing or to abstain from nothing for
+his own salvation, since the Church administers to him everything of
+which he has need. The Church baptizes him, anoints him, gives him the
+eucharist, confesses him, even after he has lost consciousness,
+administers extreme unction to him, and prays for him,--and he is saved.
+From the time of Constantine the Christian Church has prescribed no
+religious duties to its adherents. It has never required that they
+should abstain from anything. The Christian Church has recognized and
+sanctioned divorce, slavery, tribunals, all earthly powers, the death
+penalty, and war; it has exacted nothing except a renunciation of a
+purpose to do evil on the occasion of baptism, and this only in its
+early days: later on, when infant baptism was introduced, even this
+requirement was no longer observed.
+
+The Church confesses the doctrine of Jesus in theory, but denies it in
+practice. Instead of guiding the life of the world, the Church, through
+affection for the world, expounds the metaphysical doctrine of Jesus in
+such a way as not to derive from it any obligation as to the conduct of
+life, any necessity for men to live differently from the way in which
+they have been living. The Church has surrendered to the world, and
+simply follows in the train of its victor. The world does as it pleases,
+and leaves to the Church the task of justifying its actions with
+explanations as to the meaning of life. The world organizes an existence
+in absolute opposition to the doctrine of Jesus, and the Church
+endeavors to demonstrate that men who live contrary to the doctrine of
+Jesus really live in accordance with that doctrine. The final result is
+that the world lives a worse than pagan existence, and the Church not
+only approves, but maintains that this existence is in exact conformity
+to the doctrine of Jesus.
+
+But a time comes when the light of the true doctrine of Jesus shines
+forth from the Gospels, notwithstanding the guilty efforts of the Church
+to conceal it from men's eyes, as, for instance, in prohibiting the
+translation of the Bible; there comes a time when the light reaches the
+people, even through the medium of sectarians and free-thinkers, and the
+falsity of the doctrine of the Church is shown so clearly that men begin
+to transform the method of living that the Church has justified.
+
+Thus men of their own accord, and in opposition to the sanction of the
+Church, have abolished slavery, abolished the divine right of emperors
+and popes, and are now proceeding to abolish property and the State. And
+the Church cannot forbid such action because the abolition of these
+iniquities is in conformity to the Christian doctrine, that the Church
+preaches after having falsified.
+
+And in this way the conduct of human life is freed from the control of
+the Church, and subjected to an entirely different authority. The Church
+retains its dogmas, but what are its dogmas worth? A metaphysical
+explanation can be of use only when there is a doctrine of life which it
+serves to make manifest. But the Church possesses only the explanation
+of an organization which it once sanctioned, and which no longer exists.
+The Church has nothing left but temples and shrines and canonicals and
+vestments and words.
+
+For eighteen centuries the Church has hidden the light of Christianity
+behind its forms and ceremonials, and by this same light it is put to
+shame. The world, with an organization sanctioned by the Church, has
+rejected the Church in the name of the very principles of Christianity
+that the Church has professed. The separation between the two is
+complete and cannot be concealed. Everything that truly lives in the
+world of Europe to-day (everything not cold and dumb in hateful
+isolation),--everything that is living, is detached from the Church,
+from all churches, and has an existence independent of the Church. Let
+it not be said that this is true only of the decayed civilizations of
+Western Europe. Russia, with its millions of civilized and uncivilized
+Christian rationalists, who have rejected the doctrine of the Church,
+proves incontestably that as regards emancipation from the yoke of the
+Church, she is, thanks be to God, in a worse condition of decay than the
+rest of Europe.
+
+All that lives is independent of the Church. The power of the State is
+based upon tradition, upon science, upon popular suffrage, upon brute
+force, upon everything except upon the Church. Wars, the relation of
+State with State, are governed by principles of nationality, of the
+balance of power, but not by the Church. The institutions established by
+the State frankly ignore the Church. The idea that the Church can, in
+these times, serve as a basis for justice or the conservation of
+property, is simply absurd. Science not only does not sustain the
+doctrine of the Church, but is, in its development, entirely hostile to
+the Church. Art, formerly entirely devoted to the service of the
+Church, has wholly forsaken the Church. It is little to say that human
+life is now entirely emancipated from the Church; it has now, with
+regard to the Church, only contempt when the Church does not interfere
+with human affairs, and hatred when the Church seeks to re-assert its
+ancient privileges. The Church is still permitted a formal existence
+simply because men dread to shatter the chalice that once contained the
+water of life. In this way only can we account, in our age, for the
+existence of Catholicism, of Orthodoxy, and of the different Protestant
+churches.
+
+All these churches--Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant--are like so many
+sentinels still keeping careful watch before the prison doors, although
+the prisoners have long been at liberty before their eyes, and even
+threaten their existence. All that actually constitutes life, that is,
+the activity of humanity towards progress and its own welfare,
+socialism, communism, the new politico-economical theories,
+utilitarianism, the liberty and equality of all social classes, and of
+men and women, all the moral principles of humanity, the sanctity of
+work, reason, science, art,--all these that lend an impulse to the
+world's progress in hostility to the Church are only fragments of the
+doctrine which the Church has professed, and so carefully endeavored to
+conceal. In these times, the life of the world is entirely independent
+of the doctrine of the Church. The Church is left so far behind, that
+men no longer hear the voices of those who preach its doctrines. This
+is easily to be understood because the Church still clings to an
+organization of the world's life, which has been forsaken, and is
+rapidly falling to destruction.
+
+Imagine a number of men rowing a boat, a pilot steering. The men rely
+upon the pilot, and the pilot steers well; but after a time the good
+pilot is replaced by another, who does not steer at all. The boat moves
+along rapidly and easily. At first the men do not notice the negligence
+of the new pilot; they are only pleased to find that the boat goes along
+so easily. Then they discover that the new pilot is utterly useless, and
+they mock at him, and drive him from his place.
+
+The matter would not be so serious if the men, in thrusting aside the
+unskilful pilot, did not forget that without a pilot they are likely to
+take a wrong course. But so it is with our Christian society. The Church
+has lost its control; we move smoothly onward, and we are a long way
+from our point of departure. Science, that especial pride of this
+nineteenth century, is sometimes alarmed; but that is because of the
+absence of a pilot. We are moving onward, but to what goal? We organize
+our life without in the least knowing why, or to what end. But we can no
+longer be contented to live without knowing why, any more than we can
+navigate a boat without knowing the course that we are following.
+
+If men could do nothing of themselves, if they were not responsible for
+their condition, they might very reasonably reply to the question, "Why
+are you in this situation?"--"We do not know; but here we are, and
+submit." But men are the builders of their own destiny, and more
+especially of the destiny of their children; and so when we ask, "Why do
+you bring together millions of troops, and why do you make soldiers of
+yourselves, and mangle and murder one another? Why have you expended,
+and why do you still expend, an enormous sum of human energy in the
+construction of useless and unhealthful cities? Why do you organize
+ridiculous tribunals, and send people whom you consider as criminals
+from France to Cayenne, from Russia to Siberia, from England to
+Australia, when you know the hopeless folly of it? Why do you abandon
+agriculture, which you love, for work in factories and mills, which you
+despise? Why do you bring up your children in a way that will force them
+to lead an existence which you find worthless? Why do you do this?" To
+all these questions men feel obliged to make some reply.
+
+If this existence were an agreeable one, and men took pleasure in it,
+even then men would try to explain why they continued to live under such
+conditions. But all these things are terribly difficult; they are
+endured with murmuring and painful struggles, and men cannot refrain
+from reflecting upon the motive which impels them to such a course. They
+must cease to maintain the accepted organization of existence, or they
+must explain why they give it their support. And so men never have
+allowed this question to pass unanswered. We find in all ages some
+attempt at a response. The Jew lived as he lived, that is, made war,
+put criminals to death, built the Temple, organized his entire existence
+in one way and not another, because, as he was convinced, he thereby
+followed the laws which God himself had promulgated. We may say the same
+of the Hindu, the Chinaman, the Roman, and the Mohammedan. A similar
+response was given by the Christian a century ago, and is given by the
+great mass of Christians now.
+
+A century ago, and among the ignorant now, the nominal Christian makes
+this reply: "Compulsory military service, wars, tribunals, and the death
+penalty, all exist in obedience to the law of God transmitted to us by
+the Church. This is a fallen world. All the evil that exists, exists by
+God's will, as a punishment for the sins of men. For this reason we can
+do nothing to palliate evil. We can only save our own souls by faith, by
+the sacraments, by prayers, and by submission to the will of God as
+transmitted by the Church. The Church teaches us that all Christians
+should unhesitatingly obey their rulers, who are the Lord's anointed,
+and obey also persons placed in authority by rulers; that they ought to
+defend their property and that of others by force, wage war, inflict the
+death penalty, and in all things submit to the authorities, who command
+by the will of God."
+
+Whatever we may think of the reasonableness of these explanations, they
+once sufficed for a believing Christian, as similar explanations
+satisfied a Jew or a Mohammedan, and men were not obliged to renounce
+all reason for living according to a law which they recognized as
+divine. But in this time only the most ignorant people have faith in any
+such explanations, and the number of these diminishes every day and
+every hour. It is impossible to check this tendency. Men irresistibly
+follow those who lead the way, and sooner or later must pass over the
+same ground as the advance guard. The advance guard is now in a critical
+position; those who compose it organize life to suit themselves, prepare
+the same conditions for those who are to follow, and absolutely have not
+the slightest idea of why they do so. No civilized man in the vanguard
+of progress is able to give any reply now to the direct questions, "Why
+do you lead the life that you do lead? Why do you establish the
+conditions that you do establish?" I have propounded these questions to
+hundreds of people, and never have got from them a direct reply. Instead
+of a direct reply to the direct question, I have received in return a
+response to a question that I had not asked.
+
+When we ask a Catholic, or Protestant, or Orthodox believer why he leads
+an existence contrary to the doctrine of Jesus, instead of making a
+direct response he begins to speak of the melancholy state of scepticism
+characteristic of this generation, of evil-minded persons who spread
+doubt broadcast among the masses, of the importance of the future of the
+existing Church. But he will not tell you why he does not act in
+conformity to the commands of the religion that he professes. Instead of
+speaking of his own condition, he will talk to you about the condition
+of humanity in general, and of that of the Church, as if his own life
+were not of the slightest significance, and his sole preoccupations were
+the salvation of humanity, and of what he calls the Church.
+
+A philosopher of whatever school he may be, whether an idealist or a
+spiritualist, a pessimist or a positivist, if we ask of him why he lives
+as he lives, that is to say, in disaccord with his philosophical
+doctrine, will begin at once to talk about the progress of humanity and
+about the historical law of this progress which he has discovered, and
+in virtue of which humanity gravitates toward righteousness. But he
+never will make any direct reply to the question why he himself, on his
+own account, does not live in harmony with what he recognizes as the
+dictates of reason. It would seem as if the philosopher were as
+preoccupied as the believer, not with his personal life, but with
+observing the effect of general laws upon the development of humanity.
+
+The "average" man (that is, one of the immense majority of civilized
+people who are half sceptics and half believers, and who all, without
+exception, deplore existence, condemn its organization, and predict
+universal destruction),--the average man, when we ask him why he
+continues to lead a life that he condemns, without making any effort
+towards its amelioration, makes no direct reply, but begins at once to
+talk about things in general, about justice, about the State, about
+commerce, about civilization. If he be a member of the police or a
+prosecuting attorney, he asks, "And what would become of the State, if
+I, to ameliorate my existence, were to cease to serve it?" "What would
+become of commerce?" is his demand if he be a merchant; "What of
+civilization, if I cease to work for it, and seek only to better my own
+condition?" will be the objection of another. His response always will
+be in this form, as if the duty of his life were not to seek the good
+conformable to his nature, but to serve the State, or commerce, or
+civilization.
+
+The average man replies in just the same manner as does the believer or
+the philosopher. Instead of making the question a personal one, he
+glides at once to generalities. This subterfuge is employed simply
+because the believer and the philosopher, and the average man have no
+positive doctrine concerning existence, and cannot, therefore, reply to
+the personal question, "What of your own life?" They are disgusted and
+humiliated at not possessing the slightest trace of a doctrine with
+regard to life, for no one can live in peace without some understanding
+of what life really means. But nowadays only Christians cling to a
+fantastic and worn-out creed as an explanation of why life is as it is,
+and is not otherwise. Only Christians give the name of religion to a
+system which is not of the least use to any one. Only among Christians
+is life separated from any or all doctrine, and left without any
+definition whatever. Moreover, science, like tradition, has formulated
+from the fortuitous and abnormal condition of humanity a general law.
+Learned men, such as Tiele and Spencer, treat religion as a serious
+matter, understanding by religion the metaphysical doctrine of the
+universal principle, without suspecting that they have lost sight of
+religion as a whole by confining their attention entirely to one of its
+phases.
+
+From all this we get very extraordinary results. We see learned and
+intelligent men artlessly believing that they are emancipated from all
+religion simply because they reject the metaphysical explanation of the
+universal principle which satisfied a former generation. It does not
+occur to them that men cannot live without some theory of existence;
+that every human being lives according to some principle, and that this
+principle by which he governs his life is his religion. The people of
+whom we have been speaking are persuaded that they have reasonable
+convictions, but that they have no religion. Nevertheless, however
+serious their asseverations, they have a religion from the moment that
+they undertake to govern their actions by reason, for a reasonable act
+is determined by some sort of faith. Now their faith is in what they are
+told to do. The faith of those who deny religion is in a religion of
+obedience to the will of the ruling majority; in a word, submission to
+established authority.
+
+We may live a purely animal life according to the doctrine of the world,
+without recognizing any controlling motive more binding than the rules
+of established authority. But he who lives this way cannot affirm that
+he lives a reasonable life. Before affirming that we live a reasonable
+life, we must determine what is the doctrine of the life which we regard
+as reasonable. Alas! wretched men that we are, we possess not the
+semblance of any such doctrine, and more than that, we have lost all
+perception of the necessity for a reasonable doctrine of life.
+
+Ask the believers or sceptics of this age, what doctrine of life they
+follow. They will be obliged to confess that they follow but one
+doctrine, the doctrine based upon laws formulated by the judiciary or by
+legislative assemblies, and enforced by the police--the favorite
+doctrine of most Europeans. They know that this doctrine does not come
+from on high, or from prophets, or from sages; they are continually
+finding fault with the laws drawn up by the judiciary or formulated by
+legislative assemblies, but nevertheless they submit to the police
+charged with their enforcement. They submit without murmuring to the
+most terrible exactions. The clerks employed by the judiciary or the
+legislative assemblies decree by statute that every young man must be
+ready to take up arms, to kill others, and to die himself, and that all
+parents who have adult sons must favor obedience to this law which was
+drawn up yesterday by a mercenary official, and may be revoked
+to-morrow.
+
+We have lost sight of the idea that a law may be in itself reasonable,
+and binding upon every one in spirit as well as in letter. The Hebrews
+possessed a law which regulated life, not by forced obedience to its
+requirements, but by appealing to the conscience of each individual; and
+the existence of this law is considered as an exceptional attribute of
+the Hebrew people. That the Hebrews should have been willing to obey
+only what they recognized by spiritual perception as the incontestable
+truth direct from God is considered a remarkable national trait. But it
+appears that the natural and normal state of civilized men is to obey
+what to their own knowledge is decreed by despicable officials and
+enforced by the co-operation of armed police.
+
+The distinctive trait of civilized man is to obey what the majority of
+men regard as iniquitous, contrary to conscience. I seek in vain in
+civilized society as it exists to-day for any clearly formulated moral
+bases of life. There are none. No perception of their necessity exists.
+On the contrary, we find the extraordinary conviction that they are
+superfluous; that religion is nothing more than a few words about God
+and a future life, and a few ceremonies very useful for the salvation of
+the soul according to some, and good for nothing according to others;
+but that life happens of itself and has no need of any fundamental rule,
+and that we have only to do what we are told to do.
+
+The two substantial sources of faith, the doctrine that governs life,
+and the explanation of the meaning of life, are regarded as of very
+unequal value. The first is considered as of very little importance, and
+as having no relation to faith whatever; the second, as the explanation
+of a bygone state of existence, or as made up of speculations
+concerning the historical development of life, is considered as of great
+significance. As to all that constitutes the life of man expressed in
+action, the members of our modern society depend willingly for guidance
+upon people who, like themselves, know not why they direct their fellows
+to live in one way and not in another. This disposition holds good
+whether the question at issue is to decide whether to kill or not to
+kill, to judge or not to judge, to bring up children in this way or in
+that. And men look upon an existence like this as reasonable, and have
+no feeling of shame!
+
+The explanations of the Church which pass for faith, and the true faith
+of our generation, which is in obedience to social laws and the laws of
+the State, have reached a stage of sharp antagonism. The majority of
+civilized people have nothing to regulate life but faith in the police.
+This condition would be unbearable if it were universal. Fortunately
+there is a remnant, made up of the noblest minds of the age, who are not
+contented with this religion, but have an entirely different faith with
+regard to what the life of man ought to be. These men are looked upon as
+the most malevolent, the most dangerous, and generally as the most
+unbelieving of all human beings, and yet they are the only men of our
+time believing in the Gospel doctrine, if not as a whole, at least in
+part. These people, as a general thing, know little of the doctrine of
+Jesus; they do not understand it, and, like their adversaries, they
+refuse to accept the leading principle of the religion of Jesus, which
+is to resist not evil; often they have nothing but a hatred for the name
+of Jesus; but their whole faith with regard to what life ought to be is
+unconsciously based upon the humane and eternal truths comprised in the
+Christian doctrine. This remnant, in spite of calumny and persecution,
+are the only ones who do not tamely submit to the orders of the first
+comer. Consequently they are the only ones in these days who live a
+reasonable and not an animal life, the only ones who have faith.
+
+The connecting link between the world and the Church, although carefully
+cherished by the Church, becomes more and more attenuated. To-day it is
+little more than a hindrance. The union between the Church and the world
+has no longer any justification. The mysterious process of maturation is
+going on before our eyes. The connecting bond will soon be severed, and
+the vital social organism will begin to exercise its functions as a
+wholly independent existence. The doctrine of the Church, with its
+dogmas, its councils, and its hierarchy, is manifestly united to the
+doctrine of Jesus. The connecting link is as perceptible as the cord
+which binds the newly-born child to its mother; but as the umbilical
+cord and the placenta become after parturition useless pieces of flesh,
+which are carefully buried out of regard for what they once nourished,
+so the Church has become a useless organism, to be preserved, if at all,
+in some museum of curiosities out of regard for what it has once been.
+As soon as respiration and circulation are established, the former
+source of nutrition becomes a hindrance to life. Vain and foolish would
+it be to attempt to retain the bond, and to force the child that has
+come into the light of day to receive its nourishment by a pre-natal
+process. But the deliverance of the child from the maternal tie does not
+ensure life. The life of the newly born depends upon another bond of
+union which is established between it and its mother that its
+nourishment may be maintained.
+
+And so it must be with our Christian world of to-day. The doctrine of
+Jesus has brought the world into the light. The Church, one of the
+organs of the doctrine of Jesus, has fulfilled its mission and is now
+useless. The world cannot be bound to the Church; but the deliverance of
+the world from the Church will not ensure life. Life will begin when the
+world perceives its own weakness and the necessity for a different
+source of strength. The Christian world feels this necessity: it
+proclaims its helplessness, it feels the impossibility of depending upon
+its former means of nourishment, the inadequacy of any other form of
+nourishment except that of the doctrine by which it was brought forth.
+This modern European world of ours, apparently so sure of itself, so
+bold, so decided, and within so preyed upon by terror and despair, is
+exactly in the situation of a newly born animal: it writhes, it cries
+aloud, it is perplexed, it knows not what to do; it feels that its
+former source of nourishment is withdrawn, but it knows not where to
+seek for another. A newly born lamb shakes its head, opens its eyes and
+looks about, and leaps, and bounds, and would make us think by its
+apparently intelligent movements that it already has mastered the secret
+of living; but of this the poor little creature knows nothing. The
+impetuosity and energy it displays were drawn from its mother through a
+medium of transmission that has just been broken, nevermore to be
+renewed. The situation of the new comer is one of delight, and at the
+same time is full of peril. It is animated by youth and strength, but it
+is lost if it cannot avail itself of the nourishment only to be had from
+its mother.
+
+And so it is with our European world. What complex activities, what
+energy, what intelligence, does it apparently possess! It would seem as
+if all its deeds were governed by reason. With what enthusiasm, what
+vigor, what youthfulness do the denizens of this modern world manifest
+their abounding vitality! The arts and sciences, the various industries,
+political and administrative details, all are full of life. But this
+life is due to inspiration received through the connecting link that
+binds it to its source. The Church, by transmitting the truth of the
+doctrine of Jesus, has communicated life to the world. Upon this
+nourishment the world has grown and developed. But the Church has had
+its day and is now superfluous.
+
+The world is possessed of a living organism; the means by which it
+formerly received its nourishment has withered away, and it has not yet
+found another; and it seeks everywhere, everywhere but at the true
+source of life. It still possesses the animation derived from
+nourishment already received, and it does not yet understand that its
+future nourishment is only to be had from one source, and by its own
+efforts. The world must now understand that the period of gestation is
+ended, and that a new process of conscious nutrition must henceforth
+maintain its life. The truth of the doctrine of Jesus, once
+unconsciously absorbed by humanity through the organism of the Church,
+must now be consciously recognized; for in the truth of this doctrine
+humanity has always obtained its vital force. Men must lift up the torch
+of truth, which has so long remained concealed, and carry it before
+them, guiding their actions by its light.
+
+The doctrine of Jesus, as a religion that governs the actions of men and
+explains to them the meaning of life, is now before the world just as it
+was eighteen hundred years ago. Formerly the world had the explanations
+of the Church which, in concealing the doctrine, seemed in itself to
+offer a satisfactory interpretation of life; but now the time is come
+when the Church has lost its usefulness, and the world, having no other
+means for sustaining its true existence, can only feel its helplessness
+and go for aid directly to the doctrine of Jesus.
+
+Now, Jesus first taught men to believe in the light, and that the light
+is within themselves. Jesus taught men to lift on high the light of
+reason. He taught them to live, guiding their actions by this light, and
+to do nothing contrary to reason. It is unreasonable, it is foolish, to
+go out to kill Turks or Germans; it is unreasonable to make use of the
+labor of others that you and yours may be clothed in the height of
+fashion and maintain that mortal source of ennui, a salon; it is
+unreasonable to take people already corrupted by idleness and depravity
+and shut them up within prison walls, and thereby devote them to an
+existence of absolute idleness and deprivation; it is unreasonable to
+live in the pestilential air of cities when a purer atmosphere is within
+your reach; it is unreasonable to base the education of your children on
+the grammatical laws of dead languages;--all this is unreasonable, and
+yet it is to-day the life of the European world, which lives a life of
+no meaning; which acts, but acts without a purpose, having no confidence
+in reason, and existing in opposition to its decrees.
+
+The doctrine of Jesus is the light. The light shines forth, and the
+darkness cannot conceal it. Men cannot deny it, men cannot refuse to
+accept its guidance. They must depend on the doctrine of Jesus, which
+penetrates among all the errors with which the life of men is
+surrounded. Like the insensible ether filling universal space,
+enveloping all created things, so the doctrine of Jesus is inevitable
+for every man in whatever situation he may be found. Men cannot refuse
+to recognize the doctrine of Jesus; they may deny the metaphysical
+explanation of life which it gives (we may deny everything), but the
+doctrine of Jesus alone offers rules for the conduct of life without
+which humanity has never lived, and never will be able to live; without
+which no human being has lived or can live, if he would live as man
+should live,--a reasonable life. The power of the doctrine of Jesus is
+not in its explanation of the meaning of life, but in the rules that it
+gives for the conduct of life. The metaphysical doctrine of Jesus is not
+new; it is that eternal doctrine of humanity inscribed in all the hearts
+of men, and preached by all the prophets of all the ages. The power of
+the doctrine of Jesus is in the application of this metaphysical
+doctrine to life.
+
+The metaphysical basis of the ancient doctrine of the Hebrews, which
+enjoined love to God and men, is identical with the metaphysical basis
+of the doctrine of Jesus. But the application of this doctrine to life,
+as expounded by Moses, was very different from the teachings of Jesus.
+The Hebrews, in applying the Mosaic law to life, were obliged to fulfil
+six hundred and thirteen commandments, many of which were absurd and
+cruel, and yet all were based upon the authority of the Scriptures. The
+doctrine of life, as given by Jesus upon the same metaphysical basis, is
+expressed in five reasonable and beneficent commandments, having an
+obvious and justifiable meaning, and embracing within their restrictions
+the whole of human life. A Jew, a disciple of Confucius, a Buddhist, or
+a Mohammedan, who sincerely doubts the truth of his own religion,
+cannot refuse to accept the doctrine of Jesus; much less, then, can this
+doctrine be rejected by the Christian world of to-day, which is now
+living without any moral law. The doctrine of Jesus cannot interfere in
+any way with the manner in which men of to-day regard the world; it is,
+to begin with, in harmony with their metaphysics, but it gives them what
+they have not now, what is indispensable to their existence, and what
+they all seek,--it offers them a way of life; not an unknown way, but a
+way already explored and familiar to all.
+
+Let us suppose that you are a sincere Christian, it matters not of what
+confession. You believe in the creation of the world, in the Trinity, in
+the fall and redemption of man, in the sacraments, in prayer, in the
+Church. The doctrine of Jesus is not opposed to your dogmatic belief,
+and is absolutely in harmony with your theory of the origin of the
+universe; and it offers you something that you do not possess. While you
+retain your present religion you feel that your own life and the life of
+the world is full of evil that you know not how to remedy. The doctrine
+of Jesus (which should be binding upon you since it is the doctrine of
+your own God) offers you simple and practical rules which will surely
+deliver you, you and your fellows, from the evils with which you are
+tormented.
+
+Believe, if you will, in paradise, in hell, in the pope, in the Church,
+in the sacraments, in the redemption; pray according to the dictates of
+your faith, attend upon your devotions, sing your hymns,--but all this
+will not prevent you from practising the five commandments given by
+Jesus for your welfare: Be not angry; Do not commit adultery; Take no
+oaths; Resist not evil; Do not make war. It may happen that you will
+break one of these rules; you will perhaps yield to temptation, and
+violate one of them, just as you violate the rules of your present
+religion, or the articles of the civil code, or the laws of custom. In
+the same way you may, perhaps, in moments of temptation, fail of
+observing all the commandments of Jesus. But, in that case, do not
+calmly sit down as you do now, and so organize your existence as to
+render it a task of extreme difficulty not to be angry, not to commit
+adultery, not to take oaths, not to resist evil, not to make war;
+organize rather an existence which shall render the doing of all these
+things as difficult as the non-performance of them is now laborious. You
+cannot refuse to recognize the validity of these rules, for they are the
+commandments of the God whom you pretend to worship.
+
+Let us suppose that you are an unbeliever, a philosopher, it matters not
+of what special school. You affirm that the progress of the world is in
+accordance with a law that you have discovered. The doctrine of Jesus
+does not oppose your views; it is in harmony with the law that you have
+discovered. But, aside from this law, in pursuance of which the world
+will in the course of a thousand years reach a state of felicity, there
+is still your own personal life to be considered. This life you can use
+by living in conformity to reason, or you can waste it by living in
+opposition to reason, and you have now for its guidance no rule
+whatever, except the decrees drawn up by men whom you do not esteem, and
+enforced by the police. The doctrine of Jesus offers you rules which are
+assuredly in accord with your law of "altruism," which is nothing but a
+feeble paraphrase of this same doctrine of Jesus.
+
+Let us suppose that you are an average man, half sceptic, half believer,
+one who has no time to analyze the meaning of human life, and one
+therefore who has no determinate theory of existence. You live as lives
+the rest of the world about you. The doctrine of Jesus is not at all
+contrary to your condition. You are incapable of reason, of verifying
+the truths of the doctrines that are taught you; it is easier for you to
+do as others do. But however modest may be your estimate of your powers
+of reason, you know that you have within you a judge that sometimes
+approves your acts and sometimes condemns them. However modest your
+social position, there are occasions when you are bound to reflect and
+ask yourself, "Shall I follow the example of the rest of the world, or
+shall I act in accordance with my own judgment?" It is precisely on
+these occasions when you are called upon to solve some problem with
+regard to the conduct of life, that the commandments of Jesus appeal to
+you in all their efficiency. The commandments of Jesus will surely
+respond to your inquiry, because they apply to your whole existence.
+The response will be in accord with your reason and your conscience. If
+you are nearer to faith than to unbelief, you will, in following these
+commandments, act in harmony with the will of God. If you are nearer to
+scepticism than to belief, you will, in following the doctrine of Jesus,
+govern your actions by the laws of reason, for the commandments of Jesus
+make manifest their own meaning, and their own justification.
+
+"_Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world
+be cast out._" (John xii. 31.)
+
+"_These things have I spoken unto you, that in me ye may have peace. In
+the world ye have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the
+world._" (John xvi. 33.)
+
+The world, that is, the evil in the world, is overcome. If evil still
+exists in the world, it exists only through the influence of inertia; it
+no longer contains the principle of vitality. For those who have faith
+in the commandments of Jesus, it does not exist at all. It is vanquished
+by an awakened conscience, by the elevation of the son of man. A train
+that has been put in motion continues to move in the direction in which
+it was started; but the time comes when the intelligent effort of a
+controlling hand is made manifest, and the movement is reversed.
+
+"_Ye are of God, and have overcome them because greater is he that is
+within you than he that is in the world._" (1 John v. 4.)
+
+The faith that triumphs over the doctrines of the world is faith in the
+doctrine of Jesus.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+
+I BELIEVE in the doctrine of Jesus, and this is my religion:--
+
+I believe that nothing but the fulfilment of the doctrine of Jesus can
+give true happiness to men. I believe that the fulfilment of this
+doctrine is possible, easy, and pleasant. I believe that although none
+other follows this doctrine, and I alone am left to practise it, I
+cannot refuse to obey it, if I would save my life from the certainty of
+eternal loss; just as a man in a burning house if he find a door of
+safety, must go out, so I must avail myself of the way to salvation. I
+believe that my life according to the doctrine of the world has been a
+torment, and that a life according to the doctrine of Jesus can alone
+give me in this world the happiness for which I was destined by the
+Father of Life. I believe that this doctrine is essential to the welfare
+of humanity, will save me from the certainty of eternal loss, and will
+give me in this world the greatest possible sum of happiness. Believing
+thus, I am obliged to practise its commandments.
+
+"_The law was given by Moses; grace and truth came by Jesus Christ._"
+(John i. 17.)
+
+The doctrine of Jesus is a doctrine of grace and truth. Once I knew not
+grace and knew not truth. Mistaking evil for good, I fell into evil, and
+I doubted the righteousness of my tendency toward good. I understand and
+believe now that the good toward which I was attracted is the will of
+the Father, the essence of life.
+
+Jesus has told us to live in pursuit of the good, and to beware of
+snares and temptations ([Greek: skandalon]) which, by enticing us with
+the semblance of good, draw us away from true goodness, and lead us into
+evil. He has taught us that our welfare is to be sought in fellowship
+with all men; that evil is a violation of fellowship with the son of
+man, and that we must not deprive ourselves of the welfare to be had by
+obedience to his doctrine.
+
+Jesus has demonstrated that fellowship with the son of man, the love of
+men for one another, is not merely an ideal after which men are to
+strive; he has shown us that this love and this fellowship are natural
+attributes of men in their normal condition, the condition into which
+children are born, the condition in which all men would live if they
+were not drawn aside by error, illusions, and temptations.
+
+In his commandments, Jesus has enumerated clearly and unmistakably the
+temptations that interfere with this natural condition of love and
+fellowship and render it a prey to evil. The commandments of Jesus offer
+the remedies by which I must save myself from the temptations that have
+deprived me of happiness; and so I am forced to believe that these
+commandments are true. Happiness was within my grasp and I destroyed
+it. In his commandments Jesus has shown me the temptations that lead to
+the destruction of happiness. I can no longer work for the destruction
+of my happiness, and in this determination, and in this alone, is the
+substance of my religion.
+
+Jesus has shown me that the first temptation destructive of happiness is
+enmity toward men, anger against them. I cannot refuse to believe this,
+and so I cannot willingly remain at enmity with others. I cannot, as I
+could once, foster anger, be proud of it, fan into a flame, justify it,
+regarding myself as an intelligent and superior man and others as
+useless and foolish people. Now, when I give up to anger, I can only
+realize that I alone am guilty, and seek to make peace with those who
+have aught against me.
+
+But this is not all. While I now see that anger is an abnormal,
+pernicious, and morbid state, I also perceive the temptation that led me
+into it. The temptation was in separating myself from my fellows,
+recognizing only a few of them as my equals, and regarding all the
+others as persons of no account (_rekim_) or as uncultivated animals
+(_fools_). I see now that this wilful separation from other men, this
+judgment of _raca_ or _fool_ passed upon others, was the principal
+source of my disagreements. In looking over my past life I saw that I
+had rarely permitted my anger to rise against those whom I considered as
+my equals, whom I seldom abused. But the least disagreeable action on
+the part of one whom I considered an inferior inflamed my anger and led
+me to abusive words or actions, and the more superior I felt myself to
+be, the less careful I was of my temper; sometimes the mere supposition
+that a man was of a lower social position than myself was enough to
+provoke me to an outrageous manner.
+
+I understand now that he alone is above others who is humble with others
+and makes himself the servant of all. I understand now why those that
+are great in the sight of men are an abomination to God, who has
+declared woe upon the rich and mighty and invoked blessedness upon the
+poor and humble. Now I understand this truth, I have faith in it, and
+this faith has transformed my perception of what is right and important,
+and what is wrong and despicable. Everything that once seemed to me
+right and important, such as honors, glory, civilization, wealth, the
+complications and refinements of existence, luxury, rich food, fine
+clothing, etiquette, have become for me wrong and despicable. Everything
+that formerly seemed to me wrong and despicable, such as rusticity,
+obscurity, poverty, austerity, simplicity of surroundings, of food, of
+clothing, of manners, all have now become right and important to me. And
+so although I may at times give myself up to anger and abuse another, I
+cannot deliberately yield to wrath and so deprive myself of the true
+source of happiness,--fellowship and love; for it is possible that a man
+should lay a snare for his own feet and so be lost. Now, I can no
+longer give my support to anything that lifts me above or separates me
+from others. I cannot, as I once did, recognize in myself or others
+titles or ranks or qualities aside from the title and quality of
+manhood. I can no longer seek for fame and glory; I can no longer
+cultivate a system of instruction which separates me from men. I cannot
+in my surroundings, my food, my clothing, my manners, strive for what
+not only separates me from others but renders me a reproach to the
+majority of mankind.
+
+Jesus showed me another temptation destructive of happiness, that is,
+debauchery, the desire to possess another woman than her to whom I am
+united. I can no longer, as I did once, consider my sensuality as a
+sublime trait of human nature. I can no longer justify it by my love for
+the beautiful, or my amorousness, or the faults of my companion. At the
+first inclination toward debauchery I cannot fail to recognize that I am
+in a morbid and abnormal state, and to seek to rid myself of the
+besetting sin.
+
+Knowing that debauchery is an evil, I also know its cause, and can thus
+evade it. I know now that the principal cause of this temptation is not
+the necessity for the sexual relation, but the abandonment of wives by
+their husbands, and of husbands by their wives. I know now that a man
+who forsakes a woman, or a woman who forsakes a man, when the two have
+once been united, is guilty of the divorce which Jesus forbade, because
+men and women abandoned by their first companions are the original cause
+of all the debauchery in the world.
+
+In seeking to discover the influences that led to debauchery, I found
+one to be a barbarous physical and intellectual education that developed
+the erotic passion which the world endeavors to justify by the most
+subtile arguments. But the principal influence I found to be the
+abandonment of the woman to whom I had first been united, and the
+situation of the abandoned women around me. The principal source of
+temptation was not in carnal desires, but in the fact that those desires
+were not satisfied in the men and women by whom I was surrounded. I now
+understand the words of Jesus when he says:--
+
+"_He which made them from the beginning, made them male and female....
+So that they are no more twain, but one flesh. What, therefore, God hath
+joined together, let not man put asunder._" (Matt. xix. 4-6.)
+
+I understand now that monogamy is the natural law of humanity, which
+cannot with impunity be violated. I now understand perfectly the words
+declaring that the man or woman who separates from a companion to seek
+another, forces the forsaken one to resort to debauchery, and thus
+introduces into the world an evil that returns upon those who cause it.
+
+This I believe; and the faith I now have has transformed my opinions
+with regard to the right and important, and the wrong and despicable,
+things of life. What once seemed to me the most delightful existence in
+the world, an existence made up of dainty, æsthetic pleasures and
+passions, is now revolting to me. And a life of simplicity and
+indigence, which moderates the sexual desires, now seems to me good. The
+human institution of marriage, which gives a nominal sanction to the
+union of man and woman, I regard as of less grave importance than that
+the union, when accomplished, should be regarded as the will of God, and
+never be broken.
+
+Now, when in moments of weakness I yield to the promptings of desire, I
+know the snare that would deliver me into evil, and so I cannot
+deliberately plan my method of existence as formerly I was accustomed to
+do. I no longer habitually cherish physical sloth and luxury, which
+excite to excessive sensuality. I can no longer pursue amusements which
+are oil to the fire of amorous sensuality,--the reading of romances and
+the most of poetry, listening to music, attendance at theatres and
+balls,--amusements that once seemed to me elevated and refining, but
+which I now see to be injurious. I can no longer abandon the woman with
+whom I have been united, for I know that by forsaking her, I set a snare
+for myself, for her, and for others. I can no longer encourage the gross
+and idle existence of others. I can no longer encourage or take part in
+licentious pastimes, romantic literature, plays, operas, balls, which
+are so many snares for myself and for others. I cannot favor the
+celibacy of persons fitted for the marriage relation. I cannot encourage
+the separation of wives from their husbands. I cannot make any
+distinction between unions that are called by the name of marriage, and
+those that are denied this name. I am obliged to consider as sacred and
+absolute the sole and unique union by which man is once for all
+indissolubly bound to the first woman with whom he has been united.
+
+Jesus has shown me that the third temptation destructive to true
+happiness is the oath. I am obliged to believe his words; consequently,
+I cannot, as I once did, bind myself by oath to serve any one for any
+purpose, and I can no longer, as I did formerly, justify myself for
+having taken an oath because "it would harm no one," because everybody
+did the same, because it is necessary for the State, because the
+consequences might be bad for me or for some one else if I refuse to
+submit to this exaction. I know now that it is an evil for myself and
+for others, and I cannot conform to it.
+
+Nor is this all. I now know the snare that led me into evil, and I can
+no longer act as an accomplice. I know that the snare is in the use of
+God's name to sanction an imposture, and that the imposture consists in
+promising in advance to obey the commands of one man, or of many men,
+while I ought to obey the commands of God alone. I know now that evils
+the most terrible of all in their result--war, imprisonments, capital
+punishment--exist only because of the oath, in virtue of which men make
+themselves instruments of evil, and believe that they free themselves
+from all responsibility. As I think now of the many evils that have
+impelled me to hostility and hatred, I see that they all originated with
+the the oath, the engagement to submit to the will of others. I
+understand now the meaning of the words:--
+
+"_But let your speech be, Yea, yea; nay, nay; and whatsoever is more
+than these is of evil._" (Matt. v. 37.)
+
+Understanding this, I am convinced that the oath is destructive of my
+true welfare and of that of others, and this belief changes my estimate
+of right and wrong, of the important and despicable. What once seemed to
+me right and important,--the promise of fidelity to the government
+supported by the oath, the exacting of oaths from others, and all acts
+contrary to conscience, done because of the oath, now seem to me wrong
+and despicable. Therefore I can no longer evade the commandment of Jesus
+forbidding the oath, I can no longer bind myself by oath to any one, I
+cannot exact an oath from another, I cannot encourage men to take an
+oath, or to cause others to take an oath; nor can I regard the oath as
+necessary, important, or even inoffensive.
+
+Jesus has shown me that the fourth temptation destructive to my
+happiness is the resort to violence for the resistance of evil. I am
+obliged to believe that this is an evil for myself and for others;
+consequently, I cannot, as I did once, deliberately resort to violence,
+and seek to justify my action with the pretext that it is indispensable
+for the defence of my person and property, or of the persons and
+property of others. I can no longer yield to the first impulse to resort
+to violence; I am obliged to renounce it, and to abstain from it
+altogether.
+
+But this is not all. I understand now the snare that caused me to fall
+into this evil. I know now that the snare consisted in the erroneous
+belief that my life could be made secure by violence, by the defence of
+my person and property against the encroachments of others. I know now
+that a great portion of the evils that afflict mankind are due to
+this,--that men, instead of giving their work for others, deprive
+themselves completely of the privilege of work, and forcibly appropriate
+the labor of their fellows. Every one regards a resort to violence as
+the best possible security for life and for property, and I now see that
+a great portion of the evil that I did myself, and saw others do,
+resulted from this practice. I understood now the meaning of the
+words:--
+
+"_Not to be ministered unto, but to minister._" "_The laborer is worthy
+of his food._"
+
+I believe now that my true welfare, and that of others, is possible only
+when I labor not for myself, but for another, and that I must not refuse
+to labor for another, but to give with joy that of which he has need.
+This faith has changed my estimate of what is right and important, and
+wrong and despicable. What once seemed to me right and important
+--riches, proprietary rights, the point of honor, the maintenance
+of personal dignity and personal privileges--have now become to me wrong
+and despicable. Labor for others, poverty, humility, the renunciation of
+property and of personal privileges, have become in my eyes right and
+important.
+
+When, now, in a moment of forgetfulness, I yield to the impulse to
+resort to violence, for the defence of my person or property, or of the
+persons or property of others, I can no longer deliberately make use of
+this snare for my own destruction and the destruction of others. I can
+no longer acquire property. I can no longer resort to force in any form
+for my own defence or the defence of another. I can no longer co-operate
+with any power whose object is the defence of men and their property by
+violence. I can no longer act in a judicial capacity, or clothe myself
+with any authority, or take part in the exercise of any jurisdiction
+whatever. I can no longer encourage others in the support of tribunals,
+or in the exercise of authoritative administration.
+
+Jesus has shown me that the fifth temptation that deprives me of
+well-being, is the distinction that we make between compatriots and
+foreigners. I must believe this; consequently, if, in a moment of
+forgetfulness, I have a feeling of hostility toward a man of another
+nationality, I am obliged, in moments of reflection, to regard this
+feeling as wrong. I can no longer, as I did formerly, justify my
+hostility by the superiority of my own people over others, or by the
+ignorance, the cruelty, or the barbarism of another race. I can no
+longer refrain from striving to be even more friendly with a foreigner
+than with one of my own countrymen.
+
+I know now that the distinction I once made between my own people and
+those of other countries is destructive of my welfare; but, more than
+this, I now know the snare that led me into this evil, and I can no
+longer, as I did once, walk deliberately and calmly into this snare. I
+know now that this snare consists in the erroneous belief that my
+welfare is dependent only upon the welfare of my countrymen, and not
+upon the welfare of all mankind. I know now that my fellowship with
+others cannot be shut off by a frontier, or by a government decree which
+decides that I belong to some particular political organization. I know
+now that all men are everywhere brothers and equals. When I think now of
+all the evil that I have done, that I have endured, and that I have seen
+about me, arising from national enmities, I see clearly that it is all
+due to that gross imposture called patriotism,--love for one's native
+land. When I think now of my education, I see how these hateful feelings
+were grafted into my mind. I understand now the meaning of the words:--
+
+"_Love your enemies, and pray for them that persecute you; that ye may
+be sons of your Father that 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._"
+
+I understand now that true welfare is possible for me only on condition
+that I recognize my fellowship with the whole world. I believe this, and
+the belief has changed my estimate of what is right and wrong, important
+and despicable. What once seemed to me right and important--love of
+country, love for those of my own race, for the organization called the
+State, services rendered at the expense of the welfare of other men,
+military exploits--now seem to me detestable and pitiable. What once
+seemed to me shameful and wrong--renunciation of nationality, and the
+cultivation of cosmopolitanism--now seem to me right and important.
+When, now, in a moment of forgetfulness, I sustain a Russian in
+preference to a foreigner, and desire the success of Russia or of the
+Russian people, I can no longer in lucid moments allow myself to be
+controlled by illusions so destructive to my welfare and the welfare of
+others. I can no longer recognize states or peoples; I can no longer
+take part in any difference between peoples or states, or any discussion
+between them either verbal or written, much less in any service in
+behalf of any particular state. I can no longer co-operate with measures
+maintained by divisions between states,--the collection of custom
+duties, taxes, the manufacture of arms and projectiles, or any act
+favoring armaments, military service, and, for a stronger reason,
+wars,--neither can I encourage others to take any part in them.
+
+I understand in what my true welfare consists, I have faith in that, and
+consequently I cannot do what would inevitably be destructive of that
+welfare. I not only have faith that I ought to live thus, but I have
+faith that if I live thus, and only thus, my life will attain its only
+possible meaning, and be reasonable, pleasant, and indestructible by
+death. I believe that my reasonable life, the light I bear with me, was
+given to me only that it might shine before men, not in words only, but
+in good deeds, that men may thereby glorify the Father. I believe that
+my life and my consciousness of truth is the talent confided to me for a
+good purpose, and that this talent fulfils its mission only when it is
+of use to others. I believe that I am a Ninevite with regard to other
+Jonahs from whom I have learned and shall learn of the truth; but that I
+am a Jonah in regard to other Ninevites to whom I am bound to transmit
+the truth. I believe that the only meaning of my life is to be attained
+by living in accordance with the light that is within me, and that I
+must allow this light to shine forth to be seen of all men. This faith
+gives me renewed strength to fulfil the doctrine of Jesus, and to
+overcome the obstacles which still arise in my pathway. All that once
+caused me to doubt the possibility of practising the doctrine of Jesus,
+everything that once turned me aside, the possibility of privations, and
+of suffering, and death, inflicted by those who know not the doctrine of
+Jesus, now confirm its truth and draw me into its service. Jesus said,
+"_When you have lifted up the son of man, then shall you know that I am
+he_,"--then shall you be drawn into my service,--and I feel that I am
+irresistibly drawn to him by the influence of his doctrine. "_The
+truth_," he says again, "_The truth shall make you free_," and I know
+that I am in perfect liberty.
+
+I once thought that if a foreign invasion occurred, or even if
+evil-minded persons attacked me, and I did not defend myself, I should
+be robbed and beaten and tortured and killed with those whom I felt
+bound to protect, and this possibility troubled me. But this that once
+troubled me now seems desirable and in conformity with the truth. I know
+now that the foreign enemy and the malefactors or brigands are all men
+like myself; that, like myself, they love good and hate evil; that they
+live as I live, on the borders of death; and that, with me, they seek
+for salvation, and will find it in the doctrine of Jesus. The evil that
+they do to me will be evil to them, and so can be nothing but good for
+me. But if truth is unknown to them, and they do evil thinking that they
+do good, I, who know the truth, am bound to reveal it to them, and this
+I can do only by refusing to participate in evil, and thereby confessing
+the truth by my example.
+
+"But hither come the enemy,--Germans, Turks, savages; if you do not make
+war on them, they will exterminate you!" They will do nothing of the
+sort. If there were a society of Christian men that did evil to none and
+gave of their labor for the good of others, such a society would have no
+enemies to kill or to torture them. The foreigners would take only what
+the members of this society voluntarily gave, making no distinction
+between Russians, or Turks, or Germans. But when Christians live in the
+midst of a non-Christian society which defends itself by force of arm,
+and calls upon the Christians to join in waging war, then the Christians
+have an opportunity for revealing the truth to them who know it not. A
+Christian knowing the truth bears witness of the truth before others,
+and this testimony can be made manifest only by example. He must
+renounce war and do good to all men, whether they are foreigners or
+compatriots.
+
+"But there are wicked men among compatriots; they will attack a
+Christian, and if the latter do not defend himself, will pillage and
+massacre him and his family." No; they will not do so. If all the
+members of this family are Christians, and consequently hold their lives
+only for the service of others, no man will be found insane enough to
+deprive such people of the necessaries of life or to kill them. The
+famous Maclay lived among the most bloodthirsty of savages; they did not
+kill him, they reverenced him and followed his teachings, simply because
+he did not fear them, exacted nothing from them, and treated them always
+with kindness.
+
+"But what if a Christian lives in a non-Christian family, accustomed to
+defend itself and its property by a resort to violence, and is called
+upon to take part in measures of defence?" This solicitation is simply
+an appeal to the Christian to fulfil the decrees of truth. A Christian
+knows the truth only that he may show it to others, more especially to
+his neighbors and to those who are bound to him by ties of blood and
+friendship, and a Christian can show the truth only by refusing to join
+in the errors of others, by taking part neither with aggressors or
+defenders, but by abandoning all that he has to those who will take it
+from him, thus showing by his acts that he has need of nothing save the
+fulfilment of the will of God, and that he fears nothing except
+disobedience to that will.
+
+"But how, if the government will not permit a member of the society over
+which it has sway, to refuse to recognize the fundamental principles of
+governmental order or to decline to fulfil the duties of a citizen? The
+government exacts from a Christian the oath, jury service, military
+service, and his refusal to conform to these demands may be punished by
+exile, imprisonment, and even by death." Then, once more, the exactions
+of those in authority are only an appeal to the Christian to manifest
+the truth that is in him. The exactions of those in authority are to a
+Christian the exactions of those who do not know the truth.
+Consequently, a Christian who knows the truth must bear witness of the
+truth to those who know it not. Exile and imprisonment and death afford
+to the Christian the possibility of bearing witness of the truth, not in
+words, but in acts. Violence, war, brigandage, executions, are not
+accomplished through the forces of unconscious nature; they are
+accomplished by men who are blinded, and do not know the truth.
+Consequently, the more evil these men do to Christians, the further they
+are from the truth, the more unhappy they are, and the more necessary it
+is that they should have knowledge of the truth. Now a Christian cannot
+make known his knowledge of truth except by abstaining from the errors
+that lead men into evil; he must render good for evil. This is the
+life-work of a Christian, and if it is accomplished, death cannot harm
+him, for the meaning of his life can never be destroyed.
+
+Men are united by error into a compact mass. The prevailing power of
+evil is the cohesive force that binds them together. The reasonable
+activity of humanity is to destroy the cohesive power of evil.
+Revolutions are attempts to shatter the power of evil by violence. Men
+think that by hammering upon the mass they will be able to break it in
+fragments, but they only make it more dense and impermeable than it was
+before. External violence is of no avail. The disruptive movement must
+come from within when molecule releases its hold upon molecule and the
+whole mass falls into disintegration. Error is the force that binds men
+together; truth alone can set them free. Now truth is truth only when it
+is in action, and then only can it be transmitted from man to man. Only
+truth in action, by introducing light into the conscience of each
+individual, can dissolve the homogeneity of error, and detach men one by
+one from its bonds.
+
+This work has been going on for eighteen hundred years. It began when
+the commandments of Jesus were first given to humanity, and it will not
+cease till, as Jesus said, "_all things be accomplished_" (Matt. v. 18).
+The Church that sought to detach men from error and to weld them
+together again by the solemn affirmation that it alone was the truth,
+has long since fallen to decay. But the Church composed of men united,
+not by promises or sacraments, but by deeds of truth and love, has
+always lived and will live forever. Now, as eighteen hundred years ago,
+this Church is made up not of those who say "_Lord, Lord_," and bring
+forth iniquity, but of those who hear the words of truth and reveal them
+in their lives. The members of this Church know that life is to them a
+blessing as long as they maintain fraternity with others and dwell in
+the fellowship of the son of man; and that the blessing will be lost
+only to those who do not obey the commandments of Jesus. And so the
+members of this Church practise the commandments of Jesus and thereby
+teach them to others. Whether this Church be in numbers little or great,
+it is, nevertheless, the Church that shall never perish, the Church that
+shall finally unite within its bonds the hearts of all mankind.
+
+"_Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good purpose to give
+you the kingdom._"
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX.
+
+
+WHEN Count Tolstoi speaks of the Church and its dogmas, he refers
+especially, of course, to the Orthodox Greek Church, the national church
+of Russia. The following summary of the teachings of the Orthodox Greek
+Church is taken from Prof. T. M. Lindsay's article in the _Encyclopædia
+Brittanica_, ninth edition, volume xi. p. 158. Variations from the Roman
+Catholic doctrine are indicated by small capitals, and variations from
+Protestant doctrine by italics. [Tr.]
+
+"Christianity is a divine revelation, communicated to mankind through
+Christ; its saving truths are to be learned from the Bible _and
+tradition_, the former having been written, _and the latter maintained
+uncorrupted_ through the influence of the Holy Spirit; _the
+interpretation of the Bible belongs to the Church, which is taught by
+the Holy Spirit_, but every believer may read the Scriptures.
+
+"According to the Christian revelation, God is a trinity, that is, the
+divine essence exists in three persons, perfectly equal in nature and
+dignity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; THE HOLY GHOST
+PROCEEDS FROM THE FATHER ONLY. Besides the triune God, there is no
+other object of divine worship, _but homage_ ([Greek: hyperdoulia]) _may
+be paid to the Virgin Mary, and reverence_ ([Greek: doulia]) _to the
+saints and to their pictures and relics_.
+
+"Man is born with a corrupt bias, which was not his at creation; the
+first man, when created, possessed IMMORTALITY, PERFECT WISDOM, AND A
+WILL REGULATED BY REASON. Through the first sin, Adam and his posterity
+lost IMMORTALITY, AND HIS WILL RECEIVED A BIAS TOWARDS EVIL. In this
+natural state, man, who, even before he actually sins, is a sinner
+before God by original or inherited sin, commits manifold actual
+transgressions; _but he is not absolutely without power of will towards
+good, and is not always doing evil_.
+
+"Christ, the Son of God, became man in two natures, which internally and
+inseparably united make One Person, and, according to the eternal
+purpose of God, has obtained for man reconciliation with God and eternal
+life, inasmuch as he, by his vicarious death has made satisfaction to
+God for the world's sins; and this satisfaction was PERFECTLY
+COMMENSURATE WITH THE SINS OF THE WORLD. Man is made partaker of
+reconciliation in spiritual regeneration, which he attains to, being led
+and kept by the Holy Ghost. This divine help is offered _to all men
+without distinction, and may be rejected_. In order to attain to
+salvation, man is justified, and, when so justified, CAN DO NO MORE THAN
+THE COMMANDS OF GOD. He may fall from this state of grace through mortal
+sin.
+
+"Regeneration is offered by the word of God and in the sacraments,
+_which, under visible signs, communicate God's invisible grace to
+Christians when administered cum intentione_. There are _seven_
+mysteries or sacraments. Baptism _entirely destroys_ original sin. In
+the Eucharist, the true body and blood of Christ are _substantially
+present, and the elements are changed into the substance of Christ,
+whose body and blood are corporeally partaken of by communicants_. ALL
+Christians should receive the bread and the WINE. _The Eucharist is also
+an expiatory sacrifice._ The new birth when lost may be restored through
+repentance, which is not merely (1) sincere sorrow, but also (2)
+_confession of each individual sin to the priest, and_ (3) _the
+discharge of penances imposed by the priest for the removal of the
+temporal punishment, which may have been imposed by God and the Church.
+Penance, accompanied by the judicial absolution of the priest, makes a
+true sacrament_.
+
+"The Church of Christ is the fellowship of ALL THOSE WHO ACCEPT AND
+PROFESS ALL THE ARTICLES OF FAITH TRANSMITTED BY THE APOSTLES, AND
+APPROVED BY GENERAL SYNODS. _Without this visible Church there is no
+salvation._ It is under the abiding influence of the Holy Ghost, and
+_therefore cannot err in matters of faith_. Specially appointed persons
+are necessary in the service of the Church, _and they form a threefold
+order, distinct jure divino from other Christians, of Bishops, Priests,
+and Deacons_. THE FOUR PATRIARCHS OF EQUAL DIGNITY HAVE THE HIGHEST
+RANK AMONG THE BISHOPS, AND THE BISHOPS _united in a General Council
+represent the Church and infallibly decide_, under the guidance of the
+Holy Ghost, all matters of faith and ecclesiastical life. All ministers
+of Christ must be regularly called and appointed to their office, and
+are consecrated _by the sacrament of orders_. _Bishops must be
+unmarried_, and PRIESTS AND DEACONS MUST NOT CONTRACT A SECOND MARRIAGE.
+To all priests in common belongs, besides the preaching of the word, the
+administration of the SIX SACRAMENTS,--BAPTISM, CONFIRMATION, PENANCE,
+EUCHARIST, MATRIMONY, UNCTION OF THE SICK. The _bishops_ alone can
+administer the _sacrament_ of orders.
+
+"_Ecclesiastical ceremonies are part of the divine service; most of them
+have apostolic origin; and those connected with the sacrament must not
+be omitted by priests under pain of mortal sin._"
+
+
+
+
+INDEX.
+
+
+  Abraham, 165.
+  Adam, fall of, 118, 122.
+  Age, consummation of, 139, 152.
+  Amusements, harmful, 105;
+    maintained by coercion, 106.
+  Anger, the commandment against, 70
+    _et seq._; destructive of happiness,
+    247; temptations to, 247.
+  [Greek: anistêmi], meaning of, 146.
+  Army, the Christophile, 15.
+  Art has forsaken the Church, 224.
+  _auferstehn_, meaning of, 146.
+  Aurelius, Marcus, 126.
+  Average man, the, and the
+    problem of existence, 229.
+  Belief, if true, always brings
+    forth works, 160 _et seq._
+  Believers, and the problem of
+    existence, 228.
+  Berditchef, circus at, 135, 157.
+  Bible, 17.
+  Biblical references.--O. T.:
+    Gen. (iii. 22) 149;
+    Exod. (iii. 6) 144;
+    Levit. (xix. 12) 86, (xix. 17, 18) 94;
+    Deut. (xiii. 21, 34) 86, (xxiv. 1) 77,
+    (xxx. 15-19) 150, (xxxii. 39, 40) 149;
+    Judges (ix. 4) 76; Sam. (I. viii.-xii.)
+    18; Isaiah (lxi. 1, 2) 110. N. T.:
+    Matt. (iv. 1-11) 178, (iv. 37) 253,
+    (v.) 17, (v., vi., vii.) 5, (v. 17-20)
+    51, 52, 53, (v. 18) 262, (v. 19) 70,
+    (v. 21-26) 70, 76, (v. 21-48) 69,
+    (v. 22-44) 109, (v. 27-32) 77,
+    (v. 28-32) 109, (v. 32) 79, 81,
+    (v. 33-37) 86, 91, (v. 34-37) 109,
+    (v. 36) 89, (v. 38, 39) 7, 8, (v. 38-42)
+    92, 93, 110, (v. 40) 26, (v. 43-48) 95,
+    110, (v. 44) 256, (vii. 1) 23, (vii. 12)
+    57, (x. 10) 200, 254, (xi. 30) 14,
+    (xii. 16-21) 138, (xii. 31) 217,
+    (xii. 35-40) 139, (xii. 40) 145,
+    (xiii. 52) 62, (xiv. 2) 146,
+    (xvi. 13-21) 145, (xvi. 21) 145,
+    (xvii. 23) 145, (xix.) 79, (xix. 4-6)
+    250, (xix. 4-9) 80, (xix. 9) 81, 84,
+    (xix. 17) 151, (xx. 1-16) 167, 168,
+    (xx. 19) 145, (xx. 20-28) 166,
+    (xxi. 33-42) 139, (xxii. 44) 98,
+    (xxiii. 13-35) 217, (xxv. 14-46) 142,
+    (xxvi. 32) 145, (xxvii. 42) 163;
+    Mark (viii. 31) 145, (ix. 31) 145,
+    (x. 5-12) 79, (x. 28-30) 180,
+    (x. 34) 145, (x. 35-48) 166, (x. 45)
+    202, 254, (xii. 21-24) 144,
+    (xii. 26, 27) 144, (xii. 36) 98,
+    (xiv. 25) 145, (xv. 32) 163; Luke
+    (i. 71, 74) 98, (iv. 1-13) 178,
+    (iv. 18, 19, 21) 111, (vi. 37) 23,
+    (vi. 37-49) 24, (ix. 22) 145, (x. 5, 7)
+    200, (x. 26) 61, (x. 28) 151, (x. 29)
+    98, (xi. 30) 145, (xi. 35) 125, 216,
+    (xii. 22-27) 137, (xii. 32) 263,
+    (xii. 54-57) 136, (xiii. 1-5) 135,
+    (xiv. 28-31) 136, (xvi. 15-18) 54,
+    (xvi. 16) 57, (xvi. 18) 79, (xvi. 31)
+    147, (xviii. 33) 145, (xx. 43) 98,
+    (xxii. 67) 163; John (i. 9-12) 171,
+    (i. 17) 245, (iii. 5, 6, 7) 125,
+    (iii. 19-21) 171, (iii. 14-17) 125,
+    (v. 39) 150, (v. 44) 164, (vi. 30) 163,
+    (vii. 18) 164, (vii. 19) 57, (viii. 17)
+    57, (viii. 28) 125, 258, (viii. 32) 258,
+    (viii. 35) 141, (viii. 40) 171,
+    (viii. 46) 171, (x. 25, 26) 163,
+    (xi. 19-22) 145, (xii. 31) 244,
+    (xii. 35) 125, (xiv. 6) 172,
+    (xiv. 16, 17) 172, (xiv. 27) 109,
+    (xv. 25) 57, (xvi. 33) 244, (xviii. 37)
+    172, (xix. 7) 57; Acts (vii. 27) 98,
+    (xxiii. 8) 143; Rom.
+    (i. 32, ii. 1, ii. 4) 31; Cor.
+    (I. vii. 1-11) 80, (I. xv. 2) 75; Heb.
+    (ii. 2) 115; Jas. (ii. 12, 13) 30,
+    (ii. 13) 29, (ii. 14-26) 163,
+    (iv. 11, 12) 28, (v. 6) 35, (v. 12) 89;
+    John (I. v. 3) 14, (I. v. 4) 244.
+  Borovitzky Gate, 19.
+  Brahmins, 173, 218.
+  Buddha, 134, 218.
+  Buddhism, 124.
+  Catechism analyzed, 213.
+  Children, education of, 105.
+  Christian rationalists in Russia, 223.
+  Christianity, substance of, 2, 13;
+    a spiritual tendency, 4;
+    lack of ethical and moral instruction
+    in, 123.
+  Christians may believe in Jesus, 241;
+    duties of, 258 _et seq._
+  Chrysostom, xi., 33, 63 _et seq._;
+    79, 92.
+  Church, the fathers of, 31, 81, 93;
+    the Orthodox, 2; creed of, 265;
+    inadequacy of 3, 4, 175, 209-244;
+    teachings of, 4, 40, 47, 58, 62, 107,
+    115, 127, 154, 178, 213-217, 227;
+    compulsory in Russia, 216; the true,
+    262.
+  Churches, as useless sentinels, 224.
+  Civilization, characteristics of, 42, 233.
+  Clement, x.
+  Commandments, abrogated by the Church,
+    214.
+  Commentators, pseudo-Christian, 91;
+    liberal, 93.
+  _condemnare_, 34.
+  Confucius, 124, 126, 127, 218.
+  Constantine, 31, 219.
+  Cosmopolitanism, importance of, 257.
+  Daniel, apocryphal book of, 149.
+  Death, inevitable, 137, 138, 139.
+  Death penalty, sanctioned by the Church,
+    221.
+  Debauchery, 77 _et seq._; Paul's idea
+    of, 80; destructive of happiness, 249;
+    temptations to, 251.
+  Devotion, a pagan book of, 212.
+  Divorce, denounced by Jesus, 78
+    _et seq._; sanctioned by the
+    Church, 221.
+  [Greek: doxa], meaning of, 164.
+  [Greek: egeirô], meaning of, 146.
+  _ehebruch_, meaning of, 84.
+  [Greek: eikê], meaning and textual
+    authenticity of, 75.
+  Elijah, 48, 145.
+  [Greek: hêlikian], meaning of, 137.
+  Enemy, love for, 95 _et seq._;
+    meaning of, 98.
+  Epictetus, 89, 126, 127.
+  Error, temptation of Jesus by, 178; the
+    cohesive power of, 262.
+  Esdras, 56.
+  Evil, submission to, 8 _et seq._, 13,
+    92-94; resistance to, 15; destructive of
+    happiness, 253; to speak, 28, 32.
+  Existence, its futilities, 226.
+  Faith, defined, 115, 162, 166, 244; and
+    works, 160, 169; based on the dictates
+    of reason, 170; source of, 171; the
+    false, 173.
+  Fall, dogma of the, 120, 153.
+  Family, the, a condition of happiness, 187.
+  Foreigners, hostility toward, 100;
+    destructive of happiness, 255.
+  Formalism, evils of, 68.
+  _fornicatio_, meaning of, 83.
+  Free-will, an illusion, 124.
+  French war of 1870, 198.
+  Galilee, 41, 44, 48, 49, 178.
+  Galileans, massacre of, 135.
+  Germans, 45, 259.
+  Ghengis Khan, 36.
+  God, service of, 21; appears to Elijah,
+    48; commandments of, 51; kingdom of,
+    108, 111, 160; how brought, 209.
+  Gospels, exegesis, 1, 55, 75.
+  Griesbach, 175.
+  Happiness, conditions of, 185-189.
+  _hayai leolam_, meaning of, 148.
+  Health, a condition of happiness, 189.
+  Hebrews, 176.
+  Hegelianism, 122.
+  Herod, 25, 146.
+  High Priests, 25, 59.
+  Householder, parable of, 168.
+  _hurerei_, meaning of, 83.
+  Husbandmen, parable of, 139.
+  Immortality, belief in, 147, 150, 153, 155.
+  Irenæus, 62.
+  Isaiah, 56, 61.
+  James, 167.
+  Jesus, as the "charmant docteur," 41;
+    divinity of, 15; the enemies of, 60; his
+    use of the Mosaic law, 67; commandments
+    of, 69, 76, 86, 194, 242, 246 _et seq._;
+    mission of, 108; the Messiah, 111, 145,
+    158; his revelation of the true life,
+    139; his doctrine of eternal life, 153;
+    as a Saviour, 158; his definition of
+    belief, 164; of true life, 167; his
+    temptation in the wilderness, 177;
+    offers the water of truth, 196.
+  Jesus, doctrine of, its simplicity, vi.,
+    6, 7, 11, 12, 69, 194; as a metaphysical
+    theory and an ethical system, 218, 231;
+    a doctrine of grace and truth, 246;
+    practical results of, 107; key to, 2,
+    16, 17; requirements of, 248; its
+    meaning, 7, 43, 50, 58, 108, 172, 193,
+    199, 240; its rewards, 179, 202; to
+    bring the kingdom of God, 209; its
+    relation to the Church, 209-244; its
+    adaptability to Christians, 241; to the
+    philosopher, 242; to the "average" man,
+    243; difficulty in obeying, 14, 16, 112,
+    132, 160, 173, 194, 259; belief in, 160
+    _et seq._; requirements of, 245
+    _et seq._; a protest against
+    ceremonial, 219; its concealment, 49,
+    68, 90, 173, 174; and military
+    regulations, 19, 22, 104, 223; its
+    universality, 241; delusions with regard
+    to, 23, 101, 114, 191 _et seq._,
+    204; will overcome the world, 244;
+    substance of, 124; and social customs,
+    58, 90, 93, 133, 194; where are its
+    martyrs? 195.
+  Jews, criminal law of, 27.
+  John, 167.
+  John the Baptist, 43, 54, 108, 135, 145,
+    146.
+  Jonah, 146; story of, 176.
+  Judaism, 124, 220.
+  Judgment, parable of the last, 139, 152.
+  Laborer, worthy of his sustenance, 200,
+    205; rewards of, 201, 203.
+  Law, the eternal, 53, 55.
+  Law of struggle, 47, 181, 197.
+  Lazarus, 147.
+  _libertinage_, meaning of, 83.
+  Libertinism, 83, 85.
+  Liberty, law of, 29.
+  Life, essence of, 118, 138, 165; the
+    personal, 134, 139, 174; salvation of,
+    152, 165; renunciation of, 141, 142;
+    the eternal, 143; how perpetuated, 150;
+    rewards of, 167; doctrine of, enforced
+    by the police, 232.
+  Loaves and fishes, lesson of the, 206.
+  Luke, 34, 54, 55, 80.
+  Luther, 34, 84.
+  Manu, laws of, 89.
+  Mark, 80.
+  Martyrs, Christian, number of, 192.
+  Martyrs to the world, 183, 193.
+  Materialism, 122.
+  Men, brotherhood of, 110, 246, 256;
+    intercourse with, essential to
+    happiness, 188; nature of, 112; debt to
+    the past, 141; mutual dependence, 207;
+    temptations against, 246.
+  [Greek: metanoia], meaning of, 135, 141.
+  Michael, Archbishop, 93.
+  Military regulations, 19.
+  [Greek: moichasthai], meaning of, 83.
+  Monasticism, contrary to the doctrine of
+    Jesus, 176.
+  Monogamy the natural law of humanity, 250.
+  Moscow, 183.
+  Mount, the Sermon on the, 5, 6, 10, 11,
+    17, 26, 78, 79, 108.
+  Müller, Max, 148.
+  Nationality, renunciation of, 257.
+  Nature, the law of, 46; communion with,
+    essential to happiness, 185.
+  Neighbor, meaning of, 97 _et seq._
+  Nicodemus, 60, 108, 125.
+  [Greek: nomos], meaning of, 56.
+  Oaths, the commandment against, 87
+    _et seq._; destruction of happiness,
+    252; evils of, 252.
+  Origen, 102.
+  Pascal, 134.
+  Paul, x., 30, 56, 80, 88, 115; his
+    metaphysico-cabalistic doctrine, 219.
+  Peace, the reign of, 108; how violated,
+    109.
+  Penalty, the death, 36.
+  Pentateuch, 57, 148.
+  Persons, respect of, 29.
+  Pessimism, 122.
+  Peter, 11, 145, 167, 168, 180.
+  Pharisees, 54, 59, 60, 85, 88, 143, 178.
+  Philosophers, and the problem of
+    existence, 229.
+  Pilate, 135, 175.
+  [Greek: porneia], meaning of, 83 _et seq._
+  Poverty, the blessings of, 199;
+    indispensable to the follower of Jesus,
+    200.
+  _prissaiaga_, meaning of, 85.
+  Prophets, the Hebrew, 43, 57, 143.
+  _qum_, meaning of, 146.
+  _raca_, meaning of, 73, 76.
+  Reason, authority of, 124.
+  Redemption, dogma of, 120, 122, 153.
+  Religions, requirements of, 220.
+  Renan, 31, 93.
+  Repentance, 60; necessity of, 135.
+  Resurrection, not taught by Jesus, 143.
+  _resusciter_, meaning of, 146.
+  Reuss, 79.
+  Revolution, the French, 36.
+  Revolutionists, atheistic, 39; Christian,
+    39.
+  Riches, the struggle for, 184.
+  Righteousness, progress toward, 48.
+  Sadducees, 60, 143.
+  Samaritan, 98.
+  Sanhedrim, 25.
+  Schopenhauer, 148.
+  Science, hostile to the Church, 223.
+  Security, struggle for, its futility, 198.
+  Seneca, 89.
+  Sisyphus, labor of, 184.
+  Slave, 39.
+  Slavery, sanctioned by the Church, 221.
+  Slavophile, 39.
+  Socrates, 124, 126.
+  Soldier, at Borovitzky Gate, 19, 88;
+    Russian nickname for, 88.
+  Solomon, 134.
+  Son of man, doctrine regarding, 125
+    _et seq._; 142, 150, 152, 156, 263.
+  Spirit, the Holy, 68.
+  Spiritism, 123.
+  State, service of, 21, 22, 257;
+    independent of the Church, 223.
+  States, divisions into, a barbarism, 107.
+  Stoics, 124, 173.
+  Strauss, 41, 93.
+  Suffering, useless, 183.
+  Sukhareff Tower, 183.
+  Talents, parable of the, 142.
+  Talmud, 17, 56, 143, 173.
+  Theologians, declarations of, 6.
+  Theophylact, 33.
+  Thief, on the cross, vii.
+  Tiele, 148.
+  Tischendorf, 55, 75.
+  Tohu, 18, 19, 21, 22, 42, 43.
+  Torah, 56, 61, 68.
+  Tribunals, 23, 24; contrary to law of
+    Jesus, 25 _et seq._; sanctioned by
+    the Church, 221.
+  Trinity, 14, 40, 58, 116, 117, 127.
+  Truth, Christian, 4.
+  Tübingen, school of, 33.
+  Turks, 259.
+  _verdammen_, meaning of, 34.
+  Violence, renunciation of, 38; organized,
+    45, 196; destructive to happiness, 253;
+    temptations to, 254; futility of, 259
+    _et seq._
+  Virgins, parable of, 139.
+  _voskresnovit_, meaning of, 146.
+  Vulgate, 34.
+  War, organized murder, 101, 192; justified
+    by the Church, 211, 221.
+  Wars of our century, victims of, 193.
+  Work, an inevitable condition of
+    happiness, 186, 201, 205, 207.
+  World, the doctrine of, illustrated, 129;
+    sufferings for, 181, 185-192; its
+    commands, 191; its necessities, 184
+    _et seq._; justification of, 188;
+    its relation to the Church, 221
+    _et seq._
+  Worldly advantage, 11.
+  _zanah_, meaning of, 83.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of My Religion, by Leo Tolstoy
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 43794 ***