 Chapter 6 Part 2 of What I Believe After this third commandment stands a fourth reference to the Mosaic Law, and then the fourth commandment is presented. Matthew 5 verses 38 to 42. You have heard that it has been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. But I say to you, Do not resist evil. But whoever shall strike you on your right cheek, Turn to him the other also. And if any man will sue you at law, And take away your coat, let him have your cloak also. And whoever shall compel you to go a mile, Go two miles with him. Give to him who asks you, And from him who would borrow from you, Do not turn away. I have already spoken of the direct meaning of these words, and of our having no foundation whatever for interpreting them otherwise. The various commentaries upon them, from John Chrysostom to the present time, are truly surprising. We all admire the words, and each one tries to find some profound, hidden meaning in them. But we usually fail to see that they mean exactly what they express. Ecclesiastical commentators, unmindful of the authority of him whom they acknowledge as God, unhesitatingly limit the meaning of his words. They say, It is clearly understood that the precepts of long-suffering non-retaliation, being especially directed against the vindictiveness of the Hebrews, do not exclude either the right of setting limits to the progress of evil by the punishment of evil-doers, or private individual endeavours to uphold the inviolability of truth, to amend the wicked, or to deprive evil-doers of the possibility of injuring others. The divine commandments of the Saviour would otherwise be reduced to mere words, and would lead only to the progress of evil and the repression of virtue. The Christian's love should be like God's love. Not since God's love limits and punishes evil only in proportion as it is more or less necessary for the glory of God or the salvation of our brethren, so it is the duty of those in authority to limit the progress of evil by punishments. Exposition of the Gospel by the Archimandrite Michael, based on the commentaries of the Fathers of the Church Neither do learned and free-thinking Christians scruple to correct the sense of Christ's words. They affirm that his sayings are sublime, but impracticable, that the application of the precept of non-resistance would destroy the whole organization of life, which we have set up so well. Such is the opinion of Renan, Strauss, and other free-thinking commentators. Yet if we treat the words of Christ in the same way that we do the words of any man who may chance to speak to us, that is, if we suppose that he says what he means, all profound interpretations will become unnecessary. Christ says, I find that the way you have regulated your lives is both foolish and bad. I propose another way. And then he gives us his precepts in verses 38 to 42. Doesn't it seem right that, before correcting these words, they should at least be understood? And this is just what none of us chooses to do. We decide beforehand that the present organization of our lives, which his words tend to destroy, is the sacred law of mankind. I had not considered our way of living as either good or sacred, and therefore I came to understand this commandment before I did the others. And when I understood these words exactly in the sense in which they were uttered, I was struck by their truth, clarity, and force. Christ says, You think to destroy evil by evil. That is irrational. In order that there should be no evil. Do no evil. And then, after enumerating all that is evil in our social adjustments, Christ exhorts us to act otherwise. The fourth commandment, I have said, was the one that I understood first, and it opened up to me the true meaning of all the rest. The fourth, clear, simple commandment, which it is within the power of all to obey, says, Never resist evil by violence. Never return violence for violence. If anyone strikes you, bear it. If anyone takes away what is yours, let him have it. If anyone makes you labor, do so. If anyone wants to have what you consider to be your own, give it up to him. And after this, fourth commandment stands a fifth reference to the Mosaic law, and the fifth commandment. Matthew chapter 5, verses 43 to 48. You have heard that it has been said, You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy. Leviticus chapter 19, verses 17 to 18. But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who despitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be the children of your father who is in heaven. For he makes his son to rise on the evil and on the good, and send rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Don't even the publicans do the same? And if you salute your brethren only, what do you do more than others? Don't even the heathens do so? Or be perfect, even as your father who is in heaven is perfect? I had formally considered these words as explaining, amplifying, and giving more emphasis to, even exaggerating, the doctrine of non-resistance. But having already found the simple, definite and applicable sense of each of the preceding texts, which begin with a reference to the Holy Law, I had a sense that I should find some fresh meaning here also. I had observed that a commandment was annexed to each reference to the ancient law, and that each verse of the commandment had its own significance and could not be turned aside, and I was sure that would prove to be the fact here also. The last words that we repeated in the Gospel according to St. Luke say that, as God makes no distinction between men, but pours down his blessing upon all, so should we be like our Father in heaven, and make no distinction between men, not acting as the heathen do, but loving all men, and doing good to all. These words were very clear. They seemed to me an explanation and commendation to some clearly defined precept. But what that precept precisely was, I could not for a long time make out. Love one's enemy. That was impossible. It was one of those beautiful utterances that cannot be considered otherwise than as presenting an unattainable moral ideal. It was either too much, or it meant nothing. We may avoid wronging our enemy, but to love him is impossible. But Christ cannot have commanded what we cannot fulfil. Moreover, the very first words in reference to the ancient law, it has been said, hate your enemy, were dubious. In the preceding passages Christ quotes the exact authentic words of the Mosaic law, but in this one he cites words that were never used. He seems to knowingly make a false statement about the ancient law. The various commentaries on the Gospel which I consulted helped me know more than they had done in my former doubts. All commentators acknowledge that the words hate your enemy, do not stand in the Mosaic law. But by none of them is there any explanation of the incorrect quotation given. They tell us that it is hard to love one's enemies, the wicked, and commenting on Christ's words they add that, though a man cannot love his enemy, yet he may neither wish him evil nor actually wrong or injure him. It is persistently instilled into us that it is our obligation and duty to denounce evildoers, that is to oppose our enemy, and the various steps are mentioned by which this virtue may be attained, and thus, according to the interpretation given by the Church, the final conclusion is that Christ, without any ostensible reason, quotes the words of the Mosaic law incorrectly, and has uttered many beautiful sayings that are in themselves useless and impracticable. It seemed to me that this could not be a true statement of the case. I felt sure that there was as clear and definite a sense in these words as I had found in the first four commandments. In order to comprehend the real meaning of the text, I endeavored, first of all, to take in the sense of the incorrect reference to the Mosaic law. You have been told, hate your enemy. It is not without some distinct purpose that, before giving each of his own precepts, Christ quotes the words of the old law. You shall not kill, you shall not commit adultery, etc., and places his doctrine in opposition to them. Now, if we do not comprehend what meaning Christ attached to the words he quotes, neither can we comprehend the duty that he enjoins. It seemed to me that the first point it was necessary to make out was for what purpose Christ had cited words that are not found in the Mosaic law. Here we find two precepts set in opposition to each other. You have been told, you shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy. It is obvious that the basis of the new commandment must be the very difference between these two precepts of the ancient law. In order to see the distinction more clearly, I asked myself, what do the words neighbour and enemy mean in the language of the Gospel? And on consulting the dictionary and other passages of the Bible, I found that the word neighbour in the Hebrew language always signifies a Hebrew. In the Gospel a similar definition of the word neighbour is given in the parable of the Good Samaritan. According to the Hebrew Lawyer's question, who is my neighbour, a Samaritan could not be his neighbour. The same definition of the word neighbour is given in the Acts of the Apostles, chapter 7, verse 27. The word neighbour, as used in the Gospel, signifies a fellow countryman, one who belongs to the same nation. And I hence concluded that the antithesis used by Christ in this passage, when quoting the words of the law, you have been told you shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy, places a fellow countryman in opposition to a stranger. I then asked myself what the word enemy meant according to the Hebrews. It is almost always used in the Gospel in the sense not of a private but a common enemy, a national enemy. Luke chapter 1, verse 71, Matthew 22, verse 44, Mark 12, verse 36, Luke 20, verse 43, and elsewhere. The use of the word enemy in the singular number in the text, hate your enemy, made it clear to me that the words referred to a national enemy. The singular expresses an enemy taken in a collective sense. In the Old Testament, the word enemy, when used in the singular, always implies a national enemy. No sooner did I comprehend this than my difficulty in understanding how it was that Christ, who always quoted the original words of the law, in this instance inserts the words, you have been told you shall hate your enemy, which are not in the Mosaic law, was solved. To remove all doubts as to the meaning of the passage, we have only to take the word neighbor as meaning a fellow countryman. Christ speaks of the Mosaic regulations concerning a national enemy. He combines in the single expression to hate, to wrong an enemy, all the various precepts disperse through the scriptures by which the Hebrews are enjoined to oppress, kill, and destroy other nations. And he says, you have been told that you shall love your own people and hate the enemies of your nation, but I say to you that you love all without distinction of their nationality. And no sooner had I understood this than the second and chief difficulty, that is how the words love your enemies were to be understood, was removed. It is impossible to love our personal enemies, but we can love men of another nation as we do those of our own people. I saw clearly that by the words you have heard that it has been said love your neighbor and hate your enemy, but I say to you love your enemies. Christ asserts that all men are accustomed to consider their fellow countrymen as their neighbors and men of other nations as their enemies, and this he forbids our doing. He says that, according to the law of Moses, a distinction was made between him who was a Hebrew and him who was not, but was considered as a national enemy, and then he commands that no such distinction should be made between them. Indeed, in the Gospels according to St. Matthew and St. Luke we find that, immediately after this precept, he says that all are equal before God, that the same sun shines on all, and that the same rain falls upon all. God makes no distinction between men and does equal good to all, or not men to do likewise without recognizing distinctions of nationality. Thus I again found ample confirmation of the simple and practicable sense of Christ's words. Instead of an indistinct and indefinite philosophy I discovered a clear, definite precept which all have it within their power to fulfill, to make no distinction between one's own and other nations, and so to avoid the natural results of these distinctions, such as being at enmity with other nations, going to war, taking part in war, arming for war, etc., and to treat all men whatever nation they belong to as we do our fellow countrymen, was the requirement of Christ. All this was so simple and so clear that I was surprised I had not understood it at once. The hindrance in my way was the same that had prevented my comprehending the prohibition of courts of law and oaths. It is difficult to conceive that the very courts of law which are inaugurated with Christian prayer, and consecrated by those who regard themselves as the fulfilers of Christ's law, are incompatible with the Christian faith, and are in direct opposition to Christ's doctrine, nor is it easier to conceive that the oath of allegiance which all men are made to take by the keepers of Christ's law is expressly forbidden by that very law. And it is hardest of all to conceive that, to uphold what is considered not only as necessary and natural, but even grand and glorious as love of one's native land, its defence, its aggrandisement, war against an enemy, and so on, is not only sinning against the law of Christ, but even abjuring it. We have become so estranged from the doctrine of Christ that this very estrangement is now the chief obstacle to our understanding it. We have turned a deaf ear to his words, and forgotten all he taught us of the life we are to lead, how that we should not kill, not even bear malice against a fellow creature, that we should never defend ourselves, but turn our cheeks to be struck, that we should love our neighbour, etc. We have grown so used to calling the men who devote their lives to murder a Christ-loving army, who put up prayers to Christ for victory over the enemy, whose pride and glory are in murder, and who have raised the symbol of that murder, the sword, into something almost sacred, so that he who is deprived of that symbol is considered as having been disgraced. We have grown so used to all this, I repeat, that it now appears to us that Christ did not forbid war, and that if he had intended to do so he would have expressed his meaning more clearly. We forget that Christ could never have thought it possible that men who believe in his doctrine of humility, love, and universal brotherhood would calmly and consciously institute the murder of their brethren. Christ cannot have supposed it possible, and therefore he could no more have forbidden a Christian to make war than could a father, while admonishing his son to live honestly without injuring or defrauding others, exhort him not to cut men's throats on the high road. Not one of the apostles, not one of Christ's disciples, could have supposed it necessary to forbid a Christian's committing murder, which is misnamed war. See what Oregon says in his answer to Celsus, chapter 63, quote, Celsus exhorts you to help the sovereign with all your strength, to take part in his duties, to take up arms for him, to serve under his banner, if necessary to lead out his army to battle. Moreover we may say, in answer to those who, being ignorant of our faith, require of us the murder of men, that even their high priests do not soil their hands in order that their God may accept their sacrifice. No more do we, unquote. And concluding by the explanation that Christians do more good by their peaceful lives than soldiers do, Oregon says, quote, thus we fight better than any for the safety of our sovereign. We do not, it is true, serve under his banners, and we should not, even were he to force us to do so, unquote. It was thus that the first Christians regarded war, and thus their teacher spoke when addressing the great men of this world, at the time when hundreds and thousands of martyrs were perishing for the Christian faith. But in our times the question whether a Christian ought to take part in war never seems to occur to any. Youths brought up according to the church law, which is called the Christian law, go every autumn at fixed periods to the conscription halls, and with the assistance of their spiritual pastors there renounce the law of Christ. A short time ago a peasant refused to enter the military service, grounding his refusal on the words of the Gospel. The clergy all tried to persuade the man that his view of the matter was erroneous, and as the peasant still believed in Christ's words and not in theirs, he was cast into prison and kept there until he denied Christ. This takes place although we Christians received eighteen hundred years ago a perfectly clear and definite commandment from our God, which said, never consider men of another nation as your enemies, look upon all men as brethren, and behave toward all men as you do towards your fellow countrymen, therefore you shall not kill those whom you call your enemies, love all, and do good to all. And when I had understood these simple definite commandments which admit of no other interpretation, I asked myself, what would the world be if all Christians believed that these commandments must be fulfilled in order to attain happiness, instead of treating them only as commandments that must be sung or read in churches in order that we may find favour in the eyes of God? What would the world be if people did but as firmly believe in the obligatory character of these commandments, as they now do in the necessity of daily prayer, of attending public worship every Sunday, of fasting on Fridays and receiving Communion every year? What would the world be if all men did but as firmly believe in these commandments as they do in the prescribed rules of the Church? And I pictured to myself men and women in Christian society living up to these commandments and instilling the same into new generations, ourselves and our children no longer taught both by word and deed that man must maintain his own dignity, must defend his own rights, which cannot be done without humbling or offending others, but instead taught that no man has any rights, that none can be superior or inferior to another, that only he who tries to rise above all others is lower and more degraded than others, that there is no feeling more debasing for a man to cherish than that of anger against another, that the seeming insignificance or foolishness of a man can never justify either anger or enmity. Instead of our present social adjustments, from the show-glasses of shops to theatres, novels and millinery, whose tendencies but to sensuality, I pictured to myself that we and our children were taught by word and deed that the pleasures of sensual books, theatres and balls was the basest kind of pleasure, that every action whose aim was the embellishing or showing off of our persons was base and disgusting. Instead of our present social adjustments, by which it is considered necessary and even in a sense right, that a young man should sow his wild oats before marriage, instead of a life in which separation between husband and wife is regarded as an ordinary thing, instead of the acknowledged necessity for the existence of a class of women who serve to pamper depravity, instead of the permission and authorisation of divorce, I pictured to myself that we were taught, both by precept and by example, that a single unmarried state for a man in all his virility was an anomaly and a shame, that a man's leaving the woman he was united to or taking another in her place was not only as unnatural a proceeding as incest, but a crawl and inhuman deed. Instead of our lives being based upon violence, instead of each of us being either chastened himself or chastising others from childhood to old age, I pictured to myself that we were taught, both by precept and by example, that vengeance is but a base instinct, that violence is not only shameful, but deprives man of his true happiness, that the proper joys of life are only those that need no violence to protect them, that it is not he who despoils others, or keeps what is his own out of the hands of others, and makes others serve him who is the most deserving of respect, but rather he who gives most, and who helps others most. Instead of considering it very right and lawful that each man should take an oath, and thus give away the most precious of his possessions, his whole life, into the keeping of another, I pictured to myself that we were taught to regard the intelligent will of a man as that holiest of holies which no man can ever give away, and that to promise anything with an oath is to renounce one's own rational self, and is an outrage against all that is most holy in man. I pictured to myself that instead of the enmity toward other nations that is instilled into us under a semblance of patriotism, instead of the praise of murder or war which we, from our childhood, look upon as a glorious thing, there was instilled unto us the dread and scorn of all those diplomatic or military institutions that serve to disunite men, that to admit the existence of states, laws, frontiers, countries, etc., is but a proof of the most brutal ignorance, that to go to war, that is to kill men who are complete strangers to us without any reason, is the most horrid crime of which only a lost and depraved man degraded to the rank of a wild beast is capable. I pictured to myself that all men believed in this, and I asked myself, what would the world be then? Formerly I had more than once asked myself what the fulfilment of the doctrine of Christ, as I then understood it, would lead to, and the involuntary answer had been, to nothing at all. We shall all go on praying, receiving the holy sacrament, believing in our redemption and salvation, in the redemption and salvation of the whole world through Christ, and still this salvation will not be brought about by ourselves, but Christ will come again in his appointed time to judge the living and the dead, and then the kingdom of God will be established on earth, independently of the life that we have led. But the doctrine of Christ, as I now understood it, has another signification. The establishing of the kingdom of God on earth depends upon us. The fulfilment of Christ's doctrine, as expressed in the five commandments, establishes this kingdom of God. The kingdom of God on earth is peace among all men. Peace among men is the highest earthly bliss that man can attain. It was thus that the Hebrew prophets pictured the kingdom of God to themselves, and it is thus that each human heart ever has and ever will picture it. The substance of the entire doctrine of Christ is the establishing of the kingdom of God on earth, and that brings peace to all men. In the Sermon on the Mount, in his conversation with Nicodemus, in the mission he gave to the disciples, in all his teachings he speaks of what causes division among men, and prevents their living in peace and entering the kingdom of God. All Christ's parables are definitions of the kingdom of God. They all seek to instill into us that it is only by loving our brethren and being at peace with them that we can enter the kingdom. John the Baptist, the precursor of Christ, says that the kingdom of God is at hand, and that Jesus Christ will give it to the world. Christ says that He brings peace on earth. John chapter 14 verse 27. Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you. I give it to you, not as the world gives. Do not let your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. These five commandments of Christ do indeed give peace to men. The tendency of all the five commandments is to procure peace among men. Let men but believe in the doctrine of Christ and obey it, and there will be peace on earth. Not the peace established by man, which is fleeting and transitory, but general, inviolable, eternal peace. The first commandment says, be at peace with all men, and do not consider any man as worthless or foolish. Matthew 5 verse 22. If peace has been destroyed, use your utmost endeavours to re-establish it. The service of God is the annihilation of all enmity. Matthew 5 verses 23 to 24. Let the least disagreement be followed by immediate reconciliation, lest you swerve from the true life. This commandment includes all in itself, but Christ foresees the temptations of the world that destroy peace among men, and gives a second commandment against the seductions of sexual relations that destroy peace. Do not consider carnal beauty to lust after it. Avoid the temptation, Matthew 5 verses 28 and 30. Let each man have one wife and each woman one husband, and let them never leave each other under any pretext whatever. Matthew 5 verse 23. Another temptation is the taking of oaths, for it leads men into sin. Know therefore that to do so is to sin, and consequently never make any vow. Matthew 5 verses 34 and 35. The third temptation is to vengeance, which is called human justice. Never take vengeance on any man, nor seek to excuse yourself by saying you have received injury at the hands of another. Bear the wrong done to you, and do not return evil for evil. Matthew 5 verses 38 and 42. The fourth temptation arises from the distinction made between nations, the enmity between races and states. Know that all men are brethren, and sons of the same God, and never destroy peace in the name of national interests. Matthew 5 verses 43 and 48. Let men leave but one of these commandments unfulfilled, and peace will be destroyed. Let men fulfill all these commandments, and the kingdom of peace will be established on earth. These commandments exclude all evil from the relationships of men. The fulfilment of Christ's commandments will make the lives of men such as each human heart seeks and longs for. All men will be brethren, each will be at peace with the other, and each will be free to enjoy all the blessings of this world during the term of life allotted to him by God. Men will turn their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. And on earth will be established the kingdom of God, the kingdom of peace that was promised by the prophets, which drew nearer with John the Baptist, and which Christ announced in the words of Isaiah, the spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are bruised, and to preach the acceptable year of the Lord. The simple and clear commandments of peace given by Christ by which all causes of dissension are foreseen and turned aside reveal the kingdom of God on earth to men. Thus Christ is truly the Messiah. End of chapter 6. Chapter 7 of What I Believe. What I Believe by Count Leo Tolstoy. Read from the Russian by Konstantin Popov, read by David Barnes. Chapter 7. Why does man not do the things that Christ enjoins, and that can give him the highest earthly felicity, the felicity he has ever longed to attain? The answer, as usually given, with slight variations of expression, is that the doctrine of Christ is indeed sublime, and its fulfilment would establish the kingdom of God on earth, but it is difficult and therefore impracticable. It is in the nature of man to strive after what is best. Each doctrine of life is but a doctrine of what is best for man. If men have pointed out to them what is really best for them, how do they come to answer that they wish to do what is best, but cannot? Human intellect, ever since man has existed, has been directed toward discovering what is best among all the demands that are made both in individual and in social life. Men struggle for land, for any object that they may want, and then end by dividing all among themselves, each calling what he may get, his personal property. They find that, though difficult of adjustment, it is better arranged thus, and they can keep their own property. Men fight to get wives for themselves, and then come to the conclusion that it is better for each to have his own family. And though it may be hard to maintain a family, men keep to their property, their families, and all else they are said to possess. No sooner do men find it best for themselves to act in a particular way than they proceed to act in that way, however hard it may be. Then what do we mean by saying the doctrine of Christ is sublime, a life in accordance with his doctrine would be a better one than the one we now lead, but we cannot lead the life that would be best for us, because it is hard to do so. If hard means that it is hard to give up the momentary satisfaction of our desires for some great and good end, why do we not say as well that it is hard to plow the ground in order to have bread, to plant apple trees in order to have apples? Every being endowed with the least germ of reason knows that no great good can be attained without trouble and difficulty. And now we say that though Christ's doctrine is sublime, we can never put it into practice, because it is hard to do so. Hard because its observances would deprive us of what we have always possessed. Have we never heard that it may be better for us to suffer and to lose than never to suffer and always to have our desires satisfied? Man may be but an animal, and nobody will find fault with him for being such. But a man cannot reason that he chooses to be only an animal. No sooner does he reason than he admits himself to be a rational being, and making this admission he cannot help recognizing a distinction between what is rational and what is irrational. Reason does not command, it only enlightens. While groping about in the darkness in search of the door, I bruise my hands and knees. A man comes with a light, and I see the door. I can no longer bruise myself against the wall now that I see the door. Still less can I assert that, though I see the door and feel convinced the best plan would be to enter it, it is hard to do so, and I prefer bruising my knees against the wall. There must evidently be some strange misconception in the argument that the doctrine of Christ is good and conducive to good to the world. But man is weak, man is bad, and while wishing to act for the best he acts for the worst, and therefore he cannot do what he knows is best for himself. This notion must be the result of some false assumption. It is only by assuming that what is is not, and that what is not is, that man can have arrived at so strange a negation of the possibility of fulfilling a doctrine that, as he himself admits, would give him happiness. The assumption that has brought mankind to accept this notion is based on the dogmatic Christian creed, the creed that is taught to all members of the Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Protestant churches from their earliest childhood. This creed, according to the definition given by believers, is an acknowledgement of the existence of things that seem to be—a definition given by St. Paul and repeated in works on divinity and catechisms as the best definition of faith. It is this belief that has brought mankind to the singular conviction that the doctrine of Christ is good but cannot be put in practice. The doctrine of this creed is literally as follows. God eternal, three persons in one God, chose to create a world of spirits. The bountiful God created that world of spirits for their happiness, but it chanced that one of the spirits grew wicked and therefore unhappy. Some time passed away, and God created another world, a material world, and created man likewise for happiness. God created man happy, immortal and sinless. Man was happy because he enjoyed all the blessings of life without labour, immortal, for he was always to live thus, sinless, for he did not know evil. Man was tempted in Eden by the spirit of the first creation who had grown wicked, and from that time man fell, and other fallen men like him were born into the world. Men laboured, sickened, suffered, died, and struggled morally and physically. That is, the imaginary man became the real man, such as we know him to be, and we have no grounds for imagining him ever to have been otherwise. The state of man who labours, suffers, strives after good, avoids evil, and dies, this state which is real, and beyond which we can imagine no other, is not the true state of man according to this orthodox belief, but is a temporary, accidental state unnatural to him. And though, according to this teaching, this state of man has continued for all men from the expulsion of Adam out of Eden, that is, from the beginning of the world to the birth of Christ, and has continued in the same way since that time, believe as are bound to think that this is only an accidental, temporary state. According to this teaching, the Son of God, God himself, the second person of the Trinity, was sent down from heaven by God, and was made man, to save men from this accidental temporary state unnatural to them, to deliver them from the curse laid upon them by the same God for the sin of Adam, and to re-establish them in their former natural state of perfect happiness, that is, of health, immortality, innocence, and idleness. According to this teaching, again, the second person of the Trinity redeemed the sin of Adam by the fact that men crucified him, and thus put an end to the unnatural state of man, which has lasted from the beginning of the world. And from that time, man believed in Christ, and became again, such as he was before the fall, immortal, healthy, sinless, and idle. The orthodox teaching does not dwell at any length upon the consequent results of the redemption, according to which, after the death of Christ, the earth should have begun to yield up her fruits to believers without labour, sickness should have ceased, and mothers should have given birth to their offspring without suffering. For however great their faith is, it is difficult to instill into those who find labour hard and sickness painful, that labour is not hard and suffering is not painful. Great stress, however, is laid on that part of the teaching that says that death and sin are no more. It is confidently asserted that the dead live, and as the dead cannot possibly tell us whether they are dead or alive any more than a stone can tell whether it can speak or not, this absence of all denial is taken as a proof of the assertion that those who are dead are not dead. And with yet greater solemnity and assurance it is asserted that, after the coming of Christ on earth, man is delivered from sin by his faith in him, that is, that man has no need of reason to enlighten his path in life, and has no need to strive after what is best for himself. He only has to believe that Christ redeemed him from sin to become sinless, that is, perfectly good. Thus, according to this doctrine, men must think they are intellect impotent, and that therefore they are sinless, that is, they cannot err. The true believer must fancy that ever since Christ came into the world the earth yields fruit without labour, that children are brought into the world without suffering, that there is no sickness, no death, no sin, that is, no errors. He must imagine that what is not is, and what is, is not. Such is the teaching of our strictly logical theory of theology. This teaching seems innocent in itself, but a deviation from truth can never be innocent. It entails consequences, more or less important, according to the importance of the subject of the untruth. In this case the subject of the untruth is the whole life of man. This teaching calls an individual blissful, sinless, and eternal life the true life, that is, a life that nobody has ever seen, and that does not exist. And the life that is, the only one we know, which we lead, and which mankind has ever led, is, according to this teaching, a fallen, wicked life. The struggle between the intellectual and animal nature of man, which lies in the soul of each, and is the substance of the life of each man, is entirely set aside. The struggle is made to refer to what befell Adam at the creation of the world. And the question, am I to eat the apples that tempt me? According to this teaching no longer applies to man. Adam solved the question in the negative once and forever in the garden. Adam sinned, that is, Adam erred, and we all fell irrevocably, and all our endeavours to live rationally are useless and even godless. I am irrevocably bad, and I must know it. My salvation does not lie in the fact that I can order my life by my reason, and having learned to know good from evil do what is best. No, Adam sinned once for all, and Christ has once and forever set the evil right, and all that is left for me to do is to mourn over the fall of Adam and rejoice in my salvation through Christ. According to this teaching not only are the loves of good and truth, which are innate in man, his endeavours to enlighten by his reason the various phenomena of life, and his spiritual life, deemed unimportant, but they are all vain glory and pride. Our life here on earth, with all its joys, with all its charms, with all its struggles between light and darkness, the lives of all those who lived before my own life with its inward struggles and consequent victories of reason, is not the true life, but a hopelessly spoiled fallen life. The true life, the sinless life according to this teaching, lies only in faith, that is in fancy, in madness. Let a man but set aside the teaching he has imbibed from his childhood, let him transfer himself in thought into a new man, not brought up in that doctrine, and then let him imagine in what light this teaching would appear to him. Would he not deem it complete insanity? Strange and awful though it was to think thus, I was forced to admit that it was even so, for only thus could I explain to myself the strikingly inconsistent, senseless arguments, which I heard all around me, against the possibility of fulfilling the doctrine of Christ. It is good, and would lead to happiness, but men cannot fulfil it. It is only the assumption that what does not exist exists, and what exists does not exist, that can have brought mankind to so surprising an inconsistency, and I found that false assumption in the so-called Christian faith, which has been preached during eighteen hundred years. Believers are not the only persons who say that the doctrine of Christ is good but impracticable. Unbelievers, men who either do not believe, or think they do not believe, in the dogmas of the fall and the redemption, say the same. Men of science, philosophers, and men of cultivated minds in general, who consider themselves perfectly free from superstition, likewise argue the impracticability of Christ's doctrine. They do not believe, or at least they think that they do not believe, in anything, and therefore consider themselves as having nothing to do with superstition, with the fall of man, or with redemption. I thought so too, formally. I also thought that these learned men had other grounds for denying the practicability of the doctrine of Christ. But on closer examination of the basis of their negation, I clearly saw that unbelievers had the same false idea, that life is not what it is, but what it seems to be, and that this idea has the same basis as the idea of believers. Men who call themselves unbelievers do not, it is true, believe in God, in Christ, or in Adam, but they believe in the fundamental false assumption of the right of man to a life of perfect bliss, just as firmly as theologians do. However, privileged science, with her philosophy, may boast of being the judge and the guide of intellect. She is, in reality, not its guide, but its slave. The view taken of the world is always prepared for her by religion, and science only works in the path assigned to her by religion. Religion reveals the meaning of life, and science applies this meaning to the various phases of life. And therefore, if religion gives a false meaning to life, science, reared in this religious creed, will apply this false meaning to the life of man. The teaching of the church gave, as the basis of life, the right of man to perfect bliss, bliss that is to be attained not by the individual efforts of man, but by something beyond his own control, and this view of human life became the basis of our European science and philosophy. Religion, science, and public opinion all unanimously tell us that the life we lead is a bad one, but that the doctrine which teaches us to endeavour to improve, and thus make our life itself better, is impracticable. The doctrine of Christ, as an improvement of human life by the rational efforts of man, is impracticable because Adam sinned, and the world is full of evil, says religion. Philosophy says that Christ's doctrine is impracticable because certain laws which are independent of the will of man govern human life. Philosophy and science say, in other words, exactly the same as religion does in its dogmas of original sin and redemption. In the doctrine of the redemption there are two fundamental theses on which all is grounded. One, man has a right to perfect bliss, but the life of this world is a bad one, and we cannot be amended by the efforts of man, and two, we can only be saved by faith. These two theses have become first truths, both for the believers and the unbelievers of our so-called Christian society. Out of the second theses arose the church, with its institutions. Out of the first arose our social opinions and our philosophical and political theories. All the political and philosophical theories that justify existing order, hagelism and its offspring, are based on this thesis. Pessimism, which expects of life what it cannot give and therefore denies life, is but the result of the same thesis. The materialism, with its strange enthusiastic assertion that man is but a process, is the lawful child of this teaching, which acknowledges that the life here below is a fallen life. Spiritism, with its learned partisans, is the best proof that scientific and philosophical views are not free, but are based on the principle inculcated by religion that a blissful eternal life is natural to man. This erroneous idea of the meaning of life has perverted the whole activity of man. The dogma of the fall and of the redemption of man has closed the most important and lawful domain of man's activity to him, and has excluded from the whole sphere of human knowledge the knowledge of what man must do to be happier and better. Science and philosophy fancy themselves the adversaries of so-called Christianity and pride themselves upon the fact, while they, in reality, work for it. Science and philosophy address everything except the one important point, how man is to improve his condition and lead a better life. The teaching of morality, called ethics, has quite disappeared from our so-called Christian society. Neither believers nor unbelievers ask themselves how we ought to live and how we must use the reason that is given to us, but they ask themselves, why is our life here not such as we fancied it to be, and when will it be such as we wish it to be? It is only through the influence of this false doctrine that we can explain how it is that man has forgotten that his whole history is but an endeavour to solve the contradictions between his rational and animal nature. The religious and philosophical teachings of all nations, except the philosophical teachings of the so-called Christian world, Judaism, Buddhism, Brahminism, the teaching of Confucius, and of the sages of ancient Greece, have but one purpose in view, the regulation of life and the solution of the problem of how man must strive to improve his condition and lead a better life. The teaching of Confucius deals with personal improvement. Judaism consists of man's following the covenant made with God, and Buddhism teaches each how to escape the evils of life. Socrates taught personal improvement in the name of reason. The Stoics acknowledge rational liberty as the sole basis of the true life. The rational activity of man has always lain in enlightening by reason his striving after good. Free will, says philosophy, is an illusion, and it prides itself on the audacity of the assertion. But free will is not only an illusion, it is a word that has really no meaning. It is a word invented by theologians and legislators, and to try to disprove its existence is but wrestling with a windmill. Reason, which enlightens our life and forces us to modify our actions, is not an illusion and cannot possibly be explained away. The following after reason, in order to attain happiness, was a doctrine taught to mankind by all true teachers, and in it lies the whole doctrine of Christ. The doctrine of Christ concerns the Son of Man, and is applicable to all men. That is, it concerns the striving of all men after good, and it concerns human reason, which enlightens man in his search. To prove that the Son of Man, with capital letters, signifies the Son of Man is superfluous. In order to consider the words the Son of Man as having any other meaning, it would be necessary to prove that Christ purposely used words that have another meaning to express what he wished to say. But even if, according to the positive teaching of the church, the words the Son of Man signify the Son of God, the words the Son of Man still signify man, for Christ calls all men the Sons of God. The doctrine of Christ concerning the Son of Man, the Son of God, which is the basis of the whole gospel, is expressed in the clearest manner in his conversation with Nicodemus. Every man, he says, in addition to his consciousness of an individual life, through his human parents, must admit that his birth is from above, John chapter 3, verses 5 to 7. That which man acknowledges in himself as being free is just what is born of the eternal being, of him whom we call God. This Son of God in man, born of God, is what we must exalt in ourselves in order to obtain the true life. The Son of Man is of the same nature as God, not begotten of God. He who exalts in himself the Son of God over all the rest that is in him, he who believes that life is in himself alone, will not find himself in contradiction with life. The contradiction only results from men not believing in the light that is in them, the light of which John the Evangelist speaks when he says, in him is life, and the life is the light of men. Christ teaches us to exalt above all else the Son of Man, who is the Son of God and the light of men. He says, when you lift up the Son of Man, you will know that I do not speak of myself. John 8, verse 28. The Hebrews do not understand his words, and they ask, the Son of Man must be lifted up. Who is this Son of Man? John 12, verse 34. He answers thus, John 12, verse 35, yet a little while is the light in you. Walk while you have the light, lest darkness come upon you, for he who walks in darkness does not know where he goes. On being questioned what the words, lift up the Son of Man, signify, Christ answers, to live according to the light that is in man. The Son of Man, according to the answer given by Christ, is the light in which man must walk while the light is in them. Luke 11, verse 35, take heed that the light that is in you is not darkness. Matthew 6, verse 23, if the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness. Christ speaks thus to all men. Both before Christ and after him, men have said the same, that there lives in man a divine light sent down from heaven, and that light is reason, and each must follow that light alone, seeking for good by its aid alone. This has been said by the Brahmin teachers, by the Hebrew prophets, by Confucius, Socrates, Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, and by all truly wise men who were not compilers of philosophical theories but who sought the truth for their own good, and that of all men. And now, according to the dogma of the redemption, we find that it is altogether unnecessary to think or speak of that light in man. Others say it is necessary to consider the nature of each person of the trinity, and which of the sacraments must be observed, for the salvation of man will come not of his own efforts, but through the trinity, and by a regular observance of the sacraments. We must consider, say unbelievers, by what laws the infinitesimal particle of substance moves in the endless expanse of endless time, but it is not necessary to consider what reason requires of man for his own good, because the improvement of his state will not proceed from his own efforts, but from the general laws that we shall discover. I am persuaded that, in a few centuries, the history of the so-called scientific activity in Europe during these latter ages will form an inexhaustible subject of laughter and pity for still later generations, who will report somewhat in this style. During several centuries the learned men of the small western part of the great hemisphere were in a state of epidemic insanity, fancying that a life of eternal bliss was to be theirs, and were plunged in laborious studies of all kinds, as to how, and according to what laws, that life was to begin for them, meanwhile doing nothing themselves and never thinking of improving themselves. And still more touching will this seem to the future historian when he finds that these men had a teacher who clearly and definitely explained to them what they were to do in order to be happier, but that the teacher's words were taken by some to mean that he would come in a cloud to set all right, while others said that the words of the teacher were perfect but impracticable, for human life was not such as they wished it to be and was not worth caring about, that human intellect was to be directed toward a study of the laws of this life without any reference to the good of man. The church says that the doctrine of Christ is impracticable, because life here is but a suggestion of the true life. It cannot be good, it is all evil. The best way to live this life is to despise it, and to live by faith, that is by fancy, in a future life of eternal bliss. Philosophy, science and public opinion say that the doctrine of Christ is impracticable, because the life of man does not depend on the light of reason, but on general laws, and that there is no need to enlighten life by our reason, or to seek to be guided by reason, for we must live as we can, firmly believing that, according to the laws of historical and sociological progress, after we have lived badly for a very long time, our life will grow very good of itself. Men come to a farm, and find all they want there, a house with all necessary utensils, barns full of corn, cellars full of all kinds of provisions, in the yard are implements of husbandry, tools, harnesses, horses, cows and sheep. In a word, all that is necessary for living contentedly. Men crowd in, and begin to use what they find, each mindful of himself alone, never thinking of leaving anything, either for those who are with him in the house, or for those who are to come after him. Each wishes to have all for himself, each hastens to take as much as he can, and the consequent destruction of everything ensues. All are struggling, fighting to possess the property themselves. Milk-cows and unshawn sheep about to kid, are killed for meat. The ovens are heated with benches and carts. The men fight for milk and for corn, and thus spill, spoil and waste more than they use. Not one of them can eat a morsel in peace, each is snarling at his neighbour. A stronger man comes, and takes possession of all, and he is despoiled in his turn. At last these men, all bruised and exhausted with fighting and hunger, leave the farm. The master again makes the farm ready, so that men may live there in peace. Then plenty fills the yard, and again passes by come in, and the struggling and fighting are renewed. All is wasted once more, and the worn-out, bruised and angry men again leave the farm, abusing and hating their companions and the master too, for having so sparingly and so poorly provided for them. Once again the good master gets the barn ready, and the struggling returns over and over again. Now, one day, among the newcomers, there appears a teacher who says, Brethren, we are all wrong. See what plenty there is here. See how carefully all is provided. There will be enough, not only for us, but also for those who come after us, if we simply live wisely. Let us not despoil, but rather let us help each other. Let us sow, plow, and breed cattle, and it will be well for us all. And it happened that some understood what the teacher said, and they followed his advice. They ceased fighting and robbing each other, and they set to work. But some had not heard the teacher's words, and others had heard, but did not believe him, and they did not do what he enjoined, but continued to fight as before. And after wasting the master's property, they too left the farm. Those who obeyed the teacher said, Do not fight, do not waste the master's property. It will be better for you if you do not act thus. Do as our teacher bids us. But there were many who had not heard, or would not believe, and things went on in the old way. But it is said that the time came when all in the farm heard the teacher's words, and not only understood them, but knew that God himself spoke to them through the teacher. That the teacher was God, and all believed each word that the teacher said to be a true and sacred word. Yet it is reported that even after this, instead of all living according to the words of the teacher, it came to pass that none turned away from violence. They all fell to struggling and fighting again. We are sure now, they said, that it must be so, that it cannot be otherwise. What could that mean? Even beasts know in what manner to eat their food without trampling it underfoot, and men who knew how to live better, who believed that God himself had taught them how they were to live, lived worse, because, as they said, they could not live otherwise. These men must have fallen into some delusion. What could those men in the farm have imagined, to induce them to lead their former lives, despoiling each other, wasting their master's property, and ruining themselves, while believing in the words of the teacher? It was thus. The teacher had said to them, The life you lead here is a bad one. Improve it, and you shall be happy. They fancied that the teacher condemned their life in the farm, and promised them another and better life in some other place, and not in that farm. Whereupon they concluded that the farm was buttoned in, and that it was not worthwhile trying to live well in it, and that the only thing necessary was to endeavor not to lose the good life promised to them elsewhere. It is only thus that the strange conduct can be explained, for both those who believed that the teacher was God, and those who acknowledged him to be a clever man, and his words to be just, continued to live contrary to his instructions. If men would but keep from ruining their own lives, and keep from expecting someone from outside to come and help them, either Christ on the clouds with the flourish of trumpets, or some historical law, or the law of the differentiation and integration of power, no one will help them if they do not help themselves, and that is easily done. Let them expect nothing, either from heaven or earth, and simply cease from ruining their own lives. End of chapter 7.