The Complete Works of Count Tolstoy/Volume 13/Critique of Dogmatic Theology/Conclusion
CONCLUSION
So there it is, the whole disclosure of the divinely revealed truths. They have all been disclosed. There is nothing else left. And it is not permitted to understand them in any other way. He who understands them differently: anathema.
A man asks what this world is in which he finds himself. He asks what the meaning of his existence is and what he is to be guided by in that freedom which he feels within himself. He asks all that, and God through the lips of the church established by him replies to him: Do you want to know what this world is? Here it is: There is a God, one, omniscient, all-good, almighty. This God is a simple spirit, but he has will and reason. This God is one and yet three. The Father begot the Son, and the Son sits in the flesh at the right of his Father.
The Spirit emanates from the Father. All three of them are Gods, and they are all different and all one. This trine God has existed eternally one in three, and suddenly it occurred to him to create the world and to create it from nothing with his thought, will, and word. At first he created the spiritual world, the angels. The angels were created good, and God created them solely for their own good, but, being created good, these beings suddenly of their own will became bad. Some angels remained good, while others became bad and were turned into devils. God created a very large number of angels and divided them into nine orders and three classes: angels, archangels, cherubim, seraphim, powers, dominions, beginnings, principalities, and thrones. Devils are also divided into categories, but the names of these categories are not precisely known.
Then much time passed and God began to create anew and made the material world. He made it in six days. By day is to be understood the turning of the earth about its axis. And there was morning and evening the very first day. If during those first days there was no sun, God himself shook the illuminating matter, so that there might be morning and evening. God made six days; on the sixth day he made Adam, the first man, out of earth, and blew the soul into him; then he made woman. Man is made out of soul and body. The destination of man is to remain true to the power of God. Man was created good and absolutely perfect. His whole duty lay in this, that he should not eat the forbidden apple, and God not only had created him perfect, but also aided him in every way possible, teaching, amusing, and visiting him in the garden.
But Adam none the less ate the forbidden apple, and for that the good God wreaked revenge on Adam and drove him out of the garden, cursing him, the whole earth, and all the descendants of Adam.
All that is not to be understood in any transferred, but in a direct sense, as having actually occurred. After that, God, that same God in three persons, the omniscient, all-good, almighty God, who had created Adam and cursed him and all his posterity, still continued to provide, that is, to care for their good, for Adam, for his descendants, and for all the creatures which he had made. He preserves the creatures, coöperates with them, and rules over them all and over each in particular.
God rules over the bad and good angels, and over the bad and good men. The angels help God to rule the world. There are angels who are attached to kingdoms, to nations, and to men, and omniscient, almighty, and all-good God, who has created them all, cast down for ever legions of evil angels, and all men after Adam, but has not ceased caring for them in a natural and even in a supernat ural manner. This supernatural manner of his care consists in this, that when five thousand years had passed, he found a means for paying himself for Adam’s sin, whom he himself had made such as he was. This means consisted in this, that among the persons of the Trinity one is the Son. He, that person, has always been the Son. So this Son issued from a virgin, without impairing her virginity; he entered into the Virgin Mary as her husband, the Holy Ghost, and came out as a Son, Jesus Christ, and this Son was called Jesus, and he was God, and man, and a person of the Trinity.
This God-man has saved men. This is the way he saved them. He was a prophet, a high priest, and a king. As a prophet, he gave a new law; as a high priest he sacrificed himself by dying on the cross, and as a king he performed miracles and went down into hell, let out from it all the righteous, and destroyed sin, and the curse and death in men.
But this means, however strong it was, did not save all men. Legions of legions of devils remained devils, and men must know how to take advantage of that salvation.
In order to take advantage of this means, a man must become sanctified, but only the church may sanctify, and the church is all those people who say about themselves that certain men have laid their hands on them, men upon whom other men have laid hands, and so forth, upon whom hands were laid by the disciples of the God Jesus himself, upon whom hands were laid by God the Son, the Saviour, himself. When God himself laid his hands upon them, he blew, and with that blowing he gave to them, and to those to whom they would transmit it, the power to sanctify men, and that very sanctification is necessary in order to be saved. What sanctifies man and saves him is grace, that means, the divine power which in a certain form is transmitted by the church. In order that this grace should be efficacious, it is necessary for the man who wishes to be sanctified to believe that he is being sanctified. He may even not believe entirely: he must obey the church and, above all, not contradict, and then grace will pass into him. In his life a man who is sanctified by grace must not believe as he has believed before, he must believe that if he does good, he does so because grace is operating in him, and so the only care he must have is that the grace shall be in him. This grace is transmitted by the church by various manipulations and by the pronunciation of certain words, which are called sacraments. There are seven such manipulations:
1. Baptism. When the hierarch of the church has bathed a person in the proper way, that person becomes cleansed from sin, above all, from Adam’s original sin, so that if an unbathed infant dies, it will perish as being filled with sin.
2. If he anoints that person with oil, the Holy Ghost enters into him.
3. If the person eats bread and wine under certain conditions and with the conviction that he is eating the body and blood of God, he becomes pure from sin and receives everlasting life.
(In general there is a lot of grace about this sacrament and, as soon and as quickly as possible after it has been performed, a person must pray, and then the prayer will be heard according to the grace.)
4. When the priest has listened to that person’s sins, he will say certain words, and the sins are gone.
5. When seven popes anoint a person with oil, his bodily and spiritual diseases will be cured.
6. When the wreaths are put on the bridal pair, the gift of the Holy Ghost will enter them.
7. When the hands are laid on, the Holy Ghost will enter.
Baptism, unction with chrism, repentance, communion sanctify man and sanctify him for ever, independently of the spiritual condition of the priest and of him who receives the sacrament; if only everything is in proper order, and there is no cause for cassation.
In these manipulations lies that means for salvation which God has invented. He who believes that he is sanctified and purified, and will receive eternal life, is actually sanctified and purified and will receive eternal life. All those who believe in that will receive their retribution, at first a private retribution, soon after death, and later a general one, after the end of the world. The private retribution will consist in this, that they will be glorified in heaven and on earth. On earth their relics and images will be honoured with incense and tapers, and in heaven they will be with Christ in glory. But before attaining that, they will pass through aerial spaces, where they will be stopped and questioned by angels and devils, who will contend with each other on their account, and those for whom the defence of the angels shall be stronger than the accusation of the devils will go to Paradise, and those whom the devils shall win will go to eternal torment, into hell.
The righteous, those who will go to Paradise, will there settle in various places, and those who shall be nearer to the Trinity may there, in heaven, pray for us to God, and so we must here worship their relics, their garments, and their images. These objects do miracles, and it is necessary to pray to God near these objects, and then the saints will intercede for us before God. The sinners, all the heretics, the unbaptized, the unbelievers, those who have. not received their communion, will go to hell, but they will be there in different places, according to the degree of their guilt, and there they will be to the end of the world. The prayers of the priests, especially such as will be said immediately after the eucharist, may alleviate their condition in hell.
But there will be an end of the world and a general judgment. The end of the world will be like this: one person of the Trinity, God Jesus, who sits in the flesh in heaven on the right side of his Father, will come down upon earth in a cloud, in the form of a man, such as he had when he was upon earth. Angels will blow trumpets, and all the dead will rise in their very bodies, but the bodies will be a little changed. Then all the angels, all the devils, and all men will assemble, and Christ will judge and will separate the righteous to the right: they will go to heaven with the angels; and the sinners he will put on the left: they will go with the devils to hell, and there they will be tormented with greater torments than burning. These torments will be everlasting. But all the righteous will eternally glorify the good God.
To my question as to what sense my life will have in this life, the answer will be as follows:
God, by his arbitrary will, created a strange world; a wild God, half-man, half-monster, created the world as he wanted it, and he kept saying that it was good, that everything was good, and that man was good. But it all turned out bad. Man fell under a curse, and his whole posterity was cursed, but God continued to make men in the wombs of their mothers, though he knew that all of them, or many, would perish. After he had invented a means for saving them, everything was as of old, and even worse, because while, as the church says, men like Abraham and Jacob could save themselves by their good lives, I am now certainly going to perish, if I was born a Jew, or a Buddhist, and accidentally do not come in contact with the sanctifying action of the church, and I shall be eternally tormented by the devils; more than that,— if I am among the number of the fortunate, but have the misfortune to regard the demands of my reason as legitimate and do not renounce them, in order to believe the church, I perish just the same. More than that,—even if I believe everything, but have not had time to receive the last sacrament and my relatives absent-mindedly forget to pray for me, I shall just as much go to hell and remain there.
According to this teaching the meaning of my life is an absolute absurdity, much worse than what presented itself to me by the light of my reason. Then I saw that I was living and was enjoying life so long as I was living, and that when I died I should not feel anything. Then I was frightened by the meaninglessness of my own life and by the insolubility of the question: What are my strivings, my life, for, since all that will end?
But now it is much worse: all that will not end, but that absurdity, somebody’s arbitrary will, lasts for ever. To the question as to how I should live, the answer of this teaching directly denies everything which my moral feeling demands, and demands that which has always appeared as the most immoral thing to me,—hypocrisy.
From all the moral applications of the dogmas there results but this: Save yourself by faith; you cannot understand what you are commanded to believe, say that you believe, crush out with all the powers of your soul the necessity of light and truth,—say that you believe, and do what results from faith. The matter is clear. In spite of all the statements that good works are for some reason necessary, and that it is necessary to follow the teaching of Christ about love, humility, and self-renunciation, it is evident that those works are not needed, and the practice of life of all the believers confirms that. Logic is inexorable. What is the use of works, when I am redeemed by God’s death, when even all my future sins are redeemed, and when it is necessary only to believe. And how can I struggle and strive after the good, in which alone I formerly understood good works to consist, when the main dogma of faith is this, that man cannot do anything by himself, and everything is given gratis by grace. All that is necessary is to look for grace; but grace is not obtained by me alone; it is imparted to me by others. Even if I do not succeed in sanctifying myself with grace during my lifetime, there are means for making use of it even after my death: I can leave money for the church, and they will pray for me. All that is asked of me is that I should try to find grace. Grace is given by sacraments and by the prayers of the church, consequently I must have recourse to them and put myself in such a state that I may never be deprived of them; I must have popes around me or live near a monastery, and leave as much money as possible for memorial masses. More than that. Having thus secured my future life, I may calmly enjoy this life, and for this life make use of the instruments given to me by the church, praying to God the Provider to aid me in my earthly works, for I am told in what manner these prayers will be most efficacious. It is most efficacious to pray near images and relics, during the liturgy.
And the answer to the question of what I should do results directly from the teaching; this answer is too familiar to everybody, and too coarsely contradicts conscience, but it is inevitable.
I remember, when I did not yet doubt the teaching of the church, I read the words of the Gospel, Blasphemy against the Son of man shall be forgiven you, but blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven you, neither in this world, neither in the world to come, and I could not understand those words.
But now those words are only too terribly apparent to me. Here is that blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, which will not be forgiven, either in this world, or in that to come.
That blasphemy is the terrible teaching of the church, the foundation of which is the teaching about the church.
(Just as this volume was going through the press, there appeared in England a second edition of the Russian original. It comes in time to be utilized for the correction of a number of inaccuracies and for the insertion of the following conclusion, which is absent in the first edition. What has to be omitted is a number of unessential quotations from Makári’s Theology.—Translator’s Note.)
The Orthodox Church!
With this word I no longer can connect any other conception than that of a few hirsute men, extremely self-confident, deluded, and ignorant, in silk and velvet, with diamond panagias, called bishops and metropolitans, and thousands of other hirsute men, who are in a state of the grossest, most servile servility to those dozens of men, who, under the guise of performing certain sacraments, are busy cheating and fleecing the people.
How can I believe in this church, which to man’s profoundest questions about his soul answers with petty deceptions and insipidities, and affirms that no one must dare to answer these questions in any other way, and that in everything which is most precious in my life I should not be guided by anything but what it points out to me? I may choose the colour of my pantaloons, I may choose my wife according to my liking, but in everything else—precisely that in which I feel myself to be a man—I must be guided by them, those idle, cheating, and ignorant people.
In my life, in the holiness of my soul, I have for a guide and pastor the parish priest, a dull, illiterate lad who has been let out of the seminary, or a hard-drinking old man whose only care it is to take in as many eggs and kopeks as possible. They command the deacon to yell half the time, “Many years for the Orthodox, godly” harlot Catherine II. or “for the most godly Peter,” the robber, the murderer, who blasphemed over the Gospel, and I am compelled to pray for them. They command me to curse, burn, and hang my brothers, and I must cry after them “anathema.” These people command me to regard my brothers as cursed, and have to cry “anathema.” They command me to drink wine out of a spoon and swear that it is not wine, but the body and blood, and I must do so.
But this is terrible!
It would be terrible, if it were possible; but in reality it is not so, not because they have weakened in their demands,—they still shout “anathema,” or “many years,” if they are commanded to do so,—but because in reality no one listens to them.
We, the experienced and cultured people (I recall my thirty years outside the church), do not even despise them: we simply pay no attention to them and do not even have the curiosity to know what they are doing, writing, and saying. A pope has come,—very well, give him half a rouble. A church has been built for vanity's sake,—very well, dedicate it, send for a shaggy-maned bishop, and give a hundred roubles.
The masses pay still less attention to them. During Butter week we must eat pancakes, and during Passion week we must prepare ourselves for communion; and if there arises a spiritual question for one of our kind, we go to clever, learned thinkers, to their books, or to the writings of the saints, but not to the popes; and the people from the masses turn dissenters, Stundists, Milkers, the moment the religious sentiment is awakened in them. Thus the popes have for a long time been serving only themselves, and the weak-minded and rascals and women. It is to be assumed that very soon they will be instructing themselves only.
That is so, but what does this mean, that there still are wise men who share this delusion? What does the church mean, which has led them into such impassable forests of stupidity? The church, according to the definition of the hierarchs, is an assembly of the believers, of infallible and holy priests.
All of them have asserted with one accord that the pastors of the church are the true successors of the apostles, and that they alone have through the succession received the legitimate power and duty of being the guardians and interpreters of the divine revelation, while all the lay people are to listen to the voice of their pastors, and have no right to teach.
“It is not proper for a layman,” says the 64th rule of the Ecumenical Council, “to utter words, or to teach and take upon himself the teacher’s dignity, but to obey the orders established by God, to open his ear to those who have received the grace of the teacher’s words, and by them to be instructed in the divine Word. For in the one church God created various orders, according to the words of the apostle (1 Cor. xii. 27, 28), which Gregory the Divine explains, showing clearly the orders contained in them, when he says, ‘This order, O brothers, let us respect and guard: let one be the ear, and the other the mouth, one the hand, and the other something else; let one teach, and the other be taught.’ And after a few words he proceeds: ‘Let him who learns be in obedience, and him who gives give with pleasure, and him who serves serve with zeal. Let us not all be the tongue, though this be nearest to all, nor all apostles, nor all prophets, nor all commentators.’ And after a few words he says again: ‘Wherefore hast thou made thyself a shepherd, being a sheep; wherefore dost thou make thyself a head, being a foot; wherefore dost thou pretend to lead the armies, since thou art placed in the rank of the soldiers?’ And in another place he enjoins wisdom. ‘Be not rash with thy mouth (Eccl. v. 2); being poor, labour not to be rich (Prov. xxiii. 4); try not to be wiser than the wise. And if one be found guilty violating the present rule, let him be removed from the communion with the church for the period of forty days.’”
After this it is obvious in what sense the word “church” is to be taken, when reference is made to its infallibility in matters of teaching. Infallible, without doubt, is the whole church of Christ in general, which consists of pastors and the flock. But, since the class of pastors are more particularly enjoined to watch, preach, and interpret to people the divine revelation (636); since the flock is compelled in this holy matter unflinchingly to follow the voice of their God-given instructors (Ephes. iv. 11-15; Acts xx. 28; Heb. iv. 13-17),—it is evident that in disclosing the teaching of the infallibility of the church it is necessary above all to have in view the teaching church (637), which, however, is inseparably connected with the instructed church (638).
From this it is clear what the church means by church: it means nothing but the exclusive right for it to teach. In explanation of this right it says that it is infallible. And it is infallible, it says, because it derives its teaching from the source of truth,—from Christ.
But the moment there are two teachings, which equally deduce their teachings from Christ, this foundation, the proofs, and everything reared upon it fall to pieces, and nothing is left but incitements for such an absurd teaching. The impelling causes are as obvious now, at the sight of the palaces and carriages of the bishops, as they were in the sixth century, if we look at the luxury of the patriarchs, and as they were in the first apostolic times, if we take into consideration the desire of each teacher to confirm the truth of his teaching. The church affirms that its teaching is based on the divine teaching. Proofs are incorrectly adduced in this case from the Acts and the epistles, because the apostles were the first people who put forth the principle of the church, the truth of which has to be proved, and so their doctrine can as little as the later doctrine assert that it is based on Christ’s teaching. No matter how near in time they may be to Christ, they are, according to the church doctrine, men, while he is God. Everything which he said is true; everything which they said is subject to proof and rejection. The churches felt this, and so hastened to put on the apostolic teaching the seal of the infallibility of the Holy Ghost. But if we brush aside this snare and take up Christ’s teaching itself, we cannot help but be struck by that bold impudence with which the teachers of the church wish to base their doctrine on the teaching of Jesus Christ, who denied all that which they want to affirm.
The word ἐκκλησία, which has no other meaning than that of assembly, is used but twice in the Gospels, and that, too, only in Matthew: On thee, on my faithful disciple, as on a rock, I shall establish my union of men, and the other time in this sense, that if thy brother will not hear thee, tell it in an assembly of men, because what ye shall loose here (meaning “your anger, your annoyance”) will be loosed in heaven, that is, in God. Now, what have the priests made of it?
Having appeared upon earth, in order to accomplish the great work of our redemption, the Saviour at first claimed only for himself the right to instruct people in the true faith, which he had received from the Father. 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 (Luke iv. 18, 19); and passing through the cities and villages, preaching the Gospel, he added, To this end was I born, and for this cause came into the world (John xviii. 37), for therefore am I sent (Luke iv. 43); enjoining at the same time the people and the disciples, But be ye not called Rabbi: for one is your master, even Christ (Matt. xxiii. 1, 8, 10). Then he transferred his divine right of the teachership to his disciples, to the twelve and the seventy, whom he purposely chose for this great ministration from the midst of his hearers (Luke vi. 13; cf. x. 1, and the following): at first he transferred it only temporarily during the days of his earthly existence, when he sent them to preach the Gospel of the kingdom only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel (Matt. x. 5-16, and elsewhere), and later for all time, after his resurrection, when, having himself accomplished all his work upon earth and going up to heaven, he said to them, As my Father hatu sent me, even so send I you (John xx. 21); go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost (Matt. xxviii. 19); and on the other hand he very clearly and with terrible threats enjoined all men and future Christians to receive the teaching of the apostles and to obey them: He that heareth you heareth me; and he that despiseth you despiseth me; and he that despiseth me despiseth him that sent me (Luke x. 16; cf. Matt. x. 14; xviii. 15, 19; Mark xvi. 16).
Finally, at the same time that the Lord transferred his divine right of the teachership to the apostles, he expressed the wish that from the apostles this right might pass directly to their successors, and from the latter, passing from generation to generation, might be preserved in the world to its very end. For he said to his disciples, And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world (Mark xvi. 15; Matt. xxviii. 18-20).
“But these disciples evidently could not live to the end of the world, and if they were able to preach the Gospel to all the nations which were contemporaneous with them, they certainly could not preach it to the nations of the subsequent times. Consequently, in the person of his apostles the Saviour sent out all their future successors to the work of the universal preaching, and also encouraged them with his presence. This is not a simple divination of the mind, but the positive doctrine of one of the apostles themselves, who said that Christ himself gave his church not only apostles, prophets, evangelists, but also pastors and teachers (Ephes. iv. 11).”
Even if we accept that incomprehensible, obviously interpolated passage about baptizing in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, there is not a word to point to the church. On the contrary, there is a direct indication that no one should call himself a teacher.
What can more clearly be said against the church, according to the ideas of the church? And this very place, as though in ridicule of its exact meaning, they quote! And against the teachership? Not two or three passages speak against the teachers, but the whole meaning of the Gospel (We have taught in thy name; go into eternal fire, ye who are working iniquity): all the speeches to the Pharisees and concerning the external worship,—that the blind should not lead the blind, for they would fall down together,—but mainly the whole meaning of Jesus’ teaching in John and in the other gospels. He comes to announce the good to those who are lowly in spirit, and he calls them blessed. He repeats several times that his teaching is accessible and intelligible to babes and to the imprudent, in contradistinction to the wise and the learned. He chooses the foolish, the imprudent, the downtrodden, and they understand him; he says that he came, not to teach, but to fulfil; and he fulfils with his whole life. He repeats again and again that he who will fulfil will find out whether it is from God, and that blessed is he who fulfils, and not he who teaches: that he who fulfils is great, and not he who teaches. He is angry only with those who teach. He says, Do not judge others. He says that he alone opened the door for the sheep, and that he knows the sheep, and the sheep know him. And there the uncalled pastors—the wolves in sheep’s clothing—came in the garments of harlots, stood up before him, and said they, the doers of iniquity—that not he, but they, were the door for the sheep.
The impelling causes are comprehensible, especially during the first times, when the first Paul spoke of the church, of the infallibility. It is comprehensible how an excitable man, who is carried away by the true faith, may have failed fully to understand the spirit of the teacher, and so departed from his teaching. It is comprehensible for that nearest time, as well as later, under the pressure on Constantine’s power, how they could have been carried away by the desire as quickly as possible to establish their external faith; we can understand all the wars which were waged in the name of this departure from the spirit of the teaching. But the time has come for separating the sheep from the goats, for they have already separated themselves in such a way that the true teaching can no longer be met with in the churches. And it is clear that the teachership of the church, though it arose from a small departure, is now the worst enemy of Christianity, and that its pastors serve what they please, except the teaching of Jesus, because they reject it.
The doctrine about the teaching church is now a doctrine which is purely inimical to Christianity. Having departed from the spirit of the teaching, it has corrupted it to such an extent that it has reached a point where it rejects it with the whole life: instead of humility there is grandeur; instead of poverty, luxury; instead of not judging our neighbours, the most cruel condemnation of all; instead of forgiving offences, hatred and wars; instead of endurance of evil, punishments. And all men deny one another, but not themselves.
The name of Christ’s kingdom cannot save it, but in its definition there is, in addition to the definition as a church of pastors, also another obscure definition as a church of the pastured, who must obey. What is understood by the first is clear, but what is to be understood by the second is completely obscure.
An assembly of believers?
If believers have come together, believing in one and the same thing, they constitute an assembly of believers. There is such an assembly of believers in Wagner’s music, an assembly of believers in the social theory.
To them the word “church” is not applicable, with the concept of infallibility, which is attached to it, and that is all there is to it. It is an assembly of believers and nothing else, and it is impossible to see the limits of this church, because faith is not a carnal matter. The religion of our popes can indeed be felt in the vestments, the panagias, and all the remaining nonsense, but the faith of the believers, that one thing which is the life and the light in men, cannot be felt, and it cannot be said where it is and how much there is of it. Consequently, this is said only for the purpose that the pastors may have some one to herd, and there is no other meaning to it. The church, all this word, is the name of a deception by means of which one set of men wants to rule another. There is no other church, and there can be none. Only in this deception, which is based on the true teaching and is carried on by all the churches, have there appeared all those monstrous dogmas which distort and conceal the whole teaching of the church,—such as the divinity of Jesus and of the Holy Ghost, and the Trinity, and the Virgin Mary, and all the savage customs called sacraments; it is evident that they have no sense and are of no use to any one, except the dogma of the sacrament of orders, which is needed for the purpose of enabling men to collect eggs.
But who would have preserved the Holy Scripture? What would people have believed in and who would have taught, if there had not been the church?
Not those have preserved the Holy Scripture who have disputed, but those who have believed and done. The Holy Scripture is a tradition of days and life. The only teaching that is needed is the one which teaches through life, so that their light may shine before men. People have always believed in works only. If ye believe not me, believe my works. Neither I, nor any one else, is called to judge others, and the past. I see that works alone are capable of adoption, and teach me and the people, and only the doctrine and the controversies corrupt the people and deprive them of faith. Indeed, all these theological controversies were carried on in reference to matters which are of no use to any one, which are not the subject of faith. It has come to such a pass that as a subject of faith there presents itself the question as to the infallibility of the popes and of Mary, who bore a child in a strange manner, and so forth.
Life has never been a subject of faith: it could not be the subject of a controversy,—for how will you show faith, while I show works?
“But where is the true church of the true believers? How can we find out who is in the right, and who not? will those ask who do not comprehend the teaching of Jesus. Where is the church, that is, where are its limits? If you are in the church, you cannot see its limits. But if you are a believer, you will say: “How can I be saved? What do I care about judging others?”
To him who has comprehended the teaching of Jesus, the teaching consists in this, that to me, to my light, the power is given to go to the light, to me my life is given. Outside of it and beyond it there is nothing but the source of all life,—God.
The whole teaching of humility, the renunciation of wealth, the love of my neighbour, has only this meaning, that I can make this life infinite in itself. Every relation of mine to another life is only an exaltation of my own, a communion and oneness with it in peace and in God. Through myself only can I comprehend the truth, and my works are the consequences of the exaltation of my life.
I can express this truth in myself. What question can there be for me, who understand life thus (I cannot understand it otherwise), as to what others think, how they live? As I love them, I cannot help but wish to communicate my happiness to them, but the one tool which is given me is the consciousness of my life and its works. I cannot wish, think, believe for another. I exalt my life, and this alone can exalt the life of another; and is not another myself? So, if I exalt myself, I exalt all.
I am in them, and they in me.
The whole teaching of Jesus consists only in what the common people repeat with simple words:—to save one’s soul,—but only one’s own, because it is everything. Suffer, endure evil, do not judge,—all this tells the same. every contact with the affairs of the world Jesus teaches us by his example of complete indifference, if not contempt, how we must bear ourselves toward worldly matters,—toward raiment, toward tribute for the church and for Cæsar, toward litigations about inheritance, toward the punishment of the sinning woman, toward the spilling of the costly ointment. Everything which is not thy soul is not thy concern. Seek the kingdom of God and his righteousness in your soul, and everything will be well. Indeed, my soul is given into my power, even as it is given to another. Souls other than mine I not only cannot rule over, but am not even able to comprehend; how, then, can I mend and teach them? And how can I waste my strength on what is not in my power, and overlook that which is in my power? Outside the teaching, Jesus showed by his life the falseness of the structure of this world, in which all pretend to be busy with the good of others, whereas their aim is nothing but a pampering of their lust, a love of darkness. Look at any evil whatsoever, and you will see that every man gives out as his pretext the good of his neighbour. When you see that a man is taking hold of another, and insulting him, saying that he is doing so for the good of humanity, try to find out what it is that the man wants, and you will see that he is doing it for his own sake.
Failing to comprehend all this, the false faith has enticed people into the vicious desire to teach others and has given birth to the church with all its horrors and monstrosities. What will happen, if there shall be no church? There will be what now is, what Jesus has said. He spoke, not because he wanted to, but because it is so. He said, Do good deeds that men, seeing them, may glorify God. And it is only this one teaching which will be and has been ever since the world has existed. In works there is no diversity, but if in the confession, in the comprehension, in the external worship, there is and shall be any diversity of opinion, it does not touch the faith and the works, and is in nobody’s way. The church wanted to unite these confessions and external worships, and itself broke up in innumerable sects, one denying the other, and has thus shown that neither the confession nor the worship is a matter of faith. The business of faith is only the life in the faith. Life alone is higher than anything, and cannot be subjected to anything but God, who is cognized through life alone.