True religion may exist anywhere except where it is evidently false, i.e.violent; it cannot be a State religion.
True religion may exist in all the so-called sects and heresies, only it surely cannot exist where it is joined to a State using violence. Curiously enough the names “Orthodox-Greek,” “Catholic,” or “Protestant” religion, as those words are commonly used, mean nothing but “religion allied to power,” State religion and therefore false religion.
The idea of a Church as a union of many of the majority in one belief and in nearness to the source of the teaching, was in the first two centuries of Christianity merely one feeble external argument in favor of the correctness of certain views. Paul said, ” I know from Christ Himself.” Another said, ” I know from Luke.” And all said, ” We think rightly, and the proof that we are right is that we are a big assembly, ckklesia, the Church.” But only beginning with the Council of Niiaea, organized by an emperor, does the Church become a plain and tangible fraud practised by some of the people who professed this religion.
They began to say, ” It has pleased us and the Holy Ghost.” The ” Church ” no longer meant merely a part of a weak argument, it meant power in the hands of certain people. It allied itself with the rulers, and began to act like the rulers. And all that united itself with power and submitted to power, ceased to be a religion and became a fraud.
What does Christianity teach, understanding it as the teaching of any or of all the churches ?
Examine it as you will, compound it or divide it, the Christian teaching always falls with two sharply separated parts. There is the teaching of dogmas : from the divine Son, the Holy Ghost, and the relationship of these persons, to the eucharist with or without wine, and with leavened or with unleavened bread; and there is the moral teaching : of humility, freedom from covetousness, purity of mind and body, forgiveness, freedom from bondage, peacefulness. Much as the doctors of the Church have labored to mix these two sides of the teachings, they have never mingled, but like oil and water have always remained apart in larger or smaller circles.
The difference of the two sides of the teaching is clear to every one, and all can see the fruits of the one and of the other in the life of men, and by these fruits can conclude which side is the more important, and (if one may use the comparative form) more true. One looks at the history of Christendom from this aspect, and one is horror-struck.
Without exception, from the very beginning and to the very end, till to-day, look where one will, examine what dogma you like, from the dogma of the divinity of Christ, to the manner of making the sign of the cross, [5] and to the question of serving the communion with or without wine, the fruit of mental labors to explain the dogmas has always been envy, hatred, executions, banishments, slaughter of women and children, burnings and tortures. Look on the other side, the moral teaching from the going into the wilderness to commune with God, to the practice of supplying food to those who are in prison; the fruits of it are all our conceptions of goodness, all that is joyful, comforting, and that serves as a beacon to us in history.
People before whose eyes the fruits of the one and other side of Christianity were not yet evident, might be misled and could hardly help being misled. And people might be misled who were sincerely drawn into disputes about dogmas, not noticing that by such disputes they were serving not God but the devil, not noticing that Christ said plainly that He came to destroy all dogmas; those also might be led astray who had inherited a traditional belief in the importance of these dogmas, and had received such a perverse mental training that they could not see their mistake; and again, those ignorant people might be led astray to whom these dogmas seemed nothing but words or fantastic notions. But we to whom the simple meaning of the Gospels repudiating all dogmas is evident, we before whose eyes are the fruits of these dogmas in history, cannot be so misled. History is for us a means even a mechanical means of verifying the teaching.
Is the dogma of the Immaculate Conception necessary or not? What has come of it? Hatred, abuse, irony. And did it bring any benefit? None at all.
Was the teaching that the adulteress should not be sentenced necessary or not? What has come of it? Thousands and thousands of times people have been softened by that recollection.
Again, does everybody agree about any one of the dogmas? No. Do people agree that it is good to give to him that has need? Yes, all agree.
But the one side, the dogmas about which every one disagrees, and which no one requires is what the priesthood gave out, and still gives out, under the name of religion; while the other side, about which all can agree, and which is necessary to all, and which saves people, is the side which the priesthood, though they have not dared to reject it, have also not dared to set forth as a teaching, for that teaching repudiates them.
Religion is the meaning we give to our lives, it is that which gives strength and direction to our life. Every one that lives finds such a meaning, and lives on the basis of that meaning. If man finds no meaning in life, he dies. In this search man uses all that the previous efforts of humanity have supplied. And what humanity has reached we call revelation. Revelation is what helps man to understand the meaning of life.
Such is the relation in which man stands toward religion.
The End
NOTE BY THE TRANSLATOR
This article is prohibited in Russia, and, though written several years ago, has never been printed in Russian.
I once asked Tolstoi about this article, in which it seemed to me that the truth was told somewhat roughly and even harshly. He explained that it was a rough
draft of an article he had planned but had not brought into satisfactory shape. After it had been put aside for some time, in favor of other work, a friend borrowed it and took a copy, and it began to circulate from hand to hand in written or hectographed form. Tolstoi does not regret the publicity thus obtained for the article, as it expresses something which he feels to be true and important.
A translation, made probably from an incorrect copy, or from the French, has already appeared in English, but a retranslation is not the less wanted on that account. A little book, professing to be by Count L. Tolstoi, and entitled ” Vicious Pleasures ” (a title Tolstoi never used) was published in London some years ago. It consisted of translations, or perhaps I should rather say parodies, of five essays by Tolstoi. But, to borrow from Macaulay, they were translated much as Bottom was in ” Midsummer Night’s Dream ” when he had an ass’s head on. In many places it is impossible to make out what the essays mean. One does not even know whether it is the Church or the State, or both, that are ” Vicious Pleasures.”
The translator evidently had some qualms of conscience, for he concludes his preface with the words : ” If fault be found with the present translator for the manner in which he has reproduced Count Tolstoi’s work in English, he would ask his critics to remember that he too, like Kant, dearly loves his pipe.”
If that be really the explanation of the quality of the work, ” Vicious Pleasures ” should be of value to the anti-tobacco league as a fearful warning. Excepting for that purpose I doubt whether it can be of use to any one.
The present version will, I hope, be found intelligible by those who approach it with an open mind.
Footnotes:
[1] The celebrated Catacombs of the Kief Monastery draw crowds of pilgrims to worship the relics of the saints. It is said that a fire once broke out in one of the chapels, and that those who hastened to save the ” incorruptible body” of one of the saints discovered that the precious relic was merely a bag stuffed with straw. This is only a specimen of many similar tales, some of which are true and others invented. TR.
[2] The Iberian Mother of God is the most celebrated of the miraculous ikons in Moscow. TR.
[3] Vladimir adopted Christianity A.D. 988. Many inhabitants of his capital city, Kief, were disinclined to follow his example, so he ” acted vigorously” (as a Russian historian remarks), i.e. he had the people driven into the Dniepr to be baptized. In other parts of his dominions Christianity was spread among the unwilling heathen population ” by fire and sword.” TR.
[4] In England the holy water is not used, but an archbishop draws up a form of prayer for the success of the queen’s army, and a chaplain is appointed to each regiment to teach the men Christianity. TR.
[5] One of the main points of divergence between the ” Old-believers” and the ” Orthodox” Russian church was whether in making the sign of the cross two
