The author at first proves it to be the duty of each Christian to obey the rule of non-resistance. He says that the rule is perfectly explicit, and that it has been given by Christ to all Christianity without any possibility of being misinterpreted. "Judge for yourselves, whether it is right or wrong to obey man more than you do the Lord," said both Peter and John; and in exactly the same way every man who wishes to be a Christian should regard the requirement of his nation to be a soldier, remembering that Christ has told him, "Do not resist evil."
This, in the opinion of Musser, decides the question of principle. Another point, as to the right of declining military duty while one enjoys the advantages accruing through violence, the author considers in detail, and arrives at the conclusion that should a Christian who follows the teaching of Christ refuse to go to the war, he must also decline to take any position under the government or any part in the elections, neither must he have recourse to any officer of the law for his own personal advantage. Our author goes on to consider the relation between the Old and New Testaments, and the significance of government for non-Christians; arguments against the doctrine of non-resistance are enumerated and refuted. The author closes his book with the following words:—"Christians need no governments: for they ought not to obey it in those matters wherein Christ's teaching is set at naught, and still less should they take an active part in it. Christ has chosen His disciples out of the world. They have no promise of temporal good or happiness, but the contrary. Their promise is in the world to come. The spirit which they possess renders them happy and contented in any sphere of life. So long as the world tolerates them, they are contented; but if it will not let them dwell in peace, they flee to another city or place; and so they are true pilgrims and strangers on earth,having no certain abiding place.... They are well contented that the dead may bury their dead, if they are only permitted to follow Christ."
Without deciding upon the merits of this definition of a Christian's duty in regard to war, which we find set down in these two works, we cannot fail to see the urgent need for a decision in regard to the question itself.
There are men—hundreds of thousands of Quakers, Mennonites, our own Duhobortzi, Molokani, men who belong to no sect whatsoever—who believe that violence and therefore military service is incompatible with Christianity; every year, for instance, we see in Russia a number of men refusing to obey the conscription because of their religious opinions. And how does the government deal with them? Does it release them? Oh, no!... Does it use force, and in case of disobedience punish them? Not exactly.... In 1818, government managed the affair in this wise.
The following is an extract, hardly known to any one in Russia, from a letter of Muraviev-Karsky, which was prohibited by the Russian censor:—
"Tiflis,October 2d, 1818."This morning the commander of the fortress told me that five peasants belonging to the landowners of the government of Tambov had been recently sent into the province of Grusia. These men were intended to serve as soldiers, but they refused to obey. They were flogged several times and made to run the gantlet, but they were ready to give themselves up to the most cruel tortures, yea, even to death itself, to escape military service. 'Let us go our way and harm us not; we do no harm ourselves. All men are equal. The sovereign is a man like one of us, why should we pay him taxes, and wherefore should we risk our lives to kill in battle those who have never done us any harm? Draw and quarter us, if you will, and we shall never change our minds; we will never wear the uniform, nor mess at the soldier's table. Some pitying soul may give us almsbut from the government we neither have had nor will have anything whatsoever.' Such are the words of these peasants, who assure us that there are many men in Russia like themselves. Four times they were brought before the Committee of Ministers, and it was finally decided that a report be made to the Czar, who ordered them to be sent to Grusia for discipline, and desired the Commander-in-Chief to forward a monthly report of the progress made in bringing these peasants to a proper frame of mind."
"Tiflis,October 2d, 1818.
"This morning the commander of the fortress told me that five peasants belonging to the landowners of the government of Tambov had been recently sent into the province of Grusia. These men were intended to serve as soldiers, but they refused to obey. They were flogged several times and made to run the gantlet, but they were ready to give themselves up to the most cruel tortures, yea, even to death itself, to escape military service. 'Let us go our way and harm us not; we do no harm ourselves. All men are equal. The sovereign is a man like one of us, why should we pay him taxes, and wherefore should we risk our lives to kill in battle those who have never done us any harm? Draw and quarter us, if you will, and we shall never change our minds; we will never wear the uniform, nor mess at the soldier's table. Some pitying soul may give us almsbut from the government we neither have had nor will have anything whatsoever.' Such are the words of these peasants, who assure us that there are many men in Russia like themselves. Four times they were brought before the Committee of Ministers, and it was finally decided that a report be made to the Czar, who ordered them to be sent to Grusia for discipline, and desired the Commander-in-Chief to forward a monthly report of the progress made in bringing these peasants to a proper frame of mind."
The final result of this discipline is not known, for the matter was kept a profound secret, and the episode may never have been made public.
This was the conduct of the government seventy-five years ago in the greater number of cases, always carefully hiding the truth from the people; and it pursues the same policy at the present day, except in regard to the German Mennonites, who live in the government of Kherson, and who in lieu of military duty serve a corresponding term as foresters,—the justice of their refusal to obey the conscription being recognized.
But they are the sole exception; all others who, from religious scruples, refuse to perform military duty are treated in the manner just described.
At first the government employs all the methods of coercion now in use to discipline andconvertthe rebels, while at the same time the most profound secrecy envelops all these proceedings. I know of a process which was begun in 1884 against a man who had declined to serve,—a long-drawn-out trial which was guarded by the Ministry as a great secret.
The first step is usually to send the accused to the priests, and, be it said to their shame, they always try to win over the insubordinate. But as the influence exercised in the name of Christ is generally unsuccessful, the delinquent is sent from the clergy to the gendarmes, who, finding in him no political offense, send him back; whereupon he is despatched to the scientists, the doctors, and thence into the insane hospital. While he is thus sent to and fro, the delinquent, deprived ofhis liberty like a condemned convict, is made to endure every kind of indignity and suffering. Four such cases have come to my knowledge. The doctors generally release the man from the insane hospital, and then every underhanded and crafty device is employed to delay the accused, because his release might encourage others to follow his example. He is not allowed to remain among the soldiers lest they discover from him that conscription is not, as they are taught to believe, in accordance with the law of God, but opposed to it. The most satisfactory arrangement for a government would be either to execute the delinquent, or beat him with rods until he died, as was done in former times. But it is awkward to condemn a man to public execution because he is true to the doctrine which we all profess to believe. Nor is it possible to take no notice of a man when he refuses to obey. So the government either tortures the man in order to compel him to deny Christ, or tries to rid itself of him by some means which will hide both the man and the crime from the eyes of the world, rather than resort to public execution. All sorts of cunning manœuvers and tricks are employed to torment the man. He is either banished to some remote province, or exasperated to disobedience and then imprisoned, or sent to the reform battalion, where he may be subjected to torture without publicity or restriction; or he is pronounced insane and locked up in the insane asylum. For instance, one was exiled to Tashkent; that is to say, a pretense was made of transferring him thither. Another was sent to Omsk, a third was court-martialed for disobedience and imprisoned, and a fourth was put into a house for the insane. The same thing is repeated on every side. Not only the government, but the majority of liberal free-thinkers, as though by preconcerted agreement, carefully avoid alluding to what has been said, written, or done in this matter of denouncing the inconsistency of violence, as embodied in its most shocking, crude, and striking form, in the person of a soldier,—this readiness to commit murder,—not only with the precepts of Christianity, but with thedictates of mere humanity, which the world professes to obey.
Hence all the information that I have gathered concerning what has been accomplished, and what is still going on in this work of explaining the doctrine of Christ and the light in which it is regarded by the ruling powers of Europe and America, has confirmed me in the conviction that a spirit inimical to true Christianity dwells in these authorities, exhibited chiefly by the conspiracy of silence with which they enshroud any manifestation of it.
NOTE
"The publication of this book ('The Net of Faith') was ended [completed] by the Academy in the last months of the present year (1893)."—Note received by the Publisher from Count Tolstoï while this work was going to press.
"The publication of this book ('The Net of Faith') was ended [completed] by the Academy in the last months of the present year (1893)."—Note received by the Publisher from Count Tolstoï while this work was going to press.
The fate of the book, "My Religion"—The evasive answers of religious critics to the questions propounded in that book—1st answer, Violence does not contradict Christianity—2d answer, Necessity of violence for the purpose of repressing evil-doers—3d answer, Necessity of violence for the defense of one's neighbor—4th answer, The violation of the commandment of Non-resistance regarded as a weakness—5th answer, Evasion of the answer by a pretense that this matter has long since been decided—The cloak of church authority, antiquity, the holiness of religious men, explain for many the contradictions between violence and Christianity, in theory as well as in life—Usual attitude of the clergy and authorities in regard to the profession of true Christianity—General character of Russian secular writers—Foreign secular critics—Incorrectness of the opinions of the former and the latter caused by a failure to understand the true meaning of the doctrine of Christ.
The fate of the book, "My Religion"—The evasive answers of religious critics to the questions propounded in that book—1st answer, Violence does not contradict Christianity—2d answer, Necessity of violence for the purpose of repressing evil-doers—3d answer, Necessity of violence for the defense of one's neighbor—4th answer, The violation of the commandment of Non-resistance regarded as a weakness—5th answer, Evasion of the answer by a pretense that this matter has long since been decided—The cloak of church authority, antiquity, the holiness of religious men, explain for many the contradictions between violence and Christianity, in theory as well as in life—Usual attitude of the clergy and authorities in regard to the profession of true Christianity—General character of Russian secular writers—Foreign secular critics—Incorrectness of the opinions of the former and the latter caused by a failure to understand the true meaning of the doctrine of Christ.
All the criticisms of the statements contained in my own book have given me a similar impression of a wish to ignore the subject.
As I had anticipated, no sooner was the book published than it was prohibited, and should, according tolaw, have been burned. But instead of being consumed by the flames, every copy was taken by the government officials and circulated in large numbers, both in manuscript and in the lithographed sheets, as well as in translations which were published abroad. It was not long before criticisms began to appear, not only from the clergy, but from the secular world, which the government, so far from forbidding, took pains to encourage. Hence the very refutation of the book, the existence of which they assumed to be unknown, was made the theme of theological controversy.
These criticisms, both foreign and domestic, may be divided into two classes, religious and secular; the former by persons who consider themselves believers, and the latter by free-thinkers. I shall begin by considering the former. In my book I accuse the clergy of inculcating doctrines contrary to the commandments of Christ, plainly and clearly expressed in the Sermon on the Mount, and particularly in regard to the commandment of non-resistance to evil, thereby depriving the doctrine of Christ of all its significance. Do the ministers of the gospel believe the Sermon on the Mount, including the commandment of non-resistance, to be of divine origin? Having felt themselves obliged to review my book, it would seem as if they must first of all answer the principal charge, and declare at once whether they do or do not consider the Sermon on the Mount and the commandment of non-resistance obligatory upon a Christian. Instead of making the usual reply, couched in words such as, "Though one cannot deny, neither can one affirm, the more so as," etc., let them give a categorical answer to my question: Did Christ practically require his disciples to do that which he taught in the Sermon on the Mount, and therefore may a Christian appeal to a legal tribunal, either for defense or prosecution, and still remain a Christian? May he consistently take a part in a government which is the instrument of violence? And that most important question, which, since the introduction of the general conscription, concerns us all: May a Christian remain a Christian andstill disobey the direct command of Christ; may he promise to conduct himself in a manner directly opposed to the doctrine of Christ, by entering into military service and putting himself in training to be a murderer?
The questions are put plainly and directly, and would seem to call for plain and direct answers. But no; my book has been received just as all previous denunciations have been, those denunciations of the clergy who have deviated from the law of Christ, with which history abounds since the time of Constantine the Great. Many words have been expended in noting the errors of my interpretation of this or that passage of the Scriptures, of how wrong I am in referring to the Trinity, the Redemption, and the Immortality of the soul, but never a word of that vital question: How are we to reconcile those lessons of forgiveness, humility, patience, and love toward all mankind, our neighbors as well as our enemies, taught us by the Teacher, which dwell in the heart of each of us, with the necessities caused by military aggressions against our own countrymen as well as against foreigners? All that deserves the name of a response to these questions may be summed up under five headings. I have endeavored to bring together in this book not only the criticisms upon my book, but everything that has ever been written on this subject.
The first criticisms with which I deal come mostly from men of high position, either in Church or State, who feel quite sure that no one will venture to combat their assertions; should any one make the attempt, they would never hear the arguments. These men, intoxicated for the most part by their authority, have forgotten that there is a Christianity in whose name they hold their places. They condemn as sectarian all that which is truly Christ-like in Christianity, while on the other hand, every text in both Old and New Testaments which can be wrested from its meaning so as to justify an anti-Christian or pagan sentiment—upon these they establish the foundation of Christianity. In order to confirm their statement that Christianity is not opposed to violence, these men generally quote, with the greatestassurance, equivocal passages from the Old and New Testaments, interpreting them in the most anti-Christian spirit—the death of Ananias and Sapphira, the execution of Simon the Sorcerer, etc. All of Christ's words that can possibly be misinterpreted are quoted in vindication of cruelty—the expulsion from the Temple, the words "... it shall be more tolerable in that day for Sodom than for that city" (Luke x. 12), and other passages. According to these men, a Christian is not at all obliged to be guided by the spirit of humility, forgiveness, and love of his enemies. It is useless to try to refute such a doctrine, because men who affirm it refute themselves, or rather they turn away from Christ Himself, to invent an ideal and a form of religion all their own, forgetful of Him in whose name both the Church and the offices they hold exist. If men but knew that the Church preaches an unforgiving, murder-loving, and belligerent Christ, they would not believe in that Church, and its doctrines would be defended by none.
The second method, somewhat more awkward, consists in affirming that though Christ did, in point of fact, teach us to turn the other cheek, and to share our cloak, and that these are indeed lofty moral laws, still ... the world abounds in evil-doers, and if these wretches are not subdued by force, the righteous will perish and the world will be destroyed. I met with this argument for the first time in St. John Chrysostom, and have called attention to its unfairness in my book entitled "My Religion."
This argument is groundless, because if we allow ourselves to look upon our fellow-men as evil-doers, outcasts (Raka), we sap the very foundations of the Christian doctrine, which teaches us that we, the children of the Heavenly Father, are brothers, and equal one to the other. In the second place, if the same Father had permitted us to use violence toward wrong-doers, as there is no infallible rule for distinguishing the good from the evil, every individual or every community might class its neighbors under the head of evil-doers, which is practically the case at the present time. Inthe third place, if it were possible to distinguish the righteous from the unrighteous, even then it would not be expedient in a Christian community to put to death, to cripple, or to imprison the evil-doers, as in such a community there would be no one to execute these sentences, since every man in his quality of Christian is forbidden to do violence to a malefactor.
The third mode of reply, more ingenious than the preceding ones, consists in affirming that while to obey the commandment of non-resistance is every Christian's duty, when the injury is a personal one, it ceases to be obligatory when harm is done to one's neighbor, and that in such an emergency a Christian is bound to break the commandment and use force against the evil-doer. This assertion is purely arbitrary, and one finds no justification for it throughout the whole body of the doctrine of Christ.
Such an interpretation is not only a narrow one, but actually amounts to a direct negation. If every man has the right to employ violence whenever his neighbor is threatened with danger, then the question becomes reduced to this: How may one define what is called danger to one's neighbor? If, however, my private judgment is to be arbiter in this matter, then any violence which I might commit on any occasion whatever could be excused by the declaration that my neighbor was in danger. Magicians have been burned, aristocrats and Girondists put to death, because the men in power considered them dangerous.
If this important condition, which destroys the significance of the commandment, ever entered into the thought of Christ, it would have been formulated somewhere. Not only is no such exception to the commandment to be found throughout the Teacher's life and lessons, but there is on the other hand a warning against an interpretation so false and misleading.
The error and the impracticability of such a definition is vividly illustrated in the Bible story of Caiaphas, who made use of this very same interpretation. He admitted that it was not well to put to death the innocent Jesus,but at the same time he perceived the existence of a danger, not for himself, but for all the people, and therefore declared it better for one man to die, rather than that a whole nation should perish.
And we have a still more explicit proof of the fallacy of this interpretation in the words addressed to Peter, when he tried to revenge by violence the attack upon Jesus (Matthew xxvi. 51). Peter was defending not himself, but his beloved and divine Master, and Christ distinctly forbade him, saying, "For all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword" (Matthew xxvi. 52). One can never justify an act of violence against one's fellow-man by claiming to have done it in defense of another who was enduring some wrong, because in committing an act of violence, it is impossible to compare the one wrong with the other, and to say which is the greater, that which one is about to commit, or the wrong done against one's neighbor. We release society from the presence of a criminal by putting him to death, but we cannot possibly know that the former might not have so changed by the morrow as to render the execution a useless cruelty. We imprison another, we believe him a dangerous man; but no later than next day this very man may have ceased to be dangerous, and his imprisonment has become unnecessary. I see a robber, a man known to me, pursuing a girl; I hold a gun in my hand; I wound or perhaps kill the robber, and save the girl. The fact that I have either wounded or killed the robber remains, but I know not what might have happened had I not done so. And what a vast amount of harm must and does accrue from the assurance that a man feels of his right to provide against a possible calamity. Ninety-nine parts of the world's iniquity, from the Inquisition to the bomb-throwing of the present day, and the execution of tens of thousands of political criminals, so called, result from this very assurance.
The fourth and still more ingenious reply to this question of the Christian's responsibility in regard to the commandment of Christ concerning non-resistanceto evil by violence, consists in asserting that this commandment is not denied, but acknowledged, like all the others; it is only the special significance attributed to it by sectarians that is denied. Our critics declare that the views of Garrison, Ballou, and Dymond, as well as those professed by the Quakers, the Shakers, the Mennonites, the Moravians, the Waldenses, Albigenses, Bogomiles, and Paulicians, are those of bigoted sectarians. This commandment, they say, has the importance, no more and no less, of all the others; and one who through weakness has transgressed against any of the commandments, whether that of non-resistance or another, does not for that cause cease to be a Christian, provided his creed be true.
This is a very cunning and persuasive subterfuge, especially for those who are willing to be deceived, reducing the direct negation of the commandment to its accidental infraction. One has, however, but to compare the attitude of the clergy toward this or any of the other commandments which they do acknowledge, to be convinced that it is quite different from their attitude toward this one.
The commandment against fornication they acknowledge without reservation, and in no case will they ever admit that this sin is not an evil. There are no circumstances mentioned by the clergy when the commandment against fornication may be broken, and they always insist that the occasions for this sin must be avoided. But in regard to non-resistance it is a very different matter. Every clergyman believes that there are circumstances wherein this commandment may be held in abeyance, and they preach accordingly. So far from teaching their parishioners to avoid the temptations to this sin, chief among which is the oath of allegiance, they take the oath themselves. Clergymen have never been known to advocate the breaking of any other commandment; but in regard to the doctrine of non-resistance, they distinctly teach that this prohibition must not be taken too literally, that so far from always obeying this commandment, one should on occasionfollow the opposite course—that is, one should sit in judgment, should go to war, and should execute criminals. Thus in most of the cases where non-resistance to evil by violence is in question, the preachers will be found to advocate disobedience. Obedience to this commandment, they say, is difficult, and can only be practicable in a state of society whose members are perfect. But how is it to become less difficult, when its infraction is not only condoned, but directly encouraged, when legal tribunals, prisons, the implements of warfare, the cannon and muskets, armies and battles, receive the blessing of the Church? Therefore this reply is not true. Evidently the statement that this commandment is acknowledged by the clergy to be of equal validity with the other commandments cannot be true.
Clergymen do not really acknowledge it, yet, unwilling to admit this fact, they try by evasion to conceal their non-acknowledgment.
Such is the fourth method of answering.
The fifth, more ingenious than its predecessor, is the popular one of all. It consists in quietly evading reply, pretending that the question was solved ages ago, in a cogent and satisfactory manner, and that it would be a waste of words to reopen the subject. This method is employed by all the more cultured authors, who, if they made answer at all, would feel themselves bound to be logical. Realizing that the inconsistency between that doctrine of Christ, of which we make a verbal profession, and the scheme of our daily lives, is not to be solved by words, and that the more it is talked the more glaring this inconsistency becomes, they evade it with more or less circumspection, pretending that the question of union between Christianity and the law of violence has either been already solved, or else that it cannot be solved at all.[2]
Most of my clerical critics have made use of this method. I might quote scores of criticisms of this class, wherein everything is discussed except the vital principle of the book. As a characteristic specimen of these criticisms I will quote from an article by that well-known and scholarly Englishman, the writer and preacher, Canon Farrar, who, like so many other learned theologians, is an expert in the art of silently ignoring and evading a statement. The article appeared in an American magazine,The Forum, for October, 1888.
After briefly but conscientiously setting forth the subject-matter of my book, Farrar says:—"After repeated search the central principle of all Christ's teaching seemed to him [Tolstoï] to be, 'Resist not evil' or 'him that is evil.' He came to the conclusion that a coarse deceit had been palmed upon the world when these words were held by civil society to be compatible with war, courts of justice, capital punishment, divorce, oaths, national prejudice, and indeed with most of the institutions of civil and social life. He now believes that the Kingdom of God would come if all men kept these five commandments, which he holds to be the pith of all Christ's teaching—viz.: 1. Live in peace with all men. 2. Be pure. 3. Take no oaths. 4. Never resist evil. 5. Renounce national distinctions.... Most of the Bible does not seem to him to reflect the spirit of Christ at all, though it has been brought into artificial and unwarrantable connection with it. Hence he rejects the chief doctrines of the Church: that of the Atonement by blood, that of the Trinity, that of the descent of the Holy Ghost upon the Apostles and the transmission to the priesthood by laying on of hands, that of the need of the seven sacramentsfor salvation. He sets aside the authority of Paul, of councils, of fathers, popes, or patriarchs, and believes himself to be the immediate disciple of Christ alone.... But we are compelled to ask, Is this interpretation of Christ a true one? Are all men bound, or is any man bound, to act as this great writer has done?"
One might naturally expect that this vital question, which alone could induce a man to write a dissertation on the book, would be answered either by admitting that my interpretation of the doctrine of Christ is correct and should be accepted, or declaring that it is erroneous, proving his point, and offering a more correct interpretation of the words which I have misconstrued. But no; Farrar merely expresses his belief that "though actuated by the noblest sincerity, Count Tolstoï has been misled by partial and one-sided interpretations of the meaning of the gospel and the mind and will of Christ." In what this error consists he does not explain, but says: "To enter into the proof of this is impossible in this article, for I have already exceeded the space at my command." And concludes with equanimity: "Meanwhile the reader who feels troubled lest it should be his duty also to forsake all the conditions of his life, and to take up the position and work of a common laborer, may rest for the present on the principle, 'Securus judicat orbis terrarum.' With few and rare exceptions the whole of Christendom, from the days of the Apostles down to our own, has come to the firm conclusion that it was the object of Christ to lay down great eternal principles, but not to disturb the bases and revolutionize the institutions as well as all inevitable conditions. Were it my object to prove how untenable is the doctrine of communism, based by Count Tolstoï upon the divine paradoxes, which can be interpreted on only historical principles in accordance with the whole method of the teaching of Jesus, it would require an ampler canvas than I have here at my disposal." What a pity that he has no space! And, wonderful to relate, no one for fifteen centuries ever had the space to prove that the Christ whom we profess said one thing and meant another. And of coursethey could prove it if they would! But it is not worth while to prove what everybody knows to be true. It is enough to say: "Securus judicat orbis terrarum."
The criticisms of all educated believers are very much alike, because realizing as they must the danger of their position, they feel that their only safeguard lies in the hope that by sheltering themselves behind the authority and holiness of the Church, they may succeed in intimidating their readers, or diverting them from any idea of reading the Bible for themselves or using their own reason to solve this question. And this is a method that succeeds. To whom would it ever occur, indeed, that all these assurances, repeated with so much solemnity, century after century, by archdeacons, bishops, and archbishops, synods and popes, are a base falsehood, a calumny against the character of Christ, uttered for the purpose of assuring to themselves the money they require to lead a life of ease at the expense of others,—a falsehood and a calumny so palpable, particularly now, that the only chance of perpetuating this falsehood lies in holding the people in awe by their arrogance and audacity?
The very same thing has been going on of late years in the Bureau of military conscription. A number of aged officials, decorated and self-important, are at a table, a full-lengthed portrait of the Emperor with the mirror of justice before them, and, while leisurely chatting with each other, they write, call out the names, and give their orders. Here also, with a cross upon his breast, his hair blowing over his stole, a genial and venerable-looking priest dressed in a silk robe sits before a pulpit on which is placed a golden cross and a Bible with gilt clasps.
Ivan Petrov is called. An untidy, poorly clad youth, with a frightened expression, twitching muscles, and gleaming eyes that have a wandering look, steps forward, and in a hesitating, broken voice almost whispers: "I ... according to law ... as a Christian ... I ... I cannot...." "What is he muttering?" asks the chairman, impatiently, squinting and making an effort to hear, as he raises his head from the book. "Speak louder!"exclaims the colonel with the glittering shoulder-straps. "As a Christian ... I ... I...." And at last it becomes plain that the youth refuses to enter the military service because he is a Christian. "Don't talk nonsense! Measure him! Doctor, be kind enough to look at the measure. Will he do?" "He will do." "Holy Father, let him take the oath."
Not only is there no uneasiness on the part of the officers, but no one pays the least attention to the muttering of this frightened, pitiable youth. "They always mutter, and we are in a hurry; we have still so many more to receive."
The recruit tries to speak again. "This is against the law of Christ!" "Move on! move on! We know what is lawful and what is not! Move on! Father, make him understand! Next! Vassili Nikitin!"
Then the trembling youth is led away. Now which of all these men, the soldiers, Vassili Nikitin, the new man on the list, or any other witness of the scene,—which of these would ever dream that the unintelligible, broken utterances of the youth, silenced forthwith by the magistrates, embodied the real truth, while the loud, arrogant speeches of the officials, of the priest, uttered with authority, were actually false?
The same impression is made not only by Farrar's essay, but by all those grandiloquent sermons, reviews, and other publications which spring into existence on every side wherever truth is found combating the arrogance of falsehood. At once these orators and writers, subtle or bombastic, begin by dwelling upon points closely allied to the vital question, while preserving an artful silence on the question itself.
And this is the fifth and most efficacious method of accounting for the inconsistent attitude of ecclesiastical Christianity, which, while professing Christ, with its own life denies, and teaches others to deny, this doctrine in the practice of daily life. They who employ the first method of justification by boldly and distinctly affirming that Christ sanctioned violence, meaning wars and murders, put themselves beyond the pale of Christ's teaching;while they who defend themselves according to the second, third, and fourth methods soon become entangled, and are easily convicted of falsehood; but the fifth class, they who condescend not to reason, use their dignity for a screen, and insist that all these questions were settled ages ago, and need no reconsideration; they, apparently invulnerable, will maintain an undisputed authority, and men will repose under the hypnotic suggestion of Church and State, nor seek to throw off the yoke.
Such were the views of the clergy, of the professors of Christianity, in regard to my book, nor could anything different have been expected: they are in bonds to their inconsistent position, believers in the divinity of the Teacher, and yet discrediting His plainest words,—an inconsistency which they are bound to reconcile in some way. Hence it is not to be supposed that they would give unbiased opinions in regard to the essential question of that change which must take place in the life of one who makes a practical application of the doctrine of Christ to the existing order. From secular critics and free-thinkers, who acknowledge no obligation to the doctrine of Christ, and who might be expected to judge them without prejudice, I had prepared myself for criticisms such as these. I thought that the Liberals would look upon Christ not only as the founder of a religion involving personal salvation (as understood by the ecclesiastics and their followers), but, to use their own expression, as upon a reformer who tears down the old foundations to make way for new ones, and whose reformation is not even yet complete.
To set forth that conception of Christ and his doctrine has been the object of my book. But to my surprise not one out of the many criticisms, Russian or foreign, that have appeared, has accepted my view, or even discussed it from my standpoint, which is, that the teaching of Christ is a philosophical, moral, and social doctrine. (I use the phraseology of the scientists.) The Russian secular critics, conceiving the sum and substance of my book to be a plea in favor of resistance to evil, and taking it for granted (probably for the sake of argument) that thedoctrine forbade any struggle whatsoever against the wrong, made a virulent, and for several years, most successful attack upon this doctrine, proving that the teaching of Christ must be false, since it forbids any effort to overcome evil. Their refutations of this so-calledfalsedoctrine had all the more chance of success, because the censorship had prohibited, not only the book itself, but also all articles in its defense, and consequently they knew beforehand that their arguments could not be assailed.
It is worthy of note that here in Russia, where not a word against the Holy Scriptures is allowed by the censor, for several years in succession the distinct and unmistakable commandment of Christ (Matthew v. 39) was criticized, distorted, condemned, and mocked at in all the leading periodicals.
The Russian secular critics, apparently ignorant of all that had been said and done in regard to non-resistance to evil, seemed to think that I had invented the principle myself, and attacked it as if it were my idea, first distorting and then refuting it with great ardor, bringing forward time-worn arguments that had been analyzed and refuted over and over again, showing that the oppressed and downtrodden should be defended by violence, and declaring the doctrine of Christ concerning non-resistance to be immoral.
All the significance that the Russian critics saw in Christ's preaching was, that it seemed expressly intended to hamper them in their struggles against what they believe to be an evil in the present day. Thus it came about that the principle of non-resistance to evil by violence was attacked from two opposite camps; the Conservatives, because this principle interfered with them in their efforts to suppress sedition, and as opposed to all persecution, as well as to the punishment of death; the Revolutionists, because this principle forbade them to resist the oppression of the Conservatives, or to attempt their overthrow. The Conservatives were indignant that the doctrine of non-resistance to evil by violence should thwart an energetic suppression of revolutionary elements, which might imperil the welfare ofa nation; the Revolutionists in the like manner were indignant because this same doctrine averted the downfall of the Conservatives, who, in their opinion, imperil the welfare of the people. It is a circumstance worthy of notice that the Revolutionists should attack the principle of non-resistance to evil by violence; for of all the doctrines dreaded by despotism, and dangerous to its existence, this is the chief one. Since the creation of the world the opposite principle of resistance by violence has been the corner-stone of every despotic institution, from the Inquisition to the fortress of Schlüsselburg.
Moreover, the Russian critics declared that the progress of civilization itself would be checked were this commandment of non-resistance applied to everyday life, by which they mean the civilization of Europe, which is, according to them, the model for all mankind.
Such was the substance of Russian criticism.
Foreign critics start from the same premises, but their deductions differ somewhat from those of the Russian critics; not only are they less captious and more cultivated, but their modes of analysis are not the same.
In discussing my book, and more particularly the gospel doctrine as it is expressed in the Sermon on the Mount, the foreign critics affirmed that the latter could not really be called Christian doctrine (they believe that the Christian doctrine is embodied in Catholicism or Protestantism), and that the precepts of the Sermon on the Mount are only a series of the delightful but unpractical visions of the "charmant docteur," as Renan says, suited to the artless, half-civilized Galileans who lived 1800 years ago, or to the Russian and semi-barbarous peasants, to Sutaev and Bondarev, and to the Russian mystic Tolstoï, but which are by no means adapted to the lofty plane of European culture. The foreign secular critics, in a courteous way, in order not to wound my feelings, have endeavored to show that my belief that mankind may be guided by so simple a doctrine as the Sermon on the Mount arises partly from my limited knowledge of history and ignorance of the many vain attempts to carry out in daily life the principlesof the Sermon on the Mount, which history tells us have always proved an utter failure, and partly from my misconception of the significance of our modern civilization, with its Krupp guns, its smokeless powder, its African colonization, its Home Rule, its parliaments, journalism, strikes, and constitutions, not to mention the Eiffel Tower,—on which the entire population of Europe is at present reposing.
Thus wrote Vogüé, thus wrote Leroy-Beaulieu, Matthew Arnold, the American writer Talmage, who is also a popular preacher, the free-thinker Ingersoll, and others.
"The teaching of Christ is no longer practicable, because it does not suit our industrial times," Ingersoll ingenuously remarks, and thereby he no doubt gives utterance to the views which this cultured generation holds in regard to the doctrine of Christ. The doctrine has no affinity with the industrialism of the present age, as though industrialism were a sacred institution which can suffer no change. A drunkard might thus reply to one who calls upon him to be sober, that a man in liquor finds such advice absurd.
The arguments of all secular writers, Russian as well as foreign, however varied in form or expression, are substantially alike; they all agree in misapprehending the doctrine of Christ, with its outcome of non-resistance, and in affirming that it is not expedient because it implies a need of a change of life.
The doctrine of life is inexpedient, because if we lived up to it our lives could not go on as they have done hitherto; in other words, if we were to begin to live like righteous men, as Christ bids us, we must abandon the wicked ways to which we have grown accustomed. So far from discussing the question of non-resistance of evil by violence, the very mention of the fact that the precepts of Christ include such a command is considered as sufficient proof of the inexpediency of the whole doctrine.
And yet it would seem necessary to offer some solution of this question, as it lies at the root of all that most interests us.
The question is how to settle these differences among men, when the very action that is considered evil by one man is considered good by another. It is no answer to say that I think an action evil although my adversary may consider it a good one. There are but two ways of solving the difficulty. One is to find a positive and indisputable standard of evil, and the other is to obey the command, resist not evil by violence.
Men have tried to achieve the former from the earliest historical ages, and we all know with what unsuccessful results.
The second solution—that is, the non-resistance of what we must consider evil until we have found a universal standard: that solution has been suggested by Christ himself.
It might be thought that the solution suggested by Christ was the wrong one, and a better one might be substituted after the standard had been found which is to define evil once and for all. One might not know of the existence of such a question, as is the case with the barbarous races, but no one can be permitted to pretend, like the learned critics of the Christian doctrine, that no such question does exist, or that the recognition of the right of certain individuals or groups of individuals, and still less of one's own right, to define evil, and to resist it by violence, decides the question, because we all know that such a recognition does not decide it at all, for there are always persons who will refuse to admit that such a prerogative can exist.
And yet this very acknowledgment, that anything that seems evil to us is evil, or else an utter misconception of the question, affords a basis for the conclusions of secular critics concerning the doctrine of Christ; hence not only the utterances of the clerical, but also those of the secular critics in regard to my book, have made it evident to me that most men totally fail to comprehend either the doctrine of Christ, or the questions which it is intended to decide.
The meaning of the Christian doctrine, which is clear for the minority, has become unintelligible for the majority of men—The cause of it is the false conception of Christianity and the misguided assurance of believers, as well as of unbelievers, that they apprehend it—The apprehension of Christianity for believers is concealed by the Church—The apprehension of Christianity—Its essence and its unlikeness to the pagan doctrines—Misunderstood at first, it has grown clear to those who embrace it owing to its correspondence with the truth—Contemporaneously with it arose the assertion that the true meaning of the doctrine was understood, and had been confirmed by miraculous transmission—The Council of Disciples according to the Acts—Authoritative and miraculous assertion of the true conception of Christ's doctrine has found its logical conclusion in the acknowledgment of the Credo and the Church—The Church could not have been established by Christ—Definition of Churches according to the Catechism—There are various Churches, ever antagonistic to one another—Where is heresy?—The work of Mr. Arnold concerning heresies—Heresies are the sign of activity in the Churches—Churches always divide mankind, and are ever inimical to Christianity—In what the activity of the Russian Church consists—Matthew xxiv. 23—The Sermon on the Mount, or the Credo—The Orthodox Church conceals from the people the true meaning of Christianity—The same is done by other Churches—All the contemporary external conditions are such that they destroy the doctrine of the Church, and therefore Churches use all their efforts to defend it.
The meaning of the Christian doctrine, which is clear for the minority, has become unintelligible for the majority of men—The cause of it is the false conception of Christianity and the misguided assurance of believers, as well as of unbelievers, that they apprehend it—The apprehension of Christianity for believers is concealed by the Church—The apprehension of Christianity—Its essence and its unlikeness to the pagan doctrines—Misunderstood at first, it has grown clear to those who embrace it owing to its correspondence with the truth—Contemporaneously with it arose the assertion that the true meaning of the doctrine was understood, and had been confirmed by miraculous transmission—The Council of Disciples according to the Acts—Authoritative and miraculous assertion of the true conception of Christ's doctrine has found its logical conclusion in the acknowledgment of the Credo and the Church—The Church could not have been established by Christ—Definition of Churches according to the Catechism—There are various Churches, ever antagonistic to one another—Where is heresy?—The work of Mr. Arnold concerning heresies—Heresies are the sign of activity in the Churches—Churches always divide mankind, and are ever inimical to Christianity—In what the activity of the Russian Church consists—Matthew xxiv. 23—The Sermon on the Mount, or the Credo—The Orthodox Church conceals from the people the true meaning of Christianity—The same is done by other Churches—All the contemporary external conditions are such that they destroy the doctrine of the Church, and therefore Churches use all their efforts to defend it.
The knowledge which I obtained after the publication of my book in regard to the views which the minority of mankind have held, and still hold, concerning the doctrine of Christ in its simplicity and real significance, as well as the criticisms of clerical and secular writers, who deny the possibility of apprehending it in its actual meaning, have convinced me that while the minority has not only always possessed a true conception of this doctrine, and that this conception has grown steadily more and more clear, for the majority, on the other hand, its sense has become more and more vague, reaching at last such a degree of obscurity that men fail to understand the simplest commands expressed in the Bible, even when couched in the plainest possible language.
The inability that prevails at the present time to comprehend the doctrine of Christ in its true, simple, andactual meaning, when its light has penetrated into the remotest recesses of the human understanding, when, as Christ said, they proclaim from the roofs that which He whispered in the ear; when this doctrine penetrates every phase of human life, domestic, economical, civil, politic, and international,—this failure to apprehend it would be inexplicable, if one had not discovered the reasons for it.
One of the reasons is, that believers as well as unbelievers are perfectly sure that they long ago understood the doctrine of Christ so completely, unquestionably, and finally, that it can have no other meaning but the one which they attribute to it. That is because the tradition of this false conception has been handed down for ages,—and therefore its misconception.
The most powerful stream of water cannot add one single drop to a vessel that is already full.
One might succeed in explaining to the dullest of men the most difficult of problems, if he had no previous conception in regard to them; but it is impossible to explain to the cleverest man even the simplest matters, if he is perfectly sure that he knows everything about it.
The Christian doctrine appears to men of the present times to be a doctrine of that kind, known for ages, and never to be questioned in its most trivial details, and which is susceptible of no other interpretation.
At the present time Christianity is conceived by those who profess the doctrines of the Church as a supernatural, miraculous revelation of all that is expressed in the Credo; while unbelievers look upon it as an affair of the past, a manifestation of the demand of humanity for a belief in the supernatural, as an historical fact, which has found its fullest expression in Catholicism, Orthodoxy, and Protestantism, and which has for us no vital meaning. For the believers the real significance of the doctrine is concealed by the Church; for the unbelievers it is hidden by science.
Let us begin by considering the former.
Eighteen hundred years ago, in the pagan world of Rome, there appeared a strange and novel doctrine,unlike any of its predecessors, which was ascribed to the man Christ.
It was a doctrine wholly new in form as well as in substance, both for the Hebrew world, from whose midst it had sprung, as well as for the Roman world, in whose midst it was preached and promulgated.
Among the accurately defined religious precepts of the Jews, where, according to Isaiah, there was precept upon precept, and among the highly perfected Roman legislative assemblies, there appeared a doctrine that not only repudiated all deities, all fear of them, all augury and all faith in it, but also denied the necessity for any human institutions whatsoever. Instead of the precepts and creeds of former times, this doctrine presented only an image of interior perfection, truth, and love in the person of Christ, and the attainment of this interior perfection possible for men, and, as a consequence, of the outward perfection foretold by the prophets: the coming of the Kingdom of God, when all enmity shall cease, when every man will hear the word of the Lord and be united with another in brotherly love, and when the lion and the lamb shall lie down together. Instead of threats of punishment for the non-observance of the commandments of the old laws, religious no less than secular, instead of tempting men by promise of rewards to observe these laws, this doctrine attracted mankind only by proclaiming itself to be the truth.
"If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself."—John vii. 17.
"Which of you convinceth me of sin? And if I say the truth, why do ye not believe me?"—John viii. 46.
"But now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth...."—John viii. 40.
"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."—John viii. 32.
God must be worshiped in truth. All the doctrine will be made plain by the Spirit of Truth. Do as I command you, and you will know whether what I say is the truth.
No evidence was brought to prove the doctrine, except the truth and its harmony therewith. The whole substance consisted in learning the truth and in following its guidance, drawing nearer and nearer to it in the affairs of everyday life.
According to this doctrine, there is no mode of action that can justify a man or make him righteous; as regards interior perfection we have only the image of truth, in the person of Christ, to win our hearts, and outward perfection is expressed by a realization of the Kingdom of God. In order to fulfil the doctrine it needs but to take Christ for our model, and to advance in the direction of interior perfection by the road which has been pointed out to us, as well as in that of exterior perfection, which is the establishment of the Kingdom of God. The degree of human happiness, whether it be more or less, depends, according to this doctrine, not on the degree of perfection at which it arrives, but on the comparative rate of progress toward that perfection.
The advance toward perfection of Zacchæus the publican, of the adulteress, of the thief on the cross, is, according to this doctrine, better than the stagnation of the righteous Pharisee. The shepherd rejoices more over the one sheep which was lost and is found than over the ninety and nine which are in the fold. The prodigal returned, the piece of money which was lost and is found, is more precious unto God than that which was never lost.
According to this doctrine, each state is but a step on the road toward the unattainable interior and exterior perfection, and therefore it has no significance in itself. The progress of this movement toward perfection is its merit; the least cessation of this movement means the cessation of good works.
"Let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth," and "No man, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God." "Rejoice not that the spirits are subject unto you; but rather rejoice, because your names are writtenin heaven." "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness."
The fulfilment of the doctrine lies in a continual progress toward the attainment of a higher truth, and in the growing realization of that truth within one's self, by means of an ever increasing love; as well as in a more and more keen realization of the Kingdom of God in the world around us. It is evident that the doctrine that appeared in the midst of the Hebrew and pagan world could not be accepted by the majority of men, who lived a life so totally unlike the one prescribed by this new doctrine; and even those who did accept it could not comprehend its full meaning, because of its contradiction of all former ideas.
It is only through a series of misapprehensions, errors, one-sided explanations, corrected and supplemented by generations of men, that the meaning of the Christian doctrine has become more and more plain. The Christian world-conception and that of the Hebrew and pagan peoples mutually acted and reacted upon each other, and the Christian principle being the more vital, it penetrated deeper and deeper into the Hebrew and pagan principles that had outlived their usefulness, and became more clearly defined, freeing itself from the spurious admixtures imposed upon it. Men understood its meaning better and better, and realized it more and more unmistakably in life.
The older the world grew, the more lucid became its apprehension of Christianity, as must always be the case with any doctrine relating to human life.
Successive generations rectified the mistakes of the preceding ones and approached nearer and nearer to the apprehension of its true meaning. Thus it was from the very beginning of Christianity. And it was then that certain men came to the front who affirmed that the only true interpretation was the one which they themselves proclaimed, adducing the miracles as a proof thereof.
This was the principal cause of its misapprehensionin the first place, and of its complete perversion in the second.
The doctrine of Christ was supposed to be transmitted to mankind not like any other truth, but in a peculiar, supernatural manner; hence they propose to prove its authority, not because it satisfies the demands of reason and of human nature in general, but because of the miraculous character of its transmission, which is supposed to be an incontrovertible proof of the validity of its conception. This idea sprang from a misconception, and the result was that it became impossible to understand it.
It originated at the very beginning, when the doctrine was so imperfectly understood and often so erroneously construed; as, for example, in the Gospels and the Acts. The less men understood it, the more mysterious it appeared, and the greater need was there for visible proof of its authenticity. The rule for doing unto others as you would wish them to do unto you, called for no miraculous proof, neither did it require faith, because the proposition is convincing in itself, both to reason and to human nature. But the proposition that Christ was God needed miraculous testimony.
The more mystical grew the apprehension of Christ's teaching, the more the miraculous element entered into it; and the more miraculous it became, the farther it was from its original meaning; and the more complicated, mystical, and remote from its original meaning it came to be, the more necessary it was to declare its infallibility, and the less intelligible it became.
From the very beginning of Christianity one could see from the Gospels, the Acts, and the Epistles how the misapprehension of the doctrine called forth the necessity of proofs—miraculous and beyond human intelligence.
It dated from the time mentioned in the Acts, when the disciples went up to Jerusalem to consult with the elders in regard to the question that had arisen as to whether the uncircumcised and those who abstained not from the meat offered to idols should be baptized.
The very manner of asking the question showed that those who discussed it misconceived the doctrine of Christ, who rejected all external rites, such as the washing of the feet, purification, fasts, and the Sabbath. It is said distinctly: "Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the man." And therefore the question in regard to the baptism of those not circumcised could only arise among men who, loving their Teacher and with the intuitive perception of the grandeur of his doctrine, could not as yet comprehend its exact meaning. And so it was.
And in proportion as the members of the assembly failed to comprehend the doctrine, did they stand in need of an outward affirmation of their incomplete conception. And in order to decide the question, whose very proposal proves the misconception of the doctrine, it was that in this assembly for the first time, according to the description given in the Acts, were uttered those awful words, productive of so much harm, by which the truth of certain propositions has been for the first time confirmed: "For it seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us;" that is to say, it was a declaration that the truth of what they said was witnessed by a miraculous participation of the Holy Ghost, that is—of God.
But the assertion that the Holy Ghost—that is to say, God—had spoken through the apostles, in its turn required proof. And therefore it became necessary to declare that on the fiftieth day the Holy Ghost, in the shape of fiery tongues, descended on those who had made this assertion. [In the description the descent of the Holy Ghost precedes the council, but the Acts were written much later than either.] But the descent of the Holy Ghost must also be proved, though it would be difficult to say why a fiery tongue hovering over a man's head should be a proof of the truth of what he says any more than the miracles, the cures, the resurrections, the martyrdoms, and all the rest of those persuasive miracles with which the Acts are filled, and which serve rather to repel than to convince one of the truth of the Christiandogmas. The results of these methods were such that the more pains they took to confirm their statements, accumulating stories of miracles, the more the doctrine itself deviated from its original meaning, and the less intelligible it became.
Thus it was from the beginning of the Christian era, and thus it continued to increase, until in its own time it has reached its logical consummation in the dogma of transubstantiation, the infallibility of the Pope, the bishops, and Scriptures, which is something utterly incomprehensible and nonsensical, requiring a blind faith, not in God or Christ, nor even in the doctrine, but a faith either in one person, as in Catholicism, or in many persons, as in Orthodoxy, or in a book, as in Protestantism. The more widely spread Christianity became, and the larger the number of uninstructed men it received, the less it was understood, the more the infallibility of its conceptions was insisted upon, and the more slender grew the possibility of understanding its true meaning. Already, about the time of Constantine, the entire conception of the doctrine amounted to therésuméformulated by the temporal power,—the outcome of discussions that took place in the council,—to the Credo, in which it is said: I believe in this and that, etc., and at the end, "in the one holy, Apostolic and Œcumenical Church," that is, in the infallibility of the persons who constitute it; so that it all amounted to this, that a man believed not in God, nor in Christ, as they revealed themselves to him, but in that which was believed by the Church.
But the Church is holy, and was founded by Christ. God could not allow men to interpret His doctrine as they chose, and therefore He established the Church. All these propositions are so unjust and unfounded, that one is actually ashamed to refute them. In no place, and in no manner whatsoever, save in the assertion of the Church, is it seen that either God or Christ can ever have founded anything like the Church in its ecclesiastical sense. There is a distinct and evident warning in the New Testament against the Church, as an outside authority, in the passage which bids the disciples ofChrist call no man father or master. But nowhere is there a word in regard to the establishment of what the ecclesiastics call the Church. The word "church" is used in the New Testament twice, once in speaking of the assembly which is to decide a dispute; the second time in connection with the obscure words in regard to the rock, Peter, and the gates of hell. From these two references, where the word is used only in the sense of an assembly, men have derived the institution which we recognize at present under the same of the Church.
But Christ could by no means have founded a church, that is, what we understand by that word at the present time, because nothing like our Church, as we know it in these days, with the sacraments, the hierarchy, and above all the establishment of infallibility, was to be found either in the words of Christ, or in the ideas of the men of those times.
Because men have called something which has been established since, by the same word that Christ used in regard to another thing, by no means gives them a right to assert that Christ founded only one true Church.
Moreover, if Christ had it in his mind to establish a church which was to be the depository of the whole doctrine and faith, He would surely have expressed this so plainly and clearly, and would have given, apart from all stories of miracles which are repeated with every variety of superstition, such signs as would leave no doubt as to its authenticity; yet this was not the case, and now, as always, one finds different institutions, each one calling itself the only true Church.
The Catholic catechism says: "L'Eglise est la société des fidèles établie par N.-S. Jésus-Christ, répandue sur toute la terre et soumise à l'autorité de pasteurs légitimes, principalement notre S.-P. le pape,"—meaning by "pasteurs légitimes,"[3]a human institution made up of a number of men bound together by a certain organization of which the Pope is the head.
The Orthodox catechism says: "Our Church is a society established on earth by Jesus Christ, united by the divine doctrine and the sacraments under the government and direction of a hierarchy established by the Lord,"—those words, "established by the Lord," signifying a Greek hierarchy, composed of certain men who are ordained to fill certain places.
The Lutheran catechism says: "Our Church is a holy Christian society of believers under Christ, our Master, in which the Holy Ghost, by means of the Bible and the sacraments, offers, communicates, and dispenses the divine salvation,"—meaning by that, that the Catholic Church is in error, and has fallen away from grace, and that the genuine tradition has been preserved in Protestantism.
For Catholics the divine Church is identified with the Pope and the Roman hierarchy. For the Orthodox it is identified with the institution of the Eastern and Russian hierarchy.[4]For Lutherans the divine Church signifies a congregation of men who acknowledge the Bible and the Lutheran catechism.
When those who belong to any one of the existing churches speak of the beginnings of Christianity, they generally use the word "church" in the singular, as though there had never been but one church. This is quite unfair. The Church, which as an institution declares itself to be the depository of infallible truth, did not arise until there were already two.
While the faithful still agreed among themselves, the congregation was united, and there was no occasion for calling itself a church. It was only when it separated into two hostile parties that each party felt obliged to assert its possession of the truth by claiming infallibility.
During the course of the controversies between the two parties, while each one claimed infallibility for itself and declared its opponent heretical, arose the idea of the one church.
We know that there was a church in the year 51, which granted the admission of the uncircumcised, and we know it only because there was another, the Jewish Church, which denied their right to membership.
If at the present time there is a Catholic Church which asserts its infallibility, it is because there are other churches, namely, the Greek Orthodox and the Lutheran, each one asserting its own infallibility, and thus disowning all other churches. Hence the idea of one church is but the product of the imagination, containing not a shadow of reality.
It is an historical fact that there have existed, and still continue to exist, numerous bodies, each one of whom maintains itself to be the true Church established by Christ, declaring at the same time that all the others who call themselves churches are heretical and schismatic.
The catechisms of those churches which possess the greatest number of communicants, the Catholic, the Orthodox, and the Lutheran, express this in the plainest language.
The Catholic catechism says: "Quels sont ceux qui sont hors de l'Eglise? Les infidèles, hérétiques, etschismatiques."[5]By schismatics it means the so-called Orthodox, and by heretics the Lutherans; so that, according to the Catholic catechism, the Church is composed only of Catholics.
In the so-called Orthodox catechism it says: "The name Church of Christ means only the Orthodox Church, which has remained in perfect union with the universal Church. As to the Roman Church and the Protestant creeds" (they are not even called a church), "they cannot belong to the one true Church, for they have separated themselves from it."
According to this definition the Catholics and the Protestants are outside of the Church, and only the Orthodox are in it.
The Lutheran catechism says: "Die wahre Kirche wird darein erkannt, das in ihr das Wort Gottes lauter und rein ohne Menschenzusetzung gelehrt und die Sacramenten treu nach Christ Einsetzung gewartet werden."[6]
According to this definition, those who have added anything whatsoever to the teaching of Christ and the apostles, as the Catholic and Greek Churches have done, are outside the Church, and the Lutherans alone are in it.
The Catholics assert that the Holy Ghost dwells perpetually with their hierarchy; the Orthodox assert that the same Holy Ghost resides also with them; the Arians claim that the Holy Ghost manifests itself to them (and they have the same right to assert this as have the prevailing religions of the present day); all the denominations of Protestants—Lutherans, Reformed Presbyterians, Methodists, Swedenborgians, and Mormons—assert that the Holy Ghost manifests itself only with them.
If the Catholics assert that the Holy Ghost during the separation of the Arian and Greek Churches withdrew from the separating churches and remained in the onetrue Church, then the Protestants of any denomination whatsoever may assert with as much right that during the separation of their Church from the Catholic, the Holy Ghost left the Catholic Church and entered into their own. And this is exactly what they do say. Every church professes to derive its creed by an unbroken tradition from Christ and the apostles. And certainly every Christian creed derived from Christ must have reached the present generation through tradition of some sort. But this is no proof that any one of these traditions embodies infallible truth, to the exclusion of all others.
Every branch proceeds from the root without interruption; but the fact that each one comes from one root, by no means proves it to be the only branch. And so it is in regard to the churches. The proofs which each church offers of its apostolic succession, and the miracles which are to prove its authenticity, are the same in every case; consequently there is but one exact definition of what is called a church (not the imaginary church which we may desire, but the actual church which has really existed). The Church is a body of men which lays claim to the exclusive possession of the truth. All these various societies which were afterward transformed by State authority into powerful organizations have really been the chief obstacles to the diffusion of true Christianity. It could not be otherwise: for the principal characteristic which distinguishes the doctrine of Christ from those of earlier times is that the men who accepted it strove to understand and to fulfil it more and more perfectly; whereas the doctrine of the Church affirmed that it was already thoroughly understood and also fulfilled.
However strange this may seem to us, reared as we have been in the false doctrine of the Church, as if it were a Christian institution, and taught to despise heresy, it is nevertheless in that which men call heresy that true progress, that is, true Christianity, was manifested, and it only ceased to be such when these heresies were checked, and it was, so to speak, stamped with the immutable imprint of the Church.
What, then, is heresy? Read all the theological works which treat of heresies, of that subject which above all others calls for an exact definition, for every theologian speaks of the true doctrine in the midst of the false ones by which it is surrounded, and nowhere will you find even the shadow of a definition of heresy.
As an instance of the complete absence of the definition of what is understood by the word heresy, we will quote the opinion of a learned Christian historian, E. de Pressensé in "Histoire du Dogme," with its epigraph, "Ubi Christus, ibi Ecclesia" (Paris, 1869). This is what he says in his preface (p. 4):—
"I know that they dispute our right to qualify thus" (that is, to pronounce them heretical) "the tendencies which were so actively resisted by the early Fathers. The very name of heresy seems an attack upon liberty of conscience and thought. We cannot share these scruples, for they would simply deprive Christianity of any individual character."
And having said that after Constantine the Church did in fact abuse its authority to describe the dissenters as heretics and to persecute them, he says, in speaking of the early ages of Christianity: "The Church is a free association; there is an advantage to be gained in separating from it. The controversy against error is based on feelings and ideas; no uniform body of dogma has as yet been adopted; differences of secondary importance appear in the East and West with perfect freedom; theology is not limited by unalterable formulas. If amid these varying opinions a common groundwork of faith is discerned, have we not the right to see in this, not a definite system devised and formulated by the representatives of a school, but faith itself in its most unerring instinct and spontaneous manifestation? If this very unanimity which is revealed in the essential matters of faith is found to be antagonistic to certain tendencies, have we not the right to infer that these tendencies disagreed with the fundamental principles of Christianity? Will not this supposition become a certainty if we recognize in the doctrine rejected by the Church the characteristicfeatures of one of the religions of the past? If we admit that gnosticism or ebionitism are legitimate forms of Christian thought, we must boldly declare that Christian thought does not exist, nor does it possess any specific characteristic by which it may be recognized. We should destroy it even while pretending to enlarge its limits. In the time of Plato no one would have dared to advocate a doctrine which would leave no room for the theory of ideas, and he would have been subjected to the well-deserved ridicule of Greece, if he attempted to make of Epicurus or of Zeno a disciple of the Academy. Let us then admit that if there exists a religion or a doctrine called Christianity, it may have its heresies."