THE SOUTHERN SLAV REVOLUTION.
In the beginning of the sixteenth century, a preacher of the Gospel in Trieste and Laibach,Primus Trubar, published successively the New Testament, Psalter and Catechism in the vulgar Slovene language. It produced the greatest imaginable excitement amongst the Slovene clergy and people. Christ and the Prophets spoke for the first time to the people in mountainous Carniola and Istria in a language that the people could understand. A minority of the clergy shared the popular excitement, whereas the majority was filled with fury against the innovator. But Trubar went his way courageously and continued to publish and republish the sacred books in the Slovene tongue. The affair had the usual ending: the violent persecution of the disturbers of thesemper eadem, and the victory of the persecuted cause. Trubar died in exile from his country, his books were burnt, the churches in which his books had been read pulled down, and the people who dared to speak with Christ and the Prophets in their native language terrified. At the same time, the Turks, after having devastated Serbia and Croatia, descended on Slovenia with the sword, burning pulling down, and terrifying everywhere.
Yet the great question of the ecclesiastical language could not be stifled. Even before and after Trubar, the Slavs on the Adriatic coast of Dalmatia and Istria insisted on the so-calledGlagolizaas the language which should be used in the divine service.Glagolizais not the common language of the Croats and Slovenes, but it is an old and sacred form of the same tongue. Rome opposed for a long time, declined afterwards, opposed or half-opposed again, till the question is to-day brought to a very acute phase. Pope Paul V permitted the use of theGlagolizain the Church. This permission was repeated by John VIII. and Urban VIII. There was printed aMissale Romanum, slavicâ linguâ, glagolitico charactere(Rome, 1893). Still, one can say that although it is theoretically allowed, it is practically forbidden. It is used to-day in some new places, like Krk, Cherso, Zara, Sebenico, in Senj, Spalato, etc. But the fact remains that the Southern Slavs, or the Slavs generally, do not like the Latin language in the divine service. For the Slav conscience it is something incongruous: the Latin language of Nero and the spirit of Christ. Every language is the bearer of a certain spirit. Latin is the bearer of a juristic and despotic spirit. Ranke said: "The Papal Church is a legacy of ancient Rome."[1]If this be true, the language doubtless was one of the principal reasons for it. With the language of the Cæsars also crept into the Church the spirit of the Cæsars. This spirit was brought to a triumph in 1870 at the Council of the Vatican.
As the Croats and Slovenes protested against the language of the Cæsars, so they protested also against the triumphant spirit of the Cæsars in the Church. Bishop Strossmayer opposed the dogma of Papal Infallibility with a sincerity, obstinacy and eloquence which can be compared only with the spirit of the "golden age" of Christian history. In a letter to an old Catholic friend, he wrote: "It is nonsense to say that the Popes cannot live without these miserable rags called temporary possessions."[2]Is this not true apostolic language? Again he wrote: "What occurs to-day in Rome is obviously God's punishment and at the same time a providential way to those reforms which the Church needs in order to fulfil her mission with more success in the future than she has done till now."[3]And to Dr. Döllinger he confessed quite openly: "And what about my nation and its future? It seems to me quite certain that it will one day get rid of Roman despotism."[4]
THE SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION.
By its interference, religion can inspire science, and again science by its interference can purify religion. The most beautiful spectacle in human society is a priest
contributing to science and a scientist contributing to religion. The one-sided man is always an imperfect man; and an imperfect man as a teacher of perfection is a dangerous teacher for young generations.
Two Slavs, Nicolaus Copernicus, from Thorn, and Ruggiero Boscovich, from Ragusa, both Roman Catholic priests, were at the same time both ardent scientists. Copernicus postulated the heliocentric planetary system instead of the geocentric. This happened soon after Columbus made a great revolution in geographical science by discovering America. Some people thought the end of the Church had come after Copernicus' discovery that the sun and not the earth is the centre of the world. But Copernicus not only did not think so, but continued quietly in his vocation as a priest and dedicated his famous work to Pope Paul III.
Ruggiero Boscovich was not such a great discoverer as Copernicus; still he was one of the most distinguished scientific and philosophic minds in the eighteenth century. In his "Theoria philosophiæ naturalis," he tried to prove that bodies are composed not of a continuous material substance but rather of innumerable point-like structures or particles which are without any extension or divisibility. These elements are endowed with a repulsive force which can, under special circumstances (of distance), become attractive. Boscovich's philosophical system can be called a dynamisticatomismus.
Men with much smaller scientific successes sometimes consider it their duty to separate themselves from the Christian Church. But great men like Copernicus and Boscovich possessed in a high degree thenoble catholicitywhich should always exist between religion and science. For every great revolution in science meant also a great revolution in religion. A scientific revolution could never shake the realities of religion, but only the illusions of religion.
This was likewise the great result of the religious revolutions among the Slavs: not to shake the realities but the illusions of religion. Pride, superstitions and hatred have produced all the revolutions in the Church, the revolutions which meant for the Church real ventilation or punishment. These revolutions gave light and air to the Roman Church. Either the official books admit it, or they do not. No matter; the living Church admits it. She has built monuments to the prophets whom she killed or persecuted. No one is without a glorious monument—neither Huss nor Savonarola, neither Bruno nor Hieronymus of Prague, neither Trubar nor Strossmayer. The living Church always admired men of suffering and not men of pleasure. It was not the self-sufficient prelates who promoted the Christian cause, with their books and notes and discussions, but the sufferers, hungry and thirsty for the Kingdom of God. Christ was victorious over Nero in the Coliseum, but oftentimes afterwards Nero was victorious over Christ in the Church. But Nero must go, and Christ come. We have all pledged our word in our childhood to act so that Nero's spirit may decrease and Christ's spirit increase in the world. We cannot otherwise keep our pledge unless we adhere to thenoble catholicityof the Christian Church, which is the very kernel of vulgar and verbal catholicity. But we cannot grasp all the Christian centuries and generations behind us and bind our own life with what isnobleandcatholicin all of them unless we are men of suffering, intuition and action. And we can be all three.
WE ARE NOT ALONE IN THIS WORLD.
That is the principal feeling of the Slav soul: we are neither alone in this world nor destined for it. Whether I wander in the streets of London or stand in the green fields outside, I have always the same feeling of human loneliness and helplessness on one side, and the company of some overwhelming and invisible powers on the other. I say thefeelingand notthought, because I feel they touch me and I am unhappy because I cannot touch them. They seem to be like shadows, and still I am sure they are greater realities than I am. My life is dependent on theirs and their lives are connected with, but not dependent on, my life. My being is quite transparent to these higher intelligences, while their beings I can feel only in the most lucid moments of my life. The dreamy nature around me is pervaded by them, and my own life, I feel, is pervaded by them also. In some way they disindividualise me, but on the other hand they give me strength, light and inspiration.
What is the number of these powers surrounding us? "Many," answered Paganism. "One only," answered Judaism and Islam. "One in Trinity," answered Christianity.
So—Christianity is a viá mediabetween limitless Polytheism and absolute Monotheism. Professor Haeckel of Jena, in his hatred of Christianity, instanced Mohammedanism as a better religion and scornfully called the Christian religion "Polytheism." The definition is not altogether untrue. Paganism was not wholly false. The Christian dogma of the Trinity in relation to this world symbolically means unity in multitude. This dogma expresses a principle, an idea, rather than a number. As we cannot define God's being chemically, historically, psychologically, etc.,how can we hope to define Him mathematically? God is beyond numbers; He is beyond scientific research; beyond all expression.One in three, that is half-way to Polytheism and to Monotheism.One in threegives the substance of God's life and binds Him to His own work, the created world.
God's own life is dramatic internally, and externally (in relation to the world). That is the real meaning of the dogma of the Trinity. God is somehow one, and yet not one; rather He is a pluralistic unity. He can take part in the human drama and still remain the God of the Universe. He can suffer and still remain perfect. He can be omnipresent in the world and still not be wholly immersed in it. "I cannot understand it; it is a mystery to me," exclaimed Tolstoi. Certainly he could not understand it; who could? We cannot understand our own beings. Modern biology discovered that a human body consists of millions and millions of corpuscles, minute organic cells which live their life and go their way unconscious of the human person formed by themselves. New discoveries may open up new problems, but the ancient mysteries about everything in the world continue to be omnipresent. How could we have more knowledge about God except some few glances, some imperfect allusions, some symbolical combinations?
However, lacking a clear and perfect understanding, we still feel that we are not alone in the world. God is all round us like the atmosphere that webreathe. The more we try to escape from this atmosphere, the closer it seems to pervade us. Tolstoi felt this as strongly as the most orthodox Fathers of the Church. Yet his doctrines on God, vague and pantheistic as they are, slow to ascribe to God any traditional qualities and trying in vain to invent new ones—his doctrines on God are less comprehensible than the dogma of the Trinity—less comprehensible, less applicable, and unfruitful.
GOD ONLY IS GREAT
Not Napoleon, but God; not London, but God. Tolstoi analysed Napoleon's life and character, and found that he was no better or greater than thousands of other men who followed him. Why should London be called great? Yes, perhaps it can be called great compared with anything on earth, except God. I say,except God, because after a thousand years, i.e., after one God's day, God will be surely the same, and London? Will it be in existence a thousand years hence? Who knows? Walking in the streets of London I look round me and see nothing great except God.
The famous Russian literature from Gogol to Dostojevsky is the finest psychological analysis of men. The result of this analysis was: there exists no great man. No one is great: neither Shakespeare nor Napoleon, neither Peter the Great nor Kutuzov, neither the Russian landlords nor the Czar himself, neither Prince Bolkonsky nor Raskolnikov, neither Nero nor St. Paul, neither Beaconsfield nor Osman Pasha, neither Pope nor Patriarch, neither Dalai-Lama nor Sheik-ul-Islam. How could they be great since they must sleep, and eat, and be sick and disappointed, and despair, and die? A review was made by the Russian authors—a review of ancient and modern great men—and a verdict arrived at. For a thousand years Christian Russia kept silent and listened to the hymns to the ancient and modern great men, to the heroes whom they worshipped. She listened to the hymns and worship of the great men while she begrudged praise to the good and saintly and suffering men. Russia is called "Holy," not because she pretends to beholy, but because her ideal is holiness—not greatness but holiness. She first made use of the word in the nineteenth century. The poet Pushkin first used it, and he used it in the customary way, like Lord Byron, or Goethe, praising the great men, although still alluding here and there to the true Russian ideal—to the good and saintly man. But he spoke not in order to say a new, an original word to the world, but only to break the silence and to attract the attention of the world to Russia. He was the first of a series of preachers. He was listened to and applauded, but he said nothing new. After him followed the preachers: Gogol, Tolstoi, Goncharov, Tchehov, Turgeniev, Dostojevsky, and many others, like a choir, in which three voices are still the strongest and most expressive: Gogol, Tolstoi, Dostojevsky. What did they say?
They held a grand review of the souls, of the ancient and modern souls, and found that there exists no great man among them. That was their verdict. In all their writings they tried to show in the clearest manner, and to the smallest detail, that there is no great man in the world. They analysed everyone who was mentioned and adored by worldly society or by tradition as a great man, and proved that he was not a great man at all. It was very courageous indeed to speak like that in a world which was accustomed from the beginning, in the pagan as in the Christian epoch, to adore greatness, to divinise great men, to imitate and to worship heroes. It was still more courageous to speak like that in the nineteenth century, when the worship of great men found so many advocates, when the name of the demi-god Napoleon filled every corner of the earth; when German philosophy, poetry and music emphasised personality and individuality when the whole continental theology followed the way of Cæsar and interpreted Christianity as a teaching and promotion of individualism in human life. Yea, it happened in the time when Carlyle, fascinated by German theories, ended the matter and pressed the whole world's history into some few biographies. Carlyle's "Heroes and Hero-Worship"—curiously enough—was published about the same time as Tolstoi's "War and Peace." Two antipodes! Dostojevsky's "Brothers Caramazov" was published nearly at the same time as Nietzsche's "Zarathustra" with its message of the Superman. Again two antipodes! You will in vain try to find such contrasts in the world as the Russian and Germano-Carlylean literature. Petronius and Seneca could read and understand very well Goethe and Carlyle, but they could not read and understand Tolstoi and Dostojevsky, nor could they understand the Christianity of their own time.
"Great men!" exclaimed the Roman world on their dying beds.
"Great men!" exclaimed rejuvenated Western Europe in the nineteenth century. History consists of great men. The very aim of history is to produce great men.
"No," answered Holy Russia, who kept silent for a thousand years. The ideal of the great man is the fast ideal of the childhood of mankind, of the youthful Pagan world. We are grown up in the Christian spirit; we can no longer live in the childish illusions and dreams of great men. We see them as they are. There has never existed and does not yet exist a great man. No one great man ever existed.
On this point Tolstoi and the Holy Synod were in agreement with each other and with the common spirit of the Russian people. They all agreed with their whole heart in the denial of the Greco-Roman worship of great men, which worship was everywhere revived in modern Europe in poetry, philosophy, politics, art and even in theology. For eighteen hundred years Western Europe was the spokesman of the Christian world and Russia keptsilent. When, after eighteen hundred years, Russia came to the world, her answer was a decisiveNo. But that was not all she had to say. She had also to say a decisiveYes.
PANHUMANISM.
NoandYes. There is in the Slav religious conscience aNoand aYes.
No—for a great man;Yes—for a saintly man.
No—for pride;Yes—for humility.
No—for individualism;Yes—for panhumanism.
No—for longing after pleasure;Yes—for longing after suffering.
History has proved that a great man is impossible and, even more, undesirable, and that a saintly man is both possible and desirable. It is proved also that a so-called great man meant a great danger for mankind; a saintly man never could be dangerous. We do not need great men at all, we need good and saintly men. We ought not to seek after greatness, but after goodness and saintliness. Greatness is no real virtue, but goodness and saintliness are virtues. Greatness is only an illusion, but goodness and saintliness are realities. Christianity came to impress these realities on the human conscience and to sweep illusions away.
The whole history of Christianity is a continual struggle between realities and illusions. All the wars between Christians and pagans, and between Christians themselves, from thetime of Christ until our time, had always the same meaning—a struggle between the Christian realities of goodness and saintliness and the pagan illusions of greatness. The present War has the same meaning as all the wars since Christ came until Bismarck. This war was prophesied by Dostojevsky forty years ago. Dostoievsky was the only contemporary man towards whom Nietzsche felt respect and even fear because of his deep thought and clairvoyance. With his genial insight into human nature, Dostojevsky saw clearly the inevitable conflict of the different camps of Europe, whose apparent and hypocritical peace was only a busy preparation for conflict. "Everything will be pulled down," he said, "especially European pride." He had also a vision of what will come after this great conflict. "Christ," he said, "nothing else but Christ Himself will come in the form of panhuman brotherhood and panhuman love."
YOUR SINS ARE MY SINS.
Love the sinner as well! Do not fly away from the sinners, but go to them without fear. After all—whoever you may be—you are not much better than they are. Try to love the sinners; you will see that it is easier to love those whom you despise than those whom you envy. The old Zosim (from the "Brothers Caramazov") said, "Brothers, don't be afraid of the sins of a sinner; but love a sinner also—that is the record of love upon earth." I know you love St. Peter and St. John, but could you love the sinner Zacchæeus? You can love the good Samaritan but love, please, the prodigal son also! You love Christ, I am sure; but what about Judas, the seller of Christ? He repented, poor human creature. Why don't you love him? Dostojevsky—like Tolstoi and Gogol—emphasised two things: first, there is no great man; secondly, there is no worthless man. He described the blackest crimes and the deepest fall and showed that the authors of such crimes are men just as other men, with much good hidden under their sins. Servants and vagabonds, idiots and drunkards, the dirtykatorznikifrom the Serbian prisons—all those people are God's sons and daughters, with souls full of fears and hopes, of repentance and longings after good and justice.
Betweensaintlinessandvicethere is a bridge, not an abyss. The saintliest and the meanest men have still common ground for brotherhood. Your sins are my sins, my sins are your sins. That is the starting-point for a practical and lucid Christianity. I cannot be clean as long as you are not clean. I cannot be happy as long as you are unhappy. I cannot enter Heaven as long as you are in Hell. What does that mean? It means that you and I are blended together for eternity, and that your effort to separate yourselves from me is disastrous for you and for me. As long as you look to the greatest sinner in the world and say: "God, I thank thee that I am not as that man," you are far from Christ and the Kingdom of God. God wants not one good man only, He wants a Kingdom of good men. If ninety-nine of us are good and saintly but one of our brothers is far from our solace and support, in sin and darkness, be sure God is not among us ninety-nine, but He has gone to find our brother whom we have lost and forgotten. Will you follow him or will you stand self-sufficient? Never has there existed in the world such a social power binding man to man and commanding each to take and bear the other's sorrows as Christianity did. Your sins are my sins, my sins are your sins. Such a conception of the Christian religion had Tolstoi in common with Dostojevsky and Gogol, with the Holy Synod, with the popular religious conscience of millions and millions of the living and the dead, in the orthodox world, and with all thejurodivi, the fools for Christ's sake. That is the religious spirit of the best of the Slavs.
CHRISTIANITY AND CIVILISATION.
The following is the Slav point of view: Christianity came into the world, not in order to inaugurate a new civilisation, but to infuse a new religious spirit, to clear and purify the human conscience. A perfect Christian spirit can exist quite outside civilisation as well as in the midst of the most complicated civilisation. A Christian negro, in his nudity, picking up dates under a palm tree, can be as good and saintly a man as any business man from the Strand in London or from the Fifth Avenue in New York. And, on the contrary, the most civilised men, like Bismarck and Nietzsche can be of a much more anti-Christian spirit than any primitive human creature in Central Africa or Siberia. Many civilisations have been created without Christianity. You cannot say that Christian London is a more perfect and beautiful city than Pagan Rome or Mohammedan Cordova were. But you may perhaps say that the spirit of London is more sublime and humane, more good and saintly, than the spirit of Rome and Cordova. Well, it is thespiritwhich regards Christianity, and nothing else. Civilisation is only an occasion for Christianity to prove its spirit. It is an occasion of suffering, and also of corruption. In both cases Christianity has to be tested. Christianity has to fight against a Pagan civilisation as well as a Pagan barbarism. It is sometimes harder for the Christian spirit to fight against the first than against the second form of Paganism. It was easier for the Christian mission to Christianise barbarous Africa than cultivated Rome. And imagine how much it will cost till Bismarckian and Nietzschean Germany "changes her spirit" as Sienkiewicz foretold.
I mention this relation between Christianity and civilisation to prove that a civilisation withanyspirit is not attractive to the Slav, but rather the civilisation with the Christian religious spiritonly. Tolstoi denied all civilisation just because he did not see the Christian spirit in it. The Church was reserved towards modern science and art just because she saw the anti-Christian, proud, egoistical spirit in many expressions of them. Better the poor Christian spirit in a cottage of Macedonia than a rich and cultivated Paganism in Vienna. The spirit with which a railway is made counts and not the railway itself. We are never alone but always in the presence of a great Spirit who encircles and inspires us. Whatever we do through this inspiration is living and good; whatever we do without His inspiration, but under the supposition that we are alone in this world, is wrong and dead. A great civilisation may be wrong and dead Yea, as there is no great man, there is no great civilisation. The ideal of Slav Christianity is a good and saintly man, and also a good and saintly civilisation. The very essence of life is mystic and religious. What is a man or a civilisation without mysticism and religion? They are like a painted landscape on paper. You enjoy it from a distance, but when you touch it you are disappointed. Everything without God is discontentment, emptiness.
Blessed are those—I wish you all may be numbered among them—whose life is full of God. They are connected with the sun and the stars, with the living and the dead, with the past and the future. They possess a wonderful bridge over every abyss in life, and they are always safe. They are bright in darkness, joyful in suffering, hopeful in death. Their life on earth, in this very limited sphere of life, is escorted by the whole of the Universe, from one end to the other. I wish that such a religious spirit belonged not only to the Slavs but to all mankind.
[1]
"History of the Popes," Chap. I.
"History of the Popes," Chap. I.
[2]
"Letter to Professor Reinkens," Schulte:Der Altcatholicismus.,
"Letter to Professor Reinkens," Schulte:Der Altcatholicismus.,
[3]
Ibid.
Ibid.
[4]
Ibidem.
Ibidem.