CHAPTER X

THE MORAL ORGANISATION OF HUMANITY AS A WHOLE

I

The _natural_ organisation of humanity consists in the fact that

different individuals and groups are compelled by nature to interact in

such a way that their private needs and activities lead to results of

universal significance and to comparative progress of the whole. Thus

from ancient times the needs of the shepherds and the agriculturists,

the warlike spirit of the chieftains, and the self-interested

enterprise of the merchants created material culture and were the

means of historical progress. This natural arrangement, owing to

which private interests lead to the common good, expresses a certain

real unity of the human race. But this unity is both inwardly and

outwardly imperfect. It is outwardly imperfect because, as a fact, it

is incomplete; it is imperfect inwardly because it is not the object

of the conscious will of the individuals and the groups which enter

into it. Such unconscious and involuntary solidarity is already found

in the pre-human world in the unity of the genus and the development

of organic species. To advance no further is unworthy of man in

whom the objective and generic reason--the universal _predicate_ of

nature--becomes the individual _subject_. What is needed is a moral,

conscious, and voluntary organisation of humanity for the sake of,

and inspired by, the all-embracing good. It became the direct object

and purpose of life and thought from the moment when, in the middle

of the historical development, this good was revealed as absolute and

complete. Unity in the good means not only a coexistence of private

interests and actions and a harmony between them in the general

result, but a direct co-fellowship of individuals and of social

groups in unanimous striving to attain a universal purpose--it means

that absolute perfection is taken and understood by each as _his own_

purpose.

The purpose of the moral organisation of human life is to realise the

absolute norm of the good or of the active (practical) perfection,

and the life as morally organised may be defined as the process of

_growing perfect_. This logically involves the question, _Who is

growing perfect?_ _i.e._ the question as to the subject of the moral

organisation. We know that _isolated individuals_ do not exist and

therefore do not grow in perfection. The true subject of the moral

progress--as well as of the historical progress in general--is the

individual man _together with and inseparably from the collective man_

or society. Not every configuration of molecules forms a living cell,

and not every conglomeration of cells forms a living being. Similarly

not every gathering of individual men or of social groups constitutes a

true and living bearer of the moral organisation. In order to possess

such a significance, _i.e._ in order to be an organic complement of the

moral personality, the collective whole must be no less real than the

individual, and, in this sense, must possess the same worth and the

same rights as the latter.

The natural groups which actually widen the life of the individual are

the family, the nation, and humanity--the three abiding stages in the

development of the collective man. Corresponding to them we have in

the historical order the kinship-group stage, the nationally-political

stage, and the spiritually universal stage. The latter may only be

revealed on condition that the first two become spiritualised.

It will be asked whether the family is to form part of the final and

universal organisation of morality or whether it is simply a transitory

limitation in the development of human life. But the individual person

_in his given condition_ and in his selfish striving for exclusive

separateness is also only a transitory stage, just like the nation or

even humanity itself. It is not a question of idealising and preserving

for all eternity the corruptible aspect of this or that living subject,

but of discovering and setting aglow the spark of divinity hidden

under the corruption, of finding the absolute and eternal significance

inherent in the conditional and the temporal, and of affirming it

not as a fixed idea only, but as the beginning of fulfilment, as a

token of perfection. The positive elements of life in their relative

and temporary manifestations must be understood and recognised as

_conditional data for the solution of an unconditional problem_. In

the case of the family these natural data are the three generations

successively connected by the fact of birth: grandparents, parents, and

grandchildren. The continuous and the relative character of the bond

does not abolish its triple character as an abiding norm. The members

of the series which extend beyond it on either side--great-grandparents

and great-grandchildren--constitute no independent element in the

idea of the family relation. The supreme task is to spiritualise the

relative natural connection of the three generations and to make it

unconditionally moral. This purpose is achieved in three ways--through

family religion, marriage, and the bringing up of children.

II

Family religion is the most ancient, deeply rooted, and stable

institution of humanity. It has survived the patriarchal stage and all

the religious and political changes. The object of family religion is

the older generation, the departed fathers or forefathers. According

to the most ancient ideas, the forefathers must necessarily be dead;

this was so inevitable that, by a natural process of thought, all the

dead, independently of their age and sex, were called forefathers (the

Lithuanian and Polish _dziady_--a relic of remote antiquity). If a real

grandfather happened to live too long, it was out of order, it violated

the religiously moral norm, which, however, was easily re-established

by the voluntary sacrifice of the old man. This barbarous practice

really contained a true idea, or, rather, two true ideas--in the

first place that a being who is on the same level as man and has the

same needs and faculties cannot be the true _object_ of reverence and

worship, and, secondly, that in order to have a powerful and beneficial

_influence_ in the earthly sphere, such as is characteristic of a

higher being, one must _withdraw_ from that sphere and sever one’s

immediate physical connection with it. If family worship of the older

generation was to be maintained in the epoch when force predominated,

it could not be allowed to be associated with the spectacle of

debility and weakness. The old men understood it themselves and with

noble wisdom parted in good time with their enfeebled life for the sake

of another, powerful and mysterious existence.

“My day is drawing to its close,” the Konung thus began,

“Mead does not taste sweet to me, my helmet weighs me down.

* * * * *

“Make then two mounds for us, O sons,

On the banks of the bay, by the wave-beaten shore,

* * * * *

“When the rocks are white with the light of the moon,

And wet our graves with the dew,

We shall rise from the hills, from the waters, O Thorsten,

And whisper of the days to be.”

Even in the heathen ancestor-worship the natural bond between the

successive generations tended to acquire a spiritual and moral meaning.

A complete realisation of this religious bond with the forefathers

is made possible through the revelation of the absolute significance

of life in Christianity. Instead of the material sacrificial feeding

of the departed who on their side help the living in affairs of this

world, there is established a spiritual interaction in prayer and

sacrament. Both sides pray for one another, both help one another in

attaining an _eternal good_. Both are concerned with an unconditional

good--the salvation of the soul. Eternal memory,[178] rest with the

saints, universal resurrection of life--this is what the living desire

_for the departed_, what they help them to attain, and it is in this

that they expect help from the departed _for themselves_. The mutual

relation, as it enters the sphere of the absolute, ceases to be

self-interested and becomes purely moral, being understood and carried

out as part of the perfect good.

_Eternal memory_ does not mean, of course, that people on earth will

eternally remember the dead as those who have been and are no more.

To begin with, it would not be of much importance for the dead, and,

secondly, it is impossible, since earthly humanity itself ought

certainly not to expect an _eternal_ continuation of its _temporal_

existence--if there is any meaning in the world. We ask eternal memory

of God and not of men, and it means dwelling in the eternal mind of

God. ‘To grant eternal memory’ means to make a man conformable to his

eternal idea--to God’s eternal thought about him, and to raise him to

the sphere of the absolute and the changeless. By comparison with the

anxieties of the world, it is eternal rest. Death as such is not rest,

and the dead among natural humanity may be more appropriately described

as restless (the French _revenant_, the German _Poltergeister_) than

as those at rest. The rest we ask for our departed depends upon God’s

eternal memory of them. Affirmed in their absolute idea, they find

in it a secure and indefeasible token that the perfect good will be

finally realised in the world, and therefore they cannot be troubled.

The distinction between the present and the future still exists for

them, but no element of doubt or anxiety attaches to that future. It is

separated from them only by an inevitable delay, and they may already

contemplate it _sub specie aeternitatis_. But for those who die in the

natural humanity, the future, though it becomes their main interest,

still remains an awe-inspiring riddle and mystery.

We shall rise from the hills, from the waters, O Thorsten,

And whisper of the days to be.

Eternal rest is not inactivity. The departed remain active, but the

character of the activity is essentially changed. It no longer springs

from an anxious striving towards a distant and uncertain end. It

proceeds on the basis and in virtue of the already attained and the

ever-abiding connection with the absolute good. Therefore in this case

activity is compatible with serene and happy rest. And just as the

beneficial influence of the departed expresses their moral connection

with their _neighbours in nature_, their living posterity, so in their

blessed rest they are inseparable from their _neighbours in God and in

eternity_. It is rest with _the saints_.

This is the ideal. If it is not attained by all, if the departed are

not all at rest, if not all to whom ‘eternal memory’ is sung deserve

it of God, this fact in no way affects our religious attitude to the

‘forefathers,’ which is the foundation of the family morality, and,

through it, of all morality. For in the first place the actual destiny

of each of the departed remains for us, after all, problematical only.

Secondly, even if the unfavourable supposition is the more probable

one, our religious attitude simply acquires a different character, and

the feeling of pity which comes to be added to it prompts us to more

active intercession. Finally, in the case of each person the majority,

or at any rate a certain number, of his ancestors satisfy the demands

of the ‘eternal memory’ and of ‘rest with the saints.’ Therefore every

man in addition to all other relations is bound to have a generic bond,

a bond of kinship with the world of God’s eternity. In this essential

respect the family may have an absolute significance for every one,

and, through the abiding past, be the true complement of our moral

personality.

On the other hand, the fulness of life for the forefathers, even when

they are eternally remembered by God and are at rest with the saints,

depends upon the work of their descendants who bring about the earthly

conditions under which the end of the world process may come, and, with

it, the bodily resurrection of the departed. Each of the departed is

naturally connected with the final humanity of the future through the

blood tie of successive generations.[179] By spiritualising his bodily

organism and the external material nature, each fulfils his duty in

relation to his forefathers, and pays his moral debt to them. Having

received from them physical existence and all the legacy of the past

ages, the new generation continues further the work which will finally

make the fulness of life possible for the departed also. Thus from

this new point of view, the natural bond with former generations, or

the family religion of the past, acquires an absolute significance and

becomes an expression of the perfect good.

It is only when the purpose shall have been reached that man’s work

of spiritualising his body and the earthly nature in general will be

reflected _backwards_ and exercise its beneficial influence upon the

past. It is only in the future that the past will attain the fulness of

reality. But until this task is accomplished, until the perfection of

life is attained in which the spiritual and the corporeal being will

entirely interpenetrate one another, until the gulf between the visible

and the invisible world is bridged and death becomes impossible both

for the living and for the dead--until then the necessary condition

of this future perfection and the moral problem of the present state

is the struggle of the spirit with the flesh, its strengthening and

concentration. The _present_ means of bodily resurrection is the

subjugation of the flesh; the necessary condition of the fulness of

life is asceticism or the suppression of the unlimited vitality. True

asceticism, _i.e._ spiritual power over the flesh leading to the

resurrection of life, has two forms--_monasticism_ and _marriage_.

The first, exclusive and exceptional, has already been discussed

elsewhere;[180] the explanation of the second forms part of the

argument now before us.

III

It is not for nothing that the relation, which appears to be so simple,

and the physical basis of which is found in the animal and even in

the vegetable kingdom, is called ‘a great mystery,’ and is recognised

as the abiding symbol, sanctified by the word of God, of the union

of the God of Israel with His people, of Christ crucified with the

earthly church, and of Christ the King of Glory with the New Jerusalem.

Reverence for the forefathers and religious interaction with them

connects man with the perfect good through the past; true marriage

has the same significance for the present, for the central period of

life. It is the realisation of the absolute moral norm in the vital

centre of human existence. The opposition of the sexes, which in the

world of pre-human organisms expresses simply a general interaction

between life as giving, and as receiving, form, between the active

and the passive principles, acquires a more definite and profound

meaning in the case of man. Woman, unlike the female of animals, is

not merely the embodiment of the passively receptive aspect of the

material reality. She is the concentrated substance of nature as a

whole, the final expression of the material world in its _inward_

passivity, as ready to pass into a new and higher kingdom and be

morally spiritualised. And man in his relation to woman does not merely

represent the active principle as such, but is the bearer of the purely

human activity, determined by the absolute meaning of life, in which

woman comes to participate through him. And he in his turn owes to her

the possibility of _realising_ that meaning or the absolute good in a

direct and immediate way.

The highest morality, proceeding from the absolute principle and

determined by it (that which in theology is called _grace_), does

not annihilate nature but imparts true perfection to it. The natural

relation between man and woman involves three elements: (1) the

_material_, namely, the physical attraction, due to the nature of the

organism; (2) the _ideal_, that exaltation of feeling which is called

being in love; and, finally, (3) the _purpose_ of the natural sexual

relation or its final result, namely, reproduction.

In true marriage the natural bond between the sexes does not disappear

but is transmuted. Until, however, this transmutation becomes a

fact, it is a moral problem, for which the elements of the natural

sexual relation are the data. The chief significance belongs to the

intermediate element--the exaltation or the ecstasy of love. In

virtue of it man sees his natural complement, his material other--the

woman,--not as she appears to external observation, not as others

see her, but gains insight into her true essence or idea. He sees

her as she was from the first destined to be, as God saw her from

all eternity, and as she shall be in the end. Material nature in its

highest individual expression--the woman--is here truly recognised as

possessed of absolute worth; she is affirmed as an end in herself,

an entity capable of spiritualisation and ‘deification.’ From such

recognition follows the moral duty--so to act as to realise in this

actual woman and in her life that which she ought to be. The highest

form of love in woman has a corresponding character. The man whom she

has chosen appears to her as her true saviour, destined to reveal to

her and to realise for her the meaning of her life.

Marriage remains the satisfaction of the sexual want, which, however,

no longer refers to the external nature of the animal organism, but to

the nature that is human and is awaiting to become divine. A tremendous

_problem_ arises which can only be solved by constant _renunciation_.

To be victorious in the struggle with the hostile reality the soul has

to pass through _martyrdom_.[181] From this point of view the complete

and real satisfaction which includes bodily sensibility is connected

not with desire that precedes it, but with the subsequent joy of

realised perfection.

It is obvious, of course, that in a _perfect_ marriage in which the

inner completeness of the human being is finally attained through a

perfect union with the spiritualised material essence, reproduction

becomes both unnecessary and impossible. It becomes unnecessary because

the supreme purpose has been achieved, the final goal attained. It

becomes impossible, just as it is impossible that when two equal

geometrical figures are placed one upon the other there should be a

remainder that does not coincide. The perfect marriage is the beginning

of a new process which does not reproduce life in time but re-creates

it for eternity. But we must not forget that perfect marriage is not

necessarily the original condition of, but only the _final means_ for,

the moral union of man and woman. One cannot assume this higher stage

from the first, just as one cannot begin to build a house by making a

roof, or call the roof a real house. The true human marriage is one

which consciously _aims_ at the perfect union of man and woman, at the

creation of the complete human being. So long, however, as it merely

aims at this and has not yet actually realised the idea, so long as

there still is a duality between the idea and the empirical material

reality opposed to it, so long external, physical reproduction is both

the _natural consequence of the perfection not yet attained_ and _the

necessary means for its future attainment_. It is clear that so long

as the union of man and woman is not wholly spiritualised, so long as

it is complete in idea and subjective feeling only, and in objective

reality continues to be superficial and external like that of animals,

it can have _no other_ result. But it is equally clear that _in the

present imperfect condition_ this result is of supreme importance,

for the children will do what the parents failed to accomplish. The

external, temporal succession of generations exists _because_ marriage

has not yet attained perfection, because the union of individual

man and woman is not sufficiently spiritual and inwardly complete to

re-create in them the perfect human being in the image and likeness of

God. But this ‘_because_’ also proves to be ‘_in order that_’--namely,

in order that the task which has been too great for the strength

of this individual being (man and woman) should be realised by him

indirectly, through a series of future generations taking their start

from him. Thus the inward completeness and the unconditional meaning of

family is re-established; man even in his imperfect state retains his

absolute significance, and the living bond between the temporal members

of the series, extending to eternity, remains unbroken.

For the moral organisation of humanity the connection with the past

through heredity alone, through the fact of descent, _i.e._ from a

particular line of ancestors, is insufficient; there must also be an

abiding moral bond, and this is found in the family religion. Further,

so far as the present is concerned, the natural fact of the sexual

relation is also insufficient for that organisation; the relation must

be raised to the spiritual level, which is done in true marriage.

Finally, from the point of view of the future, it is not enough for

the moral organisation of the collective man that the children should

be simply a _new_ generation, with an unknown future before it; in

addition to the fact of external succession there must be the inner

moral succession as well--the parents must not merely produce the

children for the future, but are in duty bound to _bring them up_

so that they could work in the future for the realisation of their

world-wide historical task.

IV

The natural moral feeling of pity which does not permit us to injure

our neighbours and compels us to help them is naturally concentrated

upon those of them who are most intimately related to us and at the

same time need our help most--that is, on the children. This relation

has a moral character when the family is simply an empirical factor in

the natural life of man; it acquires an absolute significance when the

family becomes the basis of a new, spiritually-organised life.

The moral significance of marriage consists in the fact that woman

ceases to be the instrument of natural desires but is recognised as a

being possessed of absolute worth, as a complement necessary to make

the individual man truly whole. When the marriage fails or does not

completely succeed in realising this absolute significance of human

individuality, the task acquires a different object and is transferred

to the children as bearers of the future. With the simple natural

pity for the weak and suffering offspring comes to be associated the

world-woe for the evils and troubles of life, the hope that these new

beings shall be able to lighten the universal burden, and, finally, the

duty to preserve them for this work and to prepare them for it.

In a spiritually-organised family the relation of the parents to

children is chiefly determined by the conception of the supreme destiny

of man. The purpose of education is to connect the temporal life of

this future generation with the supreme and eternal good which is

common to all generations, and in which the grandparents, parents, and

children are indivisibly one. For it is only through abolishing the

temporal disruption of humanity into generations that exclude and expel

one another from existence that the Kingdom of God can be revealed

and the resurrection of life accomplished. But until the perfection

is reached, the moral bond between generations and the absolute

supertemporal unity of man is maintained by reverent regard for the

forefathers on the one hand, and by the bringing up of children on the

other.

There is a great argument going on in man between Time and Eternity as

to who is the stronger--the Good or Death. “Your fathers,” says the

Prince of this world to man, “those through whom you have received

everything you possess, were and are no more, nor ever shall be; but,

if so, where is the Good? You are reconciled to the death of your

fathers, you sanction it by your consent, _you live and enjoy yourself,

whilst those to whom you owe your existence are gone forever_. Where,

then, is the good, where is the very source of piety--gratitude, where

is pity, where is shame? Have they not been completely conquered

by selfishness, self-seeking, sensuality? Yet do not despair. This

condemnation of your life has meaning only from the point of view of

the Good, only on the supposition that the Good exists. But this is

just where the fundamental error lies: there is no Good. If there were,

either your fathers would not have died, or you could not have been

reconciled to their death. And now it is clear that the Good, with its

fictitious demands and standards of piety, shame, and pity, is but an

empty claim. If you want to live, live forgetful of the Good, for it

has been swallowed up by death, is no more and never shall be.” “Your

fathers died, but they have not ceased to exist, for the keys of life

are in _my_ hands,” says Eternity. “Believe not that they disappeared.

That you might behold them again bind yourself to the unseen by the

secure bond of the Good: revere them, pity them, be ashamed to forget

them.” “Illusion!” says the Prince of Time again. “You may believe

in their hidden subjective existence if you like; but if you are not

content with such a counterfeit of life for yourself, and cling to

the fulness of the visible objective life, then, if the Good exists,

you must demand the same for your fathers. But the visible objective

existence--the only one worth speaking about--has been lost by your

fathers, and shall never more be returned to them. Renounce, then, the

impotent Good, the exhausting struggle with chimeras, and enjoy life

to the full.” But the last word is with Eternity, which, admitting the

past, appeals all the more confidently to the future. “The Good does

not depend upon the degree of your power, and your weakness is not the

impotence of the Good. And you yourself are only impotent when you do

not go beyond your own self; the incompleteness of your life is your

own doing. In truth all is open to you. Live in all things, be a unity

of yourself and your other, not only in relation to the past, to your

forefathers, but also in relation to the future. Affirm yourself in new

generations that with active help from you they might bring the world

to that final stage in which God will give back the fulness of life to

all--to them themselves, to you, and to your fathers before you. By

doing this you can at the present moment show the absolute power of

the Good over time and death, not by idly denying them, but by making

use of them for the full and perfect revelation of the immortal life.

Make use of the death of your forefathers, so as to preserve, in the

religious regard for the departed, a sure token of their resurrection.

Make use of your temporal existence, so that, by giving it to

posterity, by transferring the centre of your moral gravity into the

future, you might anticipate and bring nearer the final revelation of

the Kingdom of God in the world.”

V

Even the conventional everyday morality demands that man should hand

down to his children not only the goods he has acquired, but also

the capacity to work for the further maintenance of their lives. The

supreme and unconditional morality also requires that the present

generation should leave a twofold legacy to the next,--in the first

place, all the positive acquisitions of the past, all the savings of

history; and, secondly, the capacity and the readiness to use this

capital for the common good, for a nearer approach to the supreme goal.

This is the essential purpose of true education, which must be at once

both _traditional_ and _progressive_. The division and opposition

between these two factors of the true life--between the ground and that

which is built upon it, between the root and that which grows out of

it--is absurd and detrimental to both sides. If the past that is good

is self-contained and is no longer a real foundation for the new that

is better, it means that the old has lost its vital force. In regarding

it as _finished_ and worshipping it in this form as an external object,

we make _religion_ into a _relic_--dead, but not working miracles. This

is the besetting sin of popular conservatism which strives to replace

the living fruits of the spirit by artificial preserves. In so far as

it finds expression in religion, this pseudo-conservatism produces

men who are hostile and indifferent to religion. Faith cannot be the

_consequence_ of such bringing up, since it is absent from the _ground_

of it. It is obvious, indeed, that exclusive zeal for preserving faith

can only be due to the lack of faith in the zealots themselves. They

would have neither time nor occasion to be so distressed and worried

about faith if they _lived by faith_.

When _tradition_ is put in the place of _its object_--when, _e.g._, the

traditional conception of Christ is preserved in absolute purity, but

the presence of Christ Himself and of His spirit is not felt--religious

life becomes impossible, and all efforts artificially to evoke it only

make the fatal loss more clear.

But can the life of the future grow out of a past that is really dead?

If there is no real connection between the parts of time, what is the

meaning of progress? _Who_ is it that progresses? Could a tree actually

grow if its roots and trunk existed in thought only, and its branches

and leaves alone were actually real? Without dwelling at present upon

the logical absurdity involved in this point of view, let us deal with

its ethical aspect alone. Man as a moral being has absolute worth; his

present condition, taken as such, does not correspond, or is inadequate

to that worth. Hence arises the moral problem, not to separate

oneself, one’s own personality and existence, from the absolute

good which abides as the one in all. In so far as a moral being is

inwardly related to all, he really has absolute worth and his dignity

is satisfied. In the order of time the _all_ from which we must not

separate ourselves, and to which we must be inwardly united, appears

in two immediate ways, as our _past_ and as our _future_, as ancestors

and posterity. In order to realise our moral dignity in time, we must

spiritually become that which physically we are already, namely, a

uniting and intermediate link between the two. And to do so we must

recognise the abiding reality of the departed and the unconditional

future of the posterity. We must not regard the deceased as ended.

They are bearers of the absolute principle, which must be completely

realised for them also. The departed, the forefathers, living in the

memory of the past, have also a hidden existence in the present,

which will become manifest in the future. _They have both future and

actuality._

It is on this basis alone that true education is possible. If we are

indifferent to the future of our forefathers, we can have no motive

for caring about the future of the new generation. If we can have

no absolute moral solidarity with those who _died_, there can be no

ground for such solidarity with those who certainly _will die_. In

so far as education mainly consists in transferring moral duty from

one generation to another, the question arises _what_ duty and in

relation to _whom_ are we to hand down to our successors, if our own

bond with our ancestors be severed. It would be a mere play of words

to say that it is the duty to move humanity forward, for neither

‘forward’ nor ‘humanity’ have in this case any real meaning. ‘Forward’

must mean to the good, but there can be no good if we start with

evil--the most elementary and unquestionable evil of ingratitude to the

fathers, acquiescence in their disappearance, callous separation and

estrangement from them. And what is the humanity which our pupils and

successors are to move forward? Do last year’s leaves, scattered by the

wind and rotten on the ground, form part, together with the new leaves,

of one and the same tree? From this point of view there is no humanity

at all, and what exists are merely separate generations of men that

replace one another.

If this external relation, which is constantly passing away, is

to be replaced by the real and abiding moral tie, this obviously

must be done in two directions. The form of time, in itself morally

indifferent, cannot really determine our moral relations. Compromise

here is impossible--there cannot be two absolute principles of life.

The question whether we attach absolute significance to the temporal

order of events or to the moral order, that is, to the inner bond

between beings, must be settled finally and once for all. If the first

alternative be adopted, humanity, irremediably broken up in time, is

devoid of real unity; there can be no common task and therefore no duty

to bring up future generations that they might carry it on further.

In case of the second alternative, however, education inevitably

involves reverence for the past, of which it is the natural complement.

This traditional element in education conditions its progressive

character, since _moral progress can only consist in a better and more

far-reaching fulfilment of the duties which follow from tradition_.

The absolute worth of man--his capacity to be the bearer of eternal

life and to participate in the divine fulness of being--which we

religiously revere in the departed, we morally educate in the coming

generation by affirming that the two are connected by a bond that

triumphs over time and death. Special problems, the technique of

education, belong to a sphere of its own which I need not touch

upon here. But if pedagogy is to be based upon a positive universal

principle, indisputable from the moral point of view and bestowing

absolute worth upon its aims, it can find it only in the indissoluble

bond between generations which support one another in furthering one

common task--the task of _preparing for the revelation of the kingdom

of God and for universal resurrection_.

VI

Reverence for the forefathers and family education based upon it

overcome the immoral separateness and re-establish the moral solidarity

of men in the order of time or in _the succession of existence_. It is

a victory of the good over individual selfishness--the affirmation of

the personality as a positive element in the family union which abides

in spite of time and death. But if it is to be the basis of a moral

and, therefore, a universal organisation, if it is to be the incipient

form of the absolute and therefore all-embracing good, this union

cannot be self-contained, limited, and exclusive. The family directly

re-establishes the moral wholeness in one fundamental relation--that of

the succession of generations. This wholeness, however, must also be

re-established in the order of _coexistence_.

The linear infinity of the family can only become morally complete in

another wider whole--just as a geometrical line becomes real only as

the limit of a surface, which has the same relation to the line as the

line itself has to a point. The moral point--the single individual--has

actual reality only as the bearer of generic succession. The whole

line of this succession becomes truly real only in connection with

a multitude of collectively coexisting families which constitute a

_nation_. We received all our physical and moral possessions from

our fathers, and _the fathers had them only through the fatherland_.

Family traditions are fractions of the national traditions; the future

of the family is inseparable from the future of the nation. Therefore

reverence for the fathers necessarily passes into reverence for the

fatherland or into patriotism, and family education is linked with

national education.

The good which is in its essence inexhaustible and ungrudging

bestows upon every subject of moral relations, whether individual or

collective, an inner dignity and absolute worth of its own. For this

reason the moral bond and the moral organisation differs essentially

from every other by the fact that in it the subject of the lower, or,

more strictly, of the narrower order in becoming the subordinate member

of a higher or a wider whole, is not absorbed by it, but preserves its

own individual peculiarity. Indeed, it finds in this subordination both

the inner condition and the external environment for realising its

highest dignity. Just as the family does not blot out its individual

members, but gives them, within a certain sphere, the fulness of life,

and lives not by them only, but also in and for them, so the nation

absorbs neither the individual nor the family, but _fills_ them with

living content in a definite national form. This definite form, which

constitutes the particular significance or the positive quality of

a nation, is to be found, in the first place, in _language_. As a

definite expression, as a special characteristic of universal reason,

language unites those who speak some one particular language without

separating them, however, from people who speak another language--for

all languages are but special qualifications of the _all-embracing

word_; in it all languages are commensurate with or understandable by

one another.

The multiplicity of languages is in itself something as positive and

normal as the multiplicity of grammatical elements and forms in each of

these languages. What is abnormal is mutual lack of understanding and

the alienation that follows therefrom. According to the sacred story

of the tower of Babel, the divine punishment for, and at the same time

the natural consequence of seeking external and godless unity, consists

in the loss of the inner unity and solidarity and in being unable to

understand one another’s _speech_ (which is possible even when the

vocabulary is identical). Had not the inner moral unity been lost, the

difference of languages would not have mattered; one might have learnt

them, and there would have been no need to scatter upon the face of

the earth. The important point was not the creation of new languages,

but _confusion_ of them. “Go to, let us go down, and there confound

(_nabla_) their language (_safatam_), that they may not understand one

another’s speech. So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon

the face of all the earth” (Gen. xi. 7-9). It is clear that the story

does not refer to the origin of the many languages, for in order that

they might be confused they must have existed already.

The profound significance of this remarkable ancient revelation can

be fully understood only by comparing the book of Genesis with the

New Testament book of the Acts of the Apostles. “And when the day of

Pentecost was fully come, they were all _with one accord_ in one place.

And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty

wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there

appeared unto them cloven tongues, like as of fire, and it sat upon

each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began

to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. And

there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every nation

under heaven. Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came

together, and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak

in his own language. And they were all amazed, and marvelled, saying

one to another, Behold, are not all these which speak Galilaeans?

And how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born?

Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia,

and in Judaea, and Cappadocia, in Pontus, and Asia, Phrygia, and

Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and

strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes, Cretes and Arabians, we do hear

them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God” (Acts ii. 1-11).

True unity does not annul multiplicity but finds its realisation in it,

setting it free from the limitations of exclusiveness. One language

inspired by the Spirit of God means communicability and understanding

between many _distinct languages, which are divided but do not divide_.

This is not the idea of the inventors and adherents of various Volapucs

and Esperantos, who consciously or unconsciously imitate the builders

of the Tower of Babel.[182]

The normal relation between languages is at the same time the normal

relation between nations (in Slavonic the two conceptions are expressed

by the same word). The true unity of languages is found not in a

_single_ language but in an _all-embracing_ language, that is in

an interpenetration of all languages which would make them equally

understandable to all while the peculiarity of each would be preserved.

Similarly the true unity of nations does not mean a single nationality,

but an all-embracing nationality, that is, interaction and solidarity

of all nations for the sake of each having an independent and full life

of its own.

VII

When, having learnt a new language, we understand a foreigner whose

language it is, when we not only understand the meaning of words he

speaks but by means of them enter into a real communion of feelings,

thoughts, and aspirations with him, we clearly prove thereby that

true unity of men is not limited to persons belonging to the same

people. It is impossible to deny the fact of this inter-lingual and

international and therefore universally-human communion, but it may

be maintained that the communion is purely a superficial relation

based upon no real unity. This contention is often urged by those who

maintain that although a nation is a real whole, humanity is purely a

general idea, abstracted from the fact of interaction between separate

nations essentially external to one another. Leaving it to metaphysics

to decide to what extent all interaction involves an underlying unity

of those that interact, I will only note here that the peculiarity of

the particular interaction which obtains between different nations or

between individuals belonging to different nations, presupposes, apart

from all metaphysics, at least the same kind of real unity which is

assumed to hold within each nation between the groups and individual

persons who compose it.

What ground is there for regarding nationality as a real power and

a nation as a real unit rather than a mere conglomeration of human

entities? With regard to the family the question is answered by

pointing out the _evident_ physical bond. With regard to the nation

three grounds are indicated.

1. _The supposed physical bond_, or the unity of descent.--This

_supposition_, however, has equal and, indeed, far greater force in

reference to humanity as a whole than to distinct nations. The original

unity of mankind is a dogma of three monotheistic religions and the

prevailing opinion of philosophers and naturalists--while a direct

unity of physical descent within the limits of a nation is, in the vast

majority of cases, obvious fiction.

2. _Language._--Identity of language unites those who speak it, but

we know that difference of language does not prevent men from being

of the same mind, thinking the same thoughts, and even using the same

words. For such difference does not abolish but makes manifest the one

inner language undoubtedly common to all men, who can under certain

conditions understand each other whatever their particular tongue may

be. This is not a superficial result of external interaction, for that

which is here mutually understood refers not merely to accidental

objects but embraces the inmost contents of the human soul. This

fundamental and profoundly real fact expresses the actual connection

and unity of all men. Difference of tongue is the difference between

the essential forms of the mental life, and is important, since every

such form represents a particular quality of the soul. Yet still more

important is the content which each form expresses in its own way and

which though present in all is not exhausted by, nor is exclusive of,

any. That content is the positive and independent principle of the

hidden unity and of the visible unification of all.

Language is the deepest and most fundamental expression of character.

But just as differences of individual character do not destroy the

unity of the nation which includes all the different people, so

differences of national character cannot destroy the real unity of all

nations in humanity, which is also a ‘character.’

3. _History._--If national history is the basis of national unity,

universal or world-history is the basis of a wider, but not less

stable, all-human unity. Moreover, national history is altogether

unthinkable except as an inseparable part of world-history. Try to

think of Russian history from the exclusively national point of view.

Even if the Scandinavian origin of our state could somehow be explained

away, it cannot be denied that the introduction of Christianity into

Russia by the Greeks at once brought our nation into the sphere of the

supernational life of the world. Christianity as such or in its content

is an absolute truth and is therefore superhuman, and not merely

supernational. Even from the purely historical point of view, however,

it cannot be traced to any one particular nationality. It is impossible

to separate the Jewish nucleus from the Chaldean and Persian, Egyptian

and Phoenician, Greek and Roman setting. And yet without this national

nucleus and this national setting there could have been no Christianity

as positive revelation, and the foundation for the world-wide Kingdom

of God would not have been laid. But whatever the significance of the

national elements in the historical formation of the world religion

may be, new nations such as Russia, which appeared after Christianity

became established and accepted it in its crystallised form as the

final revelation of the supreme and absolute good, cannot look to

themselves for the true source of their life. Their history can only

have meaning as a more or less perfect acquisition of the given,

as a more or less successful preparation for fulfilling the task

Christianity had put before them. It is obvious that during such a

preparatory process not a single Christian nation can or ought to be

separate from, alien or hostile to other nations, for such a relation

is opposed to the very essence of Christianity--and it is impossible

to prepare for carrying out a given task while remaining in direct

opposition to its inner meaning. Russia definitely confirmed her faith

in Christian universalism when in the most glorious and important epoch

of her new history she finally abandoned her national isolation and

showed herself to be a living member of the international whole. And it

was not till then that the national strength of Russia found expression

in what is still the most significant and precious thing we have--and

not for ourselves only, but for other nations as well. On the powerful

stem of the state, ‘Europeanised’ by Peter, grew the beautiful flower

of our pensive, deep, and tender poetry. Russian universalism--which

resembles cosmopolitanism as little as the language of the Apostles

resembles Volapuc--is connected with the names of Peter the Great and

Pushkin. What other national Russian names can be said to equal these?

Just as the individual man finds the meaning of his personal existence

through the family, through his connection with his ancestors and

posterity, just as the family has an abiding living content in the

nation and national tradition, so the nation lives, moves, and has its

being only in a supernational and an international environment. Just

as the whole series of successive generations live in and through the

individual man, just as the whole nation lives and acts in and through

the totality of these series, so the whole humanity lives and works out

its history in the totality of nations.

If nation be a real fact and not an abstract general idea, if the

inward organic nature of the bond which unites nations with one another

in the universal history be a fact also, humanity as a whole, too,

must be recognised as a fact. Real living organs can only be organs

of a real living organism, and not of an abstract idea. The absolute

moral solidarity in the good, uniting man with his ancestors and his

descendants, and thus forming the normal family, also unites him,

by means of this elementary and immediate bond of liberation, to

the world-whole concentrated inhumanity. Humanity is the complete

collective subject or ‘recipient’ of the perfect good, the full image

and likeness of the Deity, the bearer of the actual moral order--the

Kingdom of God. But, as has already been said, it follows from the

very nature of the moral order or the moral organisation that every

part or every member of the great collective man participates in the

absolute completeness of the whole, since he is as necessary to that

completeness as it is to him. The moral bond is perfectly mutual.

Humanity is unthinkable apart from the nations that compose it, the

nation is unthinkable apart from families and the family apart from

individuals, and, _vice versa_, the individual cannot exist, either

physically or morally, apart from the succession of generations, the

moral life of the family is impossible apart from the nation, and the

life of the nation is impossible apart from humanity. This truism used

to be readily accepted by all. Recently, however, for reasons which the

existing systems of the philosophy of history have not yet been able to

discover, it has become customary to separate, contrary to all logic,

this elementary truth from its necessary apex, and to declare that the

inner dependence of nations upon humanity is a fancy and a chimera. It

is granted that a bad son and a bad father, a man who has no reverence

for his ancestors and does not care about the upbringing of his

descendants (whether physical or spiritual), cannot be a good patriot,

and that a bad patriot cannot truly serve the common good. It is also

granted that, _vice versa_, a bad patriot cannot be a good member of a

family, and that a bad member of a family cannot be a really good man.

But it is not allowed that in virtue of the same solidarity between the

different degrees of organisation a man indifferent to the one supreme

good of all nations taken together cannot be a really good patriot (and

consequently cannot be a good member of a family, and, finally, cannot

be individually good). And yet it is perfectly clear that if a man has

for his supreme purpose the good of his own nation, taken separately

and independently of others, he in the first place deprives the highest

good of its essential characteristic of universality, and therefore

distorts the purpose itself. Secondly, in dividing the interest of

one nation from the interests of the others, while in reality they

are intimately connected, he distorts the idea of his own nation.

Thirdly, it follows from this double distortion that such a man can

only be serving a distorted nation by communicating to it a distorted

good--that is, he can only be serving evil, and, since he does nothing

but harm to his fatherland, he must be pronounced a bad patriot.

The good embraces all the details of life, but in itself it is

_indivisible_. Patriotism as a virtue is part of the right attitude to

everything, and in the moral order this part cannot be separated from

the whole and opposed to it. In the moral organisation not a single

nation can prosper _at the expense of_ others; it cannot positively

affirm itself to the detriment or the disadvantage of others. Just as

the positive moral dignity of a private person is known from the fact

that his prosperity is truly useful to all others, so the prosperity of

a nation true to the moral principle is necessarily connected with the

universal good. This logical and moral axiom is crudely distorted in

the popular sophism that we must think of our own nation only, because

it is good, and therefore its prosperity is a benefit to every one.

It either thoughtlessly overlooks or impudently rejects the obvious

truth that this very alienation of one’s own nation from others, this

_exclusive_ recognition of it as pre-eminently good, is in itself evil,

and that nothing but evil can spring from this evil root. It must be

one or the other. Either we must renounce Christianity and monotheism

in general, according to which “there is none good but one, that is,

God,” and recognise our nation _as such_ to be the highest good--that

is, put it in the place of God--or we must admit that a people becomes

good not in virtue of the simple fact of its particular nationality,

but only in so far as it conforms to and participates in the absolute

good. And it can only do so if it has a right attitude to everything,

and, in the first place, to other nations. A nation cannot be really

good so long as it feels malice or hostility against other nations, and

fails to recognise them as its neighbours and to love them as itself.

The moral duty of a true patriot is then to serve the nation in the

good, or to serve the true good of a nation, inseparable from the good

of all, or, what is the same thing, _to serve the nation in humanity,

and humanity in the nation_. Such a patriot will discover a positive

aspect in every foreign race and people, and by means of it will seek

to relate this race or people with his own for the benefit of both.

When we hear of a _rapprochement_ between nations, of international

agreements, friendships, and alliances, we must, before rejoicing

or being grieved about it, know _in what_ it is that the nations are

being united, in good or in evil. The fact of union as such decides

nothing. If two private people or two nations are united by the hatred

of a third, their union is an evil and a source of fresh evil. If they

are united by mutual interest or by common gain, the question still

remains open. The interest may be unworthy, the gain may be fictitious,

and in that case the union of nations, as well as of individuals, even

if it is not a direct evil, can certainly not be a good desirable for

its own sake. The union of men and nations can be positively approved

only in so far as it furthers the moral organisation of humanity, or

the organisation of the absolute good in it. We have seen that the

ultimate _subject_ of this organisation, the real bearer of the _moral

order_, is the collective man or humanity, successively differentiated

into its organs and elements--nations, families, persons. Having

determined _who_ it is that is morally organised, we must decide _what_

he is organised _in_--that is, must consider the question as to the

_universal forms of the moral order_.

VIII

The right or the due relation of man to the higher world, to other men,

and to the lower nature is collectively organised in the forms of the

Church, the state, and the economic society or the zemstvo.

Individual religious feeling finds its objective development and

realisation in the universal Church, which thus may be said to be

_organised piety_.

From the point of view of religious morality, man lives in three

different spheres: the worldly or the conditional (this world), the

Divine or the unconditional (the Kingdom of God), and the sphere which

is intermediary between the two, and binds them together--the religious

sphere in the strict sense (the Church).

To stop at a direct opposition between the world and the Deity,

between earth and heaven, is contrary to sound religious feeling. Even

supposing that we are genuinely prepared to regard the universe as

worthless dust, that dust does not fear our contempt--it _remains_. _On

whom or what?_ To say that it remains on the Deity would obviously be

impious. To declare the world dust to be an illusion of our imagination

would mean that our own self, enslaved by the weary nightmare of

phenomena and powerless before the phantoms it has created, is itself

a worthless speck of dust which has somehow got into the eye of

eternity and hopelessly mars its purity; and this second view would

be still more impious than the first. Everything in the long run

must be referred to God, and, therefore, the more contempt we have

for the world, the more unworthy is our conception of the Absolute

being. To declare that the world is pure nothing is the height of

blasphemy, since in that case all the evil aspects of existence, which

are not abolished by a verbal rejection of them, must be directly and

immediately ascribed to God. This argument cannot be avoided so long

as only two opposing terms are recognised. But there exists a third

intermediary term, the historical environment in and through which

the worthless dust of the earth is converted, by a skilful system of

fertilisation, into a fruitful ground for the future Kingdom of God.

Sound religious feeling demands not that we should reject the world and

seek to abolish it, but only that we should not accept the world as

an absolutely independent principle of our life. Being _in the world_

we must become _not of the world_, and in this capacity influence the

world so that it too should cease to be on its own account and become

more and more from God.

The essence of piety at the highest stage of universal consciousness

consists in ascribing absolute worth to God alone and in valuing all

else only as related to Him and as capable of having absolute worth not

in itself and of itself, but in and through God. _Everything acquires

worth through the fixing of its positive relationship with the one

worthiness._

If all men and nations were truly pious, that is, identified their

own good with the one absolute good and blessedness, that is, God,

they would obviously be united among themselves. And being at one in

God, they would live in God’s way; their unity would be holiness. The

present humanity, however, which is not brought together and elevated

by the one exclusive interest in God, is following its own will, and

is divided between a multitude of relative and disconnected interests.

The result is alienation and disruption; and since good actions cannot

spring from an evil root, the activity of divided humanity can _as

such_ lead to nothing but sin. Therefore the moral organisation of

humanity cannot begin until mankind is really united and its activity

is consecrated.

Perfect unity and holiness is in God, sin and division in the worldly

humanity, union and consecration in the Church which harmonises and

reconciles the divided and sinful world with God. But in order to unite

and consecrate, the Church must itself be _one_ and _holy_, that is,

it must have its foundation in God, independently of the divided and

sinful men who are _in need of_ union and consecration, and therefore

cannot obtain it of themselves. _The Church, then, is in its essence

the unity and holiness of the Godhead_, not, however, of the Godhead

as such, but _as abiding and acting in the world_. It is _the Godhead

in its other_, the true substance of God-in-man. The unity and the

holiness of the Church are expressed in space as its universality or

_catholicity_, and in time as _apostolic_ succession. The meaning

of catholicity (καθ’ ὅλον--according to or in conformity with the

whole) is that all the forms and activities of the Church unite

individuals and nations with the whole of the divine humanity, both

in its individual concentration the Christ, and in its comprehensive

form--the world of the incorporeal powers and the departed saints

living in God, and of the faithful who are still fighting the battle

here on earth. In so far as everything in the Church is catholic,

conformable to the absolute whole, all exclusiveness of racial and

personal characteristics and of social position disappear in it. All

divisions or _separations_ disappear, and all the _differences_ are

left--for piety requires that unity in God should be understood not as

empty indifference and bare uniformity, but as the absolute fulness of

every life. There is no division but there is difference between the

invisible and the visible Church, since the first is the hidden moving

power of the second, and the second the growing realisation of the

first. The two are one in essence but different in condition. There is

no division but there is difference in the visible Church between the

many tribes and nations to which, in their unity, the one spirit speaks

in different tongues of the one identical truth, and communicates by

different gifts and callings one and the same good. Finally, there is

no division but there is difference between the Church as teaching and

as taught, between the clergy and the people, between the mind and the

body of the Church. In a similar manner the difference between husband

and wife is not an obstacle to, but the basis of, their perfect union.

IX

The catholicity of the Church--the fundamental form of the moral

organisation of humanity--is the conscious and intentional unity

between all the members of the universal body in relation to the

one absolute purpose of existence, a unity, accompanied by complete

division of ‘spiritual labour,’ of gifts and services, by which that

purpose is expressed and realised. This moral unity essentially differs

by its voluntary and conscious character from the natural unity of

the organs in the body or the members in the various natural groups.

It forms a true _brotherhood_ which gives to man positive _freedom_

and positive _equality_. The individual does not enjoy true freedom

when his social environment weighs upon him as external and alien to

him. Such alienation is abolished by the conception of the universal

Church alone, according to which each must find in the social whole

not the external limit but the inward completion of his liberty. Man

_in any case_ stands in need of such completion by his ‘other’; for

in virtue of his natural limitations he is necessarily a dependent

being, and cannot by himself or alone be a sufficient ground of his own

existence. Deprive man of what he owes to others, beginning with his

parents and ending with the state and the world-history, and nothing

will be left of his existence, let alone his freedom. It would be

madness to deny this fact of inevitable dependence. Man is not strong

enough and he needs _help_ in order that his freedom might be a real

thing and not merely a verbal claim. But the help which man obtains

_from the world_ is accidental, temporal, and partial, whilst the

universal Church promises him secure, eternal and all-sufficient help

from God. It is with that help alone that he can be actually free, that

is, have sufficient power to satisfy his will. Man obviously cannot

be truly free so long as that which he does not want is inevitable,

and that which is demanded by his will is impossible. Every object

of desire, every good is only possible for man on condition that he

himself lives, and those whom he loves live also. There is therefore

one fundamental object of desire--the continuation of life, and one

fundamental object of aversion--death. But it is precisely in the

face of this that all worldly help proves to be of no avail. The

calamity of calamities--death--proves to be inevitable; and the good

of goods--immortality--utterly impossible. The world then can give no

real freedom to man. It is only God-in-man, or the Church, based upon

an inner unity and a perfect harmony of the visible and the invisible

life in the kingdom of God--the Church affirming the essential primacy

of spirit and promising the final resurrection of the flesh, that alone

discloses to man the sphere in which his freedom can find positive

realisation, and his will--actual satisfaction. Whether we believe this

or not does not depend upon philosophical arguments. But although the

most perfect philosophy can neither give faith nor take it away, the

simplest art of logical reflection is sufficient to show that man who

wants to live and is sentenced to death cannot be seriously regarded as

free, and from the standpoint of the world or of nature this no doubt

is the position of every man and of all mankind. It is then through the

universal Church alone that the individual can obtain positive freedom.

In no other way is positive equality possible for him either.

The natural dissimilarity of people is as inevitable as it is

desirable. It would be very regrettable if all men were spiritually

and physically alike, and in that case the multiplicity of men would

have no meaning. Direct equality between distinct particular men is

altogether impossible. They can be equal not in themselves, but only in

their common relationship to something other, supreme and universal.

Such is the equality of all before the law, or equal civic rights.

This equality of rights, important as it is in the order of worldly

existence, remains essentially formal and negative. The law fixes

certain general limits to human activity, equally binding upon all and

each, but it does not form the content of any one’s life, secures to no

one the essential goods of life, and indifferently leaves to some their

helpless nothingness, and to others the superabundance of all possible

advantages. The world may recognise as an abstract possibility or a

theoretical right the unconditional significance of each human being,

but the realisation of this possibility and this right is given by the

Church alone. It initiates each into the wholeness of the Divine life

made manifest in man, communicates to each the absolute content of

life, and thus equalises all--in the way similar to that in which all

finite magnitudes are equal to one another in relation to infinity.

If in Christ “dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily” in the

words of the Apostle, and Christ lives in every believer, there can

be no room for inequality. Participation in the absolute content of

life through the universal Church, liberating and equalising all in a

positive way, makes of them one absolute whole or a perfect brotherhood.

In so far, however, as this brotherhood, perfect in nature, is

conditioned in origin, as established and matured in time, it requires

a corresponding expression for its connection with God-in-man

throughout the ages--it requires religious succession or _spiritual

parentage_. This demand is satisfied by the definition of the Church as

_apostolic_.

X

Since we live in time, the bond of our dependence upon the divine

principle as manifested in history must also be preserved in time and

handed down through it. In virtue of that bond our present spiritual

life begins _not of itself_, but springs from the earlier or older

bearers of the grace of God. The one holy catholic Church is of

necessity an _apostolic_ Church. Apostleship or messengership is the

opposite of imposture. Messengership is a religious basis of activity

and imposture--an anti-religious one. It is precisely with reference

to this point that Christ indicates the opposition between Himself

and the antichrist. “I am come in My Father’s name and ye receive Me

not; if another shall come _in his own name_, him ye will receive.”

The primitive basis of religion, namely, the pious recognition of

one’s dependence upon the progenitor, attains its perfect expression

in Christianity. “The Father sent Me.” “I do the will of Him Who sent

me.” The only-begotten Son is pre-eminently a messenger, is essentially

the apostle of God, and, strictly speaking, the profound and eternal

meaning of calling the Church ‘apostolic’ refers to Him--and the

other, the direct historical meaning, depends upon that. “As My Father

has sent Me, even so send I you”--the apostles born of Christ by the

word and the spirit are sent by Him to give spiritual birth to new

generations so that the eternal bond between the Father and the Son,

the One Who sends and the One Who is sent, should be continually handed

down through time.

_Filial relationship is the archetype of piety_, and the only-begotten

Son of God--the Son by pre-eminence--is the individual embodiment of

piety itself. The Church as the collective organisation of piety must

be entirely determined by Him in its social structure, in its doctrine

and holy practices. Christ as the incarnation of piety is the way, the

truth, and the life of His Church.

The _way_ of piety for all that exists (with the exception, of course,

of the First Beginning and the First Object of all piety) consists

in starting not with oneself or with what is lower, but with the

higher, the senior, the preceding. It is the way of hierarchy, of

holy succession and tradition. Therefore whatever external forms

the order of the Church government might assume under the influence

of historical conditions, the strictly ecclesiastical religious

form--ordination through the laying on of hands--always proceeds in the

hierarchical order, from above downwards. Laymen may not ordain their

spiritual fathers, and indeed the clergy themselves must necessarily be

arranged in order of degrees so that those of the highest degree--the

bishops--alone represent the _active_ principle itself, and transfer

the grace of consecration to the two other orders.

The _truth_ of the Church depends upon the same piety, though in

another way, or in another, theoretic respect. The truth of the

Church, revealing to us the mind of Christ, is neither scientific nor

philosophical, nor even theological--it contains nothing but _dogmas

of piety_. This fact is the key to the understanding of Christian

dogmatism, and of the Councils that were engaged in formulating it.

With regard to religious teaching the interest of piety is obviously

concerned with the fact that our conceptions of the Deity should not

in any way detract from the fulness of our religious attitude to it,

given once for all in Christ as the Son of God and the Son of Man.

All ‘heresies’ from which the Church protected itself by its dogmatic

definitions denied, in one way or another, this religious fulness

or the entirety and completeness of our adoption by God through the

perfect God-man. Some regarded Christ as a half-god, others as a

half-man; some put a kind of double personality in the place of the one

God-man, others limited His nature as God-man to the intelligible side

alone, and regarded the divinity as incapable of sensible expression,

etc.[183]

The lawful _way_ of the hierarchical order, as well as the _truth_ of

faith, finds its fulfilment and justification in the _life_ of the

Church. Human life must be inwardly collected, united, and consecrated

by the action of God and thus transformed into a divinely-human

life. The nature of the case and the principle of piety demand that

the process of regeneration should begin from above, from God,

that it should be founded upon the effects of grace and not upon

the natural human will alone--it demands that the process should

be _divinely-human_ and not humanly-divine. This is the meaning of

sacraments as the special foundation of the new life. The moral

significance of sacraments in general consists, from the point of view

of religious morality or piety, precisely in this--that in sacraments

man adopts his proper attitude of absolute dependence upon a perfectly

real and yet perfectly mysterious, sensuously unknowable good which is

given to him and not created by him. In the presence of the sacrament

the human will renounces all that is _its own_, remains in a state of

perfect potentiality or purity, and in virtue of it becomes capable, as

pure form, of receiving superhuman content. Through sacraments the one

and holy essence, which is the Church in itself (the _Ding an sich_ or

the _noumenon_ of the Church, to use philosophic language), actually

unites to itself or absorbs into itself the inner being of man and

renders his life divine.

This life, supernatural so far as the other kingdoms of nature,

including the rationally-human, are concerned, but perfectly natural

for the kingdom of God, has its regular cycle of development, the

chief moments of which are signalised by the Church in the seven

sacraments especially so called. This life comes to birth (in baptism),

receives the beginning of a right organisation and the power to grow

and develop (in confirmation), is healed from accidental imperfections

(in penitence), nurtured for eternity (in Eucharist); it completes or

integrates the individual being of man (in marriage), creates spiritual

fatherland as the basis of the true social order (in ordination), and,

finally (in extreme unction), sanctifies the diseased and dying bodily

nature for the perfect wholeness of future resurrection.[184]

XI

The real and mysterious tokens of the higher life or the Kingdom

of God, received in the sacraments of the Church, do not in their

origin and their essence depend upon the will of man. But since this

higher life is _the divinely-human life_, our part in it cannot be

merely passive. It demands a conscious and voluntary co-operation

of the human soul with the supreme Spirit. The positive strength

for such co-operation is from the very first given by the grace

of God (disregard of this truth leads to the dangerous errors of

semi-Pelagianism), but it is received by the will of man, which

formally differs from the divine will; and it is manifested in actions

which spring from the human will. Disregard of this second truth, which

is as important as the first, found expression in the Monothelite

heresy, so far as Christology is concerned, and in Quietism in the

sphere of the moral doctrine.

The specifically-human actions conformable to the grace of God (and

caused by its preliminary influence) must obviously express man’s

normal relation to God, men, and to his own material nature, in

accordance with the three general foundations of morality--piety, pity,

and shame. The first concentrated active expression of the religious

feeling or piety--its chief _work_--is _prayer_; in the same way, the

work of pity is _almsgiving_, and the work of shame is abstinence or

_fasting_.[185] These three works condition the beginning and the

development of the new life of grace in man. This is depicted with

wonderful clearness and simplicity in the holy narrative about the

devout centurion Cornelius, “which gave much alms to the people, and

prayed to God alway.” In his own words, “I was fasting until this

hour: and at the ninth hour I prayed in my house; and, behold, a man

stood before me in bright clothing, and said, Cornelius, _thy prayer_

is heard, and _thine alms_ are had in remembrance in the sight of

God” (then follows the command to send for Simon, who has the words

of salvation). The hidden anticipatory effect of God’s grace, which

Cornelius did not reject, incited him to do human good and strengthened

him in the works of prayer, almsgiving, and fasting; and these works

themselves, as is here directly indicated, called forth new manifest

effects of the Divine grace. It is noteworthy, too, that just as the

appearance of the angel from heaven was simply an exceptional means

of carrying out the established method of piety and sending for the

earthly messenger of God, the earthly mediator of the higher life and

truth, so the exceptional and abundant pouring out of the gift of the

Holy Ghost on Cornelius and his household after Peter’s preaching at

his house did not render superfluous for them the usual and, so to

speak, the organic method of beginning the life of grace through the

real and mystical means of baptism.[186]

This typical narrative is still more remarkable for _what it does not

contain_. Neither the angel of God nor Peter the apostle of _Christ’s

peace_, nor the voice of the Holy Spirit Himself, suddenly revealed

in the newly converted, told the centurion of the Italian band that

which, according to the recent interpretation of Christianity, was the

most important and urgently necessary thing for this Roman soldier.

They did not tell him that in becoming a Christian he had _first of

all_ to lay down his arms, and _was bound to give up military service_.

This supposed necessary demand of Christianity is not even hinted at

in the narrative, although it is concerned with a soldier. Refusal to

do military service does certainly not form part of the New Testament

idea of what is required of a warrior of this world in order that he

might become a citizen with full rights in the kingdom of God. In

addition to the things the centurion Cornelius was already doing,

namely, prayer, almsgiving, fasting,--he had “to call Simon, whose

surname is Peter: ... he shall tell thee what thou oughtest to do.”

And when Peter came, Cornelius said to him, “Now therefore are we all

here present before God, to hear _all things that are commanded thee

of God_.” But the things which God commanded the apostle to reveal

to the Roman soldier for his salvation contained no reference to

military service. “Then Peter opened his mouth and said, Of a truth I

perceive that God is no respecter of persons: but in every nation he

that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him. The

word which God sent unto the children of Israel, preaching peace by

Jesus Christ: (he is Lord of all:) that word, I say, ye know, which

was published throughout all Judæa, and began from Galilee, after the

baptism which John preached; how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with

the Holy Ghost and with power; who went about doing good, and healing

all that were oppressed of the devil: for God was with him. And we are

witnesses of all things which he did, both in the land of the Jews, and

in Jerusalem; whom they slew and hanged on a tree; him God raised up

the third day, and shewed him openly; not to all the people, but unto

witnesses chosen before of God, even to us, who did eat and drink with

him after he rose from the dead. And he commanded us to preach unto the

people, and to testify that it is he which was ordained of God to be

the Judge of quick and dead. To him give all the prophets witness, that

through his name whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of

sins. While Peter yet spake these words, the Holy Ghost fell on all

them which heard the word.”

I am dwelling upon the story of Cornelius the centurion, not because

I want to raise once more the question of military service,[187] but

because this story seems to me to throw clear light on the general

question as to the relation of the Church to the state, of Christianity

to the empire, of the Kingdom of God to the kingdom of this world,

or, what is the same thing, on the question of the _Christian state_.

If the centurion Cornelius, having become a real Christian, remained,

nevertheless, a soldier, and was not divided into two alien and

disconnected personalities, it is clear that he must have become a

_Christian soldier_. A collection of such soldiers forms a Christian

army. Now the army is both the extreme expression and the first real

basis of the state; and if a Christian army is possible, a Christian

state is therefore even more possible. That the historical Christianity

solved the question precisely in this sense there can be no doubt. The

only thing that can be called in question is the inner ground for that

solution.

XII

When the centurion Cornelius was a pagan, the same feeling of pity

which impelled him ‘to give much alms’ also urged him, no doubt, to

defend the weak from injuries and to force violent and aggressive men

to obey the law. He knew that law, like every human utility, is only

a relative good and may be abused; he may have heard of the revolting

abuse of legal authority which the procurator Pontius allowed when,

under the influence of the envious and vindictive priesthood of

Jerusalem, he sentenced to death the virtuous Rabbi from Nazareth. But

being a just man, Cornelius knew also that _abusus non tollit usum_,

and deduced no general conclusions from exceptional instances. A true

Roman--to judge by his name,--he was conscious with noble pride of his

own share in the destiny of the city that ruled the world:

... to make the world obey,

To tame the proud, the fetter’d slave to free.