Thus it was from the beginning of the Christian era, and thus

it continued to increase, until in its own time it has reached

its logical consummation in the dogma of transubstantiation, the

infallibility of the Pope, the bishops, and Scriptures, which is

something utterly incomprehensible and nonsensical, requiring

a blind faith, not in God or Christ, nor even in the doctrine,

but a faith either in one person, as in Catholicism, or in many

persons, as in Orthodoxy, or in a book, as in Protestantism. The

more widely spread Christianity became, and the larger the number

of uninstructed men it received, the less it was understood, the

more the infallibility of its conceptions was insisted upon,

and the more slender grew the possibility of understanding its

true meaning. Already, about the time of Constantine, the entire

conception of the doctrine amounted to the _résumé_ formulated by

the temporal power,--the outcome of discussions that took place in

the council,--to the Credo, in which it is said: I believe in this

and that, etc., and at the end, "in the one holy, Apostolic and

Œcumenical Church," that is, in the infallibility of the persons

who constitute it; so that it all amounted to this, that a man

believed not in God, nor in Christ, as they revealed themselves to

him, but in that which was believed by the Church.

But the Church is holy, and was founded by Christ. God could not

allow men to interpret His doctrine as they chose, and therefore He

established the Church. All these propositions are so unjust and

unfounded, that one is actually ashamed to refute them. In no place,

and in no manner whatsoever, save in the assertion of the Church,

is it seen that either God or Christ can ever have founded anything

like the Church in its ecclesiastical sense. There is a distinct

and evident warning in the New Testament against the Church, as

an outside authority, in the passage which bids the disciples of

Christ call no man father or master. But nowhere is there a word

in regard to the establishment of what the ecclesiastics call the

Church. The word "church" is used in the New Testament twice, once

in speaking of the assembly which is to decide a dispute; the second

time in connection with the obscure words in regard to the rock,

Peter, and the gates of hell. From these two references, where the

word is used only in the sense of an assembly, men have derived the

institution which we recognize at present under the same of the

Church.

But Christ could by no means have founded a church, that is, what we

understand by that word at the present time, because nothing like

our Church, as we know it in these days, with the sacraments, the

hierarchy, and above all the establishment of infallibility, was to

be found either in the words of Christ, or in the ideas of the men

of those times.

Because men have called something which has been established since,

by the same word that Christ used in regard to another thing, by no

means gives them a right to assert that Christ founded only one true

Church.

Moreover, if Christ had it in his mind to establish a church which

was to be the depository of the whole doctrine and faith, He would

surely have expressed this so plainly and clearly, and would have

given, apart from all stories of miracles which are repeated with

every variety of superstition, such signs as would leave no doubt as

to its authenticity; yet this was not the case, and now, as always,

one finds different institutions, each one calling itself the only

true Church.

The Catholic catechism says: "L'Eglise est la société des fidèles

établie par N.-S. Jésus-Christ, répandue sur toute la terre et

soumise à l'autorité de pasteurs légitimes, principalement notre

S.-P. le pape,"--meaning by "pasteurs légitimes,"[3] a human

institution made up of a number of men bound together by a certain

organization of which the Pope is the head.

[3] The Church is the society of the faithful, established by our

Lord Jesus Christ, diffused throughout the world, subject to the

authority of its lawful pastors and our holy father the Pope.

The Orthodox catechism says: "Our Church is a society established

on earth by Jesus Christ, united by the divine doctrine and the

sacraments under the government and direction of a hierarchy

established by the Lord,"--those words, "established by the Lord,"

signifying a Greek hierarchy, composed of certain men who are

ordained to fill certain places.

The Lutheran catechism says: "Our Church is a holy Christian society

of believers under Christ, our Master, in which the Holy Ghost, by

means of the Bible and the sacraments, offers, communicates, and

dispenses the divine salvation,"--meaning by that, that the Catholic

Church is in error, and has fallen away from grace, and that the

genuine tradition has been preserved in Protestantism.

For Catholics the divine Church is identified with the Pope and

the Roman hierarchy. For the Orthodox it is identified with the

institution of the Eastern and Russian hierarchy.[4] For Lutherans

the divine Church signifies a congregation of men who acknowledge

the Bible and the Lutheran catechism.

[4] The definition of Homiakov, which had a certain success among

the Russians, does not help the case, if one believes with him

that the Orthodox is the only true Church. Homiakov asserts that

a church is a society of men (without distinction between the

ecclesiastics and the laity) united by love, and to whom the truth

is revealed ("Let us love one another, that we may unanimously

profess," etc.), and that such a church is, in the first place, one

that professes the Nicene creed, and, secondly, one which, after

the division of the churches, refused to recognize the authority of

the Pope and the new dogmas. With such a definition as this, the

difficulty of identifying a church which is united by love with a

church professing the Nicene creed, and the accuracy of Photius, as

Homiakov would have it, is still greater. Hence the statement of

Homiakov that this church united by love, and therefore holy, is

the same as that of the Greek hierarchy, is still more arbitrary

than the assertions of the Catholics and the old Greek Orthodox

believers. If we admit the existence of the Church according to the

idea of Homiakov, that is, as a society of men united by love and

truth, then all that any man can say in regard to it, is that it

would be most desirable to be a member of that society,--if such

an one exists,--that is, to live in the spirit of love and truth;

but there are no outward manifestations by which one could either

acknowledge one's self, or recognize others as members of this holy

society, or exclude one's self from it, for there is no outward

institution to be found which corresponds to that idea.

When those who belong to any one of the existing churches speak of

the beginnings of Christianity, they generally use the word "church"

in the singular, as though there had never been but one church. This

is quite unfair. The Church, which as an institution declares itself

to be the depository of infallible truth, did not arise until there

were already two.

While the faithful still agreed among themselves, the congregation

was united, and there was no occasion for calling itself a church.

It was only when it separated into two hostile parties that each

party felt obliged to assert its possession of the truth by claiming

infallibility.

During the course of the controversies between the two parties,

while each one claimed infallibility for itself and declared its

opponent heretical, arose the idea of the one church.

We know that there was a church in the year 51, which granted

the admission of the uncircumcised, and we know it only because

there was another, the Jewish Church, which denied their right to

membership.

If at the present time there is a Catholic Church which asserts

its infallibility, it is because there are other churches, namely,

the Greek Orthodox and the Lutheran, each one asserting its own

infallibility, and thus disowning all other churches. Hence the idea

of one church is but the product of the imagination, containing not

a shadow of reality.

It is an historical fact that there have existed, and still continue

to exist, numerous bodies, each one of whom maintains itself to be

the true Church established by Christ, declaring at the same time

that all the others who call themselves churches are heretical and

schismatic.

The catechisms of those churches which possess the greatest number

of communicants, the Catholic, the Orthodox, and the Lutheran,

express this in the plainest language.

The Catholic catechism says: "Quels sont ceux qui sont hors de

l'Eglise? Les infidèles, hérétiques, et schismatiques."[5] By

schismatics it means the so-called Orthodox, and by heretics the

Lutherans; so that, according to the Catholic catechism, the Church

is composed only of Catholics.

[5] Who are those outside the Church? The infidels, heretics, and

schismatics.

In the so-called Orthodox catechism it says: "The name Church of

Christ means only the Orthodox Church, which has remained in perfect

union with the universal Church. As to the Roman Church and the

Protestant creeds" (they are not even called a church), "they cannot

belong to the one true Church, for they have separated themselves

from it."

According to this definition the Catholics and the Protestants are

outside of the Church, and only the Orthodox are in it.

The Lutheran catechism says: "Die wahre Kirche wird darein erkannt,

das in ihr das Wort Gottes lauter und rein ohne Menschenzusetzung

gelehrt und die Sacramenten treu nach Christ Einsetzung gewartet

werden."[6]

[6] Thereby may be the true Church known that in it the word of God

is taught plainly and clearly, without human additions, and that

sacraments are administered faithfully according to the teaching of

Christ.

According to this definition, those who have added anything

whatsoever to the teaching of Christ and the apostles, as the

Catholic and Greek Churches have done, are outside the Church, and

the Lutherans alone are in it.

The Catholics assert that the Holy Ghost dwells perpetually with

their hierarchy; the Orthodox assert that the same Holy Ghost

resides also with them; the Arians claim that the Holy Ghost

manifests itself to them (and they have the same right to assert

this as have the prevailing religions of the present day); all the

denominations of Protestants--Lutherans, Reformed Presbyterians,

Methodists, Swedenborgians, and Mormons--assert that the Holy Ghost

manifests itself only with them.

If the Catholics assert that the Holy Ghost during the separation of

the Arian and Greek Churches withdrew from the separating churches

and remained in the one true Church, then the Protestants of any

denomination whatsoever may assert with as much right that during

the separation of their Church from the Catholic, the Holy Ghost

left the Catholic Church and entered into their own. And this is

exactly what they do say. Every church professes to derive its creed

by an unbroken tradition from Christ and the apostles. And certainly

every Christian creed derived from Christ must have reached the

present generation through tradition of some sort. But this is no

proof that any one of these traditions embodies infallible truth, to

the exclusion of all others.

Every branch proceeds from the root without interruption; but the

fact that each one comes from one root, by no means proves it to

be the only branch. And so it is in regard to the churches. The

proofs which each church offers of its apostolic succession, and

the miracles which are to prove its authenticity, are the same in

every case; consequently there is but one exact definition of what

is called a church (not the imaginary church which we may desire,

but the actual church which has really existed). The Church is a

body of men which lays claim to the exclusive possession of the

truth. All these various societies which were afterward transformed

by State authority into powerful organizations have really been the

chief obstacles to the diffusion of true Christianity. It could not

be otherwise: for the principal characteristic which distinguishes

the doctrine of Christ from those of earlier times is that the men

who accepted it strove to understand and to fulfil it more and more

perfectly; whereas the doctrine of the Church affirmed that it was

already thoroughly understood and also fulfilled.

However strange this may seem to us, reared as we have been in the

false doctrine of the Church, as if it were a Christian institution,

and taught to despise heresy, it is nevertheless in that which men

call heresy that true progress, that is, true Christianity, was

manifested, and it only ceased to be such when these heresies were

checked, and it was, so to speak, stamped with the immutable imprint

of the Church.

What, then, is heresy? Read all the theological works which treat of

heresies, of that subject which above all others calls for an exact

definition, for every theologian speaks of the true doctrine in the

midst of the false ones by which it is surrounded, and nowhere will

you find even the shadow of a definition of heresy.

As an instance of the complete absence of the definition of what

is understood by the word heresy, we will quote the opinion of a

learned Christian historian, E. de Pressensé in "Histoire du Dogme,"

with its epigraph, "Ubi Christus, ibi Ecclesia" (Paris, 1869). This

is what he says in his preface (p. 4):--

"I know that they dispute our right to qualify thus" (that is, to

pronounce them heretical) "the tendencies which were so actively

resisted by the early Fathers. The very name of heresy seems an

attack upon liberty of conscience and thought. We cannot share

these scruples, for they would simply deprive Christianity of any

individual character."

And having said that after Constantine the Church did in fact

abuse its authority to describe the dissenters as heretics and

to persecute them, he says, in speaking of the early ages of

Christianity: "The Church is a free association; there is an

advantage to be gained in separating from it. The controversy

against error is based on feelings and ideas; no uniform body of

dogma has as yet been adopted; differences of secondary importance

appear in the East and West with perfect freedom; theology is not

limited by unalterable formulas. If amid these varying opinions a

common groundwork of faith is discerned, have we not the right to

see in this, not a definite system devised and formulated by the

representatives of a school, but faith itself in its most unerring

instinct and spontaneous manifestation? If this very unanimity

which is revealed in the essential matters of faith is found to be

antagonistic to certain tendencies, have we not the right to infer

that these tendencies disagreed with the fundamental principles of

Christianity? Will not this supposition become a certainty if we

recognize in the doctrine rejected by the Church the characteristic

features of one of the religions of the past? If we admit that

gnosticism or ebionitism are legitimate forms of Christian thought,

we must boldly declare that Christian thought does not exist, nor

does it possess any specific characteristic by which it may be

recognized. We should destroy it even while pretending to enlarge

its limits. In the time of Plato no one would have dared to advocate

a doctrine which would leave no room for the theory of ideas, and he

would have been subjected to the well-deserved ridicule of Greece,

if he attempted to make of Epicurus or of Zeno a disciple of the

Academy. Let us then admit that if there exists a religion or a

doctrine called Christianity, it may have its heresies."

The writer's argument amounts to this, that every opinion which does

not accord with the code of dogmas that we have professed at any

given time, is a heresy. At a certain time and in a certain place

men make a certain profession, but this profession can never be a

fixed criterion of the truth. All is summed up in the "Ubi Christus,

ibi Ecclesia," and Christ is wherever we are.

Every so-called heresy which claims that what it professes is the

actual truth, may likewise find in the history of the Church a

consistent explanation of the faith it professes, and apply all

the arguments to its own use. Pressensé simply calls his own creed

Christian truth, precisely as every heretical sect has done.

The primary definition of the word heresy (the word ἁίρεσις means

a part) is the name given by a society of men to any opinion

contradicting any part of the doctrine professed by the society. A

more specific meaning is an expression of an opinion which denies

the truth of the creed, established and maintained by the temporal

power.

There is a remarkable, although little known, work entitled

"Unpartheyische Kirchen und Ketzer-Historie," 1729, by Gottfried

Arnold, which treats of this subject, and points out the illegality,

the perversity, the lack of sense, and the cruelty of employing the

word heresy in the sense of refutation. This book is an attempt to

relate the history of Christianity in the form of a history of

heresies.

In his introduction the author asks a series of questions: (1) Of

those who make heretics (Von denen Ketzermachern selbst); (2) Of

those who have become heretics; (3) Of the subjects of heresy; (4)

Of the ways of making heretics; and (5) Of the aims and consequences

of the making of heretics. To each of these points he adds scores

of other questions, giving the answers from the works of well-known

theologians, but principally leaving it to the reader to draw his

own deductions from the contents of the book. As instances of

questions which are to a certain extent their own answers I will

quote the following:--Concerning the 4th question, of the methods

for making heretics, he asks in one of the questions (the 7th):

"Does not all history tend to show us that the greatest makers of

heretics, the adepts in the art, were those very wiseacres from

whom the Father concealed his secrets--that is, the hypocrites, the

Pharisees, and the Scribes, or utterly godless and evil-minded men?

(Question 20-21) And in the corrupted times of Christianity did

not the hypocrites and envious ones reject the very men, talented

and especially indorsed by the Lord, who would have been highly

esteemed in periods of pure Christianity? (21) And, on the other

hand, would not those men who during the decadence of Christianity

rose above all others, and set themselves up as teachers of the

purest Christianity, would not they, during the times of the

apostles of Christ and his disciples, have been considered as the

shameful heretics and anti-Christians?" Among other things, while

expressing the idea that the verbal declaration of the essence of

faith which was required by the Church, the abjuration of which was

regarded as a heresy, could never cover all the ideas and beliefs

of the faithful, and that hence the requirement that faith shall be

expressed by a certain formula of words is the immediate cause of

heresy, he says in the 21st question:--

"And supposing that holy acts and thoughts appear to a man so high

and so profound that he finds no adequate words wherewith to convey

them, should he be considered a heretic if he is unable to formulate

his conception? (33) And was not this the reason why there were no

heresies in the early times of Christianity, because Christians

judged each other, not by their words, but by their hearts and by

their deeds, enjoying a perfect freedom of expression, without the

fear of being called heretic?" "Was it not one of the convenient and

easiest methods of the Church," he asks in the 31st question, "when

the ecclesiastics wished to rid themselves of any one, or ruin his

reputation, to excite suspicion in regard to the doctrine he held,

and by investing him in the garment of heresy, condemn and cast him

out?"

"Although it is true that among so-called heretics sins and errors

have been committed, it is no less true, as the numerous examples

here quoted bear testimony" (that is to say, in the history of

the Church and of heresies), "that there has never been a sincere

and conscientious man of any importance whose safety has not been

endangered through the envy of the ecclesiastics."

This was the interpretation of heresy almost 200 years ago, and the

same meaning is attached to it to-day, and so long as the idea of

the Church shall exist it will never change. Where the Church exists

there must also exist the idea of heresy. The Church is a body of

men claiming possession of indisputable truth. A heresy is the

opinion of men who do not acknowledge the truth of the Church to be

indisputable.

Heresy is the manifestation of a movement in the Church; it is

an attempt to destroy the immutable assertion of the Church, the

attempt of a living apprehension of the doctrine. Each advance that

has been made toward the comprehension and the practice of the

doctrine has been accomplished by heretics: Tertullian, Origen,

Augustine, and Luther, Huss, Savonarola, Helchitsky, and others were

all heretics. It could not be otherwise.

A disciple of Christ, who possesses an ever growing sense of

the doctrine and of its progressive fulfilment as it advances

toward perfection, cannot, either for himself or others, affirm,

simply because he is a disciple of Christ, that he understands and

practises the doctrine of Christ to its fullest extent; still less

could he affirm this in regard to any body of men. To whatsoever

state of comprehension and perfection he may have arrived, he

must always feel the inadequacy both of his conception and of its

application, and must ever strive for something more satisfactory.

And therefore to claim for one's self, or for any body of men

whatsoever, the possession of a complete apprehension and practice

of the doctrine of Christ is in direct contradiction to the spirit

of Christ's doctrine itself.

However strange this statement may appear, every church, as a

church, has always been, and always must be, an institution not

only foreign, but absolutely hostile, to the doctrine of Christ. It

is not without reason that Voltaire called it "_l'infâme_"; it is

not without reason that all so-called Christian sects believe the

Church to be the Scarlet Woman prophesied by the Revelation; it is

not without reason that the history of the Church is the history of

cruelties and horrors.

Churches in themselves are, as some persons believe, institutions

based upon a Christian principle, from which they have deviated to a

certain extent; but considered in the light of churches, of bodies

of men claiming infallibility, they are anti-Christian institutions.

Between churches in the ecclesiastical sense and Christianity,

not only is there nothing in common except the name, but they are

two utterly contradictory and hostile elements. One is pride,

violence, self-assertion, inertia, and death. The other is meekness,

repentance, submission, activity, and life.

No man can serve these two masters at the same time; he must choose

either the one or the other.

The servants of the churches of every creed, especially in these

modern times, strive to represent themselves as the partisans of

progress in Christianity; they make concessions, they try to correct

the abuses that have crept into the Church, and protest that it is

wrong to deny the principle of the Christian Church on account of

these abuses, because it is only through the medium of the Church

that unity can be obtained, and that the Church is the only mediator

between God and man. All this is untrue. So far from fostering the

spirit of unity, the churches have ever been the fruitful source of

human enmity, of hatred, wars, conflicts, inquisitions, Eves of St.

Bartholomew, and so on; neither do the churches act as the mediators

between God and man,--an office, moreover, quite unnecessary, and

directly forbidden by Christ himself, who has revealed his doctrine

unto each individual; it is but the dead formula, and not the living

God, which the churches offer to man, and which serves rather to

increase than diminish the distance between man and his Creator.

The churches, which were founded upon a misconception, and which

preserve this misconception by their immutability, must of necessity

harass and persecute any new conception, because they know, however

they may try to conceal it, that every advance along the road

indicated by Christ is undermining their own existence.

Whenever one reads or listens to the essays and sermons in which

ecclesiastical writers of modern times belonging to the various

creeds discuss the Christian truths and virtues, when one hears

and reads these artificial arguments, these exhortations, these

professions of faith, elaborated through centuries, that now and

then sound sincere, one is almost ready to doubt if the churches can

be inimical to Christianity. "It cannot be possible that men like

John Chrysostom, Fénelon, Butler, and other Christian preachers,

could be inimical to it." One would like to say, "The churches may

have gone astray from Christianity, may have committed errors, but

they cannot have been hostile to it." But one must first see the

fruit before he can know the tree, as Christ has taught, and one

sees that their fruits were evil, that the result of their works has

been the distortion of Christianity; and one cannot help concluding

that, however virtuous the men may have been, the cause of the

church in which these men served was not Christian. The goodness

and virtue of certain individuals who served the churches were

peculiar to themselves, and not to the cause which they served. All

these excellent men, like Francis of Assisi and Francis de Sales,

Tichon Zadònsky, Thomas à Kempis, and others, were good men, even

though they served a cause hostile to Christianity; and they would

have been still more charitable and more exemplary had they not

yielded obedience to false doctrines.

But why do we speak of, or sit in judgment on, the past, which may

be falsely represented, and is, in any event, but little known to

us? The churches, with their principles and their works, are not of

the past; we have them with us to-day, and can judge them by their

works and by their influence over men.

What, then, constitutes their power? How do they influence men? What

is their work in the Greek, the Catholic, and in all the Protestant

denominations? and what are the consequences of such work?

The work of our Russian so-called Orthodox Church is visible to all.

It is a factor of primary importance, which can neither be concealed

nor disputed.

In what manner is the activity of the Russian Church

displayed,--that vast institution which labors with so much zeal,

that institution which numbers among its servants half a million of

men, and costs the people tens of millions?

The activity of the Church consists in forcing, by every means in

its power, upon the one hundred millions of Russian people, those

antiquated, time-worn beliefs which have lost all significance,

and which were formerly professed by foreigners, with whom we had

nothing in common, beliefs in which nearly every man has lost

his faith, even in some cases those very men whose duty it is to

inculcate them.

The endeavor to force upon the people those formulas of the

Byzantine clergy, marvelous to them and senseless to us, concerning

the Trinity, the Virgin, the sacraments, grace, and so forth,

embraces one province of the activity of the Russian Church; another

function is the encouragement given to idolatry, in the literal

sense of the word: the veneration of holy relics and holy images,

the sacrifices offered to them in the faith that they will hear and

grant prayers. I will pass over in silence what is written in the

ecclesiastical magazines by the clergy who possess a semblance of

learning and liberality, and will speak only of what is really done

by the clergy throughout the immense extent of Russia, among its one

hundred millions of inhabitants. What is it that is taught to the

people with such unremitting pains and endeavor, and with so much

earnestness? What is required of them for the sake of the so-called

Christian religion?

I will start at the beginning, with the birth of the child. When

a child is born, we are taught that a prayer must be read over

the mother and child, in order to purify them, for without that

prayer the mother remains unclean. For that purpose, and facing the

ikons of the saints, whom the common people simply call gods, the

priest takes the infant in his arms, reads the exhortation, and by

that means he is supposed to cleanse the mother. Then the parents

are instructed, nay, even ordered, under penalty of punishment

in the event of non-compliance, to christen the child--that is,

to let the priest immerse it three times in the water, while

words unintelligible to all present are read, and still less

intelligible ceremonies are performed, such as the application of

oil to different parts of the body, the cutting of the hair, the

blowing and spitting of the sponsors at the imaginary devil. All

this is necessary to cleanse the child, and make a Christian of

him. Then the parents are told that the child must receive the

holy sacrament--that is, he is to swallow, in the form of bread

and wine, a particle of the body of Christ, by which means the

child will receive the blessing of Christ, and so on. Then they

are told that as the child grows it must be taught to pray, which

means that he is to stand in front of boards upon which the faces

of Christ, the Virgin, and the saints are painted, bow his head

and body, while with his right hand, his fingers being folded in

a peculiar manner, he touches his forehead, his shoulders, and

his stomach, and utters certain Slavonic words, the commonest of

which, those which all children learn, are the following: "Mother

of God, ... Virgin, rejoice," etc. Then the child is taught that he

must repeat this--that is, that he must make the sign of the cross

whenever he sees a church or an ikon. Furthermore, he is taught

that on a holiday (holidays are either the day on which Christ was

born, although no one knows when that took place, or the day of his

circumcision, or that on which the Virgin died, or when the cross or

the ikon was brought, or when some fanatic beheld a vision, etc.) he

should array himself in his best clothes, go to church, buy candles,

and set them up before the ikons of the saints, give to the priest

memoranda bearing the names of the dead who are to be prayed for,

receive bread with triangular pieces cut out of it, pray repeatedly

for the health and welfare of the Czar and bishops, as well as for

himself and his own affairs, and then kiss the cross and the hand of

the priest.

Thus is he taught to pray; and besides this, he is also taught

that he must perform his devotions once a year. To perform one's

devotions means to go to church and tell one's sins to the priest,

it being assumed that this recital of one's sins to a stranger will

have a purifying effect on a man; then he is to swallow a spoonful

of bread and wine, which will purify him still more. Moreover,

men are told that if a man and woman desire to have their sexual

relation sanctified they must come to church, put crowns of metal

upon their heads, swallow some wine, walk three times round a table,

accompanied by the sound of singing, and this will make their sexual

relation holy and entirely different from any others.

In daily life the observation of the following rules is enjoined:

to eat no meat nor drink no milk on certain days, to say _Te Deums_

and _Requiems_ on certain other days, to invite the priest to

one's house on holidays and present him with money; to take from

the church several times a year boards upon which are painted the

images of the saints, and to carry them on towels through fields and

houses. Before death a man must without fail receive a spoonful of

bread and wine; and if there be time to be anointed with oil, that

is still better, for it insures his welfare in the future life.

After his death his relatives are told that, in order to save his

soul, it is well to place in his hand a printed prayer; it is also a

good thing to read a certain book over the dead, and for his name to

be mentioned in church at stated times.

This is what constitutes every man's religious obligation. But

if any one wishes to take a special care of his soul, this creed

teaches that the greatest amount of happiness may be secured in

the next world by bequeathing money for churches and monasteries,

thereby obliging the saints to pray for one. According to this faith

it is also well to visit monasteries and kiss the miraculous ikons

and the relics.

These are believed to impart a peculiar holiness, strength, and

grace; and to be near these objects, as one must be in kissing them,

placing tapers before them, crawling under them, and repeating _Te

Deums_ before them, greatly promotes salvation.

And this is the faith called Orthodox, this is the true faith,

the one which, under the garb of a Christian religion, has been

energetically taught to the people for many centuries, and is

inculcated at the present time more vigorously than ever.

Let it not be said that the Orthodox teachers look upon all this as

an ancient form of faith which it was not considered worth while

to abolish, and that the essence of the doctrine abides elsewhere.

This is not the truth. Throughout Russia, and lately with increased

energy, the entire Russian clergy teaches this faith, and this

alone. Nothing else is taught. Men may write about other doctrines

and discuss them in the capitals, but among the hundred million

inhabitants this, and only this, is taught. The ecclesiastics may

discuss other doctrines, but only this is what is taught.

All this--the worship of relics and shrines--is included in theology

and the catechism; the people are carefully instructed in all this,

theoretically and practically, by every kind of solemnity, splendor,

authority, and violence; the people are compelled to believe in it

all; they are hypnotized, and the faith is jealously guarded against

any attempt to deliver them from these foolish superstitions.

As I said in my book, I have during the course of many years had

frequent opportunities to remark the ridicule and rude jests

that have been applied to Christ's words and doctrine, and the

ecclesiastics not only failed to condemn it, they even encouraged

this scoffing; but let a man venture to say one disrespectful word

of the ugly idol called the Iverskaya,[7] sacrilegiously carried

around Moscow by intoxicated men, and a groan of indignation will

rise from these same Orthodox ecclesiastics. In fact, it is only an

external worship in the form of idolatry that is propagated. And

let it not be said that the one does not exclude the other, that

"All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do;

but do not ye after their works: for they say, and do not" (Matthew

xxiii. 3). This is said concerning the Pharisees, who fulfilled

all the outward commands of the law, and therefore the words,

"whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do," refer to

acts of benevolence and charity; whereas the words, "do not ye after

their works, for they say and do not," refer to their observances of

the rites and their indifference to works of charity, and directly

contradicts the clerical interpretation of this passage, which

explains it as a commandment which has to do only with the rites. An

external worship is hardly compatible with the service of charity

and truth; one is apt to exclude the other. It was so with the

Pharisees, and the same may be said of our professing Christians.

[7] The ikon of the Virgin which stands in a chapel in the heart

of Moscow, and which is the object of a special veneration to the

Russians.--TR.

If a man is to be saved by redemption, the sacraments, and prayer,

good works are no longer of any value to him. It must be either the

Sermon on the Mount or the Credo. No man can believe in both, and

the ecclesiastics have chosen the latter. The Credo is taught and

recited as a prayer in the churches, while the Sermon on the Mount

is excluded even from selections from the Bible which are read in

churches, so that the congregation never hear it, except on the days

when the entire Bible is read. It is inevitable; the men who can

believe that a cruel and unreasonable God had condemned humanity to

eternal death and sacrificed his own Son, and who had destined a

certain portion of mankind to everlasting torture, cannot believe

in a God of love. A man who believes in God, in the Christ who is

coming in his glory to judge and punish the dead and the living,

cannot believe in a Christ who commands us to turn the other cheek

to the offender, who forbids us to sit in judgment, and who bids us

to forgive our enemies and to love them. A man who believes in the

inspiration of the Old Testament and in the holiness of David, who

on his deathbed ordered the murder of an old man who had offended

him, and whom he could not kill himself because he was bound by

an oath (1 Kings ii. 8,9), and many other horrors of a similar

character, in which the Old Testament abounds, cannot believe in the

moral law of Christ; a man who believes in the doctrine and sermons

of the Church, wherein the practice of war and the penalty of death

are reconciled with Christianity, cannot believe in the brotherhood

of humanity.

But, above all, a man who believes in salvation through faith, in

redemption, and in the sacraments, cannot strive with all his might

to live up to the moral precepts of Christ. A man who has been

taught by the Church the sacrilegious doctrine that he is to be

saved through a certain medium, and not by his own efforts, will

surely have recourse to that medium; he will not trust to his own

efforts, on which, he has been assured, it is sinful to rely. Every

Church, with its doctrines of redemption and salvation, and above

all, the Orthodox faith, with its idolatry, excludes the doctrine

of Christ. But it is said, "This has always been the faith of the

people, and that they will continue to hold it is proved by the

whole history of the Russian nation. It would be wrong to deprive

them of their traditions." Herein lies the fallacy. The people,

it is true, did once upon a time profess something like what is at

present professed by the Church; but besides this worship of images

and relics, the people had always a profound moral conception of

Christianity never possessed by the Church, and only met with in

her noblest representatives; but the people, in the better class,

and in spite of the obstacles raised by the State and the Church,

have long since abandoned the cruder phase of belief, a fact that

is proved by the rationalistic sects that are beginning to spring

up on every side, sects that Russia is filled with at the present

day, and against which the ecclesiastics wage so hopeless a warfare.

The people are beginning to recognize the moral, vital side of

Christianity more and more plainly. And now the Church appears,

failing to give them a moral support, but forcibly teaching old-time

paganism,--the Church, with its immutable formulas, endeavoring to

thrust men back into the gloom from which they are struggling so

earnestly to escape.

The ecclesiastics say: "We are teaching nothing new; it is the same

faith which the people already hold, only we teach it in a more

perfect manner." It is like binding a chicken and trying to put it

back into the shell from which it came. I have often been struck by

the spectacle, which would be simply absurd were not its results so

terrible, of men traveling, so to speak, in a circle, deceived and

deceiving, but wholly unable to escape from the charmed circle.

The first question, the first doubt, that enters the head of

every Russian when he begins to reason, is a suspicion of the

miraculous ikons, and principally of the relics: is it true that

they are incorruptible, and that they perform miracles? Hundreds

and thousands of men ask these questions, and are at a loss for an

answer, especially since bishops and metropolitans and other eminent

persons kiss both the relics and the miraculous images. Ask the

bishops and other personages of importance why they do this, and

they will tell you that they do it in order to impress the masses,

and the masses do it because the bishops and other magnates do it.

The activity of the Russian Church, despite the veneer of modernity

and the scientific and spiritual standards which its members have

begun to establish by their essays, their religious reviews, and

their sermons, consists not only in encouraging the people in a

coarse and grotesque idolatry, but in strengthening and promulgating

superstition and religious ignorance, and in endeavoring to destroy

the vital conception of Christianity that exists in the people side

by side with this idolatry.

I remember being once in a book-shop of the monastery of Optinæ

Desert while an old peasant was selecting spiritual reading for

his educated grandson. The monk was offering him a description of

relics, of holy days, of miraculous ikons, the Book of Psalms, and

the like. I asked the old man if he had a Bible. "No," he replied.

"Give him a Russian Bible," I said to the monk. "We don't sell that

to them," said the monk. This, in short, is the activity of our

Church.

But the European or American reader may say, "That only happens in

barbaric Russia," and the remark will be correct, but only so far as

it applies to the government, which supports the Church to maintain

in our land its stupefying and demoralizing influence.

It is true that there is nowhere in Europe a government so despotic,

or that is in more perfect accord with the established Church.

Therefore in Russia the government authorities play an important

part in demoralizing the people; but it is not true that the Russian

Church differs from other churches in respect to its influence over

the people.

Churches are everywhere alike, and if the Catholic, Anglican, and

Lutheran have not at their beck so submissive a government as the

Russian, we may be sure that they would not fail to take advantage

of it were it within their reach.

The Church as a church, whether it be Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran,

or Presbyterian, or any denomination whatsoever, inasmuch as it is

a church, cannot help striving after the same object as the Russian

Church--namely, to conceal the true meaning of the doctrine of

Christ, and to substitute a meaning of its own, which imposes no

obligations, which excludes the possibility of understanding the

true, living doctrine of Christ, and which above all justifies the

existence of a priesthood living at the expense of the people.

Do we not find Catholicism with its prohibition against reading the

Bible, and with its demand for implicit obedience to the clergy

and the infallible Pope? Wherein does Catholicism differ in its

preaching from the Russian Church? The same external worship, the

same relics, miracles, and statues, miracle-performing Madonnas

and processions; the same vague and mystical utterances concerning

Christianity in books and sermons, and all in support of the

grossest idolatry.

And is it not the same in the Anglican or in the Lutheran, or in any

other Protestant denomination with an established form of church?

The same demands that the congregation shall acknowledge a belief in

dogmas which were defined in the fourth century, and which have lost

all meaning for the men of our time; the same call for idol worship,

if not of relics or ikons, at least of the Sabbath and the letter

of the Bible; the same endeavor to conceal the real requirement of

Christianity and the substitution of exterior rites, and "cant," as

the English so happily define the tendency which finds such sway

among them.

This activity is more noticeable in Protestantism, because that

creed has not even the excuse of antiquity. And is not the same

thing going on in the present "Revivalism," a regenerated Calvinism,

which has given birth to the Salvation Army? Inasmuch as the

attitude of all ecclesiastical dogmas toward the doctrine of Christ

is very much the same, so are their methods of a similar character.

The attitude they have taken obliges them to make every effort to

conceal the doctrine of that Christ in whose name they speak.

The disparity between ecclesiastical creeds and the doctrine of

Christ is so great that a special effort is required to keep mankind

in ignorance. Indeed, one needs but to consider the position of

any adult, I do not say educated, but one who has assimilated

superficially the current notions concerning geology, physics,

chemistry, cosmography, and history, when for the first time he

actually reflects on the faith impressed upon him in his childhood,

and maintained by the Church, concerning the creation of the world

in six days, the appearance of light before the sun was created, the

story of Noah's ark and the animals preserved in it,--concerning

Jesus and his divine origin as the Son of God who created all things

before time existed; that this God came down to earth because of

Adam's sin; that he rose from the dead, ascended into heaven, and

sits on the right hand of the Father; that he will come in the

clouds to judge the living and the dead, etc.

All these ideas evolved by the men of the fourth century, which had

for them a certain meaning, have none whatever for us. The present

generation may repeat these words, but it can never believe in them,

because the statements that God dwells in heaven, that the heavens

opened and a voice was heard to utter certain words, that Christ

arose from the dead and ascended into heaven, that he will come

again from some place in the clouds, etc., have no meaning for us.

It was possible for a man who believed that heaven was a substantial

arch of limited dimensions to believe or to disbelieve that God

created it, that it opened, and that Christ ascended thither,--but

for us there is no sense in such ideas. Men of our time can only

affirm that it is one's duty to believe all this,--which they do.

But they cannot really believe in what has no meaning in it for them.

But if all these utterances are supposed to have an allegorical

signification and are only intended as similes, then we know in the

first place that all the churchmen will not agree to this--on the

contrary, the majority insist on taking the Scriptures literally;

and in the second place, that these interpretations differ greatly,

and are supported by no reliable authority.

And even if a man wished to believe the doctrine of the Church as

it is taught, the increase of culture, the reading of the Bible,

and the intercourse among the members of different churches, form a

greater and more insurmountable obstacle to belief.

Nowadays a man has but to buy the Bible for threepence, and to read

the simple, indisputable words of Christ to the Samaritan woman,

that the Father seeketh worshipers neither in Jerusalem nor in this

or that mountain, but worshipers in spirit and truth; or the words,

that a Christian should pray not like the heathen in the temples,

nor at the corners of streets, but in the secrecy of his closet; or,

that a disciple of Christ may call no one father or mother,--one has

but to read these words to be indubitably convinced that priests who

call themselves teachers in opposition to the teaching of Christ,

and dispute among themselves, cannot be authorities, and that that

which they teach is not Christian.

But this is not enough. If the modern man were to go on believing

in miracles and never read the Bible, the fellowship with men of

other creeds and professions, which is so much a matter of course in

these days, will compel him to question the truth of his religion.

It was natural enough for a man who had never met a believer in a

creed different from his own, to think that his was the only faith;

but an intelligent man has but to encounter--and that is an everyday

occurrence--good and bad men of all creeds, who criticize each

other's beliefs, in order to question the truth of his own religion.

Now, only a man either totally ignorant or indifferent to the

problems of life as dealt with by religion can remain in the faith

of the Church.

What shrewdness is needed, and what efforts must the churches make,

in order to go on, in the face of all these faith-destroying

influences, building temples, saying masses, preaching, instructing,

converting, and above all receiving for this the large compensations

which all those priests, pastors, stewards, superintendents, abbots,

archdeacons, bishops, and archbishops receive!

A special and supernatural effort is called for, and to this the

Church responds, exerting herself more and more. In Russia, besides

many other measures, they employ a simple, rude violence, by virtue

of the power invested in the Church. People who shrink from an

outward observance of faith and who do not conceal the fact are

simply punished or deprived of their civil rights; and to those who

strictly comply with the rites, privileges and rewards are granted.

So much for the Orthodoxy; but every church, without exception,

makes the most of the means at its disposal, and hypnotism is one of

the chief agents.

Every art, from architecture to poetry, is enlisted, in order to

move and intoxicate the human soul. This hypnotic and mesmerizing

influence is markedly displayed in the activity of the Salvation

Army, which employs novel, and to us abnormal, methods, such, for

instance, as drums, horns, singing, banners, uniforms, processions,

dancing, outbursts of tears, and dramatic gestures.

Still, these methods are startling simply because of their novelty.

Is not the familiar form of worship in cathedrals, with their

peculiar illumination, the golden pomp, the candles, choirs, organs,

bells, vestments, the weeping preachers, etc., of a similar nature?

And yet, however powerful may be the influence of this hypnotism,

it is by no means the chief or most harmful form which the activity

of the Church assumes. Its most malign activity is that which is

devoted to deceiving the children--those little ones of whom Jesus

has said, "Woe be unto him who tempts the least of these." From

the earliest awakening of a child's intelligence he is deceived

and formally taught that which his teachers no longer believe

themselves, and this goes on until the delusion becomes from habit

a part of his nature. A child is systematically deceived concerning

the most important affair in life, and when this deception has

become so incorporated with his being that it is difficult to uproot

it, then the world of science and reality is opened to him--a world

that is wholly at variance with the faith which he has imbibed from

his teachers--and he is left to reconcile those contradictions as

best he may.

Given the problem of how to muddle a man so that he will be unable

to discriminate between two antagonistic conceptions that have been

taught to him since his childhood, one could never have devised

anything more effectual than the education of every young man in our

so-called Christian society.

Shocking as it is to contemplate the work of the churches among men,

still, if we consider their position, we shall see that they cannot

act otherwise. They are face to face with a dilemma: the Sermon on

the Mount or the Nicene creed; the one excludes the other. If a man

sincerely believes the Sermon on the Mount, the Nicene creed must

inevitably lose all its meaning for him, and the same would hold

true as regards the Church and its representatives; but if a man

accepts the Nicene creed, that is to say, the Church, or those who

call themselves its representatives, then he will find no use for

the Sermon on the Mount. Hence it is incumbent on the churches to

make every effort to obscure the meaning of the Sermon on the Mount

and to endeavor to draw the people toward them. It is only due to

their intense activity in that direction that the influence of the

churches has not decreased. Let the Church but pause in this effort

to influence the masses by hypnotizing men and deceiving children

for ever so short a time, and men will comprehend the doctrine

of Christ, and this comprehension will do away with churches and

their influence. Therefore the churches cease not for one moment

their compulsory activity through the hypnotism of adults and the

deception of children. And it is this activity of the churches that

gives people a false conception of Christ's doctrine, and prevents

the majority of men, the so-called believers, from understanding it.

CHAPTER IV

MISCONCEPTION OF CHRISTIANITY BY SCIENTISTS

The relation of scientists to religions in general--What

are religions, and their significance to human life--Three

conceptions of life--The Christian doctrine is the expression of

the divine life-conception--The misconception of Christianity

by scientists who study its outward manifestations due to

the fact that they consider it from the standpoint of the

social life-conception--Opinion resulting therefrom, that

the teaching of Christ is exaggerated and unpractical--The

expression of the life-conception of the gospel--Erroneous

judgments of scientists concerning Christianity are based upon

the assurance that they possess an infallible criterion of

knowledge--Hence arise two misapprehensions in regard to the

Christian doctrine--The first misapprehension concerning the

impracticability of the doctrine arises from the fact that the

Christian doctrine presents a conduct of life different from

that of the social life-conception--Christianity offers not a

rule, but an ideal--Christ adds the consciousness of a divine

power to that of an animal power--Christianity seems to exclude

the possibility of life only when the indication of the ideal

is taken for the rule--An ideal cannot be belittled--According

to the doctrine of Christ, life is movement--The ideal and

the commandments--The second misapprehension arises from the

attempt to replace the love of God and His service by the love

and service of humanity--Scientists believe that Christianity

and their doctrine concerning the service of humanity are

identical--The doctrine of love toward humanity has for its

foundation the social life-conception--The love for humanity

which springs logically from love for the individual has no

meaning, because humanity is a fiction--Christian love springing

from the love of God has for its object not only humanity but

the whole world--Christianity teaches a life in accordance with

its divine nature--It indicates that the essence of a man's soul

is love, and that its good is obtained from its love of God,

whom he feels to be within him through love.

Let us now turn our attention to another fallacious conception of

Christianity, which is antagonistic to its actual principles,--the

scientific conception.

The Christianity of the churchmen is something which they have

evolved for themselves, and which they believe to be the only true

interpretation of Christian doctrine.

The scientists take the professions of faith of the various

churches for Christianity, and assuming that these dogmas embody

an exhaustive definition of Christian doctrine, they affirm that

Christianity has had its day.

One needs but to take into consideration the important part

which all religions, and especially Christianity, have played in

the life of man, and the significance which science attaches to

them, to see at once how impossible it would be to obtain any just

apprehension of Christian doctrine through these conceptions. As

each individual must possess certain impressions in regard to the

meaning of his life, and, though often unconsciously, conform his

conduct thereunto, so mankind in the aggregate, or groups of men

living under the same conditions, must likewise possess a conception

of the meaning of their common life and its consequent activities.

As an individual passing from one period of life to another

inevitably changes his ideas, the point of view of a grown-up man

differs from that of a child, so also mankind in the aggregate--the

nation--inevitably, and in conformity with its age, changes its

views of life and the activity that springs therefrom.

The difference in this respect between an individual and mankind

in general lies in the fact that while the individual, in forming

his conception of the significance and responsibilities of that new

period of life upon which he is about to enter, may avail himself of

the advice of his predecessors who have already passed that stage,

mankind can have no such advantage, because it is advancing along an

unbeaten track and there is no one of whom it can ask for the clue

to the mystery of life, or how it shall demean itself under these

unfamiliar conditions to which no nation has ever yet been subjected.

The married man with a family of children will not continue to

view life as he did when he was a child; neither is it possible

for mankind, with the many changes that have taken place,--the

density of the population, the constant intercourse of nations,

the perfected means of combating the forces of nature, and the

increase of knowledge generally,--to view the life of the present

day in the light of the past; hence it becomes necessary to evolve

a life-conception from which activities corresponding with a new

system which is to be established will naturally develop.

And this need is supplied by that peculiar capacity of the race for

producing men able to impart a new significance to human life,--a

significance developing a different set of activities.

The birth of the life-conception, which always takes place when

mankind enters upon new conditions and its subsequent activities, is

what we call religion.

Therefore, in the first place, religion is not, as science regards

it, a phenomenon which formerly traveled hand in hand with the

development of mankind, and which has since been left behind; on the

contrary, it is a phenomenon inherent to human existence itself, and

never more distinctly manifested than at the present day. In the

second place, religion defines future rather than past activities;

therefore it is evident that an investigation of the phenomena of

the past can by no means touch the essence of religion.

The longing to typify the forces of nature is no more the essence

of religion than is the fear of those same forces, or the need of

the miraculous and its outward manifestations, as the scientists

suppose. The essence of religion lies in the power of man to

foreknow and to point out the way in which mankind must walk. It is

a definition of a new life which will give birth to new activities.

This faculty of foreknowledge concerning the destiny of humanity

is more or less common, no doubt, to all people; still from time

to time a man appears in whom the faculty has reached a higher

development, and these men have the power clearly and distinctly

to formulate that which is vaguely conceived by all men, thus

instituting a new life-conception from which is to flow an unwonted

activity, whose results will endure for centuries to come. Thus far

there have been three of these life-conceptions; two of them belong

to a bygone era, while the third is of our own time and is called

Christianity. It is not that we have merged the various conceptions

of the significance of life into three arbitrary divisions, but that

there really have been but three distinct conceptions, by which the

actions of mankind have been influenced, and save through these we

have no means of comprehending life.

These three life-conceptions are--firstly, the individual or animal;

secondly, the social or pagan; and thirdly, the universal or divine.

According to the first of these, a man's life is his personality,

and that only, and his life's object is to gratify his desires.

According to the second, his life is not limited to his own

personality; it includes the sum and continuity of many

personalities,--of the family, of the race, and of the State,

and his life's object is to gratify the will of the communities

of individuals. And according to the third, his life is confined

neither to his personality nor to that of the aggregate of

individuals, but finds its significance in the eternal source of all

life,--in God Himself.

These three life-conceptions serve as the basis for the religions of

every age.

The savage sees life only through the medium of his own desires. He

cares for nothing but himself, and for him the highest good is the

full satisfaction of his own passions. The incentive of his life is

personal enjoyment. His religion consists of attempts to propitiate

the gods in his favor, and of the worship of imaginary deities, who

exist only for their own personal ends.

A member of the pagan world recognizes life as something concerning

others besides himself; he sees it as concerning an aggregate of

individuals,--the family, the race, the nation, the State, and is

ready to sacrifice himself for the aggregate. The incentive of his

life is glory. His religion consists in honoring the chiefs of his

race, his progenitors, his ancestors, his sovereigns, and in the

worship of those gods who are the exclusive patrons of his family,

his tribe, his race, and his State.[8]

[8] The unity of this social and pagan life-conception is by no

means destroyed by the numerous and varied systems which grow out of

it, such as the existence of the family, of the nation, and of the

State, and even of that life of humanity conceived according to the

theory of the Positivists.

These multifarious systems of life are based upon the fundamental

idea of the insignificance of the individual, and the assurance that

the meaning of life is to be sought and found only in humanity,

taken in its broadest sense.--AUTHOR.

The man who possesses the divine life-conception neither looks upon

life as centered in his own personality nor in that of mankind at

large, whether family, tribe, race, nation, or State; but rather

does he conceive of it as taking its rise in the eternal life of

God, and to fulfil His will he is ready to sacrifice his personal,

family, and social well-being. Love is the impelling motive of his

life, and his religion is the worship, in deed and in truth, of the

beginning of all things,--of God Himself.

History is but the transcript of the gradual transition from the

animal life-conception of the individual to the social, and from

the social to the divine. The history of the ancients for thousands

of centuries, culminating in that of Rome, is the history of the

evolution from the animal life-conception of the individual to that

of society and the State. From the advent of Christianity and the

fall of Imperial Rome we have the history of that change which is

still going on from the social to the divine life-conception.

The latter, together with the Christian doctrine which is based

upon it, and by which our lives are shaped, and our activities,

both practical and scientific, are quickened, is regarded by the

pseudo-scientists, who judge it only by its outward signs, as

something outlived, which has lost all meaning for us.

According to scientists this doctrine is embodied in the dogmas

of the Trinity, the Redemption, the miracles, the Church and its

sacraments, etc., and is only one of the many religions which have

arisen during the progress of human history, and now, having played

its part and outlived its time, is vanishing before the dawn of

science and true enlightenment.

The grossest of human errors spring in most cases from the fact

that men who stand on a low intellectual plane, when they encounter

phenomena of a higher order, instead of trying to rise to the

higher plane from which these phenomena may be fitly regarded, and

making an effort to understand them, judge them by their own low

standard, and the less they know of what they speak, the more bold

and determined are their judgments.

Most scientists, who treat of the moral doctrine of Christ from the

lower standpoint of a social life-conception, regard it as nothing

more than an amalgam without cohesion of the asceticism of India

with the doctrine of the Stoics and Neo-Platonists, and of vague

anti-social dreams, devoid of all serious meaning in these latter

days; they simply see its outward manifestation in the form of

dogmas in Catholicism, in Protestantism, and in its struggle with

the powers of the world. Interpreting the design of Christianity

from its outward aspects, they are like unto deaf men, who judge

of the meaning and excellence of music by the movements of the

musicians.

Hence it is that all such men, from Comte and Strauss to Spencer

and Renan, not understanding the purport of Christ's words, knowing

nothing whatever of their intention, ignorant of the question

to which they serve as an answer, and taking no pains to learn

it,--such men, if they are inimical to Christianity, utterly deny

the sense of the doctrine; but if they are leniently inclined, then,

from the height of their superior wisdom, they amend it, taking for

granted that Christ would have said what they think He meant, had He

known how to express himself. They treat His doctrine just as men

of overweening self-conceit treat their inferiors, correcting them

in their speech: "You mean so and so." And the spirit of emendation

is always such as to reduce the doctrine of the higher, the divine

life-conception, to that of the lower and the social conception.

It is usually admitted that the moral teaching of Christianity

is good but exaggerated; that in order to make it perfect, its

hyperboles, which are incompatible with our present mode of life,

should be discarded. "A doctrine which requires so much that is

impracticable is more hurtful than one which demands of men only

what is in proportion to their strength." Thus declare the learned

interpreters of Christianity, thus unwittingly reiterating the

assertion of those who misunderstood the Christian doctrine long

years ago, and crucified the Master.

The Hebrew law, "An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth," the

retributive justice known to mankind thousands of years ago, seems

far better suited to the court of contemporary scientists than the

law of love which Christ preached 1800 years ago, and which was to

replace this identical law of justice.

It would seem that every action of those men who accepted the

teaching of Christ in its literal sense, and lived up to it, all the

words and deeds of sincere Christians, and all the agencies which,

under the guise of socialism and communism, are now transforming

the world, are merely exaggeration, not worth discussing. Nations

which have lived under Christian influences, and which are now

represented by their advanced thinkers, the scientists, have

arrived at the conclusion that the Christian doctrine is a matter

of dogma; that its practical teaching has been a mistake and an

exaggeration, inimical to the just requirements of morality that

are in accord with human nature, and that the very doctrine which

Christ repudiated, and for which he substituted a dogma of his own,

is far better suited to us. The scientist considers the commandment

of non-resistance to evil by violence an exaggeration, and even an

act of folly. It would be far better, in his opinion, to reject it,

never dreaming that it is not the doctrine of Christ which he is

controverting, but something which he assumes to be the doctrine in

question. He does not realize when he says that the commandment of

non-resistance in the doctrine of Christ is an exaggeration, that

he is like one who, teaching the theory of the circle, declares

that the equality of the radii is an exaggeration. It is just as

if one who has no idea of the form of a circle were to affirm that

the law which requires that each point of its circumference shall

be equidistant from its center, is an exaggeration. As a suggestion

to reject or modify the proposition concerning the equality of the

radii of a circle signifies an ignorance in regard to the circle

itself, so also does the idea of rejecting or modifying, in the

practical teaching of Christ, the commandment of non-resistance to

evil by violence signify a misunderstanding of the doctrine.

And those who entertain these views do not really comprehend the

doctrine. They do not understand that it is the unfolding of a new

conception of life, corresponding to the new phase of existence

upon which the world entered 1800 years ago, and a definition of

the new activity to which it gave birth. Either they do not believe

that Christ said what He meant to say, or that what is found in the

Sermon on the Mount and elsewhere He said either from His enthusiasm

or lack of wisdom and simplicity of character.[9]

[9] Here, for example, is a characteristic expression of opinion

in the American periodical, _The Arena,_ for November, 1890,

from an article entitled "New Basis of Church Life." Discussing

the significance of the Sermon on the Mount, and especially the

doctrine of non-resistance to evil, the author, having no reason for

obscuring its meaning as the ecclesiastics do, says:--

"Devout common sense must gradually come to look upon Christ

as a philanthropic teacher, who, like every enthusiast who

ever taught, went to an Utopian extreme in his own philosophy.

Every great agitation for the betterment of the world has been

led by men who beheld their own mission with such absorbing

intensity that they could see little else. It is no reproach to

Christ to say that he had the typical reformer's temperament;

that his precepts cannot be literally accepted as a complete

philosophy of life; and that men are to analyze them reverently,

but, at the same time, in the spirit of ordinary truth-seeking

criticism," etc.

"Christ did in fact preach absolute communism and anarchy; but,"

and so on. Christ would have been glad to have expressed Himself

in more fitting terms, but He did not possess our critical

faculty in the use of exact definitions, therefore we will set

Him right. All He said concerning meekness, sacrifice, poverty,

and of taking no thought for the morrow, were but haphazard

utterances, because of His ignorance of scientific phraseology.

Matt. vi. 25-34.--25. _Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought

for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor

yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more

than meat, and the body than raiment?_

26. _Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither

do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father

feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?_

27. _Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his

stature?_

28. _And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of

the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin:_

29. _And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory

was not arrayed like one of these._

30. _Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which

to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not

much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?_

31. _Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or,

What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?_

32. _(For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your

heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things._

33. _But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his

righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you._

34. _Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow

shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the

day is the evil thereof._

Luke xii. 33-34.--33. _Sell that ye have, and give alms; provide

yourselves bags which wax not old, a treasure in the heavens

that faileth not, where no thief approacheth, neither moth

corrupteth._

34. _For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also._

Matt. xix. 21.--"_Go and sell that thou hast, and give to the

poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and

follow me._"

Mark viii. 34.--"_Whosoever will come after me, let him deny

himself, and take up his cross, and follow me._"

John iv. 34.--"_My meat is to do the will of him that sent me,

and to finish his work._"

Luke xxii. 42.--"_Not my will, but thine, be done._"

_Not what I wish, but what Thou wishest, and not as I wish, but

as Thou wishest. Life consists in doing not your own will, but

the will of God._

All these doctrines are regarded by men who adhere to the lower

life-conception as expressions of enthusiastic exaltation, with no

special reference to daily life. And yet these doctrines are no less

the natural outcome of the Christian life-conception than is the

idea of giving one's labor for the common good, or of sacrificing

one's life to defend one's country, the outcome of the social

life-conception.

As the believer in the social life-conception says to the savage:

"Rouse yourself! Consider what you are doing! The life that man

lives for himself alone cannot be the true one, for life is fleeting

and full of woe. It is the life of the community at large, the

race, the family, the State, that endures: therefore a man must

sacrifice his personality for the life of the family and the State;"

Christianity in like manner says unto him who believes in a social

life-conception of the community: "Repent, μετανοετα, that

is, arouse yourself, consider your ways, else shall you perish. Know

you that this bodily, animal life is born to-day and dies to-morrow;

nothing can assure its permanence, no outward expedients, no system

whatsoever can give it stability. Consider your ways and learn that

the life you live is not the real life, that neither family, social,

nor State life will save you from perdition. An honest rational

life is possible for man provided that he be, not a participant

of the life of the family or life of the State, but a partaker of

the source of all life--that of the Father Himself; then his life

is united to the life of the Father." Such is beyond a doubt the

meaning of the Christian conception of life, clearly set forth in

every maxim of the New Testament.

One may not share such a conception of life, one may deny it, or

prove it to be inaccurate and fallacious; but no man can possibly

judge a doctrine without having first made himself familiar with the

life-conception which forms its basis; and still more impossible is

it to judge a lofty subject from a low standpoint, to pronounce upon

the belfry from a knowledge of the foundation. Yet this is precisely

what is done by contemporary scientists. And this is because they

are laboring under an error similar to that of the clergy, in

believing that they possess such infallible methods of studying

their subject that, if they but bring their so-called scientific

methods to bear upon the subject under consideration, there can be

no doubt as to the accuracy of their conclusion.

The possession of a guide to knowledge, which they believe to be

infallible, is really the chief obstacle to the comprehension of

the Christian doctrine among unbelievers and so-called scientists,

by whose opinions the great majority of unbelievers, the so-called

educated classes, are guided. All the errors of the scientists

concerning Christianity, and especially two strange misapprehensions

that avail more than anything else to blind men to its real

signification, arise therefrom.

One of these misapprehensions is that the doctrine of a Christian

life not being practical, it remains optional with the individual

whether he take it for his guide or no; and if he chooses to do

so, it may then be modified to suit the exigencies of our social

life. The second misapprehension is that the Christian doctrine of

love of God, and therefore of the service due to Him, is a mystical

requirement, neither clearly expressed nor offering any well-defined

object of love: consequently the more definite and intelligible

doctrine of love of man and of the service of humanity may be

substituted for it.

The first misapprehension which relates to the impracticability of

the Christian doctrine arises from the fact that men who believe in

the social life-conception, not comprehending the rule obeyed by

men who hold the Christian doctrine, and mistaking the Christian

standard of perfection for the guiding principle of life, believe

and declare that it is impossible to follow the teaching of Christ,

because implicit obedience to this doctrine would end by destroying

life. "If man were to fulfil the precepts of Christ, he would

destroy his life; and if all the world were to fulfil them, the

human race would soon become extinct. If you were to take no thought

for the morrow, neither of what ye shall eat or drink, nor what

ye shall put on; if one may not resist evil by violence or defend

one's life, nor even give up one's life for his friend; if one is to

preserve absolute chastity, mankind could not long exist;" so they

believe and affirm.

And they are right, if one takes the incentives to perfection

offered by the teaching of Christ as laws which each man must obey,

just as, for instance, in the social order every man must pay his

taxes, and some must serve in the courts of law, and so on.

The misapprehension consists in overlooking the fact that the

doctrine of Christ, and the doctrine formulated by a lower

life-conception, guide men in very different ways. The doctrines of

the social life-conception guide men in fulfilling the requirements

of the law. The doctrine of Christ guides men by manifesting the

infinite perfection of the Heavenly Father, to which it is natural

for every man to aspire, whatever may be his shortcomings.

The misconception of those who judge the Christian doctrine by the

standard of the state or civil doctrine is this,--that they imagine

that the perfection of which Christ speaks may be attained in this

life, and ask themselves just as they would ask concerning some law

of the State, what will happen when all this shall be fulfilled?

This hypothesis is fallacious, because the perfection indicated

by Christianity is infinite and can never be attained; and Christ

promulgates his doctrine, knowing that although absolute perfection

will never be attained, yet the aspiration toward it will ever

contribute to the welfare of mankind, that this welfare may by this

means be everlastingly increased.

Christ is not teaching angels, but men who live and move in an

animal life, and whose impulses are of an animal nature. And to

this animal impulse Christ, so to speak, adds another force by

communicating to man a sense of the divine perfection, guiding the

current of life between these two forces.

To take it for granted that human life is to follow the direction

indicated by Christ would be like expecting the boatman, who,

crossing a swift river, steers almost directly against the current,

to float in that direction.

Christ recognizes the fact that a parallelogram has two sides,

and that a man's life is controlled by two indestructible forces:

his animal nature and his consciousness of a filial relationship

to God. Disregarding the factor of the animal life, which never

looses its hold, and is beyond man's control, Christ speaks of the

divine consciousness, urging man to its fuller recognition, its

complete emancipation from all that fetters it, and to its utmost

development.

Man's true life, according to the precepts of Christ, is only to

be found in this emancipation and in the growth of the divine

consciousness. According to the old dispensation, a true life meant

the fulfilment of the precepts of the law; but according to Christ,

it means the closest approach to the divine perfection which has

been manifested to every man, and which every man recognizes,--a

closer and closer union of his will to the will of God; a union

which every man is striving to attain, and which would utterly

destroy the life we now lead.

God's perfection is the asymptote of human life, toward which it is

forever aspiring and drawing nearer, although it can only reach its

goal in the infinite.

It is only when men mistake the suggestion of an ideal for a rule

of conduct that the Christian doctrine seems at odds with life.

Indeed, the reverse is true, for it is by the doctrine of Christ,

and that alone, that a true life is rendered possible. "It is a

mistake to require too much," men usually say, when discussing the

demands of the Christian religion. "One ought not to be required

to take no thought for the morrow, as the Bible teaches, but of

course one should not be over-anxious; one cannot give all that he

possesses to the poor, still he should bestow a certain portion of

his goods in charity; one ought not to remain unmarried, but let him

avoid a dissolute life; one need not renounce his wife and children,

although one must not idolize them."

These arguments are equivalent to telling a man who is crossing a

swift river and steering his boat against the current, that no one

can cross a river by steering against the current, but that he must

direct his boat in a straight line toward the point he wishes to

reach.

The doctrine of Christ differs from former doctrines in that it

influences men, not by outward observances, but by the interior

consciousness that divine perfection may be attained.

It is this illimitable and divine perfection that absorbs the soul

of man, not restricted laws of justice and philanthropy. It needs

but the aspiration toward this divine perfection to impel the

course of human life from the animal to the divine, so far as may be

humanly possible.

In order to land at any given point one must steer beyond it. To

lower the standard of an ideal means not only to lessen the chances

of attaining perfection, but to destroy the ideal itself. The

ideal that influences mankind is not an ingenious invention; it is

something that dwells in the soul of each individual. It is this

ideal of utter and infinite perfection that excites men and urges

them to action. A possible degree of perfection would have no appeal

to the souls of men.

It is because the doctrine of Christ requires illimitable

perfection, that is to say, the blending of the divine essence,

which is in each man's soul, with the will of God, the union of

the Son with the Father, that it has authority. It is only the

emancipation of the Son of God, who dwells with each one of us, from

the animal element within us, and the drawing near to the Father,

that can, in the Christian sense of the word, be called life.

The presence of the animal element in man is not enough of itself to

constitute human life. Neither is a spiritual life, which is guided

only by the will of God, a human life. A true human life is composed

of an animal and of a spiritual life united to the will of God, and

the nearer this component life approaches to the life of God, the

more it has life.

According to the Christian doctrine, life is a condition of progress

toward the perfection of God; hence no one condition can be either

higher or lower than another, because each is in itself a certain

stage in human progress toward the unattainable perfection, and

therefore of equal importance with all the others. Any spiritual

quickening, according to this doctrine, is simply an accelerated

movement toward perfection. Therefore the impulse of Zacchæus the

publican, of the adulteress, and the thief on the cross, show forth

a higher order of life than does the passive righteousness of the

Pharisee. This doctrine, therefore, can never be enforced by

obligatory laws. The man who, from a lower plane, lives up to the

doctrine he professes, ever advancing toward perfection, leads a

higher life than one who may perhaps stand on a superior plane of

morality, but who is making no progress toward perfection.

Thus the stray lamb is dearer to the Father than those which are in

the fold; the prodigal returned, the coin that was lost and is found

again, more highly prized than those that never were lost.

Since the fulfilment of this doctrine is an impulse from self toward

God, it is evident that there can be no fixed laws for its movement.

It may spring from any degree of perfection or of imperfection; the

fulfilment of rules and fulfilment of the doctrine are by no means

synonymous; there could be no rules or obligatory laws for its

fulfilment.

The difference between social laws and the doctrine of Christ

is the natural result of the radical dissimilarity between the

doctrine of Christ and those earlier doctrines which had their

source in a social life-conception. The latter are for the most

part positive, enjoining certain acts, by the performance of which

men are to be justified and made righteous, whereas the Christian

precepts (the precept of love is not a commandment in the strict

sense of the word, but the expression of the very essence of the

doctrine), the five commandments of the Sermon on the Mount, are all

negative, only meant to show men who have reached a certain degree

of development what they must avoid. These commandments are, so to

speak, mile-stones on the infinite road to perfection, toward which

humanity is struggling; they mark the degrees of perfection which it

is possible for it to attain at a certain period of its development.

In the Sermon on the Mount Christ expressed the eternal ideal to

which mankind instinctively aspires, showing at the same time the

point of perfection to which human nature in its present stage may

attain.

The ideal is to bear no malice, excite no ill-will, and to love all

men. The commandment which forbids us to offend our neighbor is one

which a man who is striving to attain this ideal must not do less

than obey. And this is the first commandment.

The ideal is perfect chastity in thought, no less than in deed; and

the commandment which enjoins purity in married life, forbidding

adultery, is one which every man who is striving to attain this

ideal must not do less than obey. And this is the second commandment.

The ideal is to take no thought for the morrow, to live in the

present, and the commandment, the fulfilment of which is the point

beneath which we must not fall, is against taking oath or making

promises for the future. Such is the third commandment.

The ideal--to use no violence whatsoever--shows us that we must

return good for evil, endure injuries with patience, and give up the

cloak to him who has taken the coat. Such is the fourth commandment.

The ideal is to love your enemies, to do good to them that

despitefully use you. In order to keep the spirit of this

commandment one must at least refrain from injuring one's enemies,

one must speak kindly of them, and treat all one's fellow-creatures

with equal consideration. Such is the fifth commandment.

All these commandments are reminders of that which we, in our

striving for perfection, must and can avoid; reminders, too, that we

must labor now to acquire by degrees habits of self-restraint, until

such habits become second nature. But these commandments, far from

exhausting the doctrine, do not by any means cover it. They are but

stepping-stones on the way to perfection, and must necessarily be

followed by higher and still higher ones, as men pursue the course

toward perfection.

That is why a Christian doctrine would make higher demands than

those embodied in the commandments, and not in the least decrease

its demands, as they who judge the Christian doctrine from a social

life-conception seem to think.

This is one of the mistakes of the scientists in regard to the

significance of Christ's doctrine. And the substitution of the

love of humanity for the love and service of God is another, and it

springs from the same source.

In the Christian doctrine of loving and of serving God, and (as

the natural consequence of such love and service) of loving and

serving one's neighbor, there seems to the scientific mind a certain

mysticism, something at once confused and arbitrary; and, believing

that the doctrine of love for humanity rests on a firmer basis and

is altogether more intelligible, they utterly reject the requirement

of love and service of God.

The theory of a scientist is that a virtuous life, a life with a

purpose, must be useful to the world at large; and in a life of this

kind they discover the solution of the Christian doctrine, to which

they reduce Christianity itself. Assuming their own doctrine to be

identical with that of Christianity, they seek and believe that they

find in the latter an affirmation of their own views.

This is a fallacy. The Christian doctrine, and the doctrine of the

Positivists, and of all advocates of the universal brotherhood of

man, founded on the utility of such a brotherhood, have nothing

in common, and especially do they differ in that the doctrine of

Christianity has a solid and a clearly defined foundation in the

human soul, whereas love of humanity is but a theoretical conclusion

reached through analogy.

The doctrine of the love of humanity has for its basis the social

life-conception.

The essence of the social life-conception consists in replacing the

sense of individual life by that of the life of the group. In its

first steps, this is a simple and natural progression, as from the

family to the tribe; from the family to the race is more difficult,

and requires special education,--which has arrived at its utmost

limits when the State has been reached.

It is natural for every man to love himself, and he needs no

incentive thereto; to love his tribe, which lends both support and

protection; to love his wife, the delight and comfort of his daily

life; the children, who are his consolation and his future hope; his

parents, who gave him life and cherished him,--all this, although

not so intense as love of self, is natural and common to mankind.

To love one's race, one's people, for their own sake, although not

so instinctive, is also common. To love one's ancestors, one's

kinsfolk, through pride, is also natural and frequent; and a man may

feel love for his fellow-countrymen, who speak the same language

and profess the same faith as himself, although the emotion is

less strong than love of self or love of family. But love for a

nation, Turkey, for instance, or Germany, England, Austria, Russia,

is almost impossible, and notwithstanding the training given in

that direction, it is only a fictitious semblance; it has no real

existence. At this aggregate ceases man's power of transfusing

his innermost consciousness; for such a fiction he can feel no

direct sentiment. And yet the Positivists and all the preachers

of the scientific fraternity, not taking into consideration the

fact that this feeling is weakened in proportion to the expansion

of its object, continue to theorize on the same lines. They say:

"If it were to the advantage of an individual to transfuse his

consciousness into the family, and thence into the nation and the

State, it follows that it will be to his further advantage to

transfuse his consciousness into the universal entity, mankind, that

all men may live for humanity, as they have lived for the family and

for the State."

And theoretically they are right.

After having transferred the consciousness and love for the

individual to the family, and from the family to the race, the

nation, and the State, it would be perfectly logical for men, in

order to escape the strife and disasters that result from the

division of mankind into nations and states, to transfer their love

to humanity at large. This would appear to be the logical outcome,

and it has been offered as a theory by those who forget that love

is an innate sentiment, which can never be inspired by preaching;

that it must have a real object, and that the entity which men call

humanity is not a real object, but a fiction.

A family, a race, even a State, are no inventions of men; these

things have formed themselves like a hive of bees, or a colony of

ants, and possess an actual existence. The man who loves his family,

after a human fashion, knows whom he is loving--Ann, Maria, John, or

Peter. The man who loves his ancestors, and is proud of them, knows

that he loves the Guelphs, for instance, or the Ghibellines; the man

who loves his country knows that he loves France from the Rhine to

the Pyrenees, that he loves its capital, Paris, and all its history.

But the man who loves humanity, what is it that he loves? There is a

State, there is a people, there is the abstract conception of man.

But humanity as a concrete conception is impossible.

Humanity? Where is its limit? Where does it end and where does

it begin? Does it exclude the savage, the idiot, the inebriate,

the insane? If one were to draw a line of demarcation so as to

exclude the lower representatives of the human race, where ought

it to be drawn? Ought it to exclude the Negro, as they do in the

United States, or the Hindoos, as some Englishmen do, or the Jews,

as does another nation? But if we include all humanity without

exception, why should we restrict ourselves to men? Why should we

exclude the higher animals, some of whom are superior to the lowest

representatives of the human race?

We do not know humanity in the concrete, nor can we fix its limits.

Humanity is a fiction, and therefore it cannot be loved. Indeed,

it would be advantageous if men could love humanity as they love

the family. It would be very useful, as the communists say, to

substitute a community of interests for individual competition,

or the universal for the personal; in a word, to make the whole

world a mutual benefit society,--only that there are no motives to

bring about such a result. The Positivists, communists, and all

the exponents of the scientific fraternity exhort us to extend

the love which men feel for themselves, their families, their

fellow-countrymen, over humanity at large, forgetting that the love

of which they speak is a personal love, which may be kindled for the

family, and even extend to include one's native country, but which

expires altogether when it is appealed to in behalf of an artificial

state, such as Austria, England, or Turkey; and when claimed for

that mystical object, humanity in general, one cannot even grasp the

idea.

"A man loves himself, his physical personality, he loves his family,

he even loves his country. Why should he not also love mankind?

It would seem such a happy consummation! And it so happens that

Christianity inculcates the same precept." These are the opinions of

the Positivist, the communist, and the socialist fraternities.

It would indeed be fortunate, but it is impossible, because love

founded on a personal and social life-conception can go no further

than the love of country.

The flaw in the argument arises from the fact that the social

life-conception, the basis of family love and of patriotism, is

itself an individual love, and such a love, in its transference from

a person to a family, a race, a nation, and a State, gradually loses

its efficiency, and in the State has reached its final limit, and

can go no further.

The necessity for widening the sphere of love is not to be denied,

and yet it is the very attempt to satisfy this requirement that

destroys its possibility, and proves the inadequacy of personal

human love.

And here it is that the advocates of the Positivist, communist, and

socialist brotherhood offer as a prop to the humanitarianism that

has proved its inefficiency, a Christian love, not in its essence,

but only in its results; in other words, not the love of God, but

the love of man.

But there can be no such love; it has no _raison d'étre_. Christian

love comes only from a Christian life-conception, whose sole

manifestation is the love and service of God.

By a natural sequence in the extension of love from the individual

to the family, and thence to the race, the nation, and the State,

the social life-conception has brought men not to the consciousness

of love for humanity,--which is illimitable--the unification of

every living creature,--but to a condition which evokes no feeling

in man, to a contradiction for which it provides no reconciliation.

It is only the Christian doctrine which, by lending to human life

a new significance, is able to solve the difficulty. Christianity

presents the love of self and the love of the family, as well as

patriotism and the love of humanity, but it is not to be restricted

to humanity alone; it is to be given to every living creature; it

recognizes the possibility of an indefinite expansion of the kingdom

of love, but its object is not to be found outside itself, in the

aggregate of individuals, neither in the family, nor in the race,

nor in the State, nor in mankind, nor all the wide world, but in

itself, in its personality,--a divine personality, whose essence is

the very love which needed a wider sphere.

The distinction between the Christian doctrine and those which

preceded it may be thus defined. The social doctrine says: Curb thy

nature (meaning the animal nature alone); subject it to the visible

law of the family, of society, and of the State. Christianity says:

Live up to thy nature (meaning the divine nature); make it subject

to nothing; neither to thine own animal nature, nor to that of

another, and then thou shalt attain what thou seekest by subjecting

thine outward personality to visible laws. The Christian doctrine

restores to man his original consciousness of self, not the animal

self, but the godlike self, the spark of divinity, as the son

of God, like unto the Father, but clothed in a human form. This

consciousness of one's self as a son of God, whose essence is love,

satisfies at once all those demands made by the man who professes

the social life-conception for a broader sphere of love. Again, in

the social life-conception the enlargement of the domain of love was

a necessity for the salvation of the individual; it was attached

to certain objects, to one's self, to one's family, to society,

and to humanity. With the Christian world-conception love is not a

necessity, neither is it attached to any special object; it is the

inherent quality of a man's soul; he loves because he cannot help

loving.

The Christian doctrine teaches to man that the essence of his soul

is love; that his well-being may be traced, not to the fact that he

loves this object or that one, but to the fact that he loves the

principle of all things--God, whom he recognizes in himself through

love, and will by the love of God love all men and all things.

This is the essential difference between the Christian doctrine and

that of the Positivists, and all other non-Christian theorists of a

universal brotherhood.

Such are the two chief misapprehensions in regard to the Christian

doctrine, and from those most of the false arguments on the subject

have originated.

One is, that the doctrine of Christ, like the doctrines which

preceded it, promulgates rules which men must obey, and that these

rules are impracticable. The other, that the whole meaning of

Christianity is contained in the doctrine of a coöperative union of

mankind, in one family, to attain which, leaving aside the question

of love of God, one should obey only the rule of love of one's

fellow-men.

Finally, the mistake of scientists, in supposing that the doctrine

of the supernatural contains the essence of Christianity, that

its life-teaching is not practicable, together with the general

misapprehensions that result from such a misconception, further

explains why men of our time have so misunderstood Christianity.

CHAPTER V

CONTRADICTION OF OUR LIFE AND CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS

Men consider that they may accept Christianity without changing

their life--The pagan life-conception no longer corresponds to

the present age of humanity, which the Christian life-conception

alone can satisfy--The Christian life-conception is still

misunderstood by men, but our life itself necessitates its

acceptance--The requirements of a new life-conception always

seem unintelligible, mystical, and supernatural--Such, for

the majority of men, seem the requirements of the Christian

life-conception--The acceptance of a Christian life-conception

will inevitably be accomplished both through spiritual and

material agencies--The fact that men, conscious of a higher

life-conception, continue to entertain the lower forms of

life, causes contradiction and suffering, which embitter life

and require its alteration--Contradictions of our life--The

economical contradiction, and the suffering it causes to the

working-men and to the rich--The contradiction of State, and

the sufferings that arise from obedience to State laws--The

international contradiction, and its acknowledgment by

contemporary writers: Komarvosky, Ferri, Booth, Passy, Lawson,

Wilson, Bartlett, Defourny, Moneta--The military contradiction

the extreme.

Many causes have contributed toward the misunderstanding of the

teaching of Christ. One of these is that men assumed to understand

the doctrine, when, like the faithful of the Church, they accepted

the statement that it had been transmitted in a supernatural

manner; or, like the scientists, after having investigated certain

of its outward manifestations. Another reason may be found in the

conviction that it is impracticable, and that it may be replaced by

the doctrine of love of humanity. But the principal reason of all

such misconceptions is that men look upon the doctrine of Christ as

one that may be accepted or rejected without any special change in

one's life.

Men, attached by habit to the existing order, shrink from

attempting to change it, hence they agree to consider this doctrine

as a mass of revelations and laws that may be accepted without

making any change in one's life: whereas the doctrine of Christ

is not a doctrine of rules for man to obey, but unfolds a new

life-conception, meant as a guide for men who are now entering upon

a new period, one entirely different from the past.

The life of humanity continues its course and has its stages, like

the life of an individual; each age has its own life-conception,

which a man must adopt whether he will or no. Those who do not adopt

it consciously, adopt it unconsciously. The same change that takes

place in the views of the individual, as life goes on, occurs also

in the existence of nations and of humanity in general.

If a father were to conduct his affairs like a child, his life would

certainly become so unbearable that he would cast about for a

different plan of life, and would eagerly grasp at one better suited

to his years.

And the human race is at the present time passing through a

similar experience, in its transition from a pagan to a Christian

life-conception. A man of the society of the present day finds that

the pagan life-conception is no longer suited to the times, hence he

is induced to submit to the requirements of the Christian religion,

whose truths, however misunderstood and falsely interpreted they

may be, are yet familiar to his ears, and seem to offer the only

practical solution of the contradictions that beset his path. If the

demands of the Christian doctrine seem unintelligible, peculiar, and

dangerous to a man who has hitherto held the social life-conception,

the demands of the latter seemed none the less so to a savage of a

previous age, who neither fully apprehended them, nor was able to

foresee their consequences.

The savage reasoned thus: "It would be folly for me to sacrifice

my peace or my life to defend an incomprehensible, intangible, and

uncertain ideal, family, race, country, and, above all, it would be

dangerous to deliver myself into the hands of an unknown power." But

there came a time in the life of the savage when, on the one hand,

he had begun, although vaguely, to understand the meaning of social

life, as well as that of its chief incentive,--social approval or

condemnation: glory,--while, on the other hand, the sufferings

of his personal life had become so severe that it was no longer

possible for him to go on believing in the truth of his former

life-conception; whereupon he accepted the social and State doctrine

and submitted to its laws.

And he who holds the social life-conception is now undergoing a

similar experience.

"It is madness"--thus reasons the man holding such views--"to

sacrifice one's interests or those of one's family and of one's

country, in order to fulfil the requirements of a law that would

compel one to renounce the most natural and praiseworthy feelings

toward one's self, one's family, and one's country, and, above all,

the guarantee of protection afforded by the State."

But there comes a time when, on the one hand, a vague awakening

consciousness stirs the soul, the consciousness of the higher law,

love of God and one's neighbor, and the sufferings a man endures

from the contradictions of life, compel him to renounce the social

life-conception and to adopt the new Christian life-conception which

is offered him. And this time has now arrived.

To us, who underwent the transition from the individual to the

social life-conception thousands of years ago, this transition

appears to have been both natural and inevitable, just as the

present transition, through which we have been passing these last

1800 years, seems arbitrary, unnatural, and overwhelming. But it

seems so for the simple reason that the former change is a thing

of the past, and has fixed in us certain habits, whereas we are

still practically accomplishing the present transition, and have to

accomplish it consciously.

It was centuries, indeed thousands of years, before the social

life-conception was adopted by all mankind; it passed through

various phases, and we ourselves possess it through heredity,

education, and unconscious habit; hence it seems natural to us. But

5000 years ago it seemed as strange and unnatural to men as the

Christian doctrine in its true meaning seems to them now.

The universal brotherhood of man, the equality of races, the

abolition of property, the anomalous doctrine of non-resistance,

all these requirements of the Christian religion seem to us

impossibilities. But in olden times, thousands of years ago, not

only the requirements of the State, but even those of the family,

as, for instance, the obligation of parents to feed their children,

of children to support their aged parents, and that of conjugal

fidelity, seemed equally impossible. And still more unreasonable

seemed the demands of the State, requiring citizens to submit

to established authority, to pay taxes, to perform military

duty in defense of their country, etc. We find no difficulty in

comprehending these requirements now; they seem perfectly simple

and natural, with nothing mystical or alarming in their aspect;

but five or even three thousand years ago, such demands seemed

intolerable.

Thus the social life-conception served as a foundation for religion,

for at the time when it was first manifested to men it seemed to

them to be utterly incomprehensible, mystical, and supernatural. Now

that we have passed that phase of human life, we can understand the

reasons for the aggregation of men into families, communities, and

states. But in the early ages the demand for these aggregations was

made in the name of the supernatural, and its fulfilment assured by

the same authority.

The patriarchal religion deified the family, the race, the people.

State religions deified the sovereigns and the State. Even at

the present day the uneducated masses, the Russian peasants, for

instance, who call the Czar a God upon earth, obey the laws from

religious instinct, not because their reason counsels them to do so,

nor because they have the least idea of a State.

And to those men of our own times who hold the social

life-conception, the Christian doctrine seems to be a supernatural

religion, whereas in reality there is nothing mystical or

supernatural about it; it is only a doctrine concerning human life,

corresponding with the degree of development which man has attained,

and one which he cannot refuse to accept.

The time will come, and it is already near at hand, when the

Christian foundations of life--equality, brotherly love, community

of goods, non-resistance of evil by violence--will seem as natural

and simple as the foundations of family, social, and State life

appear to us at the present time.

There can be no retrogression for humanity. Men have outgrown the

lower life-conception of the family and the State, and must press

forward to embrace the next higher conception, as they have already

begun to do.

This movement is accomplished in two ways: consciously, by moral

causes; unconsciously, by material ones. It rarely happens that a

man changes his mode of life at the dictates of reason; however

conscious he may be of the new design and purpose revealed to him by

his reason, he goes on in the old fashion until his life has become

intolerably inconsistent, and therefore distressing. Likewise, the

larger portion of mankind, after learning through its religious

teachers a new conception of life and its objects, to which it has

yet to adjust itself, will for a long time pursue its wonted course,

and only make the change in the end because its former life has

become impossible.

In spite of the necessity for a change of life, acknowledged and

proclaimed by our religious guides and admitted by the wisest men,

in spite of the religious respect entertained for these guides, the

majority of men continue to be influenced in life, now additionally

complicated, by their former views. It is as if the father of a

family, knowing well enough how to conduct himself properly, should

through force of habit or thoughtlessness continue to live as if he

were still a child.

At this very moment we are experiencing one of these transitions.

Humanity has outgrown its social, its civic age, and has entered

upon a new epoch. It knows the doctrine that must underlie the

foundations of life in this new epoch; but, yielding to inertia,

it still clings to its former habits. From this inconsistency

between the theory of life and its practice follow a series of

contradictions and sufferings that embitter man's life and compel

him to make a change.

One needs but to compare the practice of life with its theory to be

horrified at the extraordinary contradictions between the conditions

of life and our inner consciousness.

Man's whole life is a continual contradiction of what he knows to

be his duty. This contradiction prevails in every department of

life, in the economical, the political, and the international. As

though his intelligence were forgotten and his faith temporarily

eclipsed,--for he must have faith, else would his life have no

permanence,--he acts in direct opposition to the dictates of his

conscience and his common sense.

In our economical and international relations we are guided by

the fundamental principles of bygone ages,--principles quite

contradictory to our mental attitude and the conditions of our

present life.

It was right for a man who believed in the divine origin of

slavery, and in its necessity, to live in the relation of a master

to his slaves. But is such a life possible in these days? A man

of antiquity might believe himself justified in taking advantage

of his fellow-man, oppressing him for generations, merely because

he believed in diversity of origin, noble or base, descent from

Ham or Japheth. Not only have the greatest philosophers of ancient

times, the teachers of mankind, Plato and Aristotle, justified the

existence of slavery and adduced proofs of its legality, but no

longer than three centuries ago those who described an ideal state

of society could not picture it without slaves.

In ancient times, and even in the Middle Ages, it was honestly

thought that men were not born equal, that the men worthy of respect

were only Persians, only Greeks, only Romans, or only Frenchmen;

but no one believes it now. And the enthusiastic advocates of the

principles of aristocracy and patriotism at this present day cannot

believe in their own statements.

We all know, and cannot help knowing, even if we had never heard

it defined and never attempted to define it ourselves, that we all

possess an inherent conviction deep in our hearts of the truth of

that fundamental doctrine of Christianity, that we are all children

of one Father, yea, every one of us, wheresoever we may live,

whatsoever language we may speak; that we are all brothers, subject

only to the law of love implanted in our hearts by our common Father.

Whatever may be the habits of thought or the degree of education of

a man of our time, whether he be an educated liberal, whatsoever

his shade of opinion, a philosopher, whatsoever may be his system,

a scientist, an economist of any of the various schools, an

uneducated adherent of any religious faith,--every man in these

days knows that in the matter of life and worldly goods all men

have equal rights; that no man is either better or worse than his

fellow-men, but that all men are born free and equal. Every man

has an instinctive assurance of this fact, and yet he sees his

fellow-beings divided into two classes, the one in poverty and

distress, which labors and is oppressed, the other idle, tyrannical,

luxurious; and not only does he see all this, but, whether

voluntarily or otherwise, he falls in line with one or the other of

these divisions,--a course repugnant to his reason. Hence he must

suffer both from his sense of the incongruity and his own share in

it.

Whether he be master or slave, a man in these days is forever

haunted by this distressing inconsistency between his ideal and the

actual fact, nor can he fail to perceive the suffering that springs

therefrom.

The masses--that is to say, the majority of mankind, who suffer

and toil, their lives dull and uninteresting, never enlivened by a

ray of brightness, enduring numberless privations--are those who

recognize most clearly the sharp contrasts between what is and what

ought to be, between the professions of mankind and their actions.

They know that they work like slaves, that they are perishing in

want and in darkness, that they may minister to the pleasures of

the minority. And it is this very consciousness that enhances its

bitterness; indeed, it constitutes the essence of their suffering.

A slave in old times knew that he was a slave by birth, whereas the

working-man of our day, while he feels himself to be a slave, knows

that he ought not to be one, and suffers the tortures of Tantalus

from his unsatisfied yearning for that which not only could be

granted him, but which is really his due. The sufferings of the

working-classes that spring from the contradictions of their fate

are magnified tenfold by the envy and hatred which are the natural

fruits of the sense of these contradictions.