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Title: The Kingdom of God is within you

Author: Leo Tolstoy

Edition: 10

Language: English

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"THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS WITHIN YOU"
CHRISTIANITY NOT AS A MYSTIC RELIGION
BUT AS A NEW THEORY OF LIFE

TRANSLATED FROM THE RUSSIAN OF COUNT LEO TOLSTOI
BY CONSTANCE GARNETT
New York, 1894



TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.

The book I have had the privilege of translating is, undoubtedly,
one of the most remarkable studies of the social and psychological
condition of the modern world which has appeared in Europe for
many years, and its influence is sure to be lasting and far
reaching.  Tolstoi's genius is beyond dispute.  The verdict of the
civilized world has pronounced him as perhaps the greatest
novelist of our generation.  But the philosophical and religious
works of his later years have met with a somewhat indifferent
reception.  They have been much talked about, simply because they
were his work, but, as Tolstoi himself complains, they have never
been seriously discussed.  I hardly think that he will have to
repeat the complaint in regard to the present volume.  One may
disagree with his views, but no one can seriously deny the
originality, boldness, and depth of the social conception which he
develops with such powerful logic.  The novelist has shown in this
book the religious fervor and spiritual insight of the prophet;
yet one is pleased to recognize that the artist is not wholly lost
in the thinker.  The subtle intuitive perception of the
psychological basis of the social position, the analysis of the
frame of mind of oppressors and oppressed, and of the intoxication
of Authority and Servility, as well as the purely descriptive
passages in the last chapter--these could only have come from the
author of "War and Peace."

The book will surely give all classes of readers much to think of,
and must call forth much criticism.  It must be refuted by those
who disapprove of its teaching, if they do not want it to have
great influence.

One cannot of course anticipate that English people, slow as they
are to be influenced by ideas, and instinctively distrustful of
all that is logical, will take a leap in the dark and attempt to
put Tolstoi's theory of life into practice.  But one may at least
be sure that his destructive criticism of the present social and
political REGIME will become a powerful force in the work of
disintegration and social reconstruction which is going on around
us.  Many earnest thinkers who, like Tolstoi, are struggling to
find their way out of the contradictions of our social order will
hail him as their spiritual guide.  The individuality of the
author is felt in every line of his work, and even the most
prejudiced cannot resist the fascination of his genuineness,
sincerity, and profound earnestness.  Whatever comes from a heart
such as his, swelling with anger and pity at the sufferings of
humanity, cannot fail to reach the hearts of others.  No reader
can put down the book without feeling himself better and more
truth-loving for having read it.

Many readers may be disappointed with the opening chapters of the
book.  Tolstoi disdains all attempt to captivate the reader.  He
begins by laying what he considers to be the logical foundation of
his doctrines, stringing together quotations from little-known
theological writers, and he keeps his own incisive logic for the
later part of the book.

One word as to the translation.  Tolstoi's style in his religious
and philosophical works differs considerably from that of his
novels.  He no longer cares about the form of his work, and his
style is often slipshod, involved, and diffuse.  It has been my
aim to give a faithful reproduction of the original.

CONSTANCE GARNETT.
January,1894




PREFACE.

In the year 1884 I wrote a book under the title "What I Believe,"
in which I did in fact make a sincere statement of my beliefs.

In affirming my belief in Christ's teaching, I could not help
explaining why I do not believe, and consider as mistaken, the
Church's doctrine, which is usually called Christianity.

Among the many points in which this doctrine falls short of the
doctrine of Christ I pointed out as the principal one the absence
of any commandment of non-resistance to evil by force.  The
perversion of Christ's teaching by the teaching of the Church is
more clearly apparent in this than in any other point of
difference.

I know--as we all do--very little of the practice and the spoken
and written doctrine of former times on the subject of non-
resistance to evil.  I knew what had been said on the subject by
the fathers of the Church--Origen, Tertullian, and others--I knew
too of the existence of some so-called sects of Mennonites,
Herrnhuters, and Quakers, who do not allow a Christian the use of
weapons, and do not eater military service; but I knew little of
what had been done. by these so-called sects toward expounding the
question.

My book was, as I had anticipated, suppressed by the Russian
censorship; but partly owing to my literary reputation, partly
because the book had excited people's curiosity, it circulated in
manuscript and in lithographed copies in Russia and through
translations abroad, and it evolved, on one side, from those who
shared my convictions, a series of essays with a great deal of
information on the subject, on the other side a series of
criticisms on the principles laid down in my book.

A great deal was made clear to me by both hostile and sympathetic
criticism, and also by the historical events of late years; and I
was led to fresh results and conclusions, which I wish now to
expound.

First I will speak of the information I received on the history of
the question of non-resistance to evil; then of the views of this
question maintained by spiritual critics, that is, by professed
believers in the Christian religion, and also by temporal ones,
that is, those who do not profess the Christian religion; and
lastly I will speak of the conclusions to which I have been
brought by all this in the light of the historical events of late
years.

L. TOLSTOI.
YASNAIA POLIANA,
May 14/26, 1893.




CONTENTS.

    I. THE DOCTRINE OF NONRESISTANCE TO EVIL BY FORCE
       HAS BEEN PROFESSED BY A MINORITY OF MEN FROM
       THE VERY FOUNDATION OF CHRISTIANITY

   II. CRITICISMS OF THE DOCTRINE OF NON-RESISTANCE TO
       EVIL BY FORCE ON THE PART OF BELIEVERS AND OF UNBELIEVERS

  III. CHRISTIANITY MISUNDERSTOOD BY BELIEVERS

   IV. CHRISTIANITY MISUNDERSTOOD BY MEN OF SCIENCE

    V. CONTRADICTION BETWEEN OUR LIFE AND OUR CHRISTIAN
       CONSCIENCE

   VI. ATTITUDE OF MEN OF THE PRESENT DAY TO WAR

  VII. SIGNIFICANCE OF COMPULSORY SERVICE

 VIII. DOCTRINE OF NON-RESISTANCE TO EVIL BY FORCE MUST
       INEVITABLY BE ACCEPTED BY MEN OF THE PRESENT DAY

   IX. THE ACCEPTANCE OF THE CHRISTIAN CONCEPTION OF
       LIFE WILL EMANCIPATE MEN FROM THE MISERIES OF OUR PAGAN
       LIFE

    X. EVIL CANNOT BE SUPRESSED BY THE PHYSICAL FORCE OF THE
       GOVERNMENT--THE MORAL PROGRESS OF HUMANITY IS BROUGHT ABOUT
       NOT ONLY BY INDIVIDUAL RECOGNITION OF THE TRUTH BUT ALSO
       THROUGH THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A PUBLIC OPINION

   XI. THE CHRISTIAN CONCEPTION OF LIFE HAS ALREADY
       ARISEN IN OUR SOCIETY, AND WILL INFALLIBLY PUT
       AN END TO THE PRESENT ORGANIZATION OP OUR LIFE
       BASED ON FORCE--WHEN THAT WILL BE

  XII. CONCLUSION--REPENT YE, FOR THE KINGDOM OF
       HEAVEN IS AT HAND




         "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you
       free. "--John viii. 32.

         "Fear not them which hill the body, but are not able to
       kill the soul; but rather fear him which is able to
       destroy both soul and body in hell."--MATT. x. 28.

         "Ye have been bought with a price; be not ye the servants
       of men."--I COR. vii. 23.





"THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS WITHIN YOU."



CHAPTER I.

THE DOCTRINE OF NON-RESISTANCE TO EVIL BY FORCE HAS BEEN PROFESSED
BY A MINORITY OF MEN FROM THE VERY FOUNDATION OF CHRISTIANITY.

Of the Book "What I Believe"--The Correspondence Evoked by it--
Letters from Quakers--Garrison's Declaration--Adin Ballou, his
Works, his Catechism--Helchitsky's "Net of Faith"--The Attitude
of the World to Works Elucidating Christ's Teaching--Dymond's
Book "On War"--Musser's "Non-resistance Asserted"--Attitude of
the Government in 1818 to Men who Refused to Serve in the Army
--Hostile Attitude of Governments Generally and of Liberals to
Those who Refuse to Assist in Acts of State Violence, and their
Conscious Efforts to Silence and Suppress these Manifestations
of Christian Non-resistance.


Among the first responses some letters called forth by my book
were some letters from American Quakers.  In these letters,
expressing their sympathy with my views on the unlawfulness for a
Christian of war and the use of force of any kind, the Quakers
gave me details of their own so-called sect, which for more than
two hundred years has actually professed the teaching of Christ on
non-resistance to evil by force, and does not make use of weapons
in self-defense.  The Quakers sent me books, from which I learnt
how they had, years ago, established beyond doubt the duty for a
Christian of fulfilling the command of non-resistance to evil by
force, and had exposed the error of the Church's teaching in
allowing war and capital punishment.

In a whole series of arguments and texts showing that war--that
is, the wounding and killing of men--is inconsistent with a
religion founded on peace and good will toward men, the Quakers
maintain and prove that nothing has contributed so much to the
obscuring of Christian truth in the eyes of the heathen, and has
hindered so much the diffusion of Christianity through the world,
as the disregard of this command by men calling themselves
Christians, and the permission of war and violence to Christians.

"Christ's teaching, which came to be known to men, not by means of
violence and the sword," they say, "but by means of non-resistance
to evil, gentleness, meekness, and peaceableness, can only be
diffused through the world by the example of peace, harmony, and
love among its followers."

"A Christian, according to the teaching of God himself, can act
only peaceably toward all men, and therefore there can be no
authority able to force the Christian to act in opposition to the
teaching of God and to the principal virtue of the Christian in
his relation with his neighbors."

"The law of state necessity," they say, "can force only those to
change the law of God who, for the sake of earthly gains, try to
reconcile the irreconcilable; but for a Christian who sincerely
believes that following Christ's teaching will give him salvation,
such considerations of state can have no force."

Further acquaintance with the labors of the Quakers and their
works--with Fox, Penn, and especially the work of Dymond
(published in 1827)--showed me not only that the impossibility of
reconciling Christianity with force and war had been recognized
long, long ago, but that this irreconcilability had been long ago
proved so clearly and so indubitably that one could only wonder
how this impossible reconciliation of Christian teaching with the
use of force, which has been, and is still, preached in the
churches, could have been maintained in spite of it.

In addition to what I learned from the Quakers I received about
the same time, also from America, some information on the subject
from a source perfectly distinct and previously unknown to me.

The son of William Lloyd Garrison, the famous champion of the
emancipation of the negroes, wrote to me that he had read my book,
in which he found ideas similar to those expressed by his father
in the year 1838, and that, thinking it would be interesting to me
to know this, he sent me a declaration or proclamation of "non-
resistance" drawn up by his father nearly fifty years ago.

This declaration came about under the following circumstances:
William Lloyd Garrison took part in a discussion on the means of
suppressing war in the Society for the Establishment of Peace
among Men, which existed in 1838 in America.  He came to the
conclusion that the establishment of universal peace can only be
founded on the open profession of the doctrine of non-resistance
to evil by violence (Matt. v. 39), in its full significance, as
understood by the Quakers, with whom Garrison happened to be on
friendly relations. Having come to this conclusion, Garrison
thereupon composed and laid before the society a declaration,
which was signed at the time--in 1838--by many members.

   "DECLARATION OF SENTIMENTS ADOPTED BY PEACE CONVENTION.
   "Boston, 1838.

   "We the undersigned, regard it as due to ourselves, to the
   cause which we love, to the country in which we live, to
   publish a declaration expressive of the purposes we aim to
   accomplish and the measures we shall adopt to carry forward the
   work of peaceful universal reformation.

   "We do not acknowledge allegiance to any human government.  We
   recognize but one King and Lawgiver, one Judge and Ruler of
   mankind.  Our country is the world, our countrymen are all
   mankind.  We love the land of our nativity only as we love all
   other lands.  The interests and rights of American citizens are
   not dearer to us than those of the whole human race.  Hence we
   can allow no appeal to patriotism to revenge any national
   insult or injury...

   "We conceive that a nation has no right to defend itself
   against foreign enemies or to punish its invaders, and no
   individual possesses that right in his own case, and the unit
   cannot be of greater importance than the aggregate.  If
   soldiers thronging from abroad with intent to commit rapine and
   destroy life may not be resisted by the people or the
   magistracy, then ought no resistance to be offered to domestic
   troublers of the public peace or of private security.

   "The dogma that all the governments of the world are
   approvingly ordained of God, and that the powers that be in the
   United States, in Russia, in Turkey, are in accordance with his
   will, is no less absurd than impious.  It makes the impartial
   Author of our existence unequal and tyrannical. It cannot be
   affirmed that the powers that be in any nation are actuated by
   the spirit or guided by the example of Christ in the treatment
   of enemies; therefore they cannot be agreeable to the will of
   God, and therefore their overthrow by a spiritual regeneration
   of their subjects is inevitable.

   "We regard as unchristian and unlawful not only all wars,
   whether offensive or defensive, but all preparations for war;
   every naval ship, every arsenal, every fortification, we regard
   as unchristian and unlawful; the existence of any kind of
    standing army, all military chieftains, all monuments
   commemorative of victory over a fallen foe, all trophies won in
   battle, all celebrations in honor of military exploits, all
   appropriations for defense by arms; we regard as unchristian
   and unlawful every edict of government requiring of its
   subjects military service.

   "Hence we deem it unlawful to bear arms, and we cannot hold any
   office which imposes on its incumbent the obligation to compel
   men to do right on pain of imprisonment or death.  We therefore
   voluntarily exclude ourselves from every legislative and
   judicial body, and repudiate all human politics, worldly
   honors, and stations of authority.  If we cannot occupy a seat
   in the legislature or on the bench, neither can we elect others
   to act as our substitutes in any such capacity.  It follows
   that we cannot sue any man at law to force him to return
   anything he may have wrongly taken from us; if he has seized
   our coat, we shall surrender him our cloak also rather than
   subject him to punishment.

   "We believe that the penal code of the old covenant--an eye for
   an eye, and a tooth for a tooth--has been abrogated by Jesus
   Christ, and that under the new covenant the forgiveness instead
   of the punishment of enemies has been enjoined on all his
   disciples in all cases whatsoever.  To extort money from
   enemies, cast them into prison, exile or execute them, is
   obviously not to forgive but to take retribution.

   "The history of mankind is crowded with evidences proving that
   physical coercion is not adapted to moral regeneration, and
   that the sinful dispositions of men can be subdued only by
   love; that evil can be exterminated only by good; that it is
   not safe to rely upon the strength of an arm to preserve us
   from harm; that there is great security in being gentle, long-
   suffering, and abundant in mercy; that it is only the meek who
   shall inherit the earth; for those who take up the sword shall
   perish by the sword.

   "Hence as a measure of sound policy--of safety to property,
   life, and liberty--of public quietude and private enjoyment--as
   well as on the ground of allegiance to Him who is King of kings
   and Lord of lords, we cordially adopt the non-resistance
   principle, being confident that it provides for all possible
   consequences, is armed with omnipotent power, and must
   ultimately triumph over every assailing force.

   "We advocate no Jacobinical doctrines.  The spirit of
   Jacobinism is the spirit of retaliation, violence, and murder.
   It neither fears God nor regards man.  We would be filled with
   the spirit of Christ.  If we abide evil by our fundamental
   principle of not opposing evil by evil we cannot participate in
   sedition, treason, or violence.  We shall submit to every
   ordinance and every requirement of government, except such as
   are contrary to the commands of the Gospel, and in no case
   resist the operation of law, except by meekly submitting to the
   penalty of disobedience.

   "But while we shall adhere to the doctrine of non-resistance
   and passive submission to enemies, we purpose, in a moral and
   spiritual sense, to assail iniquity in high places and in low
   places, to apply our principles to all existing evil,
   political, legal, and ecclesiastical institutions, and to
   hasten the time when the kingdoms of this world will have
   become the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ.  It appears to us
   a self-evident truth that whatever the Gospel is designed to
   destroy at any period of the world, being contrary to it, ought
   now to be abandoned.  If, then, the time is predicted when
   swords shall be beaten into plowshares and spears into pruning
   hooks, and men shall not learn the art of war any more, it
   follows that all who manufacture, sell, or wield these deadly
   weapons do thus array themselves against the peaceful dominion
   of the Son of God on earth.

   "Having thus stated our principles, we proceed to specify the
   measures we propose to adopt in carrying our object into
   effect.

   "We expect to prevail through the Foolishness of Preaching.  We
   shall endeavor to promulgate our views among all persons, to
   whatever nation, sect, or grade of society they may belong.
   Hence we shall organize public lectures, circulate tracts and
   publications, form societies, and petition every governing
   body.  It will be our leading object to devise ways and means
   for effecting a radical change in the views, feelings, and
   practices of society respecting the sinfulness of war and the
   treatment of enemies.

   "In entering upon the great work before us, we are not
   unmindful that in its prosecution we may be called to test
   our sincerity even as in a fiery ordeal.  It may subject us to
   insult, outrage, suffering, yea, even death itself.  We
   anticipate no small amount of misconception, misrepresentation,
   and calumny.  Tumults may arise against us.  The proud and
   pharisaical, the ambitious and tyrannical, principalities and
   powers, may combine to crush us.  So they treated the Messiah
   whose example we are humbly striving to imitate.  We shall not
   be afraid of their terror.  Our confidence is in the Lord
   Almighty and not in man.  Having withdrawn from human
   protection, what can sustain us but that faith which overcomes
   the world?  We shall not think it strange concerning the fiery
   trial which is to try us, but rejoice inasmuch as we are
   partakers of Christ's sufferings.

   "Wherefore we commit the keeping of our souls to God. For every
   one that forsakes houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father,
   or mother, or wife, or children, or lands for Christ's sake,
   shall receive a hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting
   life.

   "Firmly relying upon the certain and universal triumph of the
   sentiments contained in this declaration, however formidable
   may be the opposition arrayed against them, we hereby affix our
   signatures to it; commending it to the reason and conscience of
   mankind, and resolving, in the strength of the Lord God, to
   calmly and meekly abide the issue."

Immediately after this declaration a Society for Nonresistance was
founded by Garrison, and a journal called the NON-RESISTANT, in
which the doctrine of non-resistance was advocated in its full
significance and in all its consequences, as it had been expounded
in the declaration.  Further information as to the ultimate
destiny of the society and the journal I gained from the excellent
biography of W. L. Garrison, the work of his son.

The society and the journal did not exist for long.  The
greater number of Garrison's fellow-workers in the movement for
the liberation of the slaves, fearing that the too radical
programme of the journal, the NON-RESISTANT, might keep people
away from the practical work of negro-emancipation, gave up the
profession of the principle of non-resistance as it had been
expressed in the declaration, and both society and journal ceased
to exist.

This declaration of Garrison's gave so powerful and eloquent an
expression of a confession of faith of such importance to men,
that one would have thought it must have produced a strong
impression on people, and have become known throughout the world
and the subject of discussion on every side.  But nothing of the
kind occurred.  Not only was it unknown in Europe, even the
Americans, who have such a high opinion of Garrison, hardly knew
of the declaration.

Another champion of non-resistance has been overlooked in the same
way--the American Adin Ballou, who lately died, after spending
fifty years in preaching this doctrine.  Lord God, to calmly and

meekly abide the doctrine.  How great the ignorance is of
everything relating to the question of non-resistance may be seen
from the fact that Garrison the son, who has written an excellent
biography of his father in four great volumes, in answer to my
inquiry whether there are existing now societies for non-
resistance, and adherents of the doctrine, told me that as far as
he knew that society had broken up, and that there were no
adherents of that doctrine, while at the very time when he was
writing to me there was living, at Hopedale in Massachusetts, Adin
Ballou, who had taken part in the labors of Garrison the father,
and had devoted fifty years of his life to advocating, both orally
and in print, the doctrine of nonresistance.  Later on I received
a letter from Wilson, a pupil and colleague of Ballou's, and
entered into correspondence with Ballou himself.  I wrote to
Ballou, and he answered me and sent me his works.  Here is the
summary of some extracts from them:

   "Jesus Christ is my Lord and teacher," says Ballou in one of
   his essays exposing the inconsistency of Christians who allowed
   a right of self-defense and of warfare.  "I have promised
   leaving all else, to follow good and through evil, to death
   itself.  But I am a citizen of the democratic republic of the
   United States; and in allegiance to it I have sworn to defend
   the Constitution of my country, if need be, with my life.
   Christ requires of me to do unto others as I would they should
   do unto me.  The Constitution of the United States requires of
   me to do unto two millions of slaves [at that time there were
   slaves; now one might venture to substitute the word
   'laborers'] the very opposite of what I would they should do
   unto me--that is to help to keep them in their present
   condition of slavery.  And, in spite of this, I continue to
   elect or be elected, I propose to vote, I am even ready to be
   appointed to any office under government.  That will not hinder
   me from being a Christian.  I shall still profess Christianity,
   and shall find no difficulty in carrying out my covenant
   with Christ and with the government.

   "Jesus Christ forbids me to resist evil doers, and to take from
   them an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, bloodshed for
   bloodshed, and life for life.

   "My government demands from me quite the opposite, and bases a
   system of self-defense on gallows, musket, and sword, to be
   used against its foreign and domestic foes.  And the land is
   filled accordingly with gibbets, prisons, arsenals, ships of
   war, and soldiers.

   "In the maintenance and use of these expensive appliances for
   murder, we can very suitably exercise to the full the virtues
   of forgiveness to those who injure us, love toward our enemies,
   blessings to those who curse us, and doing good to those who
   hate us.

   "For this we have a succession of Christian priests to pray for
   us and beseech the blessing of Heaven on the holy work of
   slaughter.

   "I see all this (i.e., the contradiction between profession and
   practice), and I continue to profess religion and take part in
   government, and pride myself on being at the same time a devout
   Christian and a devoted servant of the government.  I do not
   want to agree with these senseless notions of non-resistance.
   I cannot renounce my authority and leave only immoral men in
   control of the government.  The Constitution says the
   government has the right to declare war, and I assent to this
   and support it, and swear that I will support it.  And I do not
   for that cease to be a Christian. War, too, is a Christian
   duty.  Is it not a Christian duty to kill hundreds of thousands
   of one's fellow-men, to outrage women, to raze and burn towns,
   and to practice every possible cruelty?  It is time to dismiss
   all these false sentimentalities.  It is the truest means of
   forgiving injuries and loving enemies.  If we only do it in the
   spirit of love, nothing can be more Christian than such
   murder."

In another pamphlet, entitled "How many Men are Necessary to
Change a Crime into a Virtue?" he says: "One man may not kill.  If
he kills a fellow-creature, he is a murderer.  If two, ten, a
hundred men do so, they, too, are murderers.  But a government or
a nation may kill as many men as it chooses, and that will not be
murder, but a great and noble action.  Only gather the people
together on a large scale, and a battle of ten thousand men
becomes an innocent action.  But precisely how many people must
there be to make it so?--that is the question.  One man cannot
plunder and pillage, but a whole nation can.  But precisely how
many are needed to make it permissible?  Why is it that one man,
ten, a hundred, may not break the law of God, but a great number
may?"

And here is a version of Ballou's catechism composed for his
flock:

   CATECHISM OF NON-RESISTANCE.

   Q. Whence is the word "non-resistance" derived?

   A. From the command, "Resist not evil." (M. v. 39.)

   Q. What does this word express?

   A. It expresses a lofty Christian virtue enjoined on us by
   Christ.

   Q. Ought the word "non-resistance" to be taken in its widest
   sense--that is to say, as intending that we should not offer
   any resistance of any kind to evil?

   A. No; it ought to be taken in the exact sense of our Saviour's
   teaching--that is, not repaying evil for evil.  We ought to
   oppose evil by every righteous means in our power, but not by
   evil.

   Q. What is there to show that Christ enjoined non-resistance in
   that sense?

   A. It is shown by the words he uttered at the same time.  He
   said: "Ye have heard, it was said of old, An eye for an eye,
   and a tooth for a tooth.  But I say unto you Resist not evil.
   But if one smites thee on the right cheek, turn him the other
   also; and if one will go to law with thee to take thy coat from
   thee, give him thy cloak also."

   Q. Of whom was he speaking in the words, "Ye have heard it was
   said of old"?

   A. Of the patriarchs and the prophets, contained in the Old
   Testament, which the Hebrews ordinarily call the Law and the
   Prophets.

   Q. What utterances did Christ refer to in the words, "It was
   said of old"?

   A. The utterances of Noah, Moses, and the other prophets, in
   which they admit the right of doing bodily harm to those who
   inflict harm, so as to punish and prevent evil deeds.

   Q. Quote such utterances.

   A. "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be
   shed."--GEN. ix. 6.

   "He that smiteth a man, so that he die, shall be surely put to
   death...And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life
   for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for
   foot, burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe."
   --Ex. xxi. 12 and 23-25.

   "He that killeth any man shall surely be put to death.  And if
   a man cause a blemish in his neighbor, as he hath done, so
   shall it be done unto him: breach for breach, eye for eye,
   tooth for tooth."--LEV. xxiv. 17, 19, 20.

   "Then the judges shall make diligent inquisition; and behold,
   if the witness be a false witness, and hath testified falsely
   against his brother, then shall ye do unto him as he had
   thought to have done unto his brother...And thine eye shall not
   pity; but life shall go for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth,
   hand for hand, foot for foot."--DEUT. xix. 18, 21.

   Noah, Moses, and the Prophets taught that he who kills, maims,
   or injures his neighbors does evil.  To resist such evil, and
   to prevent it, the evil doer must be punished with death, or
   maiming, or some physical injury.  Wrong must be opposed by
   wrong, murder by murder, injury by injury, evil by evil.  Thus
   taught Noah, Moses, and the Prophets.  But Christ rejects all
   this.  "I say unto you," is written in the Gospel, "resist not
   evil," do not oppose injury with injury, but rather bear
   repeated injury from the evil doer.  What was permitted is
   forbidden.  When we understand what kind of resistance they
   taught, we know exactly what resistance Christ forbade.

   Q. Then the ancients allowed the resistance of injury by
   injury?

   A. Yes. But Jesus forbids it. The Christian has in no case the
   right to put to death his neighbor who has done him evil, or to
   do him injury in return.

   Q. May he kill or maim him in self-defense?

   A. No.

   Q. May he go with a complaint to the judge that he who has
   wronged him may be punished?

   A. No. What he does through others, he is in reality doing
   himself.

   Q. Can he fight in conflict with foreign enemies or disturbers
   of the peace?

   A. Certainly not. He cannot take any part in war or in
   preparations for war.  He cannot make use of a deadly weapon.
   He cannot oppose injury to injury, whether he is alone or with
   others, either in person or through other people.

   Q. Can he voluntarily vote or furnish soldiers for the
   government?

   A. He can do nothing of that kind if he wishes to be faithful
   to Christ's law.

   Q. Can he voluntarily give money to aid a government resting on
   military force, capital punishment, and violence in general?

   A. No, unless the money is destined for some special object,
   right in itself, and good both in aim and means.

   Q. Can he pay taxes to such a government?

   A. No; he ought not voluntarily to pay taxes, but he ought not
   to resist the collecting of taxes.  A tax is levied by the
   government, and is exacted independently of the will of the
   subject.  It is impossible to resist it without having recourse
   to violence of some kind.  Since the Christian cannot employ
   violence, he is obliged to offer his property at once to the
   loss by violence inflicted on it by the authorities.

   Q. Can a Christian give a vote at elections, or take part in
   government or law business?

   A. No; participation in election, government, or law business
   is participation in government by force.

   Q. Wherein lies the chief significance of the doctrine of
   non-resistance?

   A. In the fact that it alone allows of the possibility of
   eradicating evil from one's own heart, and also from one's
   neighbor's.  This doctrine forbids doing that whereby evil has
   endured for ages and multiplied in the world.  He who attacks
   another and injures him, kindles in the other a feeling of
   hatred, the root of every evil.  To injure another because he
   has injured us, even with the aim of overcoming evil, is
   doubling the harm for him and for oneself; it is begetting, or
   at least setting free and inciting, that evil spirit which we
   should wish to drive out.  Satan can never be driven out by
   Satan.  Error can never be corrected by error, and evil cannot
   be vanquished by evil.

   True non-resistance is the only real resistance to evil.  It is
   crushing the serpent's head.  It destroys and in the end
   extirpates the evil feeling.

   Q. But if that is the true meaning of the rule of non-
   resistance, can it always put into practice?

   A. It can be put into practice like every virtue enjoined by
   the law of God.  A virtue cannot be practiced in all
   circumstances without self-sacrifice, privation, suffering, and
   in extreme cases loss of life itself.  But he who esteems life
   more than fulfilling the will of God is already dead to the
   only true life.  Trying to save his life he loses it.  Besides,
   generally speaking, where non-resistance costs the sacrifice of
   a single life or of some material welfare, resistance costs a
   thousand such sacrifices.

   Non-resistance is Salvation; Resistance is Ruin.

   It is incomparably less dangerous to act justly than unjustly,
   to submit to injuries than to resist them with violence, less
   dangerous even in one's relations to the present life.  If all
   men refused to resist evil by evil our world would be happy.

   Q. But so long as only a few act thus, what will happen to
   them?

   A. If only one man acted thus, and all the rest agreed
   to crucify him, would it not be nobler for him to die in the
   glory of non-resisting love, praying for his enemies, than to
   live to wear the crown of Caesar stained with the blood of the
   slain?  However, one man, or a thousand men, firmly resolved
   not to oppose evil by evil are far more free from danger by
   violence than those who resort to violence, whether among
   civilized or savage neighbors.  The robber, the murderer, and
   the cheat will leave them in peace, sooner than those who
   oppose them with arms, and those who take up the sword shall
   perish by the sword, but those who seek after peace, and behave
   kindly and harmlessly, forgiving and forgetting injuries, for
   the most part enjoy peace, or, if they die, they die blessed.
   In this way, if all kept the ordinance of non-resistance, there
   would obviously be no evil nor crime.  If the majority acted
   thus they would establish the rule of love and good will even
   over evil doers, never opposing evil with evil, and never
   resorting to force.  If there were a moderately large minority
   of such men, they would exercise such a salutary moral
   influence on society that every cruel punishment would be
   abolished, and violence and feud would be replaced by peace and
   love.  Even if there were only a small minority of them, they
   would rarely experience anything worse than the world's
   contempt, and meantime the world, though unconscious of it, and
   not grateful for it, would be continually becoming wiser and
   better for their unseen action on it.  And if in the worst case
   some members of the minority were persecuted to death, in dying
   for the truth they would have left behind them their doctrine,
   sanctified by the blood of their martyrdom.  Peace, then, to
   all who seek peace, and may overruling love be the imperishable
   heritage of every soul who obeys willingly Christ's word,
   "Resist not evil."

   ADIN BALLOU.

For fifty years Ballou wrote and published books dealing
principally with the question of non-resistance to evil by force.
In these works, which are distinguished by the clearness of their
thought and eloquence of exposition, the question is looked at
from every possible side, and the binding nature of this command
on every Christian who acknowledges the Bible as the revelation of
God is firmly established.  All the ordinary objections to the
doctrine of non-resistance from the Old and New Testaments are
brought forward, such as the expulsion of the moneychangers from
the Temple, and so on, and arguments follow in disproof of them
all.  The practical reasonableness of this rule of conduct is
shown independently of Scripture, and all the objections
ordinarily made against its practicability are stated and refuted.
Thus one chapter in a book of his treats of non-resistance in
exceptional cases, and he owns in this connection that if there
were cases in which the rule of non-resistance were impossible of
application, it would prove that the law was not universally
authoritative.  Quoting these cases, he shows that it is precisely
in them that the application of the rule is both necessary and
reasonable.  There is no aspect of the question, either on his
side or on his opponents', which he has not followed up in his
writings.  I mention all this to show the unmistakable interest
which such works ought to have for men who make a profession of
Christianity, and because one would have thought Ballou's work
would have been well known, and the ideas expressed by him would
lave been either accepted or refuted; but such has not been the
case.

The work of Garrison, the father, in his foundation of the Society
of Non-resistants and his Declaration, even more than my
correspondence with the Quakers, convinced me of the fact that the
departure of the ruling form of Christianity from the law of
Christ on non-resistance by force is an error that has long been
observed and pointed out, and that men have labored, and are still
laboring, to correct.  Ballou's work confirmed me still more in
this view.  But the fate of Garrison, still more that of Ballou,
in being completely unrecognized in spite of fifty years of
obstinate and persistent work in the same direction, confirmed me
in the idea that there exists a kind of tacit but steadfast
conspiracy of silence about all such efforts.

Ballou died in August, 1890, and there was as obituary notice of
him in an American journal of Christian views (RELIGIO-
PHILOSOPHICAL JOURNAL, August 23).  In this laudatory notice it is
recorded that Ballou was the spiritual director of a parish, that
he delivered from eight to nine thousand sermons, married one
thousand couples, and wrote about five hundred articles; but there
is not a single word said of the object to which he devoted his
life; even the word "non-resistance" is not mentioned.  Precisely
as it was with all the preaching of the Quakers for two hundred
years and, too, with the efforts of Garrison the father, the
foundation of his society and journal, and his Declaration, so it
is with the life-work of Ballou.  It seems just as though it did
not exist and never had existed.

We have an astounding example of the obscurity of works which aim
at expounding the doctrine of non-resistance to evil by force, and
at confuting those who do not recognize this commandment, in the
book of the Tsech Helchitsky, which has only lately been noticed
and has not hitherto been printed.

Soon after the appearance of my book in German, I received a
letter from Prague, from a professor of the university there,
informing me of the existence of a work, never yet printed, by
Helchitsky, a Tsech of the fifteenth century, entitled "The Net of
Faith."  In this work, the professor told me, Helchitsky expressed
precisely the same view as to true and false Christianity as I had
expressed in my book "What I Believe."  The professor wrote to me
that Helchitsky's work was to be published for the first time in
the Tsech language in the JOURNAL OF THE PETERSBURG ACADEMY OF
SILENCE.  Since I could not obtain the book itself, I tried to
make myself acquainted with what was known of Helchitsky, and I
gained the following information from a German book sent me by the
Prague professor and from Pypin's history of Tsech literature.
This was Pypin's account:

   "'The Net of Faith' is Christ's teaching, which ought to draw
   man up out of the dark depths of the sea of worldliness and his
   own iniquity.  True faith consists in believing God's Word; but
   now a time has come when men mistake the true faith for heresy,
   and therefore it is for the reason to point out what the true
   faith consists in, if anyone does not know this.  It is hidden
   in darkness from men, and they do not recognize the true law of
   Christ.

   "To make this law plain, Helchitsky points to the primitive
   organization of Christian society--the organization which, he
   says, is now regarded in the Roman Church as an abominable
   heresy. This Primitive Church was his special ideal of social
   organization, founded on equality, liberty, and fraternity.
   Christianity, in Helchitsky's view, still preserves these
   elements, and it is only necessary for society to return to its
   pure doctrine to render unnecessary every other form of social
   order in which kings and popes are essential; the law of love
   would alone be sufficient in every case.

   "Historically, Helchitsky attributes the degeneration of
   Christianity to the times of Constantine the Great, whom he
   Pope Sylvester admitted into the Christian Church with all his
   heathen morals and life.  Constantine, in his turn, endowed the
   Pope with worldly riches and power.  From that time forward
   these two ruling powers were constantly aiding one another to
   strive for nothing but outward glory.  Divines and
   ecclesiastical dignitaries began to concern themselves only
   about subduing the whole world to their authority, incited men
   against one another to murder and plunder, and in creed and
   life reduced Christianity to a nullity. Helchitsky denies
   completely the right to make war and to inflict the punishment
   of death; every soldier, even the 'knight,' is only a violent
   evil doer--a murderer."

The same account is given by the German book, with the addition of
a few biographical details and some extracts from Helchitsky's
writings.

Having learnt the drift of Helchitsky's teaching in this way, I
awaited all the more impatiently the appearance of "The Net of
Faith" in the journal of the Academy.  But one year passed, then
two and three, and still the book did appear.  It was only in 1888
that I learned that the printing of the book, which had been
begun, was stopped.  I obtained the proofs of what had been
printed and read them through.  It is a marvelous book from every
point of view.

Its general tenor is given with perfect accuracy by Pypin.
Helchitsky's fundamental idea is that Christianity, by allying
itself with temporal power in the days of Constantine, and by
continuing to develop in such conditions, has become completely
distorted, and has ceased to be Christian altogether.  Helchitsky
gave the title "The Net of Faith" to his book, taking as his motto
the verse of the Gospel about the calling of the disciples to be
fishers of men; and, developing this metaphor, he says:

   "Christ, by means of his disciples, would have caught all the
   world in his net of faith, but the greater fishes broke the net
   and escaped out of it, and all the rest have slipped through
   the holes made by the greater fishes, so that the net has
   remained quite empty.  The greater fishes who broke the net are
   the rulers, emperors, popes, kings, who have not renounced
   power, and instead of true Christianity have put on what is
   simply a mask of it."

Helchitsky teaches precisely what has been and is taught in these
days by the non-resistant Mennonites and Quakers, and in former
tunes by the Bogomilites, Paulicians, and many others.  He teaches
that Christianity, expecting from its adherents gentleness,
meekness, peaceableness, forgiveness of injuries, turning the
other cheek when one is struck, and love for enemies, is
inconsistent with the use of force, which is an indispensable
condition of authority.

The Christian, according to Helchitsky's reasoning, not only
cannot be a ruler or a soldier; he cannot take any part in
government nor in trade, or even be a landowner; he can only be an
artisan or a husbandman.

This book is one of the few works attacking official Christianity
which has escaped being burned.  All such so-called heretical
works were burned at the stake, together with their authors, so
that there are few ancient works exposing the errors of official
Christianity.  The book has a special interest for this reason
alone.  But apart from its interest from every point of view, it
is one of the most remarkable products of thought for its depth of
aim, for the astounding strength and beauty of the national
language in which it is written, and for its antiquity. And yet
for more than four centuries it has remained unprinted, and is
still unknown, except to a few learned specialists.

One would have thought that all such works, whether of the
Quakers, of Garrison, of Ballou, or of Helchitsky, asserting and
proving as they do, on the principles of the Gospel, that our
modern world takes a false view of Christ's teaching, would have
awakened interest, excitement, talk, and discussion among
spiritual teachers and their flocks alike.

Works of this kind, dealing with the very essence of Christian
doctrine, ought, one would have thought, to have been examined and
accepted as true, or refuted and rejected.  But nothing of the
kind has occurred, and the same fate has been repeated with all
those works.  Men of the most diverse views, believers, and, what
is surprising, unbelieving liberals also, as though by agreement,
all preserve the same persistent silence about them, and all that
has been done by people to explain the true meaning of Christ's
doctrine remains either ignored or forgotten.

But it is still more astonishing that two other books, of
which I heard on the appearance of my book, should be so little
known, I mean Dymond's book "On War," published for the first time
in London in 1824, and Daniel Musser's book on "Non-resistance,"
written in 1864.  It is particularly astonishing that these books
should be unknown, because, apart from their intrinsic merits,
both books treat not so much of the theory as of the practical
application of the theory to life, of the attitude of Christianity
to military service, which is especially important and interesting
now in these clays of universal conscription.

People will ask, perhaps: How ought a subject to behave who
believes that war is inconsistent with his religion while the
government demands from him that he should enter military service?

This question is, I think, a most vital one, and the answer to it
is specially important in these days of universal conscription.
All--or at least the great majority of the people--are Christians,
and all men are called upon for military service.  How ought a
man, as a Christian, to meet this demand?  This is the gist of
Dymond's answer:

   "His duty is humbly but steadfastly to refuse to serve."

There are some people, who, without any definite reasoning about
it, conclude straightway that the responsibility of government
measures rests entirely on those who resolve on them, or that the
governments and sovereigns decide the question of what is good or
bad for their subjects, and the duty of the subjects is merely to
obey. I think that arguments of this kind only obscure men's
conscience.  I cannot take part in the councils of government, and
therefore I am not responsible for its misdeeds..  Indeed, but we
are responsible for our own misdeeds.  And the misdeeds of our
rulers become our own, if we, knowing that they are misdeeds,
assist in carrying, them out.  Those who suppose that they are
bound to obey the government, and that the responsibility for the
misdeeds they commit is transferred from them to their rulers,
deceive themselves.  They say:  "We give our acts up to the will
of others, and our acts cannot be good or bad; there is no merit
in what is good nor responsibility for what is evil in our
actions, since they are not done of our own will."

It is remarkable that the very same thing is said in the
instructions to soldiers which they make them learn--that is, that
the officer is alone responsible for the consequences of his
command.  But this is not right.  A man cannot get rid of the
responsibility, for his own actions.  And that is clear from the
following example.  If your officer commands you to kill your
neighbor's child, to kill your father or your mother, would you
obey?  If you would not obey, the whole argument falls to the
ground, for if you can disobey the governors in one case, where do
you draw the line up to which you can obey them?  There is no line
other than that laid down by Christianity, and that line is both
reasonable and practicable.

And therefore we consider it the duty of every man who thinks war
inconsistent with Christianity, meekly but firmly to refuse to
serve in the army.  And let those whose lot it is to act thus,
remember that the fulfillment of a great duty rests with them.
The destiny of humanity in the world depends, so far as it depends
on men at all, on their fidelity to their religion.  Let them
confess their conviction, and stand up for it, and not in words
alone, but in sufferings too, if need be.  If you believe that
Christ forbade murder, pay no heed to the arguments nor to the
commands of those who call on you to bear a hand in it.  By such a
steadfast refusal to make use of force, you call down on
yourselves the blessing promised to those "who hear these sayings
and do them," and the time will come when the world will recognize
you as having aided in the reformation of mankind.

Musser's book is called "Non-resistance Asserted," or "Kingdom of
Christ and Kingdoms of this World Separated."  This book is
devoted to the same question, and was written when the American
Government was exacting military service from its citizens at the
time of the Civil War.  And it has, too, a value for all time,
dealing with the question how, in such circumstances, people
should and can refuse to eater military service. Here is the tenor
of the author's introductory remarks:

   "It is well known that there are many persons in the United
   States who refuse to fight on grounds of conscience.  They are
   called the 'defenseless,' or 'non-resistant' Christians.  These
   Christians refuse to defend their country, to bear arms, or at
   the call of government to make war on its enemies.  Till lately
   this religious scruple seemed a valid excuse to the government,
   and those who urged it were let off service.  But at the
   beginning of our Civil War public opinion was agitated on this
   subject.  It was natural that persons who considered it their
   duty to bear all the hardships and dangers of war in defense of
   their country should feel resentment against those persons who
   had for long shared with them the advantages of the protection
   of government, and who now in time of need and danger would not
   share in bearing the labors and dangers of its defense.  It was
   even natural that they should declare the attitude of such men
   monstrous, irrational, and suspicious."

A host of orators and writers, our author tells us, arose to
oppose this attitude, and tried to prove the sinfulness of non-
resistance, both from Scripture and on common-sense grounds.  And
this was perfectly natural, and in many cases the authors were
right--right, that is, in regard to persons who did not renounce
the benefits they received from the government and tried to avoid
the hardships of military service, but not right in regard to the
principle of non-resistance itself.  Above all, our author proves
the binding nature of the rule of non-resistance for a Christian,
pointing out that this command is perfectly clear, and is enjoined
upon every Christian by Christ without possibility of
misinterpretation.  "Bethink yourselves whether it is righteous to
obey man more than God," said Peter and John.  And this is
precisely what ought to be the attitude to every man who wishes to
be Christian to the claim on him for military service, when Christ
has said, "Resist not evil by force."  As for the question of the
principle itself, the author regards that as decided.  As to the
second question, whether people have the right to refuse to serve
in the army who have not refused the benefits conferred by a
government resting on force, the author considers it in detail,
and arrives at the conclusion that a Christian following the law
of Christ, since he does not go to war, ought not either to take
advantage of any institutions of government, courts of law, or
elections, and that in his private concerns he must not have
recourse to the authorities, the police, or the law.  Further on
in the book he treats of the relation of the Old Testament to the
New, the value of government for those who are Christians, and
makes some observations on the doctrine of non-resistance and the
attacks made on it.  The author concludes his book by saying:
"Christians do not need government, and therefore they cannot
either obey it in what is contrary to Christ's teaching nor, still
less, take part in it."  Christ took his disciples out of the
world, he says.  They do not expect worldly blessings and worldly
happiness, but they expect eternal life.  The Spirit in whom they
live makes them contented and happy in every position.  If the
world tolerates them, they are always happy.  If the world will
not leave them in peace, they will go elsewhere, since they are
pilgrims on the earth and they have no fixed place of habitation.
They believe that "the dead may bury their dead."  One thing only
is needful for them, "to follow their Master."

Even putting aside the question as to the principle laid down in
these two books as to the Christian's duty in his attitude to war,
one cannot help perceiving the practical importance and the urgent
need of deciding the question.

There are people, hundreds of thousands of Quakers, Mennonites,
all our Douhobortsi, Molokani, and others who do not belong to any
definite sect, who consider that the use of force--and,
consequently, military service--is inconsistent with Christianity.
Consequently there are every year among us in Russia some men
called upon for military service who refuse to serve on the ground
of their religious convictions.  Does the government let them off
then?  No.  Does it compel them to go, and in case of disobedience
punish them?  No. This was how the government treated them in
1818.  Here is an extract from the diary of Nicholas Myravyov of
Kars, which was not passed by the censor, and is not known in
Russia:

   "Tiflis, October 2, 1818.

   "In the morning the commandant told me that five peasants
   belonging to a landowner in the Tamboff government had lately
   been sent to Georgia.  These men had been sent for soldiers,
   but they would not serve; they had been several times flogged
   and made to run the gauntlet, but they would submit readily to
   the cruelest tortures, and even to death, rather than serve.
   'Let us go,' they said, 'and leave us alone; we will not hurt
   anyone; all men are equal, and the Tzar is a man like us; why
   should we pay him tribute; why should I expose my life to
   danger to kill in battle some man who has done me no harm?  You
   can cut us to pieces and we will not be soldiers.  He who has
   compassion on us will give us charity, but as for the
   government rations, we have not had them and we do not want to
   have them'  These were the words of those peasants, who declare
   that there are numbers like them Russia.  They brought them
   four times before the Committee of Ministers, and at last
   decided to lay the matter before the Tzar who gave orders that
   they should be taken to Georgia for correction, and commanded
   the commander-in-chief to send him a report every month of
   their gradual success in bringing these peasants to a better
   mind."

How the correction ended is not known, as the whole episode indeed
was unknown, having been kept in profound secrecy.

This was how the government behaved seventy-five years ago--this
is how it has behaved in a great cumber of cases, studiously
concealed from the people.  And this is how the government behaves
now, except in the case of the German Mennonites, living in the
province of Kherson, whose plea against military service is
considered well grounded.  They are made to work off their term of
service in labor in the forests.

But in the recent cases of refusal on the part of Mennonites to
serve in the army on religious grounds, the government authorities
have acted in the following manner:

To begin with, they have recourse to every means of coercion used
in our times to "correct" the culprit and bring him to "a better
mind," and these measures are carried out with the greatest
secrecy.  I know that in the case of one man who declined to serve
in 1884 in Moscow, the official correspondence on the subject had
two months after his refusal accumulated into a big folio, and was
kept absolutely secret among the Ministry.

They usually begin by sending the culprit to the priests, and the
latter, to their shame be it said, always exhort him to obedience.
But since the exhortation in Christ's name to forswear Christ is
for the most part unsuccessful, after he has received the
admonitions of the spiritual authorities, they send him to the
gendarmes, and the latter, finding, as a rule, no political cause
for offense in him, dispatch him back again, and then he is sent
to the learned men, to the doctors, and to the madhouse.  During
all these vicissitudes he is deprived of liberty and has to endure
every kind of humiliation and suffering as a convicted criminal.
(All this has been repeated in four cases.)  The doctors let him
out of the madhouse, and then every kind of secret shift is
employed to prevent him from going free--whereby others would be
encouraged to refuse to serve as he has done--and at the same time
to avoid leaving him among the soldiers, for fear they too should
learn from him that military service is not at all their duty by
the law of God, as they are assured, but quite contrary to it.

The most convenient thing for the government would be to kill the
non-resistant by flogging him to death or some other means, as was
done in former days.  But to put a man openly to death because he
believes in the creed we all confess is impossible.  To let a man
alone who has refused obedience is also impossible.  And so the
government tries either to compel the man by ill-treatment to
renounce Christ, or in some way or other to get rid of him
unobserved, without openly putting him to death, and to hide
somehow both the action and the man himself from other people.
And so all kinds of shifts and wiles and cruelties are set on foot
against him.  They either send him to the frontier or provoke him
to insubordination, and then try him for breach of discipline and
shut him up in the prison of the disciplinary battalion, where
they can ill treat him freely unseen by anyone, or they declare
him mad, and lock him up in a lunatic asylum.  They sent one man
in this way to Tashkend--that is, they pretended to transfer to
the Tashkend army; another to Omsk; a third him they convicted of
insubordination and shut up in prison; a fourth they sent to a
lunatic asylum.

Everywhere the same story is repeated.  Not only the government,
but the great majority of liberal, advanced people, as they are
called, studiously turn away from everything that has been said,
written, or done, or is being done by men to prove the
incompatibility of force in its most awful, gross, and glaring
form--in the form, that is, of an army of soldiers prepared to
murder anyone, whoever it may be--with the teachings of
Christianity, or even of the humanity which society professes as
its creed.

So that the information I have gained of the attitude of the
higher ruling classes, not only in Russia but in Europe and
America, toward the elucidation of this question has convinced me
that there exists in these ruling classes a consciously hostile
attitude to true Christianity, which is shown pre-eminently in
their reticence in regard to all manifestations of it.




CHAPTER II.

CRITICISMS OF THE DOCTRINE OF NON-RESISTANCE TO EVIL BY FORCE ON
THE PART OF BELIEVERS AND OF UNBELIEVERS.

Fate of the Book "What I Believe"--Evasive Character of Religious
Criticisms of Principles of my Book--1st Reply: Use of Force
not Opposed to Christianity--2d Reply: Use of Force Necessary
to Restrain Evil Doers--3d Reply: Duty of Using Force in
Defense of One's Neighbor--4th Reply: The Breach of the Command
of Nonresistance to be Regarded Simply as a Weakness--5th
Reply: Reply Evaded by Making Believe that the Question has
long been Decided--To Devise such Subterfuges and to take
Refuge Behind the Authority of the Church, of Antiquity, and of
Religion is all that Ecclesiastical Critics can do to get out
of the Contradiction between Use of Force and Christianity in
Theory and in Practice--General Attitude of the Ecclesiastical
World and of the Authorities to Profession of True
Christianity--General Character of Russian Freethinking
Critics--Foreign Freethinking Critics--Mistaken Arguments of
these Critics the Result of Misunderstanding the True Meaning
of Christ's Teaching.


The impression I gained of a desire to conceal, to hush up, what I
had tried to express in my book, led me to judge the book itself
afresh.

On its appearance it had, as I had anticipated, been forbidden,
and ought therefore by law to have been burnt.  But, at the same
time, it was discussed among officials, and circulated in a great
number of manuscript and lithograph copies, and in translations
printed abroad.

And very quickly after the book, criticisms, both religious and
secular in character, made their appearance, and these the
government tolerated, and even encouraged.  So that the refutation
of a book which no one was supposed to know anything about was
even chosen as the subject for theological dissertations in the
academies.

The criticisms of my book, Russian and foreign alike, fall under
two general divisions--the religious criticisms of men who regard
themselves as believers, and secular criticisms, that is, those of
freethinkers.

I will begin with the first class.  In my book I made it an
accusation against the teachers of the Church that their teaching
is opposed to Christ's commands clearly and definitely expressed
in the Sermon on the Mount, and opposed in especial to his command

in regard to resistance to evil, and that in this way they deprive
Christ's teaching of all value.  The Church authorities accept the
teaching of the Sermon on the Mount on non-resistance to evil by
force as divine revelation; and therefore one would have thought
that if they felt called upon to write about my book at all, they
would have found it inevitable before everything else to reply to
the principal point of my charge against them, and to say plainly,
do they or do they not admit the teaching of the Sermon on the
Mount and the commandment of non-resistance to evil as binding on
a Christian.  And they were bound to answer this question, not
after the usual fashion (i. e., "that although on the one side one
cannot absolutely deny, yet on the other side one cannot main
fully assent, all the more seeing that," etc., etc.).  No; they
should have answered the question as plainly as it was put
in my book--Did Christ really demand from his disciples
that they should carry out what he taught them in the Sermon on
the Mount?  And can a Christian, then, or can he not, always
remaining a Christian, go to law or make any use of the law, or
seek his own protection in the law?  And can the Christian, or can
he not, remaining a Christian, take part in the administration of
government, using compulsion against his neighbors?  And--the most
important question hanging over the heads of all of us in these
days of universal military service--can the Christian, or can he
not, remaining a Christian, against Christ's direct prohibition,
promise obedience in future actions directly opposed to his
teaching?  And can he, by taking his share of service in the army,
prepare himself to murder men, and even actually murder them?

These questions were put plainly and directly, and seemed to
require a plain and direct answer; but in all the criticisms of my
book there was no such plain and direct answer.  No; my book
received precisely the same treatment as all the attacks upon the
teachers of the Church for their defection from the Law of Christ
of which history from the days of Constantine is full.

A very great deal was said in connection with my book of my having
incorrectly interpreted this and other passages of the Gospel, of
my being in error in not recognizing the Trinity, the redemption,
and the immortality of the soul.  A very great deal was said, but
not a word about the one thing which for every Christian is the
most essential question in life--how to reconcile the duty of
forgiveness, meekness, patience, and love for all, neighbors and
enemies alike, which is so clearly expressed in the words of our
teacher, and in the heart of each of us--how to reconcile this
duty with the obligation of using force in war upon men of our own
or a foreign people.

All that are worth calling answers to this question can be brought
under the following five heads.  I have tried to bring together in
this connection all I could, not only from the criticisms on my
book, but from what has been written in past times on this theme.

The first and crudest form of reply consists in the bold assertion
that the use of force is not opposed by the teaching of Christ;
that it is permitted, and even enjoined, on the Christian by the
Old and New Testaments.

Assertions of this kind proceed, for the most part, from men who
have attained the highest ranks in the governing or ecclesiastical
hierarchy, and who are consequently perfectly assured that no one
will dare to contradict their assertion, and that if anyone does
contradict it they will hear nothing of the contradiction.  These
men have, for the most part, through the intoxication of power, so
lost the right idea of what that Christianity is in the name of
which they hold their position that what is Christian in
Christianity presents itself to them as heresy, while everything
in the Old and New Testaments which can be distorted into an
antichristian and heathen meaning they regard as the foundation of
Christianity.  In support of their assertion that Christianity is
not opposed to the use of force, these men usually, with the
greatest audacity, bring together all the most obscure passages
from the Old and New Testaments, interpreting them in the most
unchristian way--the punishment of Ananias and Sapphira, of Simon
the Sorcerer, etc.  They quote all those sayings of Christ's which
can possibly be interpreted as justification of cruelty: the
expulsion from the Temple; "It shall be more tolerable for the
land of Sodom than for this city," etc., etc.  According to these
people's notions, a Christian government is not in the least bound
to be guided by the spirit of peace, forgiveness of injuries, and
love for enemies.

To refute such an assertion is useless, because the very
people who make this assertion refute themselves, or, rather,
renounce Christ, inventing a Christianity and a Christ of their
own in the place of him in whose name the Church itself exists, as
well as their office in it.  If all men were to learn that the
Church professes to believe in a Christ of punishment and warfare,
not of forgiveness, no one would believe in the Church and it
could not prove to anyone what it is trying to prove.

The second, somewhat less gross, form of argument consists in
declaring that, though Christ did indeed preach that we should
turn the left cheek, and give the cloak also, and this is the
highest moral duty, yet that there are wicked men in the world,
and if these wicked men mere not restrained by force, the whole
world and all good men would come to ruin through them.  This
argument I found for the first time in John Chrysostom, and I slow
how he is mistaken in my book "What I believe."

This argument is ill grounded, because if we allow ourselves to
regard any men as intrinsically wicked men, then in the first
place we annul, by so doing, the whole idea of the Christian
teaching, according to which we are all equals and brothers, as
sons of one father in heaven.  Secondly, it is ill founded,
because even if to use force against wicked men had been permitted
by God, since it is impossible to find a perfect and unfailing
distinction by which one could positively know the wicked from the
good, so it would come to all individual men and societies of men
mutually regarding each other as wicked men, as is the case now.
Thirdly, even if it were possible to distinguish the wicked from
the good unfailingly, even then it would be impossible to kill or
injure or shut up in prison these wicked men, because there would
be no one in a Christian society to carry out such punishment,
since every Christian, as a Christian, has been commanded to use
no force against the wicked.

The third kind of answer, still more subtle than the preceding,
consists in asserting that though the command of non-resistance to
evil by force is binding on the Christian when the evil is
directed against himself personally, it ceases to be binding when
the evil is directed against his neighbors, and that then the
Christian is not only not bound to fulfill the commandment, but is
even bound to act in opposition to it in defense of his neighbors,
and to use force against transgressors by force.  This assertion
is an absolute assumption, and one cannot find in all Christ's
teaching any confirmation of such an argument.  Such an argument
is not only a limitation, but a direct contradiction and negation
of the commandment.  If every man has the right to have recourse
to force in face of a danger threatening an other, the question of
the use of force is reduced to a question of the definition of
danger for another.  If my private judgment is to decide the
question of what is danger for another, there is no occasion for
the use of force which could not be justified on the ground of
danger threatening some other man.  They killed and burnt witches,
they killed aristocrats and girondists, they killed their enemies
because those who were in authority regarded them as dangerous for
the people.

If this important limitation, which fundamentally undermines the
whole value of the commandment, had entered into Christ's meaning,
there must have been mention of it somewhere.  This restriction is
made nowhere in our Saviour's life or preaching.  On the contrary,
warning is given precisely against this treacherous and scandalous
restriction which nullifies the commandment.  The error and
impossibility of such a limitation is shown in the Gospel with
special clearness in the account of the judgment of Caiaphas, who
makes precisely this distinction.  He acknowledged that it was
wrong to punish the innocent Jesus, but he saw in him a source of
danger not for himself, but for the whole people, and therefore he
said: It is better for one man to die, that the whole people
perish not.  And the erroneousness of such a limitation is still
more clearly expressed in the words spoken to Peter when he tried
to resist by force evil directed against Jesus (Matt. xxvi. 52).
Peter was not defending himself, but his beloved and heavenly
Master.  And Christ at once reproved him for this, saying, that he
who takes up the sword shall perish by the sword.

Besides, apologies for violence used against one's neighbor in
defense of another neighbor from greater violence are always
untrustworthy, because when force is used against one who has not
yet carried out his evil intent, I can never know which would be
greater--the evil of my act of violence or of the act I want to
prevent.  We kill the criminal that society may be rid of him, and
we never know whether the criminal of to-day would not have been a
changed man tomorrow, and whether our punishment of him is not
useless cruelty.  We shut up the dangerous--as we think--member of
society, but the next day this man might cease to be dangerous and
his imprisonment might be for nothing.  I see that a man I know to
be a ruffian is pursuing a young girl.  I have a gun in my hand--I
kill the ruffian and save the girl.  But the death or the wounding
of the ruffian has positively taken place, while what would have
happened if this had not been I cannot know.  And what an immense
mass of evil must result, and indeed does result, from allowing
men to assume the right of anticipating what may happen.  Ninety-
nine per cent of the evil of the world is founded on this
reasoning--from the Inquisition to dynamite bombs, and the
executions or punishments of tens of thousands of political
criminals.

A fourth, still more refined, reply to the question, What ought to
be the Christian's attitude to Christ's command of non-resistance
to evil by force? consists in declaring that they do not deny the
command of non-resisting evil, but recognize it; but they only do
not ascribe to this command the special exclusive value attached
to it by sectarians.  To regard this command as the indispensable
condition of Christian life, as Garrison, Ballou, Dymond, the
Quakers, the Mennonites and the Shakers do now, and as the
Moravian brothers, the Waldenses, the Albigenses, the Bogomilites,
and the Paulicians did in the past, is a one-sided heresy.  This
command has neither more nor less value than all the other
commands, and the man who through weakness transgresses any
command whatever, the command of non-resistance included, does not
cease to be a Christian if he hold the true faith.  This is a very
skillful device, and many people who wish to be deceived are
easily deceived by it.  The device consists in reducing a direct
conscious denial of a command to a casual breach of it.  But one
need only compare the attitude of the teachers of the Church to
this and to other commands which they really do recognize, to be
convinced that their attitude to this is completely different from
their attitude to other duties.

The command against fornication they do really recognize, and
consequently they do not admit that in any case fornication can
cease to be wrong.  The Church preachers never point out cases in
which the command against fornication can be broken, and always
teach that we must avoid seductions which lead to temptation to
fornication.  But not so with the command of non-resistance.  All
church preachers recognize cases in which that command can be
broken, and teach the people accordingly.  And they not only do
not teach teat we should avoid temptations to break it, chief of
which is the military oath, but they themselves administer it.
The preachers of the Church never in any other case advocate the
breaking of any other commandment.  But in connection with the
commandment of non-resistance they openly teach that we must not
understand it too literally, but that there are conditions and
circumstances in which we must do the direct opposite, that is, go
to law, fight, punish.  So that occasions for fulfilling the
commandment of nonresistance to evil by force are taught for the
most part as occasions for not fulfilling it.  The fulfillment of
this command, they say, is very difficult and pertains only to
perfection.  And how can it not be difficult, when the breach of
it is not only not forbidden, but law courts, prisons, cannons,
guns, armies, and wars are under the immediate sanction of the
Church?  It cannot be true, then, that this command is recognized
by the preachers of the Church as on a level with other commands.

The preachers of the Church clearly, do not recognize it; only not
daring to acknowledge this, they try to conceal their not
recognizing it.

So much for the fourth reply.

The fifth kind of answer, which is the subtlest, the most often
used, and the most effective, consists in avoiding answering, in
making believe that this question is one which has long ago been
decided perfectly clearly and satisfactorily, and that it is not
worth while to talk about it.  This method of reply is employed by
all the more or less cultivated religious writers, that is to say,
those who feel the laws of Christ binding for themselves.  Knowing
that the contradiction existing between the teaching of Christ
which we profess with our lips and the whole order of our lives
cannot be removed by words, and that touching upon it can only
make it more obvious, they, with more or less ingenuity, evade it,
pretending that the question of reconciling Christianity with the
use of force has been decided already, or does not exist at all.

    [Footnote: I only know one work which differs somewhat from
    this general definition, and that is not a criticism in the
    precise meaning of the word, but an article treating of the
    same subject and having my book in view.  I mean the pamphlet
    of Mr. Troizky (published at Kazan), "A Sermon for the
    People."  The author obviously accepts Christ's teaching in
    its true meaning.  He says that the prohibition of resistance
    to evil by force means exactly what it does mean; and the same
    with the prohibition of swearing.  He does not, as others do,
    deny the meaning of Christ's teaching, but unfortunately he
    does not draw from this admission the inevitable deductions
    which present themselves spontaneously in our life when we
    understand Christ's teaching in that way.  If we must not
    oppose evil by force, nor swear, everyone naturally asks,
    "How, then, about military service? and the oath of
    obedience?"  To this question the author gives no reply; but
    it must be answered.  And if he cannot answer, then he would
    do better no to speak on the subject at all, as such silence
    leads to error.

The majority of religious critics of my book use this fifth method
of replying to it. I could quote dozens of such critics, in all of
whom, without exception, we find the same thing repeated:
everything is discussed except what constitutes the principal
subject of the book.  As a characteristic example of such
criticisms, I will quote the article of a well-known and ingenious
English writer and preacher--Farrar--who, like many learned
theologians, is a great master of the art of circuitously evading
a question.  The article was published in an American journal, the
FORUM, in October, 1888.

After conscientiously explaining in brief the contents of my book,
Farrar says:

   "Tolstoy came to the conclusion that a coarse deceit had been
   palmed upon the world when these words 'Resist not evil,' were
   held by civil society to be compatible with war, courts of
   justice, capital punishment, divorce, oaths, national
   prejudice, and, indeed, with most of the institutions of civil
   and social life.  He now believes that the kingdom of God would
   come if all men kept these five commandments of Christ, viz.:
   1. Live in peace with all men.  2. Be pure.  3. Take no oaths.
   4. Resist not evil.  5. Renounce national distinctions.

   "Tolstoy," he says, "rejects the inspiration of the Old
   Testament; hence he rejects the chief doctrines of the Church--
   that of the Atonement by blood, the Trinity, the descent of the
   Holy Ghost on the Apostles, and his transmission through the
   priesthood."  And he recognizes only the words and commands of
   Christ.  "But is this interpretation of Christ a true one?" he
   says.  "Are all men bound to act as Tolstoy teaches--i. e., to
   carry out these five commandments of Christ?"

You expect, then, that in answer to this essential question, which
is the only one that could induce a man to write an article about
the book, he will say either that this interpretation of Christ's
teaching is true and we ought to follow it, or he will say that
such an interpretation is untrue, will show why, and will give
some other correct interpretation of those words which I interpret
incorrectly.  But nothing of this kind is done.  Farrar only
expresses his "belief" that,

   "although actuated by the noblest sincerity, Count Tolstoy has
   been misled by partial and one-sided interpretations of the
   meaning of the Gospel and the mind and will of Christ."  What
   this error consists in is not made clear; it is only said:
   "To enter into the proof of this is impossible in this article,
   for I have already exceeded the space at my command."

And he concludes in a tranquil spirit:

   "Meanwhile, the reader who feels troubled lest it should be his
   duty also to forsake all the conditions of his life and to take
   up the position and work of a common laborer, may rest for the
   present on the principle, SECURUS JUDICAT ORBIS TERRARUM.  With
   few and rare exceptions," he continues, "the whole of
   Christendom, from the days of the Apostles down to our own, has
   come to the firm conclusion that it was the object of Christ to
   lay down great eternal principles, but not to disturb the bases
   and revolutionize the institutions of all human society, which
   themselves rest on divine sanctions as well as on inevitable
   conditions.  Were it my object to prove how untenable is the
   doctrine of communism, based by Count Tolstoy upon the divine
   paradoxes [sic], which can be interpreted only on historical
   principles in accordance with the whole method of the teaching
   of Jesus, it would require an ampler canvas than I have here at
   my disposal."

What a pity he has not an "ampler canvas at his disposal"!  And
what a strange thing it is that for all these last fifteen
centuries no one has had a "canvas ample enough" to prove that
Christ, whom we profess to believe in, says something utterly
unlike what he does say!  Still, they could prove it if they
wanted to.  But it is not worth while to prove what everyone
knows; it is enough to say "SECURUS JUDICAT ORBIS TERRARUM."

And of this kind, without exception, are all the criticisms
of educated believers, who must, as such, understand the
danger of their position.  The sole escape from it for them
lies in their hope that they may be able, by using the
authority of the Church, of antiquity, and of their sacred
office, to overawe the reader and draw him away from the
idea of reading the Gospel for himself and thinking out the
question in his own mind for himself.  And in this they are
successful; for, indeed, how could the notion occur to any
one that all that has been repeated from century to century
with such earnestness and solemnity by all those archdeacons,
bishops, archbishops, holy synods, and popes, is all of it a base
lie and a calumny foisted upon Christ by them for the sake of
keeping safe the money they must have to live luxuriously on the
necks of other men?  And it is a lie and a calumny so transparent
that the only way of keeping it up consists in overawing people by
their earnestness, their conscientiousness.  It is just what has
taken place of late years at recruiting sessions; at a table
before the zertzal--the symbol of the Tzars authority--in the seat
of honor under the life-size portrait of the Tzar, sit dignified
old officials, wearing decorations, conversing freely and easily,
writing notes, summoning men before them, and giving orders.
Here, wearing a cross on his breast, near them, is prosperous-
looking old Priest in a silken cassock, with long gray hair
flowing on to his cope; before a lectern who wears the golden
cross and has a Gospel bound in gold.

They summon Iran Petroff.  A young man comes in, wretchedly,
shabbily dressed, and in terror, the muscles of his face working,
his eyes bright and restless; and in a broken voice, hardly above
a whisper, he says: "I--by Christ's law--as a Christian--I
cannot."  "What is he muttering?" asks the president, frowning
impatiently and raising his eyes from his book to listen. "Speak
louder," the colonel with shining epaulets shouts to him. "I--I as
a Christian--"  And at last it appears that the young man refuses
to serve in the army because he is a Christian.  "Don't talk
nonsense.  Stand to be measured.  Doctor, may I trouble you to
measure him.  He is all right?"  "Yes."  "Reverend father,
administer the oath to him."

No one is the least disturbed by what the poor scared young man is
muttering. They do not even pay attention to it.  "They all mutter
something, but we've no time to listen to it, we have to enroll so
many."

The recruit tries to say something still.  "It's opposed to the
law of Christ."  "Go along, go along; we know without your help
what is opposed to the law and what's not; and you soothe his
mind, reverend father, soothe him.  Next: Vassily Nikitin."  And
they lead the trembling youth away. And it does not strike anyone
--the guards, or Vassily Nikitin, whom they are bringing in, or
any of the spectators of this scene--that these inarticulate words
of the young man, at once suppressed by the authorities, contain
the truth, and that the loud, solemnly uttered sentences of the
calm, self-confident official and the priest are a lie and a
deception.

Such is the impression produced not only by Farrar's article, but
by all those solemn sermons, articles, and books which make their
appearance from all sides directly there is anywhere a glimpse of
truth exposing a predominant falsehood.  At once begins the series
of long, clever, ingenious, and solemn speeches and writings,
which deal with questions nearly related to the subject, but
skillfully avoid touching the subject itself.

That is the essence of the fifth and most effective means of
getting out of the contradictions in which Church Christianity has
placed itself, by professing its faith in Christ's teaching in
words, while it denies it in its life, and teaches
people to do the same.

Those who justify themselves by the first method, directly,
crudely asserting that Christ sanctioned violence, wars, and
murder, repudiate Christ's doctrine directly; those who find their
defense in the second, the third, or the fourth method are
confused and can easily be convicted of error; but this last
class, who do not argue, who do not condescend to argue about it,
but take shelter behind their own grandeur, and make a show of all
this having been decided by them or at least by someone long ago,
and no longer offering a possibility of doubt to anyone--they seem
safe from attack, and will be beyond attack till men come to
realize that they are under the narcotic influence exerted on them
by governments and churches, and are no longer affected by it.

Such was the attitude of the spiritual critics--i. e., those
professing faith in Christ--to my book.  And their attitude could
not have been different.  They are bound to take up this attitude
by the contradictory position in which they find themselves
between belief in the divinity of their Master and disbelief in
his clearest utterances, and they want to escape from this
contradiction.  So that one cannot expect from them free
discussion of the very essence of the question--that is, of the
change in men's life which must result from applying Christ's
teaching to the existing order of the world.  Such free discussion
I only expected from worldly, freethinking critics who are not
bound to Christ's teaching in any way, and can therefore take an
independent view of it.  I had anticipated that freethinking
writers would look at Christ, not merely, like the Churchmen, as
the founder of a religion of personal salvation, but, to express
it in their language, as a reformer who laid down new principles
of life and destroyed the old, and whose reforms are not yet
complete, but are still in progress even now.

Such a view of Christ and his teaching follows from my book.  But
to my astonishment, out of the great number of critics of my book
there was not one, either Russian or foreign, who treated the
subject from the side from which it was approached in the book--
that is, who criticised Christ's doctrines as philosophical,
moral, and social principles, to use their scientific expressions.
This was not done in a single criticism.  The freethinking Russian
critics taking my book as though its whole contents could be
reduced to non-resistance to evil, and understanding the doctrine
of non-resistance to evil itself (no doubt for greater convenience
in refuting it) as though it would prohibit every kind of conflict
with evil, fell vehemently upon this doctrine, and for some years
past have been very successfully proving that Christ's teaching is
mistaken in so far as it forbids resistance to evil.  Their
refutations of this hypothetical doctrine of Christ were all the
more successful since they knew beforehand that their arguments
could not be contested or corrected, for the censorship, not
having passed the book, did not pass articles in its defense.

It is a remarkable thing that among us, where one cannot say a
word about the Holy Scriptures without the prohibition of the
censorship, for some years past there have been in all the
journals constant attacks and criticisms on the command of Christ
simply and directly stated in Matt. v. 39.  The Russian advanced
critics, obviously unaware of all that has been done to elucidate
the question of non-resistance, and sometimes even imagining
apparently that the rule of non-resistance to evil had been
invented by me personally, fell foul of the very idea of it.  They
opposed it and attacked it, and advancing with great heat
arguments which had long ago been analyzed and refuted from every
point of view, they demonstrated that a man ought invariably to
defend (with violence) all the injured and oppressed, and that
thus the doctrine of non-resistance to evil is an immoral
doctrine.

To all Russian critics the whole import of Christ's command seemed
reducible to the fact that it would hinder them from the active
opposition to evil to which they are accustomed.  So that the
principle of non-resistance to evil by force has been attacked by
two opposing camps: the conservatives, because this principle
would hinder their activity in resistance to evil as applied to
the revolutionists, in persecution and punishment of them; the
revolutionists, too, because this principle would hinder their
resistance to evil as applied to the conservatives and the
overthrowing of them.  The conservatives were indignant at the
doctrine of non-resistance to evil by force hindering the
energetic destruction of the revolutionary elements, which may
ruin the national prosperity; the revolutionists were indignant at
the doctrine of non-resistance to evil by force hindering the
overthrow of the conservatives, who are ruining the national
prosperity.  It is worthy of remark in this connection that the
revolutionists have attacked the principle of nonresistance to
evil by force, in spite of the fact that it is the greatest terror
and danger for every despotism.  For ever since the beginning of
the world, the use of violence of every kind, from the Inquisition
to the Schlusselburg fortress, has rested and still rests on the
opposite principle of the necessity of resisting evil by force.

Besides this, the Russian critics have pointed out the fact that
the application of the command of non-resistance to practical life
would turn mankind aside out of the path of civilization along
which it is moving.  The path of civilization on which mankind in
Europe is moving is in their opinion the one along which all
mankind ought always to move.

So much for the general character of the Russian critics.

Foreign critics started from the same premises, but their
discussions of my book were somewhat different from those of
Russian critics, not only in being less bitter, and in showing
more culture, but even in the subject-matter.

In discussing my book and the Gospel teaching generally, as it is
expressed in the Sermon on the Mount, the foreign critics
maintained that such doctrine is not peculiarly Christian
(Christian doctrine is either Catholicism or Protestantism
according to their views)--the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount
is only a string of very pretty impracticable dreams DU CHARMANT
DOCTEUR, as Reran says, fit for the simple and half-savage
inhabitants of Galilee who lived eighteen hundred years ago, and
for the half-savage Russian peasants--Sutaev and Bondarev--and the
Russian mystic Tolstoy, but not at all consistent with a high
degree of European culture.

The foreign freethinking critics have tried in a delicate manner,
without being offensive to me, to give the impression that my
conviction that mankind could be guided by such a naive doctrine
as that of the Sermon on the Mount proceeds from two causes: that
such a conviction is partly due to my want of knowledge, my
ignorance of history, my ignorance of all the vain attempts to
apply the principles of the Sermon on the Mount to life, which
have been made in history and have led to nothing; and partly it
is due to my failing to appreciate the full value of the lofty
civilization to which mankind has attained at present, with its
Krupp cannons, smokeless powder, colonization of Africa, Irish
Coercion Bill, parliamentary government, journalism, strikes, and
the Eiffel Tower.

So wrote de Vogue and Leroy Beaulieu and Matthew Arnold; so wrote
the American author Savage, and Ingersoll, the popular
freethinking American preacher, and many others.

"Christ's teaching is no use, because it is inconsistent with our
industrial age," says Ingersoll naively, expressing in this
utterance, with perfect directness and simplicity, the exact
notion of Christ's teaching held by persons of refinement and
culture of our times.  The teaching is no use for our industrial
age, precisely as though the existence of this industrial age were
a sacred fact which ought not to and could not be changed.  It is
just as though drunkards when advised how they could be brought to
habits of sobriety should answer that the advice is incompatible
with their habit of taking alcohol.

The arguments of all the freethinking critics, Russian and foreign
alike, different as they may be in tone and manner of
presentation, all amount essentially to the same strange
misapprehension--namely, that Christ's teaching, one of the
consequences of which is non-resistance to evil, is of no use to
us because it requires a change of our life.

Christ's teaching is useless because, if it were carried into
practice, life could not go on as at present; we must add: if we
have begun by living sinfully, as we do live and are accustomed to
live.  Not only is the question of non-resistance to evil not
discussed; the very mention of the fact that the duty of non-
resistance enters into Christ's teaching is regarded as
satisfactory proof of the impracticability of the whole teaching.

Meanwhile one would have thought it was necessary to point out at
least some kind of solution of the following question, since it is
at the root of almost everything that interests us.

The question amounts to this: In what way are we to decide men's
disputes, when some men consider evil what others consider good,
and VICE VERSA?  And to reply that that is evil which I think
evil, in spite of the fact that my opponent thinks it good, is not
a solution of the difficulty.  There can only be two solutions:
either to find a real unquestionable criterion of what is evil or
not to resist evil by force.

The first course has been tried ever since the beginning of
historical times, and, as we all know, it has not hitherto led to
any successful results.

The second solution--not forcibly to resist what we consider evil
until we have found a universal criterion--that is the solution
given by Christ.

We may consider the answer given by Christ unsatisfactory; we may
replace it by another and better, by finding a criterion by which
evil could be defined for all men unanimously and simultaneously;
we may simply, like savage nations, not recognize the existence of
the question.  But we cannot treat the question as the learned
critics of Christianity do.  They pretend either that no such
question exists at all or that the question is solved by granting
to certain persons or assemblies of persons the right to define
evil and to resist it by force.  But we know all the while that
granting such a right to certain persons does not decide the
question (still less so when the are ourselves the certain
persons), since there are always people who do not recognize this
right in the authorized persons or assemblies.

But this assumption, that what seems evil to us is really evil,
shows a complete misunderstanding of the question, and lies at the
root of the argument of freethinking critics about the Christian
religion.  In this way, then, the discussions of my book on the
part of Churchmen and freethinking critics alike showed me that
the majority of men simply do not understand either Christ's
teaching or the questions which Christ's teaching solves.




CHAPTER III.

CHRISTIANITY MISUNDERSTOOD BY BELIEVERS.

Meaning of Christian Doctrine, Understood by a Minority, has
Become Completely Incomprehensible for the Majority of Men--
Reason of this to be Found in Misinterpretation of Christianity
and Mistaken Conviction of Believers and Unbelievers Alike that
they Understand it--The Meaning of Christianity Obscured for
Believers by the Church--The First Appearance of Christ's
Teaching--Its Essence and Difference from Heathen Religions--
Christianity not Fully Comprehended at the Beginning, Became
More and More Clear to those who Accepted it from its
Correspondence with Truth--Simultaneously with this Arose the
Claim to Possession of the Authentic Meaning of the Doctrine
Based on the Miraculous Nature of its Transmission--Assembly of
Disciples as Described in the Acts--The Authoritative Claim to
the Sole Possession of the True Meaning of Christ's Teaching
Supported by Miraculous Evidence has Led by Logical Development
to the Creeds of the Churches--A Church Could Not be Founded by
Christ--Definitions of a Church According to the Catechisms--
The Churches have Always been Several in Number and Hostile to
One Another--What is Heresy--The Work of G. Arnold on Heresies--
Heresies the Manifestations of Progress in the Churches--
Churches Cause Dissension among Men, and are Always Hostile to
Christianity--Account of the Work Done by the Russian Church--
Matt. xxiii. 23--The Sermon on the Mount or the Creed--The
Orthodox Church Conceals from the People the True Meaning of
Christianity--The Same Thing is Done by the Other Churches--All
the External Conditions of Modern Life are such as to Destroy
the Doctrine of the Church, and therefore the Churches use
Every Effort to Support their Doctrines.


Thus the information I received, after my book came out, went to
show that the Christian doctrine, in its direct and simple sense,
was understood, and had always been understood, by a minority of
men, while the critics, ecclesiastical and freethinking alike,
denied the possibility of taking Christ's teaching in its direct
sense.  All this convinced me that while on one hand the true
understanding of this doctrine had never been lost to a minority,
but had been established more and more clearly, on the other hand
the meaning of it had been more and more obscured for the
majority.  So that at last such a depth of obscurity has been
reached that men do not take in their direct sense even the
simplest precepts, expressed in the simplest words, in the Gospel.

Christ's teaching is not generally understood in its true, simple,
and direct sense even in these days, when the light of the Gospel
has penetrated even to the darkest recesses of human
consciousness; when, in the words of Christ, that which was spoken
in the ear is proclaimed from the housetops; and when the Gospel
is influencing every side of human life--domestic, economic,
civic, legislative, and international.  This lack of true
understanding of Christ's words at such a time would be
inexplicable, if there were not causes to account for it.

One of these causes is the fact that believers and unbelievers
alike are firmly persuaded that they have understood Christ's
teaching a long time, and that they understand it so fully,
indubitably, and conclusively that it can have no other
significance than the one they attribute to it.  And the reason of
this conviction is that the false interpretation and consequent
misapprehension of the Gospel is an error of such long standing.
Even the strongest current of water cannot add a drop to a cup
which is already full.

The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-
witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the
simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if
he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of
doubt, what is laid before him.

The Christian doctrine is presented to the men of our world to-day
as a doctrine which everyone has known so long and accepted so
unhesitatingly in all its minutest details that it cannot be
understood in any other way than it is understood now.

Christianity is understood now by all who profess the doctrines of
the Church as a supernatural miraculous revelation of everything
which is repeated in the Creed.  By unbelievers it is regarded as
an illustration of man's craving for a belief in the supernatural,
which mankind has now outgrown, as an historical phenomenon which
has received full expression in Catholicism, Greek Orthodoxy, and
Protestantism, and has no longer any living significance for us.
The significance of the Gospel is hidden from believers by the
Church, from unbelievers by Science.

I will speak first of the former.  Eighteen hundred years ago
there appeared in the midst of the heathen Roman world a strange
new doctrine, unlike any of the old religions, and attributed to a
man, Christ.

This new doctrine was in both form and content absolutely new to
the Jewish world in which it originated, and still more to the
Roman world in which it was preached and diffused.

In the midst of the elaborate religious observances of Judaism, in
which, in the words of Isaiah, law was laid upon law, and in the
midst of the Roman legal system worked out to the highest point of
perfection, a new doctrine appeared, which denied not only every
deity, and all fear and worship of them, but even all human
institutions and all necessity for them.  In place of all the
rules of the old religions, this doctrine sets up only a type of
inward perfection, truth, and love in the person of Christ, and--
as a result of this inward perfection being attained by men--also
the outward perfection foretold by the Prophets--the kingdom of
God, when all men will cease to learn to make war, when all shall
be taught of God and united in love, and the lion will lie down
with the lamb.  Instead of the threats of punishment which all the
old laws of religions and governments alike laid down for non-
fulfillment of their rules, instead of promises of rewards for
fulfillment of them, this doctrine called men to it only because
it was the truth.  John vii. 17: "If any man will do His will, he
shad know of the doctrine whether it be of God."  John viii. 46:
"If I say the truth, why do ye not believe me?  But ye seek to
kill me, a man that hath told you the truth.  Ye shall know the
truth, and the truth shall make you free.  God is a spirit, and
they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.
Keep my sayings, and ye shall know of my sayings whether they be
true."   No proofs of this doctrine were offered except its truth,
the correspondence of the doctrine with the truth.  The whole
teaching consisted in the recognition of truth and following it,
in a greater and greater attainment of truth, and a closer and
closer following of it in the acts of life.  There are no acts in
this doctrine which could justify a man and make him saved.  There
is only the image of truth to guide-him, for inward perfection in
the person of Christ, and for outward perfection in the
establishment of the kingdom of God.  The fulfillment of this
teaching consists only in walking in the chosen way, in getting
nearer to inward perfection in the imitation of Christ, and
outward perfection in the establishment of the kingdom of God.
The greater or less blessedness of a man depends, according to
this doctrine, not on the degree of perfection to which he has
attained, but on the greater or less swiftness with which he
is pursuing it.

The progress toward perfection of the publican of the publican
Zaccheus, of the woman that was a sinner, of the robber on the
cross, is a greater state of blessedness, according to this
doctrine, than the stationary righteousness of the Pharisee.  The
lost sheep is dearer than ninety-nine that were not lost.  The
prodigal son, the piece of money that was lost and found again,
are dearer, more precious to God than those which have not been
lost.

Every condition, according to this doctrine, is only a particular
step in the attainment of inward and outward perfection, and
therefore has no significance of itself.  Blessedness consists in
progress toward perfection; to stand still in any condition
whatever means the cessation of this blessedness.

"Let not thy left hand know what they right hand doeth."  "No man
having put his hand to the plow and looking back is fit for the
Kingdom of God."  "Rejoice not that the spirits are subject to
you, but seek rather that your names be written in heaven."  "Be
ye perfect even as your Father in heaven is perfect."  "Seek ye
first the kingdom of heaven and its righteousness."

The fulfillment of this precept is only to be found in
uninterrupted progress toward the attainment of ever higher truth,
toward establishing more and more firmly an ever greater love
within oneself, and establishing more and more widely the kingdom
of God outside oneself.

It is obvious that, appearing as it did in the midst of the Jewish
and heathen world, such teaching could not be accepted by the
majority of men, who were living a life absolutely different from
what was required by it.  It is obvious, too, that even for those
by whom it was accepted, it was so absolutely opposed to all their
old views that it could not be comprehensible in its full
significance.

It has been only by a succession of misunderstandings, errors,
partial explanations, and the corrections and additions of
generations that the meaning of the Christian doctrine has grown
continually more and more clear to men.  The Christian view of
life has exerted an influence on the Jewish and heathen, and the
heathen and Jewish view of life has, too, exerted an influence on
the Christian.  And Christianity, as the living force, has gained
more and more upon the extinct Judaism and heathenism, and has
grown continually clearer and clearer, as it freed itself from the
admixture of falsehood which had overlaid it.  Men went further
and further in the attainment of the meaning of Christianity, and
realized it more and more in life.

The longer mankind lived, the clearer and clearer became the
meaning of Christianity, as must always be the case with every
theory of life.

Succeeding generations corrected the errors of their predecessors,
and grew ever nearer and nearer to a comprehension of the true
meaning.  It was thus from the very earliest times of
Christianity.  And so, too, from the earliest times of
Christianity there were men who began to assert on their own
authority that the meaning they attribute to the doctrine is the
only true one, and as proof bring forward supernatural occurrences
in support of the correctness of their interpretation.

This was the principal cause at first of the misunderstanding of
the doctrine, and afterward of the complete distortion of it.

It was supposed that Christ's teaching was transmitted to men not
like every other truth, but in a special miraculous way.  Thus the
truth of the teaching was not proved by its correspondence with
the needs of the mind and the whole nature of man, but by the
miraculous manner of its transmission, which was advanced as an
irrefutable proof of the truth of the interpretation put on it.
This hypothesis originated from misunderstanding of the teaching,
and its result was to make it impossible to understand it rightly.

And this happened first in the earliest times, when the doctrine
was still not so fully understood and often interpreted wrongly,
as we see by the Gospels and the Acts.  The less the doctrine was
understood, the more obscure it appeared and the more necessary
were external proofs of its truth.  The proposition that we ought
not to do unto others as we would not they should do unto us, did
not need to be proved by miracles and needed no exercise of faith,
because this proposition is in itself convincing and in harmony
with man's mind and nature; but the proposition that Christ was
God had to be proved by miracles completely beyond our
comprehension.

The more the understanding of Christ's teaching was obscured, the
more the miraculous was introduced into it; and the more the
miraculous was introduced into it, the more the doctrine was
strained from its meaning and the more obscure it became; and the
more it was strained from its meaning and the more obscure it
became, the more strongly its infallibility had to be asserted,
and the less comprehensible the doctrine became.

One can see by the Gospels, the Acts, and the Epistles how from
the earliest times the non-comprehension of the doctrine called
forth the need for proofs through the miraculous and
incomprehensible.

The first example in the book of Acts is the assembly which
gathered together in Jerusalem to decide the question which had
arisen, whether to baptize or not the uncircumcised and those who
had eaten of food sacrificed to idols.

The very fact of this question being raised showed that
those who discussed it did not understand the teaching of Christ,
who rejected all outward observances--ablutions, purifications,
fasts, and sabbaths.  It was plainly said, "Not that which goeth
into a man's mouth, but that which cometh out of a man's mouth,
defileth him," and therefore the question of baptizing the
uncircumcised could only have arisen among men who, though they
loved their Master and dimly felt the grandeur of his teaching,
still did not understand the teaching itself very clearly. And
this was the fact.

Just in proportion to the failure of the members of the assembly
to understand the doctrine was their need of external confirmation
of their incomplete interpretation of it.  And then to settle this
question, the very asking of which proved their misunderstanding
of the doctrine, there was uttered in this assembly, as is
described in the Acts, that strange phrase, which was for the
first time found necessary to give external confirmation to
certain assertions, and which has been productive of so much evil.

That is, it was asserted that the correctness of what they had
decided was guaranteed by the miraculous participation of the Holy
Ghost, that is, of God, in their decision.  But the assertion that
the Holy Ghost, that is, God, spoke through the Apostles, in its
turn wanted proof.  And thus it was necessary, to confirm this,
that the Holy Ghost should descend at Pentecost in tongues of fire
upon those who made this assertion.  (In the account of it, the
descent of the Holy Ghost precedes the assembly, but the book of
Acts was written much later than both events.)  But the descent of
the Holy Ghost too had to be proved for those who had not seen the
tongues of fire (though it is not easy to understand why a tongue
of fire burning above a man's head should prove that what that man
is going to say will be infallibly the truth).  And so arose the
necessity for still more miracles and changes, raisings of the
dead to life, and strikings of the living dead, and all those
marvels which have been a stumbling-block to men, of which the
Acts is full, and which, far from ever convincing one of the truth
of the Christian doctrine, can only repel men from it.  The result
of such a means of confirming the truth was that the more these
confirmations of truth by tales of miracles were heaped up one
after another, the more the doctrine was distorted from its
original meaning, aid the more incomprehensible it became.

Thus it was from the earliest times, and so it went on, constantly
increasing, till it reached in our day the logical climax of the
dogmas of transubstantiation and the infallibility of the Pope, or
of the bishops, or of Scripture, and of requiring a blind faith
rendered incomprehensible and utterly meaningless, not in God, but
in Christ, not in a doctrine, but in a person, as in Catholicism,
or in persons, as in Greek Orthodoxy, or in a book, as in
Protestantism.  The more widely Christianity was diffused, and the
greater the number of people unprepared for it who were brought
under its sway, the less it was understood, the more absolutely
was its infallibility insisted on, and the less possible it became
to understand the true meaning of the doctrine.  In the times of
Constantine the whole interpretation of the doctrine had been
already reduced to a RESUME--supported by the temporal authority--
of the disputes that had taken place in the Council--to a creed
which reckoned off--I believe in so and so, and so and so, and so
and so to the end--to one holy, Apostolic Church, which means the
infallibility of those persons who call themselves the Church.  So
that it all amounts to a man no longer believing in God nor
Christ, as they are revealed to him, but believing in what the
Church orders him to believe in.

But the Church is holy; the Church was founded by Christ.  God
could not leave men to interpret his teaching at random--therefore
he founded the Church.  All those statements are so utterly untrue
and unfounded that one is ashamed to refute them.  Nowhere nor in
anything, except in the assertion of the Church, can we find that
God or Christ founded anything like what Churchmen understand by
the Church.  In the Gospels there is a warning against the Church,
as it is an external authority, a warning most clear and obvious
in the passage where it is said that Christ's followers should
"call no man master."  But nowhere is anything said of the
foundation of what Churchmen call the Church.

The word church is used twice in the Gospels--once in the sense of
an assembly of men to decide a dispute, the other time in
connection with the obscure utterance about a stone--Peter, and
the gates of hell.  From these two passages in which the word
church is used, in the signification merely of an assembly, has
been deduced all that we now understand by the Church.

But Christ could not have founded the Church, that is, what we now
understand by that word.  For nothing like the idea of the Church
as we know it now, with its sacraments, miracles, and above all
its claim to infallibility, is to be found either in Christ's
words or in the ideas of the men of that time.

The fact that men called what was formed afterward by the same
word as Christ used for something totally different, does not give
them the right to assert that Christ founded the one, true Church.

Besides, if Christ had really founded such an institution as the
Church for the foundation of all his teaching and the whole faith,
he would certainly have described this institution clearly and
definitely, and would have given the only true Church, besides
tales of miracles, which are used to support every kind of
superstition, some tokens so unmistakable that no doubt of its
genuineness could ever have arisen.  But nothing of the sort was
done by him.  And there have been and still are different
institutions, each calling itself the true Church.

The Catholic catechism says: "L'Eglise est la societe des fideles
etablie par notre Seigneur Jesus Christ, repandue sur toute la
terre et soumise a l'authorite des pasteurs legitimes,
principalement notre Saint Pere le Pape," [see Footnote]
understanding by the words "pasteurs legitimes" an association of
men having the Pope at its head, and consisting of certain
individuals bound together by a certain organization.

    [Footnote: "The Church is the society of the faithful,
    established by our Lord Jesus Christ, spread over the
    whole earth, and subject to the authority of its lawful
    pastors, and chief of them our Holy Father the Pope."

The Greek Orthodox catechism says: "The Church is a society
founded upon earth by Jesus Christ, which is united into one
whole, by one divine doctrine and by sacraments, under the rule
and guidance of a priesthood appointed by God," meaning by the
"priesthood appointed by God" the Greek Orthodox priesthood,
consisting of certain individuals who happen to be in such or such
positions.

The Lutheran catechism says: "The Church is holy Christianity, or
the collection of all believers under Christ, their head, to whom
the Holy Ghost through the Gospels and sacraments promises,
communicates, and administers heavenly salvation," meaning that
the Catholic Church is lost in error, and that the true means of
salvation is in Lutheranism.

For Catholics the Church of God coincides with the Roman
priesthood and the Pope.  For the Greek Orthodox believer the
Church of God coincides with the establishment and priesthood of
Russia. [See Footnote]

    [Footnote: Homyakov's definition of the Church, which
    was received with some favor among Russians, does not
    improve matters, if we are to agree with Homyakov in
    considering the Greek Orthodox Church as the one true
    Church.  Homyakov asserts that a church is a collection
    of men (all without distinction of clergy and laymen)
    united together by love, and that only to men united by
    love is the truth revealed (let us love each other, that
    in the unity of thought, etc.), and that such a church
    is the church which, in the first place, recognizes the
    Nicene Creed, and in the second place does not, after
    the division of the churches, recognize the popes and
    new dogmas.  But with such a definition of the church,
    there is still more difficulty in reconciling, as
    Homyakov tries to do, the church united by love with
    the church that recognizes the Nicene Creed and the
    doctrine of Photius.  So that Homyakov's assertion that
    this church, united by love, and consequently holy,
    is the same church as the Greek Orthodox priesthood
    profess faith in, is even more arbitrary than the
    assertions of the Catholics or the Orthodox.  If we
    admit the idea of a church in the sense Homyakov
    gives to it--that is, a body of men bound together
    by love and truth--then all that any man can predicate
    in regard to this body, if such an one exists, is
    its love and truth, but there can be no outer signs
    by which one could reckon oneself or another as a
    member of this holy body, nor by which one could put
    anyone outside it; so that no institution having
    an external existence can correspond to this idea.

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