8 Granting then that the doctrine of Christ gives bliss to the world, granting that it is rational and that man as a rational being has no right to renounce it, what can one man do alone amidst a world of men who do not fulfil the law of Christ? If all would agree to practice the doctrine of Christ, its fulfilment would be possible, but what can the efforts of one man avail if the whole world is against him? How often do we hear it said, if amidst a whole world of men who do not fulfil the doctrine of Christ I alone begin to follow it, by giving up what I love, by letting my cheek be struck, or even by refusing to take an oath or to have any part in war, I shall be robbed and if I do not starve I shall either be beaten to death or imprisoned or shot and I shall have destroyed the happiness of my whole life and even my life itself in vain. We often hear men argue thus and I said the same myself until I had entirely set aside the influence of church teaching, which had prevented my taking in the full meaning of Christ's doctrine about life. Christ gives his doctrine as the means of salvation from the corrupt life that those who do not follow his teaching lead, and yet I say that I should like to follow it, but cannot make up my mind to ruin my life. It would seem then that I do not consider my life as corrupt, but as something real and good, and something that is my own. It is just in the conviction that this earthly, individual life is something real, and something that actually belongs to us, that the misunderstanding lies, which prevents our comprehending the doctrine of Christ. Christ knows the delusion by which men consider their own individual lives as something real, and something to which they have a personal right, and he shows them, in a series of sermons and parables, that they have no claims on life, that they have indeed no life at all, until they attain true life by renouncing the shadow of which they call their life. In order to understand Christ's doctrine of salvation, we must first of all comprehend what the prophet Solomon, Buddha, and all the sages of the world have said concerning the individual life of man. We may, as Pascal says, live on without thinking of all this, holding a screen before our eyes, which hides from us the abyss of death towards which we are all hastening, but we need only reflect upon what the individual life of man is, to be convinced that his entire life, if it is only the individual life, is of no importance for each separate man. In order to understand the doctrine of Christ, we must first of all consider ourselves and repent, so that in us may be fulfilled the metanoia, which the precursor of Christ, John the Baptist, speaks of when preaching to men who, like ourselves, had gone astray. He says, first of all, repent, that is, consider yourselves, otherwise you shall all perish. He says, the axe is already laid to the root of the tree, to hew it down, death and destruction are close at hand, remember this and alter your lives. Christ begins his preaching with the same words, repent or you shall all perish. Luke chapter 13, verses 1 to 5, Christ hears of the destruction of the Galileans killed by Pilate, and he says, do you suppose that these Galileans were sinners above all the Galileans because they suffered thus?  Or do you think that those eighteen men upon whom the tower of Siloam fell and killed them, were sinners above all men who lived in Jerusalem?  If Christ lived in our days in Russia, he would have said, do you suppose that those who were burnt in the circus at Burditcher, or who perished on the embankment at Cucuevo, were sinners above all others? You shall likewise perish if you do not repent, if you do not find that which is imperishable. The death of those who were crushed by the tower who were burnt in the circus fills you with awe, but death, awful and inevitable, awaits you too, and you endeavour in vain to forget it. If it comes upon you unawares, it will be more awful still. He says, in Luke chapter twelve, verses fifty-four to fifty-seven, when you see a cloud rise out of the west you immediately say there is a shower coming, and so it is, and when the south wind blows you say there will be heat, and so it is. Hippocrates, you can discern the face of the sky and of the earth, but how is it that you do not discern this time, why you yourselves not judge what must be? You can judge according to various signs what the weather will be like, how is it then that you cannot see what awaits you yourselves?  Make a simple calculation, as worldly men do when they begin any business, as for instance erecting a tower, going to war, or building a factory. They work with some rational end in view. Luke fourteen verses twenty-eight to thirty-one, for which of you, intending to build a tower, does not sit down first, and count the cost, to see whether he has sufficient resources to finish it. Lest by chance, after he has laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it, all that behold begin to mock him, saying, this man began to build, and was not able to finish. Or what king going to war against another king does not sit down first, and consult whether he is able, with ten thousand, to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand. Isn't it senseless to work at what will never be finished, however hard you may try? Death will always come before you have built up the tower of your earthly happiness, and if you know beforehand that however you may struggle against death it will conquer you, would it not be better, instead of struggling against it, not to put your whole soul into what shall surely perish, but to seek some work that cannot be destroyed by inevitable death. Luke chapter twelve verses twenty-two to twenty-seven, and he said to his disciples, Therefore I say to you, take no thought for your life what you shall eat, neither for the body what you shall put on. Your life is more than meat, and your body is more than clothing. Consider the ravens, for they neither sow nor reap, they neither have storehouse nor barn, and God feeds them. How much more are you better than they? And which of you by thinking about it can add to his stature even one cubit? If you are not able to do the very thing that is least, why do you take thought for the rest? Consider the lilies, how they grow, they do not toil, they do not spin, and yet I say to you that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. However much a man may care about body and food, he cannot add one hour to his life. These words have been incorrectly translated. The word aliquia means age, time of life. Or the expression signifies you cannot add one hour to your life. End of footnote. Then isn't it foolish to trouble oneself about things that cannot be done? While knowing that the end is death, you care only to assure your lives by gaining wealth. Life cannot be assured by wealth. Why will you not comprehend that you but delude yourselves with a ridiculous deception? The purpose of life, Christ says, does not lie in what we possess and in what we gain, what is not ourselves. It must lie in something else than that. He says in Luke 12 verses 16 to 21 that the life of man in spite of all his riches does not depend upon his property. The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully and he thought within himself, what shall I do? I have no room to store my fruits. And he said, I will do this. I will pull down my barns and build larger ones. And there I will store all my corn and all my goods. And I will say to my soul, soul, you have much goods laid up for many years.   Then whose shall these things be which you have provided? So it is with him who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God. Death stands every minute over you. Luke 12 verses 35 to 40. Therefore stay dressed and keep your light shining. And you yourselves be like men who wait for their lord when he will return from the wedding, that when he comes and knocks, they may open to him immediately. And if he shall come in the second watch, or come in the third watch, and find them so, blessed are those servants. And know this, if the owner of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched, and not have allowed his house to be broken into. Therefore be ready also, for the son of man comes at an hour when you do not think. The parables of the virgins awaiting the bridegroom, of the end of the age, and of the last judgment, all refer, according to the opinion of interpreters, not merely to the end of the world, but also to the peril in which every man hourly stands. Death, death, death attends us every second. Our lives are passed in the presence of death. While working individually for your future, you well know that the future will give you nothing but death.  Thus it is clear that life for oneself can never have any meaning. If there is a rational life, it must be some other kind of life. It must be one the purpose of which does not consist in securing one's own future.  Luke 10 verse 41. Martha, Martha, you are careful and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. All the innumerable affairs that we transact for ourselves will be of no use to us in the future. All such things are but the illusion with which we deceive ourselves. But one thing is necessary. The state of man from the day of his birth is such that inevitable destruction awaits him. That is, a senseless life and a senseless death, if he does not find what alone is necessary for the true life. Christ reveals to men that which alone gives them the true life. He does not invent it. He does not promise to give it by his divine power. He only shows mankind that, besides the individual life, there must be another life which is truth and not deception. Christ, in his parable of the Vine Dresser, Matthew 21 verses 33 to 42, explains the source of human error which hides the truth from men and which makes them consider the shadow of life, their own individual life, as the true one. Certain men, living in their master's cultivated garden, fancied themselves the owners of that garden, and that error leads to a series of irrational and cruel actions on the part of those men, ending in their banishment, their exclusion from that life in the garden. So likewise do we fancy that the life of each of us is his own, that we have a right to it, and that we can do as we like with it, without being responsible to anyone. We cannot, therefore, avoid the same series of senseless and cruel actions and misfortunes, or escape the same exclusion from the life we misuse. As the Vine Dressers fancied that the more cruel they were, the better they would assure their own prosperity by killing the servants and the master's son, so do we fancy that the more cruel we are, the more independent we shall become. As it was with the Vine Dressers who, after refusing others the fruits of the garden were driven out themselves by their master, so it is with men who fancy that life, for self, is the true life. Death expels them, and others take their place, not as a punishment, but merely because those men did not understand life. As the men in the garden either forgot or would not admit that the garden had only been entrusted to their care, that it was already cultivated and fenced around, and somebody had previously been working in it for them, and therefore expected them to work too, for the sake of others, so do men, while living for themselves, forget or fail to recognize all that had been done by others before their birth, and all that is done during their lifetime, and that, therefore, something is expected of them too. They choose to forget that all the blessings of life which they enjoy were entrusted and are entrusted to them, and must therefore either be transferred or given up. This improved view of life, this metanoia, is the cornerstone of the doctrine of Christ, as he says at the end of the parable. According to Christ's doctrine, the vine-dressers who lived in the vineyard that they had not cultivated themselves, should have known and felt that they were deeply indebted to the master, and so should men likewise understand and feel that, from the day of their birth to the day of their death, they owe a heavy debt to those who lived before them, to those who still live, and to those who are to live after them. They should understand that every hour of the life they continue to live, that debt grows heavier, and that, therefore, the man who lives for himself, and does not acknowledge the obligation that binds him to life, and to the principle of life, deprives himself of life. He should understand that by living thus, he destroys his life while desiring to save it. The true life is but a continuation of past life, and works for the good of the present life, as well as for that of the future. To be a sharer of that life, man must renounce his own will, and fulfil the will of the father of life who gave it to the son of man. John 8 verse 35, the servant who does his own will, and not that of his master, does not abide forever in the house of his master. Only the son who fulfills the will of the father abides forever. Christ says, expressing the same idea in another sense. The will of the father of life is not the life of the individual man, but of the son of man, that lives in men, and therefore a man keeps his life only when he considers it as a trust given to him by the father, in order to serve the good of all, and he really lives when he lives not for himself, but for the son of man. Matthew 25 verse 14 to 46, a householder gave each of his servants a share of his property, and left them without any instructions. Some of the servants, though they had not received any orders from their master concerning the way in which they were to use their share of the master's property, understood that it was not theirs, but his, and that the property was to grow. They therefore worked for the master, and the servants who had worked for the master became shareholders of the master's business, while those who had not worked were deprived of what had been given to them. The life of the son of man is given to all men, and they are not told why it is given to them. Some understand that life is not their own, but is a trust, and that it must serve the life of the son of man. Others, under the pretext that they do not understand the purpose of life, do not live up to that high aim.  And from the verses 31 to 46, Christ tells us what is meant by serving the Son of Man, and in what the reward of that service consists. The Son of Man, according to the words of Christ, will say, verse 34, As the king did, Come, you blessed of the Father, Inherit the kingdom prepared for you, For I was hungry, and you gave me meat. I was thirsty, and you gave me drink. You clothed, Visited, and comforted me. For I am the same in you, and in the least of those whom you took pity on, And to whom you have done good. You lived not for yourselves, but for the Son of Man, And therefore shall you have eternal life. Christ speaks only of that eternal life throughout the Gospel. And strange as it may seem to say so of Christ, who himself rose from the dead, and who promised to raise all men, he never, by a single word, confirmed the belief in individual resurrection, or in individual immortality beyond the grave, but he even attached to the raising up of the dead in the kingdom of the Messiah, as taught by the Pharisees, a meaning that excluded the idea of individual resurrection. The Sadducees disputed the raising up of the dead. The Pharisees acknowledged it, as all true believers among the Jews still do. The raising up of the dead, not the resurrection, as the word has been erroneously translated, will, according to the Jewish belief, be accomplished at the coming of the Messiah, and the establishing of the kingdom of God on earth. And Christ, on meeting with this belief in a temporary, local, and carnal resurrection, rejects it, and sets in its place his doctrine of the restoration to eternal life in God. When the Sadducees, who said there was no resurrection, and supposed that Christ agreed in opinion with the Pharisees, asked him, whose wife shall she be of the seven? He gives a clear and definite answer to both questions. He says, in Matthew 22, verses 29-32, Mark 12, verses 24-27, and Luke 20, verses 34-38, you are not knowing the scripture or the power of God. And in refutation of the belief of the Pharisees, he says, the raising up of the dead is neither carnal nor individual. Those who are raised from the dead become the sons of God and live like angels, the powers of God, in heaven, with God. And there can be no question for them, whose wife she will be, because being one with God, they lose all individuality.  Have you not read what God said to you? The scripture says that God said to Moses from the bush, I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. If God said to Moses that he was the God of Jacob, then Jacob is not dead, for God is not the God of the dead, but of the living, with God all are living. And therefore, if there is a living God, the man who is one with God lives too. In reply to the Pharisees, Christ says that the raising from the dead cannot be carnal and individual. In reply to the Sadducees, he says that, besides an individual and temporary life, there is another life in communion with God. Denying individual and carnal resurrection, Christ asserts that the raising from the dead lies in the transfusion of man's life into God. Christ preaches salvation from individual life, and sets that salvation in the exaltation of the Son of Man and a life in God. Connecting his doctrine with that of the Hebrews, as far as concerns the coming of the Messiah, he speaks to them of the raising up of the Son of Man from the dead, thereby meaning not a personal carnal rising from the dead, but an awakening to life in God. Of individual carnal resurrection, he never speaks. The best proof that Christ never preached the resurrection of men from the dead is found in the very two texts quoted by theologians, in confirmation of his doctrine of resurrection. Those two texts are Matthew 25, verses 31 to 46, and John 5, verses 28 to 29. In the first, he speaks of the coming, that is, the raising up, the exaltation of the Son of Man. We find the same in Matthew 10, verse 23, and the greatness and power of the Son of Man are likened to those of a king. In the second text, Christ speaks of the raising up of true life here on earth, as expressed in the 24th verse. It only needs a closer consideration of the meaning of Christ's doctrine of eternal life in God. It only needs to re-establish in our minds the teaching of the Hebrew prophets to enable us to comprehend that if Christ had wished to preach the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead, which at that time was being embodied in the Talmud and was a subject of dispute, he would have done so clearly and definitely. Yet, on the contrary, he not only avoided preaching that doctrine, but even refuted it. Nor do we find a single passage in the Gospel to confirm it. The two above-mentioned texts have a very different meaning. Strange as the assertion may seem to those who have not studied the Gospel, never in a single passage does Christ speak of his own personal resurrection. If, as theologians maintain, the basis of the Christian faith is the resurrection of Christ, the least we could expect would be that Christ, knowing he would rise from the dead, and that upon his rising the chief dogma of the faith would be founded, should at least once have said so clearly and definitely. Yet he never does, nor do we find any mention made of his resurrection throughout the whole canonical Gospel. The doctrine taught is the exaltation of the Son of Man, or in other words, of the substance of life in man, and this is to acknowledge oneself to be the Son of God. In himself Christ personifies man who acknowledges himself to be the Son of God. Matthew 16, verses 13 to 20, he asks the disciples what men say of him, the Son of Man. The disciples answer that some think him to be John, miraculously raised from the dead, some think him a prophet, some Elijah come down from heaven. And what do you think of me, he asks. And Peter, thinking of Christ as he himself did, answers, you are the Messiah, the Son of the living God. And Christ says, flesh and blood has not revealed it to you, but our Father who is in heaven, or you have understood not because you have believed the words of men, but because knowing yourself to be the Son of God, you have understood me. And having explained to Peter that true faith lies in our knowing ourselves to be the sons of God, Christ says to the other disciples, verse 20, that they should in future tell no man that he, Jesus, is the Messiah. And then Christ says that though he will be put to torture and death, the Son of Man, knowing himself to be the Son of God, will be raised up and will triumph overall. And yet these words are interpreted as foretelling his resurrection. John 2, verses 19 to 22, Matthew 12, verse 40, Luke 11, verse 20, Matthew 16, verse 21, Matthew 16, verse 4, Mark 8, verse 31, Luke 9, verse 22, Matthew 17, verse 23, Mark 9, verse 31, Matthew 20, verse 19, Mark 10, verse 34, Luke 18, verse 33, Matthew 26, verse 32, Mark 14, verse 48. These 14 texts are all supposed to show that Christ foretold his resurrection. In three of these texts, he speaks of Jonah in the belly of the whale, and in one of the raising of the temple. In the other 10 texts, Christ says that the Son of Man cannot be destroyed forever, but nowhere do we find one word concerning his resurrection. Indeed, in the original, the word resurrection does not occur in any one of these texts. Give a man unacquainted with theological interpretation, but with some knowledge of Greek, these texts to translate, and he will never render their meaning in the way our translators of the Gospel have done. There are, in the original, two different words in these texts. One is anesthemi, the other is egeiro. One of these words signifies to raise, the other signifies to rouse or waken, or it might be to awaken, to rise, but neither of them can possibly mean rise from the dead. In order to be quite sure that these Greek words and the Hebrew equivalent comb cannot signify to rise from the dead, it will suffice to compare the texts in which these words are used. They often occur very often, but never in the sense of rise from the dead. The word resuscitate, alphashtein, resuscitate, does not exist either in the Greek or in the Hebrew languages any more than did the idea itself which the word implies. In order to express the idea of resurrection in Greek or in Hebrew, a paraphrasis must be made use of, either he rose from the dead or he awoke from the dead. It is thus in Matthew 14 verse 2, where we read that Herod, suppose that John the Baptist had risen from the dead, the expression is woke up from the dead. We find the same in the Gospel according to St Luke 16 verse 31 in the parable of Lazarus. Christ says that even if a man rose from the dead they would not believe him. We again find in this text the words risen from the dead. In the text where the words to rise or to wake up are used without the addition of the words from the dead, they never did signify and never can be supposed to signify resurrection. When Christ speaks of himself in the above mentioned passages which are considered as proofs that he foretold his resurrection, he never once appends the words from the dead. Our idea of resurrection is so far from the Hebrews ideas of life that we cannot even imagine Christ could have spoken to them of resurrection and of an eternal individual life common to all men. The idea of a future individual life has not been transmitted to us either through the teaching of the Hebrews or through the doctrine of Christ. It made its way into the teaching of the church from a very different source. Strange as it may sound it must be confessed that a belief in a future individual life is the lowest and grossest conception based only on a confusion of sleep with death which is common to all barbarous nations. The teaching of the Hebrews however stood immeasurably higher than that conception. We feel so convinced that this superstition is a very exalted one that we very seriously allege as a proof of the superiority of our doctrine over all others the fact that we uphold that superstition while others as for instance the Chinese and the Hindus do not. This is maintained not only by theologians but also by free thinking learned historians of religion such as Tiller, Max Muller and others. Classifying the various religions they assert that the religions that keep to that superstition are superior to those that do not. The free thinker Schopenhauer calls the Hebrew religion the most contemptible, niedertrechtigster of all because it contains no idea, kainaide, of the immortality of the soul. And indeed in the Hebrew religion neither the meaning nor the word expressive of it exists. Eternal life in the Hebrew language is hayoylom. The word oylom signifies endless immutable. Oylom likewise signifies world, cosmos, life in general and especially eternal life hayoylom is according to the Hebrews proper to God alone. God is the God of life, the living God. Man according to the Hebrew belief is always mortal. God alone lives forever. In the five books of Moses we find the words eternal life used twice. Once in Deuteronomy 32 verses 39 to 40 God says see now that I am I and there is no other God but me. I kill and I make alive. I wound and I heal. Neither is there any who can be delivered from me. I lift up my hand to heaven and say I live forever. In the book of Genesis chapter 3 verse 22 God says behold the man has eaten of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil and has become like one of us and now he might put forth his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat and live forever. These are the only two cases in which the words eternal life are used in the Old Testament except in one chapter of the apocryphal book of Daniel and they clearly defined the idea the Hebrews had both of life in general and of eternal life. Life itself according to Jewish belief is eternal and it is such in God. Man is always mortal such is his nature. The Old Testament does not tell us as our Bible histories do that God breathed an immortal soul into man nor that the first man was immortal until he sinned. According to the book of Genesis chapter 1 verse 26 God created man as he did all other living creatures male and female and commanded them to increase and multiply. God spoke of man just as he spoke of beast. In the second chapter it is said that man learned to know good and evil but we are told too that God drove man out of Eden and barred his way to the tree of life. Thus man did not eat of the fruit of the tree of life and thus he did not attain the hyalum that is eternal life but remained mortal. According to Jewish doctrine man is mortal life for him is but a life that continues in the people from generation to generation only the people according to Jewish doctrine can live. When God says you shall live and not die he speaks to the people. The life breathed by God into man is but a mortal life for each individually but it continues from generation to generation if men fulfill their covenant with God if they keep the conditions laid down by God. After expounding the laws and declaring that these laws were not in heaven but in their own hearts Moses says in Deuteronomy chapter 30 verse 15 see I now set before you life and good death and evil exhorting you to love God and walk in his ways and to keep his commandments that you may live and in verse 19 I call heaven and earth to record against you that I have set forth before you life and death blessing and cursing choose life that you and your descendants may live loving God obeying him and cleaving to him for he is your life and the length of your days the principal difference between our idea of human life and that of the Hebrews is that according to us our mortal life which passes on from generation to generation is not the true life but a fallen one a temporary corrupt life while according to the Hebrews this life is the true one it is the highest blessing given to man and given to him on the condition that he fulfills the will of God from our point of view the transition of that fallen life from generation to generation is the continuation of the curse from the Hebrew point of view it is the highest blessing man can attain and he attains it by fulfilling the will of God it is on this idea of life that Christ bases his doctrine concerning the true or eternal life which he opposes to mortal individual life search the scriptures Christ says to the Hebrews in John 5 verse 39 for in them you think you have eternal life a young man asks Christ in Matthew chapter 19 what he should do to have eternal life in answer to his question Christ says if you will enter into life he does not say eternal but life keep the commandments he says the same to the lawyers do this and you shall live Luke 10 verse 28 and again he says live without adding eternally in both these cases Christ defines what each man should understand by the words eternal life in using these words he says to the Hebrews what is more than once said in their law that fulfilling the will of God is eternal life Christ contrasts a temporary personal individual life with the eternal life which according to Deuteronomy God promised to Israel with the only difference that according to the Hebrews eternal life was to continue only among the chosen people of Israel and that it was necessary in order to attain that life to keep the laws given by God exclusively to Israel but according to the doctrine of Christ eternal life continues in the Son of Man and in order to keep it it is necessary to fulfill the laws of Christ which teach what the will of God is for all mankind it is not a life beyond the grave that Christ contrasts with individual life but a life bound up with the present past and future of all mankind the life of the Son of Man individual life was redeemed from perdition according to the Hebrews only by fulfilling the will of God expressed in the commandments given by God to Moses it was only thus that life was not destroyed but was to pass from generation to generation among the chosen people of God individual life is saved from perdition according to the doctrine of Christ likewise by fulfilling the will of God expressed in the commandments of Christ it is only thus that individual life does not perish but becomes eternal in the Son of Man the only difference between the two doctrines is that according to Moses serving God meant the serving him of but one people whereas according to Christ the serving of God the father means the serving of God by all mankind life could hardly continue through long generations among one people before the nation itself might disappear off the face of the earth and its continuation would depend upon the increase or diminution of posterity but endless life according to the doctrine of Christ is sure for it is transferred into the Son of Man living up to the will of the Father let us suppose that Christ's words concerning the day of judgment and the end of the world as well as the words we read in the Gospel of St John do promise a life beyond the grave for the souls of the dead yet there can be no doubt that his doctrine of the light of life of the kingdom of God has a meaning as intelligible to us as it was to his hearers that is that true life is but the life of the Son of Man according to the will of the father this can be more easily admitted as the doctrine concerning true life according to the will of the father of life includes the idea of immortality and life beyond the grave it would perhaps be more just to infer that man after a life passed in following his own will in this world will not enjoy an eternal individual life of bliss in paradise that would perhaps be more just but to think thus to believe in eternal bliss awaiting me as a reward for the good I have done and eternal torment as the punishment of my evil deeds does not lead to a clear comprehension of Christ's doctrine to think thus is on the contrary to do away with the groundwork of Christ's doctrine the whole purpose of Christ's doctrine is to teach his disciples that individual life being but a delusion they should renounce it and transfer their individual lives into the life of all humanity into the life of the Son of Man the doctrine of the immortality of each soul does not require of us to renounce our lives but on the contrary confirms their individuality forever according to the ideas of the Hebrews the Chinese and the Hindus and of all those who do not believe in the dogmas of the fall of man and the redemption the life we have is life man lives as children educates them grows old and dies his children grow up and continue his life which goes on without intermission from generation to generation existing just as all else in the world exists stones metals plants beasts and all else life is life and we must make the most of it to live for self alone is irrational and therefore since man has first existed on the earth each one seeks some aim in life beyond his own individual life he lives for his children his family his nation for humanity for all that does not die with his individual life now according to the teaching of our church life the greatest blessing known to us is only a part of life the rest of which is kept from us for a time according to the church our life is not the life God wished to give us nor the life God ought to have given us but a corrupt bad fallen life only an imperfect specimen of what life should be the chief problem of life according to this thesis does not consist in leading the mortal life that is given to us as the giver of it wishes us to do nor in our considering it eternal from generation to generation as the Hebrews do nor in uniting it to the will of the father as Christ taught us to do but in persuading ourselves that after this life the true life will begin Christ says nothing of that imaginary life the theories of the fall of Adam of eternal life in paradise and of the immortal soul breathed by God into Adam were unknown to Christ and therefore he does not mention them nor even allude to them Christ speaks of the life that is and that always will be we speak of an imaginary life which never did exist then how are we to understand the doctrine of Christ Christ never could have supposed so strange an idea among his followers he supposes all men to understand that individual life must inevitably perish and he reveals a life that cannot perish Christ comforts those who are in trouble but his doctrine can give nothing to those who are convinced that they have more than Christ can give suppose I were to exhort a man to work assuring him that he would thereby earn food and clothing and that man was suddenly to discover he was already a millionaire isn't it obvious that he would not heed my words it is thus with the doctrine of Christ why should I work when I can be rich without doing so what profit shall I have of living up to the commandments of God if I'm convinced that whether I do or not I shall live forever individually we are taught that Christ God the second person of the Trinity saved mankind by being incarnate and by taking upon himself the sin of Adam and of all mankind that he redeemed man from sin and the wrath of the first person of the Trinity and that he instituted the church and the sacraments for our salvation that we have but to believe this to be saved and to attain an eternal individual life beyond the grave but we cannot deny that Christ likewise saved men by warning them of their inevitable destruction and still saves them by the same and that his words I am the way the life and the truth point out to us the true path of life instead of the wrong path of individual life that we trod before there may be men who doubt the existence of life beyond the grave and of salvation being based on redemption but no one can doubt the salvation of all men in general and of each individually through their being warned of the inevitable destruction brought on by individual life and through being shown that the true way to salvation lies in the fusion of their will with the will of the Father let any rational being ask himself what our life and death has applied to himself personally let him try to attain any other meaning to life and death than that which Christ pointed out every idea of individual life if it is not based on the renouncing of self for the service of man of mankind of the son of man is an illusion that vanishes at the first touch of reason I cannot doubt that though my individual life is perishable the life of the world according to the will of the father can never be destroyed and that a fusion with it alone makes salvation possible for me but that is so little compared to the elevated religious faith in a future life little I grant but it is sure I lose my way in a snow drift a man assures me that he sees lights in the distance that there is a village nearby he thinks he sees the lights and so do I but it only seems to us that we see them because we desire to see them for we tried to reach these same lights before and could not find them one of us walks on through the snow and in a short time comes out onto the road and cries do not go on the lights you see are only in your imagination you will lose your way and perish I stand on firm ground follow me this road will lead us out that is but little while believing in the lights which glimmered before our dazzled eyes we saw ourselves in our imaginations already in the village in a warm hut in safety and at rest while here there was only firm ground yes but if we follow the man who spoke first we shall inevitably freeze to death if we mind the second we shall reach the good road and what shall I do if I alone have understood the doctrine of Christ and believe in it among all those who do not understand and will not fulfill it what shall I do shall I live as all do or live according to Christ's doctrine I understand his commandments and I see that fulfilling them will lead me and all men to perfect happiness I understand that it is the will of the author of all things the will of him from whom I have life that these commandments should be fulfilled I understand that whatever I may do I shall inevitably perish as will all those around me after a senseless life and death if I do not fulfill the will of the father and that the only possibility of salvation lies in fulfilling it by acting as others do I act against the good of all men I act contrary to the will of the father of life and I deprive myself of the only possibility of bettering my hopeless state by doing what Christ teaches me I shall ensure the good of all men of those who live at present and of those who are to live after me I do what he who gave me life desires me to do desires me to do I do what can alone save me the circus in Beditcher is on fire all crowd toward the door crushing each other in their efforts to open the door which opens inward a savior comes and says to them move further from the door turn back the closer you'll stand to the door the less hope of safety there is for you if you turn back you will find an exit and you will be saved whether I alone hear the words and believe matters but little but having heard and believed can I do otherwise then turn back and call upon the others to follow the voice of him who comes to save them I shall perhaps be smothered crushed or killed but the sole hope of safety is in my going toward the only exit a savior must be a savior indeed that is he must save and the salvation of Christ is salvation indeed he appeared he spoke and mankind is now saved the circus burned for a whole hour and it was necessary to make haste or else all could not have been saved but the world has been burning for 1800 years burning from the time Christ said I come to send fire on the earth and I now languish until it is kindled and it will burn until men are saved wasn't man created and doesn't the fire burn only that the happiness of man might be saved from it I know there is no other door either for myself or for those who suffer with me in this life I know that neither those around me nor I can be saved except by fulfilling the commandments of Christ which give the highest bliss to all mankind I may have more to suffer I may die earlier through fulfilling Christ doctrine I fear neither suffering nor death he who does not see how senseless and perishable his individual life is he who thinks that he will not die may fear but knowing that life for individual happiness alone is foolish to the highest degree and at the end of that foolish life will be but a foolish death I cannot fear it I shall die as all do as those who do not fulfill Christ doctrine do yet my life and death will have some meaning for myself and for all my life and death will minister to the salvation and lives of all men and that is what Christ taught us end of chapter eight chapter nine of what I believe this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org What I believe by Count Leo Tolstoy translated from the Russian by Constantine Popov chapter nine were all to fulfill Christ's doctrine the kingdom of God would be on earth if I fulfill it I do what is best for all mankind and myself I should be helping that kingdom to come but where shall I find the faith that will enable me to obey Christ's teaching to practice it and never to swerve from it I believe Lord help my unbelief the apostles begged Christ to confirm their faith I desire to do good yet I do evil says Paul the apostle it is hard to be saved that is what each says and thinks a drowning man calls for help a rope is thrown him it could save him but the drowning man cries confirm my belief that this rope can save me I believe says the man that it can save me but help my unbelief what does that mean if a man does not take hold of what alone can save him doesn't it prove that he is unaware of the danger he is in how can a Christian who professes to believe in the divinity of Christ and of his doctrine say that he would believe if he could God himself went on earth said you are on the eve of eternal torment and fire of complete eternal darkness I bring you salvation do as I tell you and you shall be saved can a Christian reject the salvation offered him remain unmindful of his saviour's words and say help my unbelief if a man spoke thus would it not seem as if he not only refused to believe that destruction awaited him but was convinced he should not perish some children have leaped overboard into the water the current for a time upholds them before their clothes are entirely soaked through they swim about unconscious of danger a rope is thrown to them from the ship they're entreated by those on board to take hold of the rope we find the same meaning in the parables of the woman who had found a fathering of the shepherd who found the sheep that was lost and in the parables of the supper and of the prodigal son but the children will not believe not because they think the rope is an unsafe one but because they do not believe that they're about to perish thoughtless children like themselves have told them that they will go on bathing merrily even when the ship sails away the children do not believe that the time is near when their clothes will be wet through their little arms tired out when they will begin to lose breath and then they will choke and drown they do not believe that and therefore they do not believe in the rope of salvation men are like the children who have jumped overboard and are sure they will not perish therefore they do not take hold of the rope they believe in the immortality of the soul and are convinced that they will not perish and therefore they do not fulfill the doctrine of Christ God they do not believe in what is indubitable only because they believe in what is beyond all possibility of belief and they cry confirm our belief that we are not perishing but that is impossible for them to believe they will be saved they must cease to do what brings destruction and begin to do what will save them they must take hold of the rope of salvation but they do not choose to do this they wish to be assured that they are not perishing though their companions perish one after another before their eyes and that desire to grow sure of what is not they call faith no wonder then that they have little faith and that they long for more it was only when I understood Christ's doctrine that I saw that what such men call faith is not faith it is only the false faith that the apostle James opposes in his epistle the church did not accept that epistle for a long time and when it was accepted it underwent several changes some words were removed and others transposed or incorrectly translated I here give the accepted translation only correcting what is inexact according to Titian Dorf's text James chapter 2 verses 14 to 26 what does it profit my brethren if a man supposes that he has faith and does not have works faith cannot save him if a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food and one of them says to them depart in peace be warmed and filled but you do not give them those things that they need what good is that even so faith if it does not have works is dead being alone yes a man may say you have faith and I have works show me your faith without your works and I will show you my faith by my works you believe that there is one God you do well the devils also believe and tremble but will you know oh vain man that faith without works is dead wasn't Abraham our father justified by works when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar see how faith worked with his deeds and by his deeds his faith was made perfect you see then how that by works a man is justified and not by faith alone for as the body without the spirit is dead so faith without works is dead also the apostle says that the only proof of faith is in the works that proceed from it and that faith from which no works proceed is but a word with which we can neither feed any nor justify ourselves and be saved and therefore the faith that is not accompanied by works is not faith it is only a wish to believe it is only a mistaken assertion that I believe when I do not really believe according to this definition faith must be allied to works and works make faith perfect that is true the Jews said to Christ in Mark 15 32 Matthew 27 42 and John 6 verse 30 what sign will you give us that we may see and believe you what will you do the same men said to him when he was on the cross let him descend now from the cross that we may see and believe mark 15 verse 32 Matthew 27 verse 42 he saved others but himself he cannot save if he is the king of Israel let him now come down from the cross and we will believe him in answer to their prayer that he may increase their faith Christ says that the wish is vain that they cannot be forced to believe Luke 22 verse 67 he says if I tell you you will not believe John 10 verses 25 to 26 I told you and you have not believed you do not believe because you are not of my sheep as I said to you the Jews required some outward token to enforce their belief in the doctrine of Christ just as the Christian followers of the church do now and he answers that it cannot be given to them and explains why it is impossible to do so he says that they cannot believe because they are not of his sheep or they do not follow the path of life that he points out to his flock he says in John 5 verse 44 wherein lies the difference between his sheep and those who are not of his flock he explains the reason why some believe and others do not and tells them what the basis of faith is how can you believe he says when you accept each other's doxa or teaching and do not seek the teaching that comes from God alone in order to believe Christ says we must seek the doctrine that comes from God he who speaks from himself seeks his own doctrine doxan 10 idian but he who seeks the doctrine of him who sent him the same is true and no unrighteousness is in him John chapter 7 verse 18 the doctrine of life doxa is the basis of faith all our actions proceed from faith faith proceeds from the doxa of the light in which we consider life there may be innumerable deeds and numerous beliefs but there are only two doctrines of life doxa Christ rejects one of them and acknowledges the other the one that Christ rejects is that of the existence of individual life as belonging to man it is the doctrine that was then and is still maintained by the majority of men and from which proceeds all the various beliefs of men and all their deeds the other doctrine is the one taught by Christ and the prophets that our individual life has a purpose only when we fulfill the will of God if a man has the doxa that his individuality is of more importance than all else he will consider his individual happiness as the chief and most desirable object in life and according as he finds that happiness in the purchase of land property in fame in glory or in the satisfaction of his lusts his faith will coincide with his views of life and all his actions will be guided by it if the doxa of a man is not such if he understands the true purpose of life to lie in fulfilling the will of God as Abraham understood it and as Christ taught it his actions will coincide with his faith in what he knows to be the will of God this is the reason why those who believe in the happiness of an individual life cannot believe in the doctrine of Christ all their endeavors to do so will be in vain in order to believe they must change their views of life until they have done so their actions will coincide with their creed and not with their desires or their words the desire to believe in the doctrine of Christ both of those who asked him for some token and of the believers of the present time does not coincide with their lives nor can it ever do so however hard they may try to fit them together they may pray to Christ God attend the holy communion do good to mankind build churches convert others and yet with all this they cannot really work for Christ because that can proceed only from faith which is based on a very different doctrine doxa to the one that they profess they cannot sacrifice the life of their only son as Abraham did who did not doubt for a moment that it was his duty to offer up his son as a sacrifice to God to the God who alone gave importance to his life and in the same way Christ and his disciples could not help giving up their lives to others because in that alone lay the object and blessing of their lives it is from men's thus misunderstanding the substance of faith that their strange longing arises they make themselves believe that it would be better to live up to the doctrine of Christ and all the while they firmly believe in the individual life and therefore choose to live contrary to Christ's doctrine the foundation of faith is a true comprehension of life which enables men to distinguish what is important and good in life from what is unimportant and bad faith is a correct appreciation of all the manifestations of life at the present time men whose faith is grounded on a doctrine of their own cannot make it agree with the faith that flows out of the doctrine of Christ any more than the disciples could and we find this misunderstanding more than once clearly and definitely spoken of in the gospel in the gospel according to st. Matthew chapter 20 verses 20 to 28 and in that according to Mark chapter 10 verses 35 to 45 after saying that the rich man cannot enter the kingdom of God and after the still more awful saying that he who does not leave all who does not give up his life for Christ's sake shall not be saved Peter asks what then shall we have who have left all and followed you in the gospel according to Mark we read that James and John or according to Matthew their mother ask that they should sit one on his right hand the other on his left in his glory they beg him to confirm their faith by the promise of a reward Christ answers Peter's question by a parable Matthew chapter 20 verses 1 to 16 and in answer to James he says you do not know what you ask that is you ask for what cannot be you do not understand my doctrine my doctrine is the renunciation of individual life and you ask for individual honor and individual reward you may drink of my cup or live but to sit on my right hand or my left or to be equal to me cannot be given to you and then Christ says that it is only in this world that the powerful of the world think much of the glory and power of individual life and rejoice in it but you who are my disciples ought to know that the true life does not lie in individual happiness but in ministering to all in humbling ourselves before all man does not live to be ministered to but to minister to all and to give up his individual life as a ransom for all in answer to his disciples request which showed him how little they understood his doctrine Christ does not command them to believe to change their appreciation of good and evil which arose from the teaching they had imbibed before him he knows that it is impossible but he explains what the true life is on which faith is based and shows that it is a true estimation of good and bad important and unimportant Christ answers Peter's question what reward shall we have for having left all and following you with the parable of the laborers who were hired at different times and who received the same pay Matthew chapter 20 verses 1 to 16 he explains to Peter the error he is in with respect to his doctrine and that his lack of faith proceeds from his error Christ says it is only in individual life that reward is important in proportion to the work done a belief in the necessity of reward being proportionate to the work itself proceeds from the doctrine of individual life this belief is based on hypothesis and on rights which we imagine that we have but man has no rights and can never have any rights he is only a debtor for the happiness given to him and therefore he has no right to expect anything even if he gives up his whole life he cannot give back what he has received and therefore the master cannot be unjust if a man declares that he has a right to his own life and requires compensation from the author of all from him who entrusted him with life he only shows that he does not understand the true purpose for which life was given to him men having obtained happiness require more these men stood unoccupied and miserable in the marketplace and did not live the master hired them and gave them the greatest good in life labor they accepted the master's gracious gift and then grew dissatisfied they were dissatisfied because they had no clear consciousness of their state they came to their work with the false idea that they had a right to their own lives and to their own work and that therefore their work was to be rewarded they did not understand that work itself was the greatest good given to them in return for which they were to do good to others but that they could claim no reward and men cannot have a just and true faith as long as they possess the same erroneous idea of life as these laborers had christ answers the direct demand of his disciples to confirm to increase their faith by the parable of the master and the laborers and explains still more clearly the groundwork of the faith he taught them Luke chapter 17 verses 3 to 10 the precept given by christ to forgive our brother not only once but 70 times 7 fills the disciples with awe at the difficulty that they would experience in putting such a precept into practice and they say yes but to fulfill it we must believe increase and confirm our faith as they had asked before what shall we have for it so do they again say just as all who call themselves christians say i would believe but i cannot strengthen my faith they say make us believe just as the disciples did when they asked for a miracle make us believe in our salvation by miracles and promises of reward the disciples spoke just as we do it would be well if while continuing to lead our individual willful lives we could be made to believe that by fulfilling god's commandments we should be all the happier we all ask for what is contrary to the whole spirit of christ's doctrine and we are surprised that we can by no means believe and christ answers the misunderstanding which existed then and still exists by a parable in which he shows what true faith is faith cannot proceed from trust in what he says faith comes only from a consciousness of our state faith is based only on the rational consciousness of what is best for us he shows that it is impossible to rouse faith in men by promises of rewards and by threats of punishments that it will be but a very weak trust that will be destroyed at the first temptation that's the faith that moves mountains the faith that nothing can shake is based on the consciousness of our inevitable peril and of the soul salvation possible for us faith needs no promises of reward it is only necessary to understand that salvation from inevitable destruction lies in a general life for all humanity according to the will of the master he who has once understood this will seek no confirmation of his faith but will be saved without his requiring any exhortation when the disciples beg him to confirm their faith christ says when the master comes home with his laborer from the field he does not tell him to sit down and eat immediately but first orders him to pen the cattle and to serve him and this done the laborer sits down to his food and eats the laborer obeys and does not think himself ill-used neither does he pride himself on his work nor require thanks or a reward for it he knows that it must be so and that he has only done his duty that is all that is required of him by his service but just this is at the same time for his own good in like manner when you have done all you are bound to do think that you have only done what was given to you to do he who understands his duty towards his master will see that it is only by submitting to his master's will that he can have life and can know where in lies the blessing of his life and he will have faith the faith that christ teaches us faith according to the doctrine of christ is based on a rational consciousness of the purpose of life the foundation of faith according to the doctrine of christ is light john chapter one verses nine to twelve that was the true light which lights every man who comes into the world he was in the world and the world was made by him and the world did not know him he came to his own and his own did not receive him and as many as received him and believed in his name to them he gave power to become the sons of god john chapter three verses nineteen to twenty one and this is the judgment that light has come into the world and men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil for everyone who does evil hates the light neither does he come to the light lest his deeds should be seen and disapproved because they are evil but he who does truth comes to the light that his deeds may be made manifest because they are done through god he who has understood the doctrine of christ can require no strengthening of his faith faith according to christ is based on the light on the truth not once does christ call upon men to have faith in him he calls upon them to have faith in the truth john chapter eight verses 40 and 46 he says to the jews you seek to kill me a man who has told you the truth which i have heard from god which of you convicts me of untruth and if i tell the truth why do you not believe me john chapter 18 verse 37 christ says to this end i was born and for this cause i came into the world that i should bear witness to the truth everyone who is of the truth hears my voice John chapter 14 verse 6 he says i am the way the truth and the life further on in the same chapter christ says to his disciples the father shall give you another comforter and he may abide with you forever he is the spirit of truth who the world does not see and does not know but you know him for he dwells in you and shall be in you he says that his whole doctrine is truth that he himself is truth the doctrine of christ is the doctrine of truth and therefore faith in christ is not a trust in anything that refers to jesus but a knowledge of the truth it is impossible to persuade or bribe a man to fulfill it he who understands the doctrine of christ will have faith in him because his doctrine is truth he who knows the truth cannot refuse to believe in it therefore if a man feels himself to be sinking he cannot refuse to take hold of the rope of salvation and the question what shall we do to believe is one that shows a total misunderstanding of christ's doctrine end of chapter nine