The Kingdom of God Is Within You, Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy [books to read fiction .TXT] 📗

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