The Kingdom of God Is Within You by Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy (reading diary .txt) 📖
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the same with the Church. Every church presents exactly the same
proofs of the succession, and even the same miracles, in support
of its authenticity, as every other. So that there is but one
strict and exact definition of what is a church (not of something
fantastic which we would wish it to be, but of what it is and has
been in reality)—a church is a body of men who claim for
themselves that they are in complete and sole possession of the
truth. And these bodies, having in course of time, aided by the
support of the temporal authorities, developed into powerful
institutions, have been the principal obstacles to the diffusion
of a true comprehension of the teaching of Christ.
It could not be otherwise. The chief peculiarity which
distinguished Christ’s teaching from previous religions consisted
in the fact that those who accepted it strove ever more and more
to comprehend and realize its teaching. But the Church doctrine
asserted its own complete and final comprehension and realization
of it.
Strange though it may seem to us who have been brought up in the
erroneous view of the Church as a Christian institution, and in
contempt for heresy, yet the fact is that only in what was called
heresy was there any true movement, that is, true Christianity,
and that it only ceased to be so when those heresies stopped short
in their movement and also petrified into the fixed forms of a
church.
And, indeed what is a heresy? Read all the theological works one
after another. In all of them heresy is the subject which first
presents itself for definition; since every theological work deals
with the true doctrine of Christ as distinguished from the
erroneous doctrines which surround it, that is, heresies. Yet you
will not find anywhere anything like a definition of heresy.
The treatment of this subject by the learned historian of
Christianity, E. de Pressens�, in his “Histoire du Dogme” (Paris,
1869), under the heading “Ubi Christus, ibi Ecclesia,” may serve
as an illustration of the complete absence of anything like a
definition of what is understood by the word heresy. Here is what
he says in his introduction (p. 3):
“Je sais que l’on nous conteste le droit de qualifier ainsi
[that is, to call heresies] les tendances qui furent si
vivement combattues par les premiers P�res. La d�signation
m�me d’h�r�sie semble une atteinte port�e � la libert� de
conscience et de pens�e. Nous ne pouvons partager ce scrupule,
car il n’irait � rien moins qu’� enlever au Christianisme tout
caract�re distinctif.” [see Footnote]
[Footnote: “I know that our right to qualify thus the
tendencies which were so actively opposed by the early
Fathers is contested. The very use of the word heresy
seems an attack upon liberty of conscience and thought.
We cannot share this scruple; for it would amount to
nothing less than depriving Christianity of all
distinctive character.”
And though he tells us that after Constantine’s time the Church
did actually abuse its power by designating those who dissented
from it as heretics and persecuting them, yet he says, when
speaking of early times:
“L’�glise est une libre association; il y a tout profit a se
s�parer d’elle. La pol�mique contre l’erreur n’a d’autres
ressources que la pens�e et le sentiment. Un type doctrinal
uniforme n’a pas encore �t� �labor�; les divergences
secondaires se produisent en Orient et en Occident avec une
enti�re libert�; la th�ologie n’est point li�e a d’invariables
formules. Si au sein de cette diversit� apparait un fonds
commun de croyances, n’est-on pas en droit d’y voir non pas un
syst�me formul� et compos� par les repr�sentants d’une
autorit� d’�cole, mais la foi elle-m�me dons son instinct le
plus s�r et sa manifestation la plus spontan�e? Si cette m�me
unanimit� qui se r�v�le dans les croyances essentielles, se
retrouve pour repousser telles ou telles tendances ne serons
nous pas en droit de conclure que ces tendances �taient en
d�sacord flagrant avec les principes fondamentaux du
christianisme? Cette pr�somption ne se transformerait-elle
pas en certitude si nous reconnaissons dans la doctrine
universellement repouss�e par l’�glise les traits
caract�ristiques de l’une des religions du pass�? Pour dire
que le gnosticisme ou l’�bionitisme sont les formes l�gitimes
de la pens�e chr�tienne il faut dire hardiment qu’il n’y a pas
de pens�e chr�tienne, ni de caract�re sp�cifique qui la fasse
reconna�tre. Sous pr�texte de l’�largir, on la dissout.
Personne au temps de Platon n’e�t os� couvrir de son nom une
doctrine qui n’eut pas fait place � la th�orie des id�es; et
l’on e�t excit� les justes moqueries de la Gr�ce, en voulant
faire d’Epicure ou de Z�non un disciple de l’Acad�mie.
Reconnaissons donc que s’il existe une religion ou une
doctrine qui s’appelle christianisme, elle peut avoir ses
h�r�sies.” [see Footnote]
[Footnote: “The Church is a free association; there is much to
be gained by separation from it. Conflict with error has no
weapons other than thought and feeling. One uniform type of
doctrine has not yet been elaborated; divergencies in
secondary matters arise freely in East and West; theology is
not wedded to invariable formulas. If in the midst of this
diversity a mass of beliefs common to all is apparent, is one
not justified in seeing in it, not a formulated system, framed
by the representatives of pedantic authority, but faith itself
in its surest instinct and its most spontaneous manifestation?
If the same unanimity which is revealed in essential points of
belief is found also in rejecting certain tendencies, are we
not justified in concluding that these tendencies were in
flagrant opposition to the fundamental principles of
Christianity? And will not this presumption be transformed
into certainty if we recognize in the doctrine universally
rejected by the Church the characteristic features of one of
the religions of the past? To say that gnosticism or
ebionitism are legitimate forms of Christian thought, one must
boldly deny the existence of Christian thought at all, or any
specific character by which it could be recognized. While
ostensibly widening its realm, one undermines it. No one in
the time of Plato would lave ventured to give his name to a
doctrine in which the theory of ideas had no place, and one
would deservedly have excited the ridicule of Greece by trying
to pass off Epicurus or Zeno as a disciple of the Academy.
Let us recognize, then, that if a religion or a doctrine
exists which is called Christianity, it may have its
heresies.”
The author’s whole argument amounts to this: that every opinion
which differs from the code of dogmas we believe in at a given
time, is heresy. But of course at any given time and place men
always believe in something or other; and this belief in
something, indefinite at any place, at some time, cannot be a
criterion of truth.
It all amounts to this: since ubi Christus ibi Ecclesia, then
Christus is where we are.
Every so-called heresy, regarding, as it does, its own creed as
the truth, can just as easily find in Church history a series of
illustrations of its own creed, can use all Pressens�‘s arguments
on its own behalf, and can call its own creed the one truly
Christian creed. And that is just what all heresies do and have
always done.
The only definition of heresy (the word [GREEK WORD], means a
part) is this: the name given by a body of men to any opinion
which rejects a part of the Creed professed by that body. The
more frequent meaning, more often ascribed to the word heresy, is
—that of an opinion which rejects the Church doctrine founded and
supported by the temporal authorities.
[TRANSCRIBIST’S NOTE: The GREEK WORD above used Greek letters,
spelled: alpha(followed by an apostrophe)-iota(with accent)-
rho-epsilon-sigma-iota-zeta]
There is a remarkable and voluminous work, very little known,
“Unpartheyische Kirchen-und Ketzer-Historie,” 1729, by Gottfried
Arnold, which deals with precisely this subject, and points out
all the unlawfulness, the arbitrariness, the senselessness, and
the cruelty of using the word heretic in the sense of reprobate.
This book is an attempt to write the history of Christianity in
the form of a history of heresy.
In the introduction the author propounds a series of questions:
(1) Of those who make heretics; (2) Of those whom they made
heretics; (3) Of heretical subjects themselves; (4) Of the method
of making heretics; and (5) Of the object and result of making
heretics.
On each of these points he propounds ten more questions, the
answers to which he gives later on from the works of well-known
theologians. But he leaves the reader to draw for himself the
principal conclusion from the expositions in the whole book. As
examples of these questions, in which the answers are to some
extent included also, I will quote the following. Under the 4th
head, of the manner in which heretics are made, he says, in one of
the questions (in the 7th):
“Does not all history show that the greatest makers of
heretics and masters of that craft were just these wise men,
from whom the Father hid his secrets, that is, the hypocrites,
the Pharisees, and lawyers, men utterly godless and perverted
(Question 20-21)? And in the corrupt times of Christianity
were not these very men cast out, denounced by the hypocrites
and envious, who were endowed by God with great gifts and who
would in the days of pure Christianity have been held in high
honor? And, on the other hand, would not the men who, in the
decline of Christianity raised themselves above all, and
regarded themselves as the teachers of the purest Christianity,
would not these very men, in the times of the apostles and
disciples of Christ, have been regarded as the most shameless
heretics and antiChristians?”
He expounds, among other things in these questions, the theory
that any verbal expression of faith, such as was demanded by the
Church, and the departure from which was reckoned as heresy, could
never fully cover the exact religious ideas of a believer, and
that therefore the demand for an expression of faith in certain
words was ever productive of heresy, and he says, in Question 21:
“And if heavenly things and thoughts present themselves to a
man’s mind as so great and so profound that he does not find
corresponding words to express them, ought one to call him a
heretic, because he cannot express his idea with perfect
exactness?”
And in Question 33:
“And is not the fact that there was no heresy in the earliest
days due to the fact that the Christians did not judge one
another by verbal expressions, but by deed and by heart, since
they had perfect liberty to express their ideas without the
dread of being called heretics; was it not the easiest and most
ordinary ecclesiastical proceeding, if the clergy wanted to get
rid of or to ruin anyone, for them to cast suspicion on the
person’s belief, and to throw a cloak of heresy upon him, and
by this means to procure his condemnation and removal?
“True though it may be that there were sins and errors among
the so-called heretics, it is no less true and evident,” he
says farther on, “from the innumerable examples quoted here
(i. e., in the history of the Church and of heresy), that there
was not a single sincere and conscientious man of any
importance whom the Churchmen would not from envy or other
causes have ruined.”
Thus, almost two hundred years ago, the real meaning of heresy was
understood. And notwithstanding that, the same conception of it
has gone on existing up to now. And it cannot fail to exist so
long as the conception of a
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