I AM five-and-fifty years old, and, with the exception of the fourteen or fifteen years of my childhood, I have been until recently a ' Nihilist ' in the proper signification of that term. I have not been a Socialist or a Revolutionist, but a Nihilist in the sense of being completely without faith.
Five years ago I began to believe in the doctrine of Christ, and in consequence a great change has been wrought in me. I now no longer care for the things which I had prized, and I have begun to desire things concerning which I had formerly been indifferent. Like a man who, going out on business, on his way suddenly becomes convinced of the futility of that business, and turns back; and all that stood to the right now stands to the left, and all that was to the left is now to the right; his wish to be as far from home as possible, is changed to the desire of being as near home as possible — so, I may say, the whole aim and purpose of my life has been changed; my desires are no more what they have been: for me, good and evil have changed places. This experience came through my apprehending the doctrine of Christ in an altogether different way, and seeing it in a quite new light.
It is not my intention to interpret the doctrine of Christ, but simply to relate how I came to understand the simplest, clearest, and most intelligible point in that doctrine; and how, when once I had clearly grasped His meaning, it gave a new direction to all my thoughts.
I have no wish to interpret the doctrine of Christ, but I should like to prevent others from interpreting it wrongly. Christian churches generally acknowledge that all men, however they may differ from each other in knowledge or mental capacity, are equal before God; and that the truth revealed to man is accessible to all. Christ Himself has told us that the Father has hid some things ' from the wise and prudent, and revealed them unto babes.'
All men cannot be initiated into the mysteries of dogmatic, homiletic, patristic theologies, and so on; but all can understand what Christ taught and still teaches to simple and ignorant men. The teachings of Christ were incomprehensible to me until recently, but I understand them now, and what I have found I desire to explain to others.
The thief on the cross believed in Christ and was saved. Would it have harmed anybody if the thief had not died on the cross, but had come down to tell us hoiv he believed in Christ?
Like the thief on the cross, I, too, believed in the doctrine of Christ, and found my salvation in it. This is not a far-fetched comparison; it worthily describes the condition of anguish and despair I was once in at the thought of life and of death, and it also indicates the peace and happiness which now fill my soul.
Like the thief, I knew that my life was full of wickedness; I saw that the greater part of those around me were morally no better than I was. Like the thief, too, I knew that I was unhappy, and that I suffered; and that all around me were unhappy and suffering likewise, and I saw no way out of this state of misery but through death.
Like the thief, I was nailed, as it were by some invisible power, to this life of suffering and evil; and the same dreadful darkness of death which awaited the thief, after his useless suffering and enduring of the evils of life, awaited me.
In all this I was like the thief; but there was this difference between us — he was dying, and I still lived. The thief could believe that his salvation would be realized beyond the grave, but I could not; because, putting aside the life beyond the grave, I had yet to live on earth. I did not, however, understand life. It seemed awful to me until I heard the words of Christ and understood them; and then life and death no longer seemed to be evils; instead of despair I felt the joy of possessing a life which death has no power to destroy.
Can it harm anyone if I relate how it was that this change was effected in me?
The reason why I had not properly understood the doctrine of Christ, I have endeavoured to explain in my two works — (i) 'A Criticism on Dogmatical Theology,' and (2) ' A New Translation and Comparison of the Four Gospels,' with a commentary. In these works I examine all that conceals the truth from the eyes of men, and also retranslate and compare the four Gospels verse by verse.
I have been engaged for some six years upon this work. Every year, every month, I find new solutions and suggestions, and I am enabled to correct the defects which creep in through haste or impulse.
My life will perhaps end before the work is complete, but I am sure that it is a much-needed labour I have imposed on myself, and therefore I shall do what I can while my life lasts.
This is my outward work on the theology of the Gospel. But the inner working of my soul, that I wish to speak of here, was not the result of a methodical investigation of doctrinal theology, or of the actual texts of the Gospel; it was a sudden removal of all that hid the true meaning of the Christian doctrine — a momentary flash of light, which made everything clear to me. It was something like that which might happen to a man who, after vainly attempting, by a false plan, to build up a statue out of a confused heap of small pieces of marble, suddenly guesses at the figure they are intended to form by the shape of the largest piece; and then, on beginning to set up the statue, finds his guess confirmed by the harmonious joining in of the various pieces.
I wish to tell in this work how I found the key to the doctrine of Christ, by the help of which the truth was disclosed to me so clearly and convincingly.
I made the discovery thus: almost from the first years of my childhood, when I began to read the Gospel for myself, the doctrine which teaches love, humility, meekness, self-denial, and returning good for evil, was the doctrine that touched me most. I always considered it as the basis teaching of Christianity, and loved it as such; but it was only after a long period of unbelief that its full meaning flashed upon me, that I understood ' life ' as it is understood by our unlettered working-classes, and accepted the same creed which they profess, the creed of the Greek Church. But I soon observed that I should not find in the teaching of the Church the confirmation of my idea that love, humility, meekness, selfdenial, were the essential principles of Christianity. I saw that this, which I regarded as the basis of Christianity, did not form the main point in the public teaching of the Church. At first I did not attach much importance to this. ' The Church/ said I to myself, 'acknowledges, besides the doctrine of love, humility, and self-denial, a dogmatical and ritualistic doctrine. This estranges my heart; it is even repulsive to me, but there is no harm in it.'
While, however, submitting to the teaching of the Church, I began to see more and more clearly that this peculiarity was not so unimportant as I had at first regarded it. I was drawn away from the Church by various singularities in its dogmas; by its approval of persecution, capital punishment, war; and also by its intolerance of all other forms of worship than its own; but my faith in the teaching of the Church was shaken still more by its indifference to what seemed to me the very basis of the teaching of Christ, and by its evident partiality for what I could not consider an essential part of that doctrine. I felt that there was something wrong, but I could not make out distinctly what it was, because the Church did not deny what seemed to me the main point in the doctrine of Christ, though it failed to give it its proper position and influence.
I only passed from * Nihilism ' to the Church because I felt the impossibility of living without faith — without a knowledge of what is good and evil, resting on something more than my animal instincts. I hoped to find this 'something' in Christianity. But Christianity, as it appeared to me then, was only a certain disposition of mind — a very vague one. I turned to the Church for obligatory precepts of life, but the Church gave me only such as did not draw me nearer to the Christian state of mind I longed for, but rather alienated me from it. I turned away from the Church. For the precepts which were given me by the Church concerning belief in dogmas, observance of the sacraments, fast-days, prayers, I did not care; and precepts really founded on the teachings of Christ were wanting.
Moreover, the precepts of the Church weakened, and sometimes even destroyed, that Christian state of mind which alone seemed to me to be the true aim of life.
What perplexed me most of all was, that all the evil things that men do, such as condemning private individuals, whole nations, or other religions; and the inevitable results of these condemnation's — executions and wars — were justified by the Church. I saw that the doctrine of Christ, which teaches us humility, tolerance, forgiveness, self-denial, and love, was extolled by the Church, but that at the same time she sanctioned what was incompatible with such teachings.
Could the doctrine of Christ be thus weak and inconsistent? That I could not believe. Besides, it had always perplexed me to find that the texts upon which the Church has grounded her dogmas are of an obscure character, whereas those which teach us how to live are the most simple and clear. While the dogmas, and the duties derived from them, are specified by the Church in the most forcible manner, the practice of the ' doctrine ' is urged only in obscure, dim, and mystical expressions. Is it possible that this was what Christ desired for His teaching? I could only find the solution of my doubts in the perusal of the Gospels, and I read them over and over again. Of all the Gospels, the Sermon on the Mount was the portion which impressed me most, and I studied it oftener than any other part. Nowhere else does Christ speak with such solemnity; nowhere else does He give us so many clear and intelligible moral precepts, which commend themselves to everyone. If there are any clear and definite precepts of Christianity, they must have been expressed in this sermon; and, therefore, in those three chapters of St. Matthew's Gospel I sought the solution of my doubts.
Many and many a time I read over the sermon, and every time I felt the same emotion on reading the texts about 1 turning one's cheek to the smiter,' ' giving up our cloak to him who takes our coat,' ' being at peace with all men,' and ' loving our enemies,' — and yet there remained in me the same feeling of dissatisfaction. The words of God were not as yet clear to me. They seemed to enjoin an impossible selfabnegation, which annulled life itself, and therefore it seemed to me that such abnegation could not be the requirement on which depended man's salvation.
But then, if that were not the express condition of salvation, there was nothing fixed and clear! I read not only the Sermon on the Mount, but the rest of the Gospels, and various commentaries upon them. Our theological explanations tell us that in the apophthegms of the Sermon on the Mount an indication is given of the perfection after which man must strive; that man being full of sin cannot attain this perfection by his own unaided strength, and that the salvation of a man lies in faith, prayer, and the gifts of the grace of God; but these explanations did not satisfy me.
Why should Christ have given us such clear and good precepts, applicable to us all, if He knew beforc-
I hand that the keeping of them was impossible by man in his own unaided strength?
On reading over these precepts, it always seemed to me that they applied to myself, and that I was morally bound to obey them. I even felt convinced that I
I could, immediately and from that very hour, do all that they enjoined.
I wished and tried to do so, but as soon as any difficulty arose in the way of my keeping them, I involuntarily remembered the teaching of the Church, that ' man is weak, and can do no good thing by himself and then I became weak.
I had been told that it was necessary to believe and to pray, but I felt that my faith was weak, and that I j could not pray. I had been told that it was necessary to pray for faith — for that faith without which prayer is of no avail. I was told that faith comes through prayer, and that prayer comes through faith, which, to say the least, was certainly bewildering. Such statements commended themselves neither to reason nor experience.
After much useless study of the works that have been written in proof of the divinity or non-divinity of this doctrine, and after many doubts and much suffering, I was left alone with the mysterious Book, in which the doctrine of Christ is taught. I could not interpret it as others did, I could not abjure the Book, and yet I could not find a new and satisfying interpretation. It was only after losing all faith in the explanations of learned theology and criticism, and after laying them all aside, in obedience to the words of Christ (Mark x. 15), that I began to understand what had till then seemed incomprehensible to me. It was not by deep thought, or by skilfully comparing or commenting on the texts of the Gospel, that I came to understand the doctrine. On the contrary, all grew clear to me for the very reason that I had ceased to rest in mere interpretations. The text that gave me the key to the truth was the thirty-ninth verse of the fifth chapter of St. Matthew: ' Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. But I say unto you, that ye resist not evil....' The simple meaning of these words suddenly flashed full upon me; I accepted the fact that Christ meant exactly what He said; and then, though I had found nothing new, all that had hitherto obscured the truth cleared away, and the truth itself arose before me in all its solemn importance.
I had often read the passage, but these words had never till now arrested my attention — 1 1 say to you, that ye resist not evil*
In my conversations since with many Christian people, who know the Gospels well, I have observed the same indifference to the force of this text that I had felt. Nobody specially remembered the words; and, while conversing with persons upon the text, I have known them to take up the New Testament in order to assure themselves that the words were really there.
The words, 1 Whosoever shall smite thee on thy right check, turn to him the other also,' had always presented themselves to me as requiring endurance and self-mastery such as human nature is hardly capable of. They touched me. I felt that to act thus would be to attain moral perfection; but I felt, too, that I never should be able to obey them if they entailed nothing but suffering. I said to myself: Well, I will turn my cheek— I will let myself be smitten again; I will give up my coat — they shall take my all. They shall even take away my life. Yet life is given to me: why should I thus lose it? This cannot be what Christ requires of us/ Then I said to myself, 1 Perhaps in these words Christ only purposes to extol suffering and self-denial, and in so doing He speaks exaggeratingly, and His expressions are therefore to be regarded as illustrations rather than precise requirements.' But as soon as I comprehended the meaning of the following words, 1 resist not evil,' it became clear to me that Christ does not exaggerate, that He does not require suffering for the mere sake of suffering, and that He only expresses clearly and definitely what He means. He says, ' Resist not evil;' but if you do, you may meet with some who, having smitten you on one cheek, and meeting with no resistance, will smite you on the other; after having taken away your coat, will take away your cloak also; having profited by your work, will oblige you to work on; will take, and will never give back. ' Nevertheless, I say unto you, that ye resist not evil.' Still do good, to those that even smite and abuse you.
Now, I understood that the whole force of the teaching lay in the words, ' resist not evil,' and that all the context was but an application of that great precept. I saw that Christ does not require us to turn the other cheek, and to give away our cloak, in order to make us suffer; but He teaches us not to resist evil, and warns us that so doing may involve personal suffering. Does a father, on seeing his son set out on a long journey, tell him to pass sleepless nights, to eat little, to get wet through, or to freeze? Will he not rather say to him, ' Go, and if on the road you are cold or hungry, be not discouraged; go on.' Christ does not say, 'Let a man smite thy cheek, and suffer,' but He says, 1 Resist not evil ' — whatever men may do to you, ' resist not evil.' These words, 1 resist not evil ' (the wicked man), thus apprehended, were the clue which made all clear to me, and I was surprised that I could have hitherto treated them in such a different way. Christ meant to say, ' Whatever men may do to you, bear, suffer, submit; but never resist evil.' What could be clearer, more intelligible, and more indubitable than this? As soon as I understood the exact meaning of these simple words, all that had appeared confused to me in the doctrine of Christ grew intelligible; what had seemed contradictory now became consistent, and what I had deemed superfluous became indispensable. All united in one whole, one part fitting into and supporting the other, like the pieces of a broken statue put together again in their proper places.
This doctrine of 'non-resistance' is commended again and again in the Gospels. In the ' Sermon on the Mount,' Christ represents His followers — ic, those who follow this law of non-resistance — as liable to be persecuted, stoned, and reduced to beggary. Elsewhere He tells us that the disciple who does not take up His cross, who is not willing to renounce all, cannot be His follower, and He thus describes the man who is ready to bear the consequences that may result from the practice of the doctrine of non-resistance. Christ says to His disciples: ' Be poor, be ready to bear persecution, suffering, and even death, without resisting evil.' He prepared for suffering and death Himself without resisting evil; reproved Peter, who grieved over Him because He proposed thus to yield; and He died, forbidding others to resist evil, remaining true to His own doctrine in His own example. All His first disciples obeyed the same law of the non-resistance of evil, and passed their lives in disability and persecution.
We may bring forward, as an objection, the difficulty of always obeying such a law; we may even say, as unbelievers do, that it is a foolish doctrine, that Christ was a dreamer, an idealist, who gave precepts which it is impossible to follow. But, whatever our objections may be, we cannot deny that Christ expresses His meaning most clearly and distinctly; and His meaning is, that man must not resist evil; he who fully accepts His teaching cannot resist evil.
When I at last clearly comprehended that the words ' resist not evil ' do really mean that we are never to resist evil, my former ideas concerning the teaching of Christ underwent a complete change; I wondered, not so much at my eyes being opened to the truth at last, as at the strange darkness which had, till then, enveloped my understanding. I knew — we all know — that the foundation requirement of the Christian doctrine is love to all men. Is not all Christianity summed up in the words, ' Love thine enemies '? I had known that from my earliest childhood: how was it, then, that I had not hitherto taken in these words in all their simplicity, but had rather sought for some allegorical meaning in them? ' Resist not evil ' means never resist evil, i.e., never offer violence to anyone. If a man revile you, revile not again; suffer, but do no violence. While believing, or at least endeavouring to believe, that He who gave us this commandment was God, how came I to say that I could not obey it in my own strength? If my master were to say to me, ' Go and cut wood,' and I were to answer that I could not do it in my own strength, would it not show that either I had no faith in my master's words, or that I did not choose to obey him? God has given us a commandment, which He requires us to obey; He says that only those who do keep His commandments shall enter life eternal; He fulfilled this commandment Himself, as offering us His example; and how could I then say that, though I never really tried to fulfil it, this injunction was one which it was impossible for a man to keep in his own strength, and without supernatural aid?
God became man for the securing of our salvation. Salvation lies in the fact that the second person of the Trinity, God the Son, suffered for us, men; redeemed us from sin, and gave us the Church, through which the grace of God is transmitted to all believers; moreover, God the Son has left us this doctrine (teaching), and His own example, to show us the way of salvation. And yet I said that the rule of life given us by Christ was not only a hard one, but an impossible one, apart from supernatural aid. Christ does not consider it as such; on the contrary, He says definitely that we are to fulfil His commandments, and that he who does not shall not enter the kingdom of God. He does not say that it- is hard to keep this law; He says, on the contrary, 1 My yoke is easy, and My burden is light.' St. John the Evangelist says, ' His commandments are not grievous.' How was it, I said, that the express and positive commandment of God, which He Himself speaks of as being easy, the commandment which He Himself obeyed as man, and which His first followers also fulfilled, was too hard for me, and even impossible for me, without supernatural aid?
If a man were to set all the faculties of his mind to the annulling of a given law, what more forcible argument could he use for its suppression than that it was an impracticable law, and that the legislator's own opinion of it was, that it could not be kept without supernatural aid? And yet this was exactly what I had thought about the commandment ' not to resist evil.' I tried to remember when and how the strange idea had first come into my mind, that the doctrine of Christ was divine in authority, but impossible in practice. On reviewing my past life, I discovered that this idea had never been transmitted to me in all its nakedness, for then it would have repelled me; but that I had imperceptibly imbibed it from my earliest childhood, and that the associations of my life had confirmed the strange error.
I was taught from my childhood that Christ is God, and that His teaching is divine and authoritative; while, on the other hand, I was also told to respect those institutions which, by means of violence, secured my safety from evil; I was taught to honour those institutions as being sacred. I was taught to resist evil; and it was instilled into me that it was humiliating and dishonourable to submit to evil, and to suffer from it; and that it was praiseworthy to resist evil. I was taught to condemn and to execute. I was taught to make war, to resist evil by murder. The army, a member of which I was, was called a 1 Christ-loving '* army, and its mission was consecrated by the Church. I was taught to resist an offender by violence; to avenge a private insult, or one against my native land, by violence. All this was never regarded as wrong, but, on the contrary, I was told that it was perfectly right, and in nowise contrary to Christ's doctrine.
All surrounding interests, such as the peace and safety of myself and family, and of my property, were based on the law that was rejected by Christ — on the law of a 1 tooth for a tooth.' whole order of life proved, that the teaching of Christ was impracticable and ideal, and that we must, in fact, live contrary to His doctrine. Such a notion of the practical impossibility of following the divine doctrine was imbibed by me gradually and almost imperceptibly. I was so accustomed to it, it coincided so well with all my animal feelings, that I had never observed the contradiction in which I lived. I did not see that it was impossible to admit the Godhead of Christ — the basis of whose teaching is non-resistance of evil — and, at the same time, to work consciously and calmly for the institutions of property, courts of law, kingdoms, the army, and so on. It could not be consistent for us to regulate our lives contrary to the doctrine of Christ, and then pray to the same Christ that we might be enabled to keep His commandments — to ' forgive/ and not to 'resist evil.' It did not then occur to me, as it does now, that it would be much more simple to regulate our lives according to the doctrine of Christ; and then, if courts of law, executions, war, were found to be indispensably necessary for our welfare, we might pray to have them too.
And I understood whence my error arose. It arose from my professing Christ in zvords and denying Him in deed.
The precept ' not to resist evil ' is one which contains the whole substance of Christ's doctrine, if we consider it not only as a saying, but as a law we are bound to obey. It is like a latch-key which will open any door, but only if it be well inserted into the lock. To consider this rule of life as a precept which cannot be obeyed without supernatural aid, is to annihilate the whole doctrine of Christ completely. How can a doctrine, the fundamental law of which is cast aside as impracticable, be considered practicable in any of its details?
This is what was done with Christ's doctrine when we were taught that it was possible to be a Christian without fulfilling His law not to resist evil.
A few days ago I was reading the fifth chapter of St. Matthew to a Hebrew rabbin.
1 That is in the Bible — that is in the Talmud too,' said he, at almost each saying, pointing out to me, in the Bible and in the Talmud, passages very like those in the ' Sermon on the Mount.' But when I came to the verse which says, ' resist not evil,' he did not say that is also in the Talmud; but only asked me with a smile, ' Do Christians keep this law? Do they turn the other cheek to be smitten?' I was silent. What answer could I give, when I knew that Christians, in our days, far from turning the other cheek when smitten, never let an opportunity escape of smiting a Hebrew on both cheeks. I was greatly interested to know if there were any law like this in the Talmud, and I inquired. He answered, ' No, there is nothing like it; but pray tell me, do Christians ever keep this law?' His question showed me clearly that the existence of a precept in the law of Christ, which is not cnly left unobserved, but of which the fulfilment is considered impossible, is superfluous and irrational.
Now that I comprehend the true meaning of the doctrine, I see clearly the strange state of contradiction within my own self which I had permitted to arise. I was confessing Christ as God, and His teaching as divine, and at the same time I was ordering my life contrary to His teaching. What was left me to do, but to acknowledge the teaching as an impracticable one? In word I acknowledged the teaching of Christ as sacred; but I did not carry out that teaching in deed, for I admitted, and respected, the unchristian institutions which surrounded me.
Throughout theOld Testamentwefind it said, that the misfortunes of the Israelites arose from their believing in false gods, and not in the true God. In the eighth and twelfth chapters of the first Book of Samuel, the prophet accuses the people of having chosen, instead of God, who was their King, a human king, who, according to their opinion, was to save them. ' Do not believe in [toga] vain things,' says Samuel to the people, chap. xii. 21. 1 They will not help you and will not save you, for they are [toga] vain. In order not to perish with your king, believe in God alone.'
My faith in these ' toga/ in these empty idols, hid the truth from my eyes. In my way to Him these 'toga,' which I had not the strength to renounce, stood before me, obscuring His light.
One day, as I was passing through Borovitzki gate,* I saw a crippled old beggar, with his head bound up in a ragged cloth, sitting in a corner. I had just taken out my purse to bestow a trifle upon him, when a bold, ruddy-faced young grenadier in a government fur coat came running down the Kremlin slope. On seeing the soldier, the beggar sprang up with a look of terror, and ran limping down towards the Alexander
Garden. The grenadier pursued him, but, not succeeding in overtaking him, stopped short and began to abuse the poor fellow for having dared to sit down near the entrance-gate in defiance of orders. I waited till the grenadier came up to where I stood, and then asked if he could read.
'Yes; what of that?' was the answer. ' Have you ever read the Gospel?' 1 1 have.' ' Do you know these words: " He that feedeth the hungry..."?' I repeated the text to him. He listened attentively. Two passers-by stopped. It was evidently disagreeable to the grenadier that, while conscientiously discharging his duty by driving people away from the entrance-gate, as he was ordered to do, he unexpectedly found himself in the wrong. He looked puzzled, and seemed to be searching for some excuse. Suddenly his dark eyes brightened up with a look of intelligence, and, moving away as if about to return to his post, ' Have you read the military code?' he asked. I told him that I had not. « Well, then, do not talk of what you do not understand/ he said, with a triumphant shake of his head; and muffling himself up in his overcoat, he went back to his post.
He was the only man I have met in all my life who strictly, logically, solved the problem of our social institutions, which had stood before me, and still stands before each who calls himself a Christian.
To affirm that the Christian doctrine refers only to personal salvation, and has no bearing upon state affairs, is a great error. To say so, is but to assert an audacious, groundless, most evident untruth, which a moment's serious reflection suffices to destroy. Well, say I to myself, I will not resist evil; as a private man, I will let myself be smitten; but what am I to do if an enemy invade my native land, or other nations oppress it? I am called upon to take part in a struggle against evil — to go and kill. The question immediately arises: Which will be serving God, and which will be serving 1 toga '? To go, or not to go? Suppose I am a peasant; I am chosen as the senior member of my village, as judge, as juryman. I am bound to take an oath, to judge, to punish. Fellow-creature, what am I to do? I have again to choose between the law of God and the law of man. Or let us say, I am a monk, and live in a monastery; the neighbouring peasants have taken possession of the hay we had mown for our own use. I am sent to take part in a struggle against evil — to prosecute these men. I have again to choose between the laws of God and the laws of man. None of us can evade the demand for such a decision. To say nothing of the class of society which I belong to — military men, judges, administrators, whose whole lives are passed in resisting evil — there is not a single private individual, be he ever so insignificant, who has not to choose between serving God by fulfilling His commandments, or serving the 'toga' in the Government institutions of his country. Our private lives are interwoven with the organization of the State, and the latter requires unchristian duties of us, contrary to the commandments of Christ. At the present time, the military service, which is obligatory on all, and the participation of each, as jurymen, in the courts of law, place this dilemma with striking clearness before all. Each man is called upon to take up an instrument of murder — a gun, a sword — even if he do not kill a fellow-creature; he loads the gun and sharpens the sword, i.e., he is ready to commit murder. Each citizen is called upon to enter the courts of law, to take part in judging and punishing his fellow-creature; i.e., each must renounce the doctrine of Christ which teaches us not to resist evil.
The grenadier's question: The Gospel or the military code? The law of God or the law of man? still stands before all of us, as it did in the time of Samuel. It stood before Christ and His disciples. It new stands before all those who wish to be Christians; it stood before me.
The doctrine of Christ which teaches love, humility, self-denial, had always attracted me. But I found a contrary law, both in the history of the past, and in the present organization of our lives — a law repugnant to my heart, my conscience, and my reason, but one which flattered my animal instincts. I knew that if I accepted the doctrine of Christ, I should be forsaken, miserable, persecuted, and sorrowing, as Christ tells us His followers will be. I knew that if I accepted the law of man, I should have the ap- probation of my fellow-men; I should be at peace, and in safety; all possible sophisms would be at hand to quiet my conscience, and I should ' laugh and be merry,' as Christ says. I felt this, and therefore I avoided a closer examination of the law of Christ, and tried to comprehend it in a way that should not prevent my still leading my animal life. But finding that impossible, I desisted from all attempts at comprehension.
This led me into a state of mental obscurity, which now seems surprising to me. For instance, let me recall my former interpretation of the words: 'Judge not, and ye shall not be judged' (Matt. vii. 1). 'Judge not, and ye shall not be judged; condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned ' (Luke vi. 37). The court of law, of which I was a member, and which guarded my property and my personal safety, seemed to me so unquestionably sacred, that it never came into my mind that the words 'condemn not' could have any higher meaning than that we were not to speak evil of our fellow-men.'55' The idea never occurred to me that these words could have any reference to courts of law, district courts, criminal courts, assizes, courts of peace, etc. When I at last took in the real meaning of the words ' resist not evil/ the question arose in my mind, What would Christ's opinion be of all these courts of law? And seeing clearly that He would reject them, I asked myself: ' Do these words mean that we are not only never to speak ill of our brethren, but that we are not to condemn them to punishment by our human institutions of justice?'
In the Gospel of St. Luke, chapter vi., verses 37-39, these words come immediately after the commandment not to resist evil, and to return good for evil. After the words: ' Be merciful, even as your Father in heaven is merciful,' we read: 'Judge not, and ye shall not be judged; condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned.' 'Does it not mean that we are not only never to condemn our brother in word — i.e., speak evil of him — but that we are not to institute courts of law for the condemnation of a fellowcreature to punishment?' said I to myself; and no sooner did this question arise, than both my heart and my reason answered in the affirmative.
I know how greatly this way of understanding the words surprises everyone at first. I was surprised too. To show how far I formerly was from the true interpretation of these words, I may here mention a foolish saying of mine, of which I am now heartily ashamed. Even after having become a believer, and having recognised the divinity of the Gospel, I used to say, in joke, on meeting with a friend who was an attorney or a judge: 'So you go on judging, and yet is it not said, "Judge not, and ye shall not be judged"?' I was so firmly convinced that these words have no other meaning than that we were not to speak ill of one another, that I did not see the blasphemy of my own words. So sure was I that the words were not to be taken in a literal sense, that I used them — in joke — in their true application.
I shall give a circumstantial account of the way in which all my doubts as to the real sense of these words were dispersed, and how it became evident to me that Christ forbids all human institutions of justice, and that He could mean nothing else.
The first point that struck me, when I understood the commandment, 'Resist not evil/ in its true meaning, was that human courts were not only contrary to this commandment, but in direct opposition to the whole doctrine of Christ, and that therefore He must certainly have forbidden them.
Christ says: ' Resist not evil.' The sole object of courts of law is — to resist evil. Christ enjoins us to return good for eviL Courts of law return evil for evil. Christ says: 1 Make no distinction between the just and the unjust' Courts of law do nothing else. Christ says: ' Forgive all; forgive not once, not seven times, forgive without end.' ' Love your enemies.' 1 Do good to them that hate you.' Courts of law do not forgive, but they punish; they do not good, but evil, to those whom they call the enemies of society. So that the true sense of the doctrine is that Christ forbids all courts of law. ' This cannot be the case,' said I to myself; ' Christ had nothing to do with human courts of law, and never considered them.' But I soon saw that this supposition was impossible. From the day of His birth, Christ had to submit to the jurisdiction of Herod, the Sanhedrim, and the high-priests. Indeed, we find that Christ speaks more than once of tribunals as being an evil. He tells His disciples that they will have to be cited before the tribunals; and teaches them how they are to behave in courts of law. He says that He Himself will be condemned, and sets us all an example of the way in which we are to treat the laws of man. There can be no doubt that Christ meant the human courts of law, which were to condemn Him and His disciples; which have ever condemned, and still continue to condemn, millions of men. Christ must have seen this evil, for He distinctly points it out. In the case of the adulteress He positively rejects human justice, and proves that, on account of each man's own sinful nature, he has no right to judge another. We find the same doctrine repeated several times, as when He says, for instance, that the one who has a beam in his own eye cannot see the mote in his neighbour's eye; and that the blind cannot lead the blind.
' But, perhaps,' said I to myself, 'this applies only to the judgment of the adulteress, and the parable of the mote is only intended to show us the frailty of human nature in general. Christ does not intend to forbid our having recourse to human justice for our protection against evil men but I saw that this would not hold good either.
In the Sermon on the Mount, addressed to all men, He says: 'And if anybody sue thee at the law for thy coat, let him have thy cloak also.' Therefore He forbids our going to law.
But perhaps this applies only to the relations between private individuals and public courts of law;
yet Christ does not deny justice itself, and admits in Christian societies the existence of persons chosen for the purpose of administering justice. I see that this hypothesis is likewise inadmissible. In His prayer Christ enjoins all men, without any exception, to forgive, as they hope to be forgiven. We find the same precept repeated many times. Each man must forgive his brother when he prays, and before bringing his gift. Then how can a man judge and condemn another when, according to the faith he professes, he is bound to forgive? Thus I see that, according to the doctrine of Christ, a judge who condemns his fellow-creature to death is no Christian.
But perhaps the connection between the words 'judge not, condemn not/ and those that follow, proves that they do not refer to human courts of law? This is likewise false; on the contrary the connection between these words and those that follow, proves clearly that the words 'judge not' are directed precisely against the institutions of courts of law. According to the Gospel of Matthew and Luke, the texts: 'Judge not; condemn not,' are preceded by the words: ' Resist not evil, suffer evil, do good to all.' In the Gospel according to Matthew the words of the Hebrew criminal law are repeated: 'An eye for an eye; a tooth for a tooth.' And after citing the criminal law, Christ says, ' But ye are not to act thus; resist not evil;' and then He goes on to say: ' Judge not' So Christ's words refer precisely to our human criminal law, and by the words ' judge not ' He clearly rejects it.
Besides this, we find in St. Luke that He not only says, 1 Judge not,' but adds, 1 and condemn not.' The latter word, almost synonymous with the former, must have been added with some purpose, and it could have been with no other than that of showing clearly the sense in which the first word is to be taken.
Had He wished to say, 'Judge not thy neighbour,' i.e., ' speak not evil of him,' He would have said so; but He says plainly, 'Do not condemn.' And then adds, 'and ye shall not be condemned; forgive, and ye shall be forgiven.'
But perhaps Christ's words do not apply to courts of law at all, and I give them an interpretation of my own which is foreign to them.
I try to discover how the first followers of Christ, His disciples, considered human courts of law, and whether they approved of them.
Chapter iv., verses n, 12, the disciple James says: ' Speak not evil one of another, brethren. He that speaketh evil of his brother, and judgeth his brother, speaketh evil of the law, and judgeth the law: but if thou judge the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge. There is one lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy: who art thou that judgest another?'
The word which is translated as ' Speak not evil,' is the word ка-такакіш. Even without consulting the dictionary, it is evident to all that this word can mean nothing but ' to accuse.' That is the only true meaning of the word, as anyone can find by consulting the dictionary. The translation of the passage in question is as follows: ' He that speaketh evil of