# The Complete Works of Count Tolstoy/Volume 13/Critique of Dogmatic Theology/Part 2

SECOND PART OF THE DOGMATIC THEOLOGY
X.
Of God the Saviour and his special relation to the human race (Θεολογία οικονομική).
Thus begins the Second Part.
122. Connection with the preceding, importance of the subject, doctrine of the church about it, and the division of the doctrine. “Heretofore we were, so to speak, in the sanctuary of the Orthodox dogmatic theology; now we enter the sanctum sanctorum.” (p. 7.)
This Second Part, which enters the sanctum sanctorum, indeed, sharply contrasts with the First.
In the First are shown the propositions and questions which have always lain in the soul of each man: about the beginning of everything—God, about the beginning of the material and of the spiritual world, about man, about the soul, and about man’s struggle between the good and the evil.
In this Second Part there is no longer anything of the kind. None of the dogmas which are disclosed here answer any question of faith, but they are arbitrary propositions, which are not connected with anything human, and which are based only on a certain very coarse interpretation of all kinds of words of Holy Scripture, and so cannot be analyzed or judged on the basis of their relation to reason. There is no connection whatsoever. These dogmas may be viewed only in relation to their correct​ness and their interpretation of the words of Scripture. The dogmas which are expounded here are: (1) the dogma of the redemption, (2) the dogma of the incarnation, (3) the dogma of the manner of redemption, (4) the dogma of the church, (5) the dogma of grace, (6) the dogma of the mysteries, (7) the dogma of the particular retribution, (8) the dogma of the general judgment and of the end of the world. All these dogmas are answers to questions which a man seeking the path of life has not put and cannot put. These dogmas receive an importance only from the fact that the church asserts that it is necessary to believe in them, and that he who does not believe in them will perish. All these are propositions which are in no way connected with questions of faith, and are independent of them. All of them are based only on the demand of obedience to the church.
Composition of division I. Of God the Saviour. The central dogma of this part is the dogma of the redemption. On this dogma is based the whole doctrine. of this part. It consists in this, that in consequence of the supposed fall of Adam his descendants fell into actual and spiritual death, their reason was dimmed, and they lost the image of God. For the salvation of men from this supposed fall the necessity of redemption is proposed,—paying God for Adam’s sin. This pay, according to the teaching of the church, takes place by means of the incarnation of Christ, his descent upon earth, his suffering and death. Christ the God descends on earth and by his death saves men from sin and death. But since this death is only imaginary; since after the redemption men remain actually the same as was Adam, as they were after Adam, as they were in the time of Christ and after Christ, and as men have always been; since in reality there remain the same sin, the same propensity to do evil, the same death, the same labour pain, the same necessity of working in order to support oneself, which are all peculiar to ​man,—the whole teaching of the Second Part is no longer a teaching about faith, but pure myth. For this reason the teaching of this Second Part has a special character. In this Second Part stand out sharply those incipient departures from common sense which were made in the exposition of the dogmas of the First Part, about God, about man, about evil. Apparently the teaching of the First Part is based on the faith in the Second Part, and the second does not result from the first, as the Theology is trying to make out; on the contrary, the faith in the mythology of the Second Part serves as the basis of all the departures from common sense, which we find in the First Part. Here is that teaching:
“124. The necessity of divine assistance for the rehabilitation of man with the possibility for it on the part of man. (1) Man has committed three great wrongs, by not observing the original command of God: (a) with his sin he has offended infinitely his infinitely good, but also infinitely great, infinitely just Creator, and thus has been subjected to an eternal curse (Gen. iii. 17-19); (cf. Gen. xxvii. 26); (b) he has infected with sin all his being, which was created good: has dimmed his intellect, has perverted his will, has mutilated in himself the image of God; (c) has by his sin produced disastrous results in his own nature and in external Nature. Consequently, in order to save man from all these evils, in order to unite him with God and make him once more blessed, it was necessary: (a) for the sinner to satisfy the infinite justice of God, which was offended by man’s fall,—not because he wanted vengeance, but because no attribute of God can be deprived of its proper action: without the execution of this condition man would for ever remain before the justice of God as the child of wrath (Eph. ii. 3), as the child of curse (Gal. iii. 10), and the reconciliation and union of God with man could not even begin; (b) to destroy sin in the whole being of man, to enlighten his reason, correct his ​will, and reëstablish in him the image of God: because, if, after the justice of God were satisfied, the being of man still remained sinful and impure, if his reason remained in darkness, and the image of God were mutilated,—the communion between God and man could not take place, any more than between light and darkness (2 Cor. vi. 14); (c) to destroy the disastrous results which man’s sin has produced in his nature and in external Nature: because, if even the communion of God with man should have begun and should exist, man could not again become blessed, until he should feel in himself or should experience in himself anew those disastrous consequences. Who could execute all the above mentioned conditions? None but the one God.” (pp. 10 and 11.)
125. The means chosen by God for the rehabilitation, or redemption, of man, and the significance of that means. “God found for the rehabilitation of man a means in which his mercy and truth are met together, and righteousness and peace have kissed each other” (Psalm lxxxv. 10), and in which his perfections appeared in their highest form and in full concord. This means consists in the following:
“The second person of the Most Holy Trinity, the only-begotten Son of God, voluntarily wished to become man, to take upon himself all the human sins, to suffer for them everything which the just will of God had determined, and thus to satisfy for us the eternal justice, to wipe out our sins, to destroy their very consequences in us and in external Nature, that is, to recreate the world.” (p. 15.)
There follow confirmations from Holy Scripture and from the holy fathers.
126. The participation of all the persons of the Most Holy Trinity in the work of redemption, and why the Son was incarnated for this purpose. “However, although for our redemption was chosen, as the best means, the incar​nation of the Son of God, the Father and the Holy Ghost also took part in this great work.” (p. 19.)
Proofs from Holy Scripture.
127. The motive for the work of redemption, and the purpose of the descent upon earth of the Son of God. “I. Why did it please the tri-hypostatic God to redeem us? There is one cause for it: his infinite love for us sinners. II. As to the purpose of the embassy and of the descent into the world of the Son of God, that is clearly indicated by the holy church when it teaches us to profess: ‘Who has descended from heaven for the sake of us men, and for the sake of our salvation.’” Proved by Holy Scripture.
128. The eternal predetermination of the redemption, and why the Redeemer did not come earlier upon earth.
The redemption had been predetermined from eternity. God, in spite of his goodness, foresaw the fall of man and all his sufferings. God did not redeem us at once, (1) in order that men might feel their fall and desire their redemption; “(2) it was necessary that the infection of the sin, which had deeply penetrated the nature of man, should slowly come to the surface.” (p. 28.)
For this purpose it was necessary for billions of people to fall into sin and misfortune.
“(3) It was necessary to prepare people for the arrival upon earth of such an extraordinary Messenger of God as was the Redeemer.” (p. 28.)
It was necessary for a period of 5,500 years to prepare humanity for it by signs.
(4) It was necessary that humanity should pass a long series of purifications and sanctifications in the host of the holy men of the Old Testament. (p. 29.)
129. The preparation by God of the human race for the reception of the Redeemer, and the faith in him at all times. The preparations of the human race were: (1) the ​prophecies, such as that the woman would bruise the serpent’s head, and so forth.
“From the time of this protoevangely about the Messiah, which was announced even in Paradise, and of the establishment of sacrifices, which pointed to his sufferings and death, the saving faith in the Lord Jesus has existed uninterruptedly with the human race. In accordance with this faith Adam called his wife ‘life’ (Gen. iii. 20), although he had heard the judgment of the Judge: Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return (Gen. iii. 19); according to this faith Eve called her first-born Cain: I have gotten a man from the Lord (Gen. iv. 1). Unquestionably in this faith the hypostatic all-wisdom of God, as the All-wise witnesses and the church professes, guarded the first formed father of the world, that was created alone, and delivered him out of his transgression (Wis. of Sol. x. 1), for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved (Acts. iv. 12), except the name of Jesus Christ.” (pp. 30 and 31.)
Besides the prophecies, there were also signs, such as: the sacrifice of Isaac, Jonas in the belly of the whale, the paschal lamb, the brazen serpent, the whole ritual of Moses, and finally the moral and civil laws.
130. The moral application of the dogma is this, that (1) we ought to learn humility, (2) ought to love God and one another, and (3) ought to stand in awe before the wisdom of God.
The dogma of the redemption will be expounded further on in detail, and in that place will be analyzed those proofs on which the church bases it; now I will speak only of the significance which the dogma may have to thinking people. It is useless to refute this dogma. The dogma negates itself, for it does not affirm anything about what is mysterious and incomprehensible for us, as was affirmed in the case of the attributes and persons of ​God, but asserts something about ourselves, men, about something which is best known to us, and asserts it obviously contrary to reality. It was possible to refute with proofs of common sense that God the Spirit has fourteen attributes, and so forth, for the attributes of God are not known to us, but there is no need to refute with proofs of common sense the argument that by the incarnation and death of Jesus Christ the human race was redeemed, that is, is freed from the propensity to commit sin, from the dimming of the intellect, from child labour, from physical and spiritual death, and from the unfruitfulness of the earth. In this case there is not even any need to show that none of the things asserted exist, for everybody knows that. All of us know full well that they do not exist, that men are evil, die, and do not know the truth, that women suffer in child labour, and that men earn their bread in the sweat of their brows. To prove the incorrectness of this teaching would be the same as proving that he is wrong who asserts that I have four legs. The assertion made by a man that I have four legs can only cause me to look for the cause which may have led a man to assert what is palpably wrong. The same is true of the dogma of the redemption. It is obvious to all that after the so-called redemption by Jesus Christ no change took place in the condition of man; what cause has, then, the church to assert the opposite? That is a question which involuntarily presents itself to one. The dogma is based on original sin. But the dogma itself about original sin, as we have seen, is a transference of the question about good and evil from a sphere which is accessible to the inward experience of each man to the sphere of mythology.
The most mysterious foundation of human life,—the internal struggle between good and evil, the consciousness of man’s freedom and dependence on God,—is, by the doctrine about the redemption, excluded from the con​sciousness of man and transferred to mythological history. What is said is: 7,200 years ago God created the free Adam, that is, man, and this man fell on account of his freedom and so God punished him and punished his posterity. The punishment consisted in this, that the men so punished were placed in the same position, in regard to the choice of good and evil, in which man had been before the punishment. Thus this teaching, which explains nothing in the essential question about the freedom of man, slanderously accuses God of injustice, which is so out of keeping with his goodness and justice. This injustice is, that the descendants are punished for somebody else’s sin. If the teaching about the fall explained anything to us, we might be able to understand the rational cause which has led to the transference of the question from the inner consciousness to the sphere of myths; but there are no explanations for the question about the freedom of man, and so there must be some other cause for it. This cause we only now find in the dogma of the redemption.
The church asserts that Christ has redeemed men from evil and death. If he has done so, there arises the question: Whence comes evil and death among men? And for this the dogma of the fall of man is invented. Christ the God has saved men from evil and death; but men are creatures of the same good God, so how could evil and death have come to men? To this question the myth of the fall of man gives an answer. Adam, having misused his freedom, did wrong and fell, and with him his posterity fell and lost immortality, the knowledge of God, and life without labour. Christ came and returned to humanity all that it had lost. Humanity became unailing, unworking, doing no evil, and undying. In this imaginary state humanity is already freed from sin, suffering, labour, and death, if only it believes in the redemption. It is this that the church teaches, and in this ​lies the cause of the invention of the redemption and of the fall of man, which is based upon it.
In connection with this dogma of the redemption and with the preceding dogma of the providence of God, there involuntarily arise considerations which are common to both and to all that has been expounded in the First Part of the Theology: Is he the Trinity, and what are his attributes? Has God redeemed me, or not, and how has he redeemed me? Does God provide both for the world and for me, or not, and how does he provide? What business have I with all that? It is clear to me that I shall not understand the ends and means and thought and essence of God. If he is the Trinity, if he provides for us, if he has redeemed us, so much the better for me. Providence and redemption are his business, while I have concerns of my own. This is precisely what I want to know and do not want to err in: I do not want to think that he is providing for me, where I ought to provide for myself; I do not want to think that he will redeem me, where I ought to redeem myself. Even if I saw that everything which the Theology tells me is rational, clear, and proved, I should still not be interested in it. God is doing his work, which I shall never be able to comprehend, and I have to do my work. What is most important and precious to me is to have my work pointed out to me; but in the Theology I see constantly that my work is being made less and less, and in the dogma of the redemption it is reduced to nothing.
XI.
In this chapter is expounded the teaching about the second person of the Trinity. Chapter II. About our Lord Jesus Christ in particular. Section I. About the person of our Lord Jesus Christ, or about the mystery of the incarnation.
The importance and incomprehensibility of the dogma; a short account of it, the doctrine of the church about it, and the composition of the doctrine.
The redemption was accomplished by God, the second person, the man Jesus Christ. The man Jesus Christ is both a man and God. From everything which has been expounded heretofore, the concepts of man and God are not only quite different, but almost diametrically opposed. God is independence, man is dependence; God is the Creator, man is the created; God is good, man is evil. How is the combination of the two concepts, on which all this is based, to be understood? There follows an explanation, but this explanation, as always, finds its expression in the form of a controversy with those who do not regard Christ as a God, with those who regard him as all God, all Trinity, and with those who regard him as half-God; then with those who did not recognize a human soul in him, with those who said that Jesus Christ was born simple, like anybody else; then with those who separated the man and God in Christ, with those who blended God with the man in Christ, with those who separated God and the man, but said that in him there was but one will, and with those who asserted ​“that Christ according to his human substance was not the proper son of God the Father, but a son by grace and adoption—”
“Amidst all these numberless heresies in regard to the person of the Lord Jesus, the Orthodox Church has since the apostolic days constantly defended and disclosed one and the same teaching, which it has with peculiar force expressed at the Fourth Ecumenical Council in the following words: ‘Following our Divine Father, we all unanimously teach men to profess the one and selfsame Son our Lord Jesus Christ, perfect in divinity and perfect in manhood, truly God and truly man, composed of soul and body; consubstantial with us according to the manhood; in everything like us, except sin; born before all ages of the Father according to the Divinity, but in the latter days according to the manhood of Mary the Virgin, the Mother of God, for the sake of us and of our salvation; the one and selfsame Christ, the Son, the Lord, the only-begotten, unblendingly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably recognized in two essences (no distinction of the two essences being removed by the union, but the attribute of each essence being preserved, as concurring in one person and one hypostasis); not cut or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son, and the only-begotten God, the Word, our Lord Jesus Christ, as anciently the prophets and our Lord Jesus Christ himself have taught us, and as the symbol of our fathers has transmitted it to us.’ From this we see that the whole teaching of the Orthodox Church about the person of our Lord Jesus consists of two chief propositions: I. of this, that in Jesus Christ there are two essences, the divine and the human, and II. of this, that these two essences form in him one hypostasis.” (pp. 46 and 47.)
It is impossible not to stop here. The words of this definition are a series of contradictions. The concept of essence, as connected with God, excludes the concept of ​God, since an unlimited spirit cannot have any essence. Two essences form one hypostasis. But hypostasis can have no meaning, since hypostasis has no significance in language and has never been defined. There is no rational sense in the dogma, but this dogma, like all the others, is based on the church. The church is holy and infallible, and ever since it has existed, from the very beginning, it has asserted this dogma. It is expressed, the Theology says, in Holy Tradition and in Scripture. Let us see whether it is so.
Though I have decided to pass cursorily all this Second Part, nevertheless, at this spot where it is proved that Christ is God, I feel that it is necessary to stop, since this place, though inserted in the middle, as it were, of the disclosure of further truths, which have been expounded in the beginning, in reality is the foundation of the dogma about the Trinity, which was put forward in the beginning; and if there is a dogma about the Trinity, it results only from recognizing Christ as God. Only later is the third person of the Holy Ghost attached to it. The beginning of the assertion that God is not one, but has persons, is due to the deification of Christ. This is what Art. 133 says: “Our Lord Jesus has a divine essence and is the Son of God.” This article has for a purpose the proof that Jesus Christ has the divine essence, but not in the sense in which any man created by God has it, but differently from all other men,—he is the second person of God. The same meaning is ascribed to the words “the Son of God.” It is proved that Jesus Christ is not a son of God in the sense in which other men are, but an especial Son of God, the only one, the second person of the Trinity. Here are the proofs from the Old Testament:
“In Psalm ii., which all the holy apostles (Acts iv. 24-28; xiii. 32-34; Heb. i. 5; v. 5) and the ancient Jews themselves refer to the Messiah. The Messiah witnesses about himself: The Lord hath said unto me, Thou art my ​Son; this day have I begotten thee (Psalm ii. 7), that is, I have begotten or beget eternally. In Psalm CX., which by the holy apostles (Acts ii. 34-36; Heb. i. 13; vii. 21, 24, 25) and by the ancient Jews is also referred to the Messiah, God himself says to him: From the womb, that is, from my substance, before the morning, that is before all time, have I begotten thee (v. 3). The prophet Micah, in prophesying that the Messiah would arise from Bethlehem, added that he had also another origin, an eternal one: Whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting (Mic. v. 2), and this prophecy has also been referred to the Messiah by the whole Jewish Church (Matt. ii. 4-6; John vii. 42).
“(2) By the Lord God (Adonai, Elohim), and even Jehovah, a name which is exclusively applied to the one God. Such, for example are: (a) the words of Psalm xlv.: Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: the sceptre of thy kingdom is a right sceptre. Thou lovest righteousness, and hatest wickedness: therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows (v. 6-7), which the apostle (Heb. i. 7-9) and the ancient Jews have referred to the Messiah; (b) the words of Psalm cx.: The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand (v. 1), which Christ himself (Matt. xxii. 41-46) refers to the Messiah; (c) the prophecy of Malachi: Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the Lord of hosts (Mal. iii. 1), which the Saviour himself (Matt. xi. 10, 11) refers to the Messiah; (d) the prophecy, twice repeated by Jeremiah: Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth. In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely: ​and this is his name whereby he shall be called, the Lord (Jehovah) is righteous to us (Jer. xxiii. 5, 6; cf. xxxiii. 15, 16).” (pp. 47 and 48.)
Not one of these places refers to Jesus Christ. The Psalmist is speaking of himself, and not of Christ. If it were necessary to understand Christ by “I, me,” he would have said so.
“His goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting,” means, that the goings forth, that is, the origin of each man, are from the beginning of everything. There is nothing in common here with the divinity of Christ. The words of Psalm xlv. refer only to God, and not to Christ. The prophecies of Malachi refer to any prophet. The words of Jeremiah refer to a certain king, and there is not a shadow of a reference to Christ.
Those are all the so-called confirmations of the divinity of Christ from the Old Testament. There follow confirmations from the New Testament. (1) Here is the passage from the conversation with Nicodemus, which is adduced in proof of the divinity of Christ:
“13. And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven. . . . For God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. . . . He that believeth on him, is not condemned: but he that believeth not, is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only-begotten Son of God (John iii. 13, 16, 18). Here (a) the Saviour in the first words clearly ascribes to himself omnipresence, a property which does not belong to one of the created beings; (b) then he calls himself the only-begotten Son of God (μονογενής), no doubt in the proper sense, that is, as being born from the essence of God, having a divine essence, for to this Son belongs omnipresence, a divine attribute; (c) finally he bears witness that without faith in him as ​the only-begotten Son of God, who is omnipresent, no salvation is possible for men.” (pp. 48 and 49.)
To Nicodemus’s question as to how a man can be reborn in order to enter the kingdom of heaven, Jesus replies that no one can enter heaven and come to God except he who knows God already, who already ascends heaven. No matter how these words may be understood, they cannot be interpreted in such a way as that Jesus is speaking about himself, since he is apparently speaking about all men and directly says that what he is speaking about is the son of man. Independently of the fact that from the meaning of the whole conversation with Nicodemus, which begins with Jesus’ saying that no one shall see the kingdom of heaven, if he is not born from above, it is evident that Jesus does not refer it to himself, but to all men; independently of this obvious meaning, everything which is said, is said now of the son of man and now of the only-begotten, or, more correctly, of the one-begotten son, but it does not say that this son of God is exclusively Christ. Above all, these words cannot have the meaning which the church ascribes to them, because the word “son of man” has the definite meaning of the son of man, that is of men, and the appellation of the son of God is precisely what Christ teaches the men to call themselves, and so Christ, if he had intended to say that he stood in an exclusive relation to God, would have been compelled to choose another expression in order to give it that meaning. I cannot permit myself to believe that Jesus should not have been able or willing to express such an important dogma. If, then, he called himself a son of God, and called other people also sons of God, he wanted to say that, so that the text expresses precisely the opposite of what the author wants to prove.
I am not going to quote here evidences from the gospels which directly deny the divinity of Christ, for I will quote them in their proper place, but I will analyze those ​which are quoted here in what purports to be a confirmation of the divinity of Christ. (2) Another passage is the parable about the “vineyard, which a certain man planted, and set an hedge about it, and let out to husbandmen (Mark xii. 1); understanding by it the heavenly Father, who had planted his church among the Jewish nation and had turned it over to the leaders of the nation, the Saviour said that at first the master of the vineyard, at a certain time, sent his servants, one after another, to the husbandmen, in order to receive of the fruit of the vineyard (v. 2). But when the husbandmen beat one of the messengers, and sent him away shamefully handled, and even killed others (v. 3-5), the master decided to send his son to them: Having yet therefore one son, his well-beloved, he sent him also last unto them, saying, They will reverence my son. But those husbandmen said among themselves, This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and the inheritance shall be ours. And they took him, and killed him, and cast him out of the vineyard (v. 6-8).” (p. 49.)
In this parable the husbandmen, according to the interpretation of the church, mean the Jews, the fruits are the good deeds, the master means God, then why should. the son mean the son only? According to the spirit of the parable, the son, too, must have and does have a transferred meaning. The whole parable proves that by the son something is to be understood, only not the son.
“(3) When the Saviour cured him that was diseased, and the Jews sought to slay him, because he had done these things on the Sabbath day (John v. 16), he, as though in justification, replied to them: My Father worketh hitherto, and I work (v. 17). This answer, in which the Lord Jesus ascribes to himself an equality with God the Father in right and power—”
Jesus told all to pray to God the Father, and to call and regard God as a father, and so this place can only prove ​the opposite, namely that Jesus regarded himself as just such a man as everybody else, and defined his relation to God just like the relation of all other men to God. His words, “I am working as my Father worketh,” apparently have the same meaning as the words, “Be as perfect as your Father!” Here he refers his words to others, but when he says, “I am working as my Father worketh,” and refers these words to himself, he speaks of himself as man, and not as God.
“The Jews understood it in the same way: Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only had broken the Sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with God (v. 18).” (p. 49.)
These words, no matter how one may read them, have no other meaning but that St. John, wishing to clear up the real meaning of Christ’s sonhood to God, represents an example of a false comprehension of Christ’s words. These words denote only that the Jews, rebuking Christ, fell into the same error into which the church is falling now when it praises him. These words can have no other meaning.
“At that time Jesus did not remark to the Jews that they comprehended him wrongly, but continued: Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise! (v. 19).”
These words are said in reply to the reproaches that he and his disciples are breaking the Sabbath. He says that God and he himself do not stop working, or providing, so why should man stop? “For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them; even so the Son quickeneth whom he will. For the Father judgeth no man; but hath committed all judgment unto the Son: That all men should honour the Son, even as they honour ​the Father. He that honoureth not the Son, honoureth not the Father which hath sent him (John v. 21-23).”
What is said about the healing on the Sabbath, is also said here, namely, that a man may cure on the Sabbath, and may decide for himself what is to be done, so long as he lives in a godly manner and tries to be as perfect as the Father, and that man is the Son of God and ought to be honoured like God.
“For as the Father hath life in himself, so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself (v. 26).” (p. 50.) This means only what Jesus has been teaching all the time, that the true life is the knowledge of the true God, and that each man has this life in himself. All these passages, without speaking of their significance, have one undeniable meaning, namely, that Jesus Christ acknowledges himself to be precisely such a son of God and of man as all other men, and not only does not equal himself to God, as the Jews slanderously say he did, but constantly opposes himself to God. The words “my beloved Son,” even if they are spoken from heaven, mean only that Christ is a son of God, like any other man, but beloved of God.
“(4) To the evidence of the Old Testament writings: Search the Scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: And they are they which testify of me (John v. 39).” (p. 50.)
The Scriptures speak of the Prophet, of his teaching, but there is not even a hint as to his divinity.
“Another similar incident presented itself soon. When the Saviour once came into a temple at Jerusalem, and the Jews, surrounding him, kept asking persistently: How long dost thou make us to doubt? If thou be the Christ, tell us plainly (John x. 24), he, replying to them, said, among other things: I and my Father are one (v. 30).” (p. 50.)
This is a conscious lie. He did not reply, among other ​things, “I and my Father are one,” but spoke those words for the following reason: He did not say it “among other things,” but spoke as follows: Jesus answered them, I told you, and ye believed not: the works that I do in my Father’s name, they bear witness of me. But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and none is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand. I and my Father are one (John x. 25-30).
He said distinctly that his sheep, that is, those who listen to him, cannot be taken from him, because he leads them by the will of God. And what he teaches them is that in which is the will of God.
Only that do the words, “I and my Father are one,” mean. And in confirmation of the statement that these words mean nothing else, and in order to caution people not to give a false interpretation to these words, the Evangelist immediately adds the false, coarse conception of the Jews, showing in this manner how the words were not to be understood.
This passage, which clearly denies the divinity of Christ, is rendered by the Evangelist as follows: the words so irritated those who were asking him, that they “took up stones to stone him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy, and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God (v. 31, 33).” About this passage the Theology says:
“However, even at that particular time the Saviour not only failed to remark to the Jews that he did not at all call himself God, as they thought, but, on the contrary, proceeded to prove that idea, by calling himself directly the Son of God.” (p. 50.)
​How else was he to have called himself, in order to prove to them that he did not consider himself to be God, but a son of God, which he taught all men to be? Here is the whole passage: Then the Jews took up stones again to stone him. Jesus answered them, Many good works have I shewed you from my Father; for which of those works do ye stone me? The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God. Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods? (Psalm lxxxii. 6). If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the Scripture cannot be broken; say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God? If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not. But if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works: that ye may know, and believe, that the Father is in me, and I in him (John x. 31-38).
How could he have said more plainly that he was not God, but that those were in whom was the word of God, and that he called himself, as all other people, a son of God. But the Theology takes this as a proof that Jesus Christ confessed that he was God, equal to God, and proceeds:
“(5) A third, similar, but still more striking case happened before the death of the Saviour. He was brought bound before Pilate to be judged. Here, after listening to many false witnesses against Jesus, the high priest finally rose and solemnly asked him: I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ the Son of God (Matt. xxvi. 63; cf. Mark xiv. 61), and Jesus, without any hesitation replied: I am: and ye shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven (Mark xiv. 62). Then the high priest rent his clothes, saying, He hath ​spoken blasphemy; what further need have we of witnesses? behold, now ye have heard his blasphemy. What think ye? They answered and said, He is guilty of death (Matt. xxvi. 65, 66). And bringing Jesus before Pilate, the Jews said to him: We have a law, and by our law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God (John xix. 7). Thus the Saviour did not hesitate to confirm the truth of his divinity by his own death.” (p. 51.)
Christ is again asked in court, not whether he recognizes himself to be God,—there is not even a question about that,—but whether he is the Son of God, and Christ replies: “I am,” and immediately afterward speaks of the significance of the Son of man, who, according to his expression, “is sitting on the right hand of power, in the clouds.” He is condemned for calling himself “the Son of God,” and from this is deduced the proof that he is God. The Jews are all the time accusing Christ, who is calling all to acknowledge his sonhood of God, and who is blasphemous because he makes himself the equal of God. Christ keeps replying that not he is one-born, near to God, the Son of God, but the Son of man, and he repeats the same in court, and for this he suffers capital punishment. And this is taken as a proof of his acknowledging himself to be God, and, considering the divinity of Christ proved by himself, the Theology sees a further confirmation of it in the fact that Christ ascribes to himself, as the Son of man, the one-born God, the attribute of a divinity. In proof of this are adduced the following verses: And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven (John iii. 13). For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them (Matt. xviii. 20). Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even ​unto the end of the world. Amen (xxviii. 20). And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was (John xvii. 5). As the Father knoweth me, even so know Ì the Father: and I lay down my life for the sheep (John x. 15). All things are delivered unto me of my Father: and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him (Matt. xi. 27).
All these verses, according to the Theology, show that Christ ascribed to himself divine attributes, omnipresence, self-existence, eternity, almightiness, omniscience. All these verses speak only of the oneness of birth of the Son of man with God, but in no way prove the especial divinity of Christ, as the Theology tries to prove. On the same basis it would be just as correct to ascribe a Godhead to Christ’s disciples, to whom he on every side repeated one and the same thought, that they were in him and he was in them, just as the Father was in him. With this end the proofs of the Godhead of Christ as expressed by him. After that follow proofs from the words of the apostles.
“III. As Christ the Saviour taught about himself, even so his disciples taught about him, according to the inspiration of the Holy Ghost. For example: (1) The Evangelist Matthew, representing the miraculous conception of the Saviour, refers to him the prophecy of Isaiah: Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us (Matt. i. 23; Is. vii. 14).” (p. 51.)
I quote everything which is said about it in this Theology, without leaving out a single line. This is regarded as the first proof from the words of the apostles. One reads and wonders how it is possible to explain these words as a proof that Christ is God. Emmanuel is a name which ​means “God with us.” This passage is quoted from the prophet to prove that Jesus was the Messiah. What connection there is between these words and the divinity of Christ is absolutely inexplicable. Second proof:
“(2) The Evangelist Mark begins his Gospel with the words: The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God (Mark i. 1), and later, when he tells of the baptism of the Saviour, he says: And straightway coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens opened, and the Spirit like a dove descending upon him: and there came a voice from heaven, saying, Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased (Mark i. 10, 11).”
The words of the Gospel, “The Son of God,” and, “Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased,” signify only that the beloved Son of God can by no means be God himself.
“(3) The Evangelist Luke quotes the prophecy of the angel to Zechariah about the coming birth of his son John, the forerunner of the Saviour: And many of the children of Israel shall he turn to the Lord their God. And he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias (Luke i. 16, 17).” (p. 52.)
The words of the prophecy of the angel to Zacharias refer to God, and not to Christ. Fourth proof:
“(4) St. John begins his Gospel with the words: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made (John i. 1-3), that is, he directly calls the Word God, represents it as existing from the beginning, or from eternity, separate from God, and as having created everything which exists. Farther on he writes: And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth—for the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came ​by Jesus Christ (John i. 14, 17), that is, he bears testimony to the fact that this Word is indeed the only-begotten Son of God the Father, that it became incarnated, and is none but Jesus Christ.” (p. 52.)
That the Word is none but Jesus Christ, who has created everything, not only does not appear from anything, but to any one who will carefully read the whole chapter it will become clear that the word “Logos” has a general, metaphysical meaning, which is quite independent of Christ. No matter how this chapter is understood, it is evident that its meaning is not that Christ is God. In order to say that, it was not necessary to speak of the Word, nor of the Light, nor of the birth of men. The proof which the church deduces from this chapter about the divinity of Christ is based on the arbitrary connection of one sentence of verse 1, where it says, “In the beginning was the Word,” with verse 14, where it says that “the Word was made flesh,” and then with verse 17, where it says that grace was given by Jesus Christ. The first sentence of the first verse does not stand alone, but is a connecting sentence between the first and the last. After that, mention is made of the light which shines on every man who comes into the world, of the birth of men, of the power or possibility for all to become the children of God,—not of Christ alone who was begotten of God, but of the many which were born of God. All such ideas, far from confirming the proposition that the Word is Christ, show directly that the Word, or the Logos, is the beginning of the true life of all men. Then mention is made of the fact that the Word was made flesh, and from the subsequent verses we must assume that the appearance of Jesus Christ is meant. But here, in the 17th verse, nothing is said about this Word being Christ himself, but there is reference to the manner in which this Word found its expression for men; it found its expression in grace and truth, and, it seems, excludes every possibility of ​acknowledging Christ to be God; immediately it goes on to say: “No man hath seen God at any time,” so that the words, “We beheld his glory,” can by no means be referred to Christ the God, whereas this very passage is regarded as the best proof of the divinity of Christ.
“Farther on,” says the Theology: “No man hath seen God at any time; the only-begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared (v. 18), that is, he shows that Jesus Christ is the only-begotten Son in the proper sense, as existing in the bosom of the Father.” (p. 52.)
If the only-begotten Son of the Father professed the God whom no man can ever see, then it is evident that this Son is not God. But the Theology makes the opposite deduction:
“And concluding his Gospel,” says the Theology, “the evangelist remarks that the purpose of his writing was to prove the Godhead of Jesus Christ: But these are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name (John xx. 31).”
That is simply untrue. John’s remark does not intend to prove the divinity of Christ, but speaks only of Christ’s sonhood to God.
“The same apostle in the beginning of his first Epistle calls Christ the Word of life (1 John i. 1), that eternal life which was with the Father, and was manifested to us (v. 2), and at the end of the Epistle he says: And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life (1 John v. 20), calling here the true Son of God and true God him whom before he had called the eternal life.” (p. 52.)
This discussion is simply unscrupulous. The words, “he that is true,” can apparently not be referred to Christ, ​but refer to God. Those are all the proofs from the Gospels.
“Finally in Revelation are frequently quoted the words of the Saviour who appeared to him: I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, the first and the last (Rev. i. 8, 11, 17, 18; ii. 8; xxii. 13), and there it is said that Christ is the prince of the kings of the earth (i. 5), and king of kings and lord of lords (xix. 16).” (pp. 52 and 53.)
As any one may see, even in these passages of Revelation, a book which has no significance for the explanation of the teachings of Christ, there is not even an indication of the divinity of Christ. Then follow proofs from the apostles.
“(5) St. Jude, the apostle, representing the heretics, says: For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ (Jude 4).” (p. 53.)
The oldest texts of the Epistle of St. Jude read as follows: “Denying the only lord and master (δεσπότην), Jesus Christ.” In the later, and in our texts, it runs as follows: “Denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.” In the first reading there cannot even be a question about the Godhead of Christ; in the second, one would think, there can be even less any question about the Godhead of Christ, for here God is called, as he is always called, “only,” and after him Jesus Christ is mentioned as a prophet or righteous man. But the absence of such proofs are regarded as proofs. Even such are the proofs from the Epistles of St. Paul. Here they are:
“(6) St. Paul calls the Saviour in his Epistles: God manifest in the flesh (1 Tim. iii. 16), the Lord of glory (1 Cor. ii. 8), the great God (Tit. ii. 11-13), God blessed ​for ever (Rom. ix. 4-5), God’s own (dov) Son (Rom. viii. 32), who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God (Phil. ii. 6); he ascribes to him divine attributes: eternity (Heb. xiii. 8), unchangeableness (Heb. i. 10-12), almightiness (Heb. i. 3; Phil. iii. 21), and says: For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: and he is before all things, and by him all things consist (Col. i. 16, 17).
In these Epistles Christ is in three places called God (Rom. ix. 4-5; Tit. ii. 11-13; 1 Tim. iii. 16). I examine the texts, and I discover that all three indications by St. Paul that Christ is God are based on the addition of words to the old texts, and on the incorrectness of the translations and the punctuation. The passage in Timothy is read in various ways. In the oldest texts the word “God” does not occur at all, but instead of it there is a relative pronoun, now of the masculine, and now of the neuter gender. In any case this whole verse refers to Christ, and not to God, and the substitution in later texts of the word “God” for the pronoun cannot serve as a proof of the divinity of Christ. Then follows the passage Tit. ii. 11-13. The verse stands as follows: “Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ.” The conjunction “and” is taken by the Theology to be the same as a colon and an equality, and, instead of understanding the passage, as many similar passages are understood, as speaking of the glory of God and of Jesus Christ, these words are taken as a proof of the divinity of Christ. Finally, the last passage is Rom. ix. 5. This passage is read in such a way that Christ is called a blessed God, only because the punctuation mark which ought to stand after “flesh Christ came,” has been changed from a period to a comma. ​The whole verse ought to read: “Whose (the Jews’) are the fathers, and whose Christ is according to the flesh.” After that there ought to be a period. Then follows the usual praise to God: “Who is over all, God, is blessed forever” (and not “blessed for ever”). This intentional error is regarded as a proof of the divinity of Christ. In the whole book Christ is mentioned as a prophet, and the words “Son of God (υἱὸς τοῦ Θεοῦ) are not even used, but instead, παῖς τοῦ Θεοῦ, that is, more correctly, servant of God. Those are all the proofs.
It is evident that those are not proofs, but juxtapositions of words which may serve as a confirmation of a proposition which has no foundation whatever in the Gospels and the Epistles. For any man who studies Holy Scripture in the original, who is acquainted with the criticism of Scripture and of the history of the church, it is evident that in the first century of Christianity, when the Epistles and Gospels were written, there was not even any mention made of the divinity of Christ. The best refutal of the proofs of the church about the Godhead of Christ is found in the vain endeavours which it makes to find anything resembling a proof. Everything which might have looked as an indication, every such a phrase, every juxtaposition of words, every blunder, every chance for an incorrect reading, is taken as a proof, but no real proof exists or can exist, because that idea was foreign to Christ and to his disciples. This is especially apparent from the reading of the Acts of the Apostles in the original. Here is described the teaching of the apostles, and here Christ is mentioned many times, and not only is he not spoken of as God, but no special meaning above any saint is ascribed to him; he is called saint, prophet, messenger of God, and not even υἱός, as John and Paul call him, but παῖς τοῦ θεοῦ, which can in no way be connected with the present teaching of the church about Christ the God. But in order to have clear and manifest proofs of ​the fact that the chief disseminator of the teaching of Christ, Paul, never even so much as thought of the divinity of Christ, it is necessary to read those passages of his Epistles which directly determine the relations of Christ to God.
But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him (1 Cor. viii. 6). One God and Father of all, and in us all (Eph. iv. 6). That the God of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and so forth. (Eph. i. 17). The head of Christ is God (1 Cor. xi. 3). Simplest and most indubitable of all it is in 1 Tim. ii. 5: For there is one God, and one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.
Indeed, there appears a man who teaches men of the relation which ought to exist between man and God, and preaches this teaching to all men. His relation and that of all men to God he expresses by the relation of the Son to the Father. That there might be no misunderstanding, he calls himself, and men in general, the son of man, and says that the son of man is the Son of God. In explaining man’s relation to God, he says that as the son ought to emulate the father, and have one aim and one will with him (in the parable of the shepherd), even so must man strive to be like God and to do the same that God is doing. And he says of himself that he is the son of God. Indeed, what else could Christ have said, since he taught them the sonhood to God? If he cannot help saying about himself that he is a son of God, since it is this precisely that he is teaching to all men, there cannot be said of him, what neither the Jews, nor he himself had the least idea about, that he was God and the second person of the Trinity; for, though he never denied his filial relation to God, he never ascribed any special importance to it. He was told: “If you are a simple man, like all, eating and drinking with the publicans, you have nothing to teach us about; ​but if you are a Son of God, a Messiah, show us your power, or be executed.” He denied both. He said: “I am not a simple man,—I am fulfilling the will of God my Father, and teaching men about it; but I am also not a special son of God, but only one who is doing his Father’s will, and this I teach to all men.”
It is with this that he struggled all his life, and this they now ascribe to him, and try to prove that he said what he actually denied and what, if he had said it, would have destroyed the whole meaning of his teaching. According to the teaching of the church it turns out that God descended to earth only in order to save men. Their salvation consists in believing that he is God. It would not have been much trouble for him to say outright, “I am God,” or, if not outright, at least not by such circumlocution that there is a possibility of understanding him quite differently without any desire to do wrong. Let it even be by circumlocution, if only it would be possible to explain his words as meaning that he was God. Well, even if his words were not exact, at least they should not contradict the statement that he was God. But, as it is, he has spoken in such a way that it is not possible to understand him otherwise than that he asserted to many that he was not God. If he had only revealed this secret to his nearest disciples so that they might have imparted it to other men, but, as it is, the disciples taught only that he was a righteous man, a mediator between man and God, and not a God.
Suddenly it turns out that for our salvation, which comes from him, his words have to be comprehended not as he and his disciples have spoken them, and that we must not rely on our common sense, but must believe the church, which, basing itself on tricks and misinterpretations of certain verses, asserts the opposite of what he has said about himself, and what his disciples have said of him. I have not dwelt on this passage in order to prove ​that Christ is not God, it is useless to prove that,—for to him who believes in God, Christ cannot be God. That was already evident in the exposition of the dogma of the Trinity and of the whole consequent inevitable tangle, but I have dwelt on this part as on one in which lies the source of all the preceding monstrosities and absurdities. It is evident to me that after Christ’s death, his disciples, who were profoundly affected by his teaching, in speaking and writing of him, of the man who taught that all men were the sons of God and must blend with God in life, and who in his life up to his death carried out this subjection of himself to the will of God and this union with him, it is evident to me that his disciples called him divine and the beloved Son of God on account of the elevation of his teaching and of his life, which fully realized his teaching; and it is explicable to me how ignorant people, listening to the teaching of the apostles, did not understand it, but instead understood the mere words and on these ignorantly conceived words built up their own teaching and, with the stubbornness which generally goes with ignorance, stuck to their comprehension, denying every other interpretation, even because they were unable to understand it, and how later such ignorant people confirmed this terrible error at the first and the second Ecumenical Councils.
In the dogma of the original sin I can admit the comprehension of those people who in the story of the fall of man can see nothing but that there was an Adam and that he did not keep God’s command not to eat of the forbidden fruit. This comprehension is not wrong, it is crude. Even thus I can admit the comprehension of men who say that Jesus was God and by his death and sufferings saved men. This comprehension is not wrong, it is only crude and imperfect. The conception of man’s fall as due to the fact that he did not obey God is correct in so far as it expresses the idea that man’s dependence, ​weakness, death,—all those are the consequences of his carnal passions. Just as correct is the statement that Christ was God in so far—as was actually the fact and as John says—as he made God manifest to us. But the moment men begin to assert that the form in which this thought is expressed is the only truth, I no longer can admit what they say, because their elucidations and assertions explain the meaning of the idea which they enunciate, and this idea excludes the possibility of all oneness of faith and clearly shows that the source of their stubbornness in their assertions is crudity and ignorance. It is precisely this that the church has been doing all the time in the name of its sanctity and infallibility.
After this follows Art. 134. The Lord Jesus has a human nature and is indeed the son of the Virgin Mary. Then Art. 135 proves that Christ was born in human form from the Virgin Mary, and that Mary, having given birth to him, remained a virgin. There are quoted proofs for what cannot be comprehended, and explanations of the fathers of the church.
“Not only did they teach so, but they frequently tried to disclose that such a miraculous manner of the Messiah’s birth was possible and exceedingly proper: in proof, or as an explanation of the possibility, they pointed to the almightiness of God and to certain other miraculous cases of the kind, as, for example, to the burning bush which did not burn up, and to the fact that the Saviour, after his resurrection, entered through closed doors into the room where his disciples were.” (p. 70.)
136. The Lord Jesus is a sinless man. “(1) The Word of God teaches us, in the first place, that the Lord does not partake of the original sin.” (p. 75.)
“(2) In the second place, the Word of God teaches us that our Lord Jesus is quite free from any personal sin.
“(3) In pursuance of so clear a teaching of the Word of God, the church has invariably believed that our Lord ​Jesus, consubstantial with us according to his manhood, is like us in all but sin. This sinlessness of Christ the Saviour the church has since antiquity understood not merely in the sense that he is free from the original and all voluntary sin, but also in the sense that he cannot even sin and that he is free from all sensuous desires or propensities to sin, free from all inward temptation. Therefore, when Theodore of Mopsuestia took the liberty to assert, among other things, that our Lord Jesus was not exempt from inward temptations and the struggle of the passions, the fifth Ecumenical Council (in the year 553) condemned this heresy as one of the most important ones.” (pp. 77 and 78.)
II. On the unity of the hypostasis in Jesus Christ.
137. The actuality of the union in Christ of two natures in one hypostasis. “In professing two natures, a divine and a human, in Jesus Christ our Lord, we at the same time profess that there is in him but one person and that the two natures are in him combined into one hypostasis of God the Word, for we believe that the Son of God assumed in his own hypostasis the human flesh which was conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary from the Holy Ghost and became incarnate (Epistle of the Eastern Patriarchs on the Orthodox Faith, section 7), and that, consequently, his humanity has in him no especial personality and does not form a separate hypostasis, but was accepted by his divinity into a union with his divine hypostasis. Or, let us say with the words of St. John Damascene, The hypostasis of God the Word became incarnate, having received from the Virgin the beginning of our composition, the flesh animated by a reasoning and rational soul, so that it itself became a hypostasis of flesh. . . . One and the same hypostasis of the Word, having become a hypostasis of two essences, does not permit any one of them to be anhypostatic, nor does it permit them to be variously hypostatic among themselves; nor is it the hypostasis ​now of one essence, and now of another, but always remains a hypostasis of both hypotases indivisibly and inseparably. . . . The flesh of God the Word did not assume an independent hypostasis and did not become a hypostasis, different from the hypostasis of God the Word, but having in it received a hypostasis, was rather received into the hypostasis of God the Word than became an independent hypostasis.’” (p. 79.)
It is absolutely impossible to render this into one’s own words: it is simply the delirium of an insane man. The Trinity in one person breaks up into two, and these two are again one.
“III. Holy Scripture presents the firmest foundations of this truth. It teaches: (1) that in Christ Jesus, with two essences, a divine and a human, there is one hypostasis, one person, and (2) that this hypostasis of the Word or of the Son of God, having accepted and united with itself the human hypostasis with the divine, abides inseparably as one hypostasis of either essence.” (pp. 79 and 80.)
All that is confirmed by Holy Scripture, the fathers of the church, and the decrees of the councils.
Finally common sense, too, is invoked:
“IV. And common sense, on the basis of theological principles, cannot help but notice that the Nestorian heresy, which divided Jesus Christ into two persons, absolutely rejects the mystery of the incarnation and the mystery of the redemption. If the divinity and the humanity in Christ are not united into one hypostasis, but form two separate persons, if the Son of God was united with Christ the man only morally, and not physically, and lived in him, as formerly in Moses and the prophets,—then there was no incarnation at all, and it is impossible to say: The Word was flesh, or, God sent his Son, born of a woman; for it would turn out that the Son of God was not born of a woman and did not take upon ​himself the human flesh, but only coexternally became consubstantial with Christ who was born of a woman. On the other hand, if for us suffered and died on the cross not the Son of God, with his flesh taken up by him into a union with his hypostasis, but a simple man, Christ, who had only a moral union with the Son of God,—then there could not have taken place our redemption, because man, no matter how holy he may be, on account of his limitations, is not able to bring sufficient satisfaction to the infinite justice of God for the sins of the whole human race. And, by tearing down the mystery of the incarnation and the mystery of the redemption, the Nestorian heresy tore down the whole structure of the Christian faith.” (pp. 85 and 86.)
Thus it turns out that what cannot be comprehended or even expressed, what cannot be thought of otherwise than by learning it by heart and repeating these words, is precisely what the whole structure of the Christian faith is reared on. In connection with the disclosure of this dogma one involuntarily comes to the conclusion that the dogma of the Trinity and those of the redemption, of grace, of incarnation,—that the more monstrous and senseless they are, the more important they turn out to be in the opinion of the church and the more controversies there have been in regard to them.
Have there been so many controversies because the dogma is monstrous, or has the dogma turned out to be so monstrous because it is the outgrowth of controversy and malice? I think both have happened. A dogma which by its nature is monstrous causes controversy, and the controversy makes the dogma still more monstrous. Another remarkable thing is that the more important a dogma is regarded to be by the church, the more controversies and malice and executions there have been, and the less meaning or possibility of moral application it has. The dogmas of the emanation of the Spirit, of the essence ​of Christ, of the sacrament of communion, have agitated the church in proportion as they were removed from any possibility of a moral application. After that follows:
138. The manner of the hypostatic union in Christ of the two natures. “In what manner the two essences in Jesus Christ, the divine and the human, in spite of their difference, were united into one hypostasis; how he, being perfect God and perfect man, is only one person,—all that, according to the Word of God, is a great mystery of godliness (1 Tim. iii. 16), and, consequently, inaccessible to our reason. But in so far as this mystery is accessible for our faith, the holy church teaches us, on the basis of the same Word of God, that the two essences have united in our Saviour, (1) on the one hand, without blending (ἀσυγχύτως) and unchangeably, or immovably (ἀτρέπτως), in spite of the heresy of the Monophysites, who blended the two essences in Christ, or who assumed in him the transformation of the divinity into flesh; (2) on the other hand, inseparably (ἀχωρίστως), in spite of the error of the Nestorians, who separated the essences in Christ, and of other heretics, who denied that they had been united constantly and uninterruptedly; cf. the Dogma of the Council of Chalcedon.” (p. 86.)
This is proved besides from Scripture:
“(3) Finally, also from considerations of common sense, which, on the basis of its natural principles, cannot in any way admit: (a) that the divine and human essences should have blended or mingled in Christ and formed a new, third essence, having lost their attributes, for the Godhead is unchangeable, and the blending or mingling of two quite simple essences, of the human soul and of the divinity, is impossible, and so much the more physically impossible is the blending of the coarse human flesh with the simplest divinity; (b) nor that the divine essence should have changed into a human, or the human into a divine essence: the first is contrary to the un​changeableness and unlimitedness of God, the latter is contrary to the limitedness of man. On the basis of the principles of the revealed, or Christian, theology, reason must tell us that only in the unblended and untransferred union of the two essences in Jesus Christ, and only with their perfect integrity, could have taken place the great work of our redemption, for the Saviour could have suffered on the cross only with his humanity, and only his divinity could give an infinite value to his sufferings. Consequently, to acknowledge in Christ the blending or transmutation of the two essences into one, means to overthrow the mystery of our redemption.” (pp. 89 and 90.)
139. The consequences of the hypostatic union of the two essences in Jesus Christ, (a) in relation to himself. “The consequences of the first kind are: I. The communion in Jesus Christ of the two attributes of his essences. It consists in this, that in the person of Jesus Christ each of his essences transfers its attributes to the other, namely, what is proper to him according to his humanity is appropriated to him as to God, and what is proper to him according to his divinity is appropriated to him as to man. II. The deification of the human essence in Jesus Christ. The deification is not in the sense that the human in Christ is changed into divinity, has lost its limitedness, and has received, in the place of the human attributes, other attributes of God; but that, having been received by the Son of God into a union with his hypostasis, it has been communicated to his divinity, has become one with God the Word, and through incorporation with the divinity has been heightened in its perfections to the highest degree to which humanity can rise, at the same time not ceasing to be humanity.” (p. 95.)
“III. To Jesus Christ, as to the one person, to the God-man, it behoves us to give one, undivided divine ​worship, both according to his Godhead and according to his humanity.”
“IV. In Jesus Christ there are two wills and two actions.” There follow long controversies about the two wills and the two actions. Refutals and proofs from Scripture and from common sense. The mental morbidity has so increased in this chapter that it is painful to read it, if you read with the desire to understand what the author is talking about. Then, in accordance with the subdivision made in the beginning of the chapter, where it said that the consequences of the hypostatic union of Jesus Christ are of two kinds, in relation: (a) to himself, (b) to the Virgin Mary, and (c) to the Most Holy Trinity.
140. (b) In relation to the Most Holy Virgin, the Mother of our Lord Jesus. The consequences of the hypostatic union in relation to the Virgin Mary are analyzed. Contents: a polemic with the Macedonians and the Nestorians. The subdivision about the consequences in relation to Christ and to the Virgin Mary is made only in order to dispute against Nestorius, who called the Virgin Mary the Mother of Christ.
141. (c) In relation to the Most Holy Trinity. It is proved that, in spite of the incarnation, the Trinity remained a Trinity. This is the way it is to be understood:
“The words of St. John Damascene: ‘I do not introduce a fourth person into the Trinity, which it shall not be; but I profess the one person of God the Word and of his flesh. The Trinity remained the Trinity even after the incarnation of the Word. The flesh of God the Word did not receive an independent hypostasis, and did not become a hypostasis different from the hypostasis of God the Word; but in it, having received the hypostasis, it became rather received into the hypostasis of God the Word than an independent hypostasis. For this reason it ​does not remain anhypostatic and introduce another hypostasis into the Trinity.’” (p. 114.)
142. Moral application of the dogma about the mystery of the incarnation. All these dogmas give us the following lessons: (1) all these blasphemous controversies, in the opinion of the author, “confirm the faith in us;” (2) faith reminds us of hope; (3) kindles in us the love for God; (4) teaches us to glorify not only God, but also “to glorify with all the strength of our being the Most Holy, Most Blessed, Glorious Lady, our Mother of God and Ever Virgin Mary;” (5) “to respect in ourselves the dignity of man,” because Christ was God and man; (6) “finally, presents to us in the incarnated Son of God a most perfect example for emulation, in accordance with his own words: ‘For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you’ (John xiii. 15).” (p. 115.)
XII.
The following place, “Section 2,” as it is called in the Theology, is especially important, although in the middle of the exposition it is called only the 2d Section from Chapter II., Part 2: About God the Saviour in his especial relation to the human race.
In general, the division of the Theology into parts, divisions, chapters, sections, articles, into (1), (2), (3), (a), (b), (c), and so forth, is to such a degree complicated and arbitrary and based on nothing that there is absolutely no possibility of remembering all the subdivisions, and it is necessary to consult the book every minute or learn everything by heart. This place is especially important because here, in this very spot, we find the key to all contradictions. Here is to be found the radical, internal contradiction from which resulted the tangle of all the other parts. Here, in this place, is made the substitution of its own teaching in place of the teaching of Christ, and it is done in such a way that it is not possible at a first glance to discern this substitution, and that it appears as though to the teaching of Christ, which is clear and manifest to all, there were only attached certain revealed truths, which, far from impairing the teaching of Christ, only enhance the greatness of Christ and of his teaching.
The contradiction, which is here imperceptibly carried into the teaching, and which later will form the subject of elucidation in the division on grace, consists in this, that Christ the God saved men by descending upon earth ​to them who had entirely fallen; at the same time he gave them a law which, when adhered to, will save them. The contradiction consists in this, that, if men were entirely lost and God had pity on them and sent to them his Son (who is also God) to suffer and die for men and take them out of the condition in which they had been before the redemption, that condition ought to have changed; but at the same time we hear the assertion that God also gave a law to men (a law of faith and works), which if they do not follow, they perish just as much as they perished before the redemption. Thus it turns out that if obedience to the law is a condition of salvation, the salvation of men by the death of Christ is superfluous and quite useless. But, if the salvation by Christ’s death is real, obedience to the law is useless and the law itself is superfluous. It is necessary to choose one or the other, and the church teaching in reality chooses the latter, that is, it acknowledges the reality of the redemption, but, in acknowledging it, does not dare make the last necessary deduction that the law is superfluous; it does not dare do so because this law is precious and important to every man, and so it acknowledges the law only in words (and that, too, in a very indefinite manner) and carries on all the discussion in such a way as to prove the reality of the redemption and therefore the uselessness of the law. Christ’s law is in this exposition something quite superfluous, something which does not result from the essence of the whole matter, something which is not connected with the whole progress of the discussion, and so falls off by itself. That is apparent even from the manner of the expression in the heading: About the act of salvation performed by the Lord, or about the mystery of the redemption, and from the division of the chapter, in which the moral teaching occupies only a small half of the three species of salvation, and from the number of the pages which are devoted to this subject.
​Section 2. About the act of salvation performed by our Lord Jesus Christ, or about the mystery of the redemption.
143. How did our Lord Jesus achieve our salvation? He achieved our salvation as Christ. Christ means the Anointed. The anointed were the prophets, the high priests, and the kings. From this the Theology concludes. that Christ was a prophet, a high priest, and a king. And on this foundation the salvation through Christ and his ministration to men are divided into three parts, into the prophetic, the sacerdotal, and the regal; why do they make such a division, which, to say the least, is queer? Why is Christ called by the improper name of king, which not only God Christ, but any moral man, would not wish to accept? To this there is no other answer except that so it was written in former Catechisms. First comes: I. About the prophetic ministration of Jesus Christ.
144. Conception of the prophectic ministration of Jesus Christ and the truth of his ministration. It is proved by Holy Scripture that Christ was a prophet.
145. The way in which the Lord Jesus achieved his prophetic ministration, and the essence of his sermon. The prophetic ministration, according to the Theology, consists of two parts: of the law of faith, and of activity. For the salvation of men Christ gives the law of faith and of activity. The law of faith consists in the belief in God the Trinity, in the fall of Adam, in the incarnation, and in the redemption. The law of activity consists in self-renunciation and loving God and your neighbour.
146. This article speaks of Jesus Christ having taught a new, more perfect law in place of the law of Moses. Here is expounded the difference between the law of Christ and the law of Moses, again mainly in relation to faith. In relation to the activity there is but half a page, in which we are informed that the demands of the Gospel law are higher than the law of Moses, but nothing is said ​as to the extent to which the execution of these demands is obligatory for salvation, or what they consist in. But, in considering the demands as put forth here, and their execution in reality, it is evident that the law of evangelical activity is not recognized as obligatory for salvation. We are told that by the law of Christ are demanded the endurance and forgiveness of offences, the love of our enemies, self-renunciation, humility, chastity, not only physical, but also spiritual; it is evident that if those are all the demands of Christ’s law of activity for salvation, not only will the human race not be saved, but there has not been, and never will be, saved one in a million. It is evident that that is said only in order not to overlook the moral teaching of Christ, and that this teaching has no place and is not wanted in the Theology.
147. Jesus Christ taught the law to all the people and for all times. That the law was given for all men and for all times is proved by texts from Scripture, that is, not by indicating that there can be no other law, but by confirming from Scripture that this law is for all men and for all times, meaning by this law only the law of faith.
148. Jesus Christ taught the only saving law which, therefore, is necessary for the attainment of eternal life. In this article the proof is given that this law gives eternal life, and that is again not proved by an elucidation of the meaning of the moral law, but by the assertion that it is confirmed by Scripture and by the holy fathers, and again the law of faith alone is meant. That is the end of the teaching about the prophetic ministration of Jesus Christ. Then follows what is most essential to the church: II. About the sacerdotal ministration of Jesus Christ, that is, about the redemption.
149. The connection with the preceding; conception of the sacerdotal ministration of Jesus Christ; truth and superiority of this ministration. Here it says:
​“As a prophet, Christ the Saviour only announced to us the salvation, but did not then achieve the salvation itself: he enlightened our intellect with the light of true divine knowledge and bore witness that he was the real Messiah who was come to save that which was lost (Matt. xviii. 11); he also explained how he was going to save us, and how we could make his deserts our own, and pointed out to us the straight road to the eternal life. But with his work he saved us from sin and from all the consequences of sin,—with his work itself he earned the eternal life for us through his sacerdotal ministration.” (p. 133.)
“But with his work itself he saved us from sin.” There is here expressed what constitutes the whole essence of the teaching about the salvation; the sacerdotal ministration, in which are included the demands of the law of activity, was only the “announcement,” but the salvation was in the sacrifice, in his death.
“This ministration of our Saviour consisted in this, that he brought himself as an expiatory sacrifice for the sins of the world and thus reconciled us with God, freed us from sin and its consequences, and acquired eternal benefits for us.” (p. 133.)
The salvation takes place from that calculation of the divinity which was achieved independently of us. Farther down is the exposition of how it happens that Christ is the high priest, while the divinity brings the sacrifice and Christ is the victim:
“The truth of the sacerdotal ministration of our Saviour (a) was proclaimed in the Old Testament by God himself through the mouth of the prophet Daniel, speaking to the Messiah: Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec (Psalm cx. 4); (b) was testified to by Christ the Saviour, in referring to himself the prophetic Psalm, in which he is called the priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec (Matt. xxii. 44; Mark xii. 36; Luke xx. 42); (c) finally, it was disclosed in detail by St. ​Paul in his Epistle to the Hebrews. Here he: (1) clearly and on several occasions called Jesus Christ priest, high priest, sanctifier. For example: So also Christ glorified not himself to be made an high priest; but he that said unto him, Thou art my Son, to-day have I begotten thee. As he saith also in another place, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec (Heb. v. 5, 6); Consider the apostle and high priest of our profession, Christ Jesus (Heb, iii. 1); Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession (Heb. iv. 14-16); (2) it is explained why he is called the high priest of Melchisedec. That is due to the fact (a) that Melchisedec was not only a priest of the most high God, but also the King of Salem,—a king of righteousness and peace, and by this unusual combination of two high ministrations he predicted the unusual high priest of the king (Heb. vii. 2); (b) that Melchisedec (since Holy Scripture does not mention his family, nor the beginning and end of his life, nor his predecessor, nor heir) represents the image of Christ, the Son of God, who abideth a priest continually (v. 3); (c) finally, that, having received the tenth of the spoils from Abraham himself, he blessed all who were yet in his loins, the sons of Levi, the priests of the Old Testament, and from them received a tithe,—and since without any contradiction the lesser is blessed by the greater, he represented in himself the priesthood of Christ, which was more perfect than the Levitical priesthood of the Old Testament (v. 4-11).” (p. 134.)
Do you understand it? In this part there is noticeable not so much the indifference of the writer as to whether what he says has any sense, as an apparent desire to collect such words as can have no meaning. If any sense can be made out of this chapter it is this, that Christ sacrificed himself to God for men, and that the one who wrote the Epistle, in which he wished to express the idea that ​Christ was the Redeemer of sins, chose an obscure comparison with Melchisedec, and that the church, who accepted all the Epistles of Paul and those that are ascribed to him as writings of the Holy Ghost, has stuck to the word “high priest,” which explains nothing and gets things mixed up. The sense is that Christ brought himself as a sacrifice for men. To elucidate it, there are quoted the words of St. Gregory the Divine, St. Epiphanius, and others.
“(b) St. Gregory the Divine: ‘He was the victim and also the high priest; a priest, but also God; he presented his blood to God, but purified the whole world; he was raised to the cross, but nailed sin to the cross.’ (c) St. Epiphanius: ‘He sacrificed himself in order that, by bringing a most perfect and living sacrifice for the whole world, he might make void the sacrifices of the Old Testament; himself the victim, himself the sacrifice, himself the sacrificer, himself the king, himself the high priest, himself the sheep, himself the lamb, who became everything for our sake.’”
150. How did our Lord Jesus perform his sacerdotal ministration? His sacerdotal ministration consisted in this, that (1) men fell by their pride and disobedience. He was humble and obedient, and (2) since men had become worthy of the wrath of God, Christ took upon himself the whole wrath of God (suffered and died), and became the curse. It is impossible to express what is meant by it,—it is necessary to read the article as it is written.
“Here, as the high priest, he really sacrificed himself on the cross as an expiatory victim to God for the sins of the world, and redeemed us with his precious blood (1 Peter i. 19), so that his incarnation and his whole life on earth served only as a preparation and, as it were, a gradual ascent toward that great sacrifice. Consequently, in the Word of God and in the teaching of the church is represented to us—
​“151. Especially the death of Jesus Christ as a sacrifice of redemption for our sake.” (p. 139.)
His death is the chief sacrifice of redemption for our sake. God sacrifices to God and redeems an obligation from the good God. All these are internal contradictions. There is a contradiction in every sentence, and these sentences are contradictorily combined with each other. I repeat what I said about the dogma of the Trinity. It is not exactly that I do not believe,—I do not know what there is to believe. I can believe or not believe that to-morrow a city will appear in heaven or that the grass will grow as high as the sun, but I cannot believe that to-morrow will be to-day, or that three will be one and yet three, or that pain does not pain, or that one God was divided into two and yet is one, or that the good God punishes himself and redeems from himself his own error of creation. I simply see that the one who is talking does not know how to talk or has nothing to say.
There is no rational connection. The only external connection is the references to Scripture. They give at least some kind of an explanation, not of what is being talked about, but why such terrible absurdities may be uttered. As in many preceding places, the quotations from Scripture show that the assertion of these absurdities does not take place voluntarily, but results, as in the history of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, from a false, for the most part, crude, comprehension of the words of Scripture.
Here, for example, in confirmation of the fact that the death of Christ the God has redeemed the human race, there are quoted the passages from the Gospel. From the discourse with Nicodemus: Even so must the Son of man be lifted up: that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life (John iii. 14, 15).
It says “The Son of man must be lifted up.” How can that mean the redemption of the human race by ​God? He who will read the whole conversation with Nicodemus, will see clearly that it could not mean anything like that. It means precisely what the words themselves mean: the Son of man (meaning by “son” himself as man, or man in general) must be lifted up like the brazen serpent of Moses. By what manner of reasoning can one come to the conclusion that it means the death on the cross, or, more wonderfully still, the redemption?
The next passage adduced as a proof is the one where John says: Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh the sin of the world (John i. 29). This passage runs in Greek as follows: ἴδε, ὁ ἀμνὸς τοῦ θεοῦ ὁ αἴρων τὴν ἁμαρτίαν τοῦ κόσμου. This cannot be translated otherwise than: The lamb which lifts off, takes away the sin of the world. And this passage is translated by “taketh,” to which the new translations add “upon himself.” And this interpolation is regarded as a proof. The next proof is this: Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many (Matt. xx. 28).
How can this verse mean anything but that the man, he himself, or man in general, must give his life for men, for his brothers?
Farther: The good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I lay down my life for the sheep (John x. 11, 14, 15).
The shepherd gives his life for his flock, just as I am doing. How does the redemption follow from that? When they ask a sign from him, similar to the manna, he says: I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world (John vi. 51). Continuing his comparison, he says that he is the only bread that men ought to eat. And this bread, that is, his example ​and teaching, he would confirm by giving his flesh for the life of the world. How does the redemption follow from that?
Farther: This is my body which is given for you (Luke xxii. 19). And he took the cup, saying, This is my blood of the New Testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins (Matt. xxvi. 27-28).
Bidding his disciples farewell, with a cup of wine and bread in his hands, he says to them that he is supping with them for the last time and that he will die soon. “Think of me at your wine and bread; with your wine think of my blood, which will flow for you that ye may live without sin; with the bread think of the body, which I am giving for you.” Where is here the redemption? “He will die, will give his blood, will suffer for the people,” are the simplest kind of expressions. The peasants always say about martyrs and saints, “They pray, work, and suffer for us.” This expression means nothing more than that the saints intercede before God for the unrighteous and the sinful.
But that is not enough: they adduce as proof from the Gospel of John the following reflection of the author of the Gospel on the words of Caiaphas: And this spake he not of himself: but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus should die for that nation; and not for that nation only, but that also he should gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad (John xi. 51, 52).
It is evident that there are no indications in the Gospel, not to speak of proofs, about the redemption, if such words are adduced as proofs. Caiaphas predicts the redemption, and immediately afterward has Christ killed. That is all which is adduced from the Gospel in proof of the redemption of the human race by Jesus Christ.
After that follow proofs from Revelation and from the writings of the apostles, that is, from those books which ​the church collected and corrected when it already professed the dogma of the redemption. But in these books, in the Epistles of the apostles, we do not yet see the confirmation of the dogma, but there occur here and there obscure expressions, with which all the Epistles are filled, and which may rudely be interpreted in the sense of the dogma, as has been done by the consequent so-called fathers of the church, but not by those of the first centuries. It is enough to read the history of the church to be convinced that the first Christians did not have the slightest conception about this dogma. Thus, for example:
“The Apostle Peter commands the Christians: Pass the time of your sojourning here in fear: Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers: But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot” (1 Peter i. 17-19).
Peter says that it is possible to mend only through faith in the teaching which was branded by the death of him who was as innocent as a lamb. And this is taken as a confirmation of the dogma of the redemption.
“Because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that we should follow his steps—who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed (1 Peter ii. 21, 24). For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God” (1. Peter iii. 18).
The cruel death of Christ, who left us an example of life to follow him by, ought to make us heal ourselves. from sins and come to God. The expression is concise and metaphorical, just as the masses speak when they say that the martyrs have worked for us. And that is taken as a proof: “For I delivered unto you first of all ​that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures” (1 Cor. xv. 3). “For” means in consequence of our sins. “Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savour” (Eph. v. 2). Christ’s love for us brought him to a shameful death. That, too, is considered a confirmation of the dogma. “Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification” (Rom. iv. 25). The resurrection is mentioned as a miracle, and it says that he was delivered on account of our sins. “Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past” (Rom. iii. 25). Again a misty, tangled sentence, like all of Paul’s expressions, which denote one and the same thing, namely, that the death of a just man has freed men from their previous errors. And all that is regarded as a proof. But the chief proof is found in the interpretations of the fathers of the church, that is, of those men who have invented the dogma of the redemption.
“(a) St. Barnabas: ‘We will believe that the Son of God could not have suffered except for us—for our sins he wished to bring as a sacrifice the vessel of the spirit.’ (b) St. Clement of Rome: ‘We shall look up to our Lord Jesus Christ, whose blood was given for us—we shall look up attentively to the blood, and shall consider how precious his blood is before God, since, having been spilled for our salvation, it obtained the grace of repentance for the whole world.’ (c) Ignatius Theophorus: ‘Christ died for you, in order that you, believing in his death, might be saved from death.’ (d) St. Policarp: ‘He suffered death itself for our sins—; he suffered everything for us, that we might live in him.’” (p. 142.)
Or another place, as a sample of that arbitrariness and blasphemous pettiness, with which the whole book is permeated.
​“If one of us should ask, not from love of controversy, but from a desire to know the truth: ‘Why did the Lord suffer death on the cross rather than any other?’ let him know that that particular death, and no other, could save us, and the Lord suffered precisely that for our salvation, for, if he came for the purpose of taking upon himself the curse which had been upon us, then how else could he become a participant of the curse, if he did not suffer the death which was under the curse? And that is the death on the cross, for it is written: Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree (Gal. iii. 13). In the second place, if the death of the Lord is the redemption of all, if by it the middle wall of partition is broken down (Eph. ii. 14) and the calling together of the tongues takes place, then how could he have called us to the Father, if he had not been crucified? For it is only on the cross that one can die with extended hands. And so that is the reason why the Lord had to suffer death on the cross and on the cross to extend his arms, in order with one hand to attract to himself the ancient nation, and with the other the pagans, and thus to unite them in himself. He predicted that about himself when he wanted to show with what kind of a death he meant to redeem all: If I be lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men unto me (John xii. 32). And again: the enemy of our race, the devil, having fallen from heaven, is wandering here in the aerial sphere and ruling over demons who are like him in disobedience, and by means of them he entices with visions those who fall victims to his deception, or in every way tries to hinder those who are tending upwards; thus speaks of him the Apostle Paul, calling him the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience (Eph. ii. 2). For this reason the Lord came to depose the devil, to clear the air of him, and to open a new path for us to the heavens, as the apostle has said, through a curtain, that is, through his flesh; but that he ​could do only through his death, and what death could it have been other than one that takes place in the air, that is, on the cross? For only he who is crucified dies in the air. And thus the Lord has not without cause suffered death on the cross: having been lifted on the cross, he purified the air from the snares of the devil.” (p. 144.)
Redemption, the church says, is a fundamental dogma, on which the whole doctrine is based. Where is it expressed? In the Gospels, that is in the words of Jesus Christ himself, who came to save men, and in the words of the evangelists who wrote down the words of Christ, there is not any mention of this dogma. The church asserts that the dogma is expressed in Christ’s words, “The Son of man must be lifted up;” in the spurious words, “The lamb which taketh upon himself the sins of the world;” in the words, “The Son of man has come to minister;” in the words, “I am a good shepherd who will not spare my life for my sheep;” then in the words, when, breaking the bread, he said, “This is my body, for you do I break it,” and, at last, in what Caiaphas said. That is, obviously, untrue, but, according to the teaching of the church, all this is expressed more clearly in the Epistles, that is, in the interpretations of Christ’s words, and more clearly still in the interpretations of the fathers. But the redemption is the fundamental dogma of our salvation,—how is it then that Christ, who came to save us, did not more clearly express the dogma, but left all this to the interpretation of Epiphanius, to the unknown Epistle to the Hebrews, and to others. If this dogma is not only so important that on the belief in it depends all our salvation, but also is simply necessary to men, and Christ came down upon earth out of love for men, he ought to have expressed it clearly and simply at least once, but as it is he did not even hint at it. And everything which I can find out about this great truth, which is necessary for my salvation, I must draw from the writings about ​Christ, composed by various persons, and from the interpretations of some fathers, who apparently did not understand themselves what they were saying. This is what it goes on to say, what I must believe in, and what Christ meant to say to all men, but did not say.
152. Very detailed exposition in the word of God of our redemption through the death of Jesus Christ.
(1) Christ has purified us; (2) has redeemed us; (3) has reconciled us to God; (4) has freed us from the slavery of sin; (5) has established a new covenant with God; (6) has made us the adopted children of God; (7) has given us the means for being holy; (8) has obtained eternal life for us. It turns out that Christ has given us eight advantages through his sacrifice, but all these advantages are imaginary, for no one has ever seen them or ever will see them, as was the case with that sleight-of-hand performer who reeled the Virgin’s endless hairs, which no one could see.
After Christ all of us became pure, holy, no longer slaves to sin, eternal, and so forth. Thus the fathers assure us, and I am compelled to believe this time what they tell me, not about something invisible, but about myself, although I know that all that is untrue. And again, as always, what is not and cannot be, is explained at great length. About the moral law of Christ there is just half a page, en passant; but about the essences, about redemption, there is no end to words, though that has never been and never can be. One would think that all has been said, but no, now we get a discussion about the—
153. Disclosure of the method itself of our redemption through the death of Jesus Christ. “The whole mystery of our redemption through the death of Jesus Christ consists in this, that he in our place paid the debt with his blood and fully satisfied the justice of God for our sins, for which we ourselves had been unable to pay; in other ​words, in our place he achieved and suffered everything which was necessary for the remission of our sins. The possibility in general of such a substitution of one person for another before the judgment of the justice of God, of such an acquittal of a moral debt by one person in the place of another or of others, must necessarily be admitted by common sense: (a) when for this substitution we have the will of God and the consent of the Supreme Lawgiver and Judge; (b) when the person who has taken upon himself to pay the debt for other delinquent debtors does not himself stand in the place of debtor before God; (e) when he voluntarily determines to execute all the conditions of the debt that the Judge may impose upon him, and (d) when, at last, he actually offers the pay which fully satisfies the debt.
“All these conditions, which we have borrowed from the example of our Saviour and have only generalized, have all been fulfilled by him in his great deed for our sake: Our Lord Jesus suffered for us pain and death by the will and with the permission of his Father, our Supreme Judge. It was precisely for this purpose that he, the Son of God, came down upon earth, in order to do, not his will, not his own will, but the will of him who sent him (John vi. 38), and during his whole life busied himself only with doing the will of his Father.” (p. 148.)
I have quoted this as a specimen of that involuntarily blasphemous form of speech which is employed by the author, whenever the subject of his speech is a blasphemy. What kind of debt, and pay, and court is he talking about? What kind of an expression is this, “God busied himself only”?
And thus, (1) Christ suffered for obeying his Father; (2) he was sinless; (3) he suffered voluntarily; (4) the pay for the debt as offered by Christ surpasses the amount of the debt, and a surplus—some change—is left. It is ​even analyzed who gets the pay for the debt. All that is not my invention.
“Who received the pay for this redemption? Some represented that it was brought for the prince of this world, the devil, in whose captivity we all are. But St. Gregory discusses as follows: ‘For whom and for what was this blood spilled, which he spilled on account of us, the blood of the great and most glorious God and high priest and victim? We were in the power of the deceiver, sold for our sins, having bought our injury by our lust. And if the price of the ransom is given to no other than the one who has us in his power, I ask: To whom and for what reason was this ransom paid? If to the deceiver, then that is offensive. The robber receives the ransom, and receives not only from God, but God himself; for his oppression he takes such an extortionate price that it was right that we should be spared for it! But if to the Father, then, in the first place, in what manner? We were certainly not in captivity to him. And, in the second place, for what reason is the blood of the Only-begotten One agreeable to the Father, who did not receive even Isaac, who was offered by his father, but exchanged the offering, having given a ram in place of the sacrifice of the promise? But from this we see that the Father received the ransom not because he demanded or needed it, but on account of his house-management, and because man had to be sanctified by the manhood of God, in order that he himself might free us, having overcome the tormentor by force, and might lead us up to him through the Son, who mediates and arranges everything in the honour of the Father, to whom he turns out to be obedient in everything.’” (p. 154.)
154. The extent of the redemptory actions of Christ’s death.
Christ’s sacrifice not only redeemed the sin, but a surplus was left. This surplus is (1) for everybody; (2) ​extends over all sins, (a) redeems the original sin, (b) every sin, (c) all previous sins, (d) all future sins. This truth was unanimously preached by the teachers of the church, for example:
“(a) By St. John Chrysostom: ‘That the benefits given by Jesus Christ are more numerous than the evils destroyed, and that not only the original sin was destroyed, but also all other sins, that the apostles said in these words: The free gift is of many offences unto justification (Rom. v. 16),’ and farther: ‘By the grace was destroyed not only the original sin, but also all other sins; and not only the sins were destroyed, but righteousness was given to us, and Christ set aright not only what was injured by Adam, but reëstablished everything in a greater measure and a higher degree.’” (p. 157.)
“(3) For all times, that is, from the beginning of the fall of man to the end of the world. Therefore, (a) Christ is called, on the one hand, a lamb, and, on the other, a high priest. Similarly, (b) the redemption achieved by him is called eternal, (c) and his priesthood unchangeable, for he ever liveth to make intercession for them (Heb. vii. 24, 25). How to understand this intercession for us by Christ the Saviour in heaven, is explained by St. Gregory the Divine: ‘To intercede means here (Heb. vii. 25) to negotiate (πρεσβεύειν) for us in the capacity of a mediator, as is said of the Spirit who maketh intercession for us (Rom. viii. 26). . . . Thus also we have an advocate in Jesus (1 John ii. 1), not in the sense that he humbles himself before the Father and falls down before him as a slave: far be from us such a dreadfully slavish thought, which is unworthy of the Spirit! It is not proper for the Father to demand it, or for the Son to suffer it, and it is not right to think so of God.’ The blessed Theophilactes of Bulgaria: ‘Some have understood the expression to intercede for us to mean that Jesus Christ had a body (and had not put it off, as the Manicheans speak idly). That is ​precisely what his intercession before the Father is. For, looking at it, the Father recalls his love for men, for the sake of which his Son assumed the body, and is inclined to charity and mercy.’” (p. 158.)
By the way, as one reads similar passages, it becomes evident that the whole mysterious, incomprehensible Trinity represented itself in the imagination of the holy fathers in the form of three distinct, quite well defined anthropomorphic beings. And finally:
“(4) The redemption extends over the whole world.” The world of the angels was separated before, but now men unite with it. Nature was cursed and did not produce of itself; now this curse no longer exists, so that the redemption extends over everything, except the devils, because the devils were so infuriated. Some Christians assume that the devils, too, were redeemed: “The opinion of the ancient Gnostics, Marcionites, and Origenists, who extended the action of the redemption to the fallen angels themselves, was rejected by the teachers of the church and solemnly condemned by the whole church at the Fifth Ecumenical Council.”
All that is confirmed by Holy Scripture and forms part of a dogma.
155. The consequence of the deserts of the cross of Jesus Christ in regard to himself: the condition of his glorification. Christ is glorified as a reward for having come down into the world.
156. The relation of the sacerdotal ministration of Jesus Christ to his prophetic ministration. “Although the chief aim of the sacerdotal ministration of Jesus Christ, that is, of his whole exhaustion and especially of his death on the cross, was to achieve our redemption, he at the same time subjected himself to this exhaustion also for other purposes.” (p. 162.)
The chief aim is the redemption, but in addition there were also the following purposes: (1) to give us an ex​ample by his life; (2) to deprive the Jews of their faith in the coming of the Messiah in glory; (3) to make void the laws of Moses; (4) finally, he died in order to give a clear testimony of the truth that he was God, that is, that which he constantly denied being.
All this chapter is remarkable in that it has not the slightest foundation in the Holy Canonical Scripture, but is all based on the apocryphal account, has not the slightest human meaning, and, what is most important, appears to every fresh man quite superfluous. Only by subjecting the Theology to a close study, can one guess what it is needed for. There is but one purpose which this chapter has, and that is, to solve the contradiction that all men perished before Christ, whereas we recognize the saints of the Old Testament. What is to be done with them! And so the apocryphal account of Christ’s descent into hell is taken, and the question is solved, and there appears the royal ministration of Christ. After that follows a chapter on the royal ministration of Christ.
“III. 157. Connection with what precedes, conception of the royal ministration of Christ, and the truth of his ministration. The truth of the royal ministration of our Saviour is quite clearly testified to in the Word of God. (1) He was born a king and vested with power. For unto us a child is born, proclaims the prophet Isaiah, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder and his name shall be called Angel of the Great Council, Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace, the Father of the future life. And great is his government, and of his peace there is no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever (Is. ix. 6, 7; cf. Luke i. 32, 33; Matt. ii. 2). He was a king and had a royal power in the days of his humiliation, for he himself adopted the name of king, as ​is seen from the accusation which was brought against him by the Jews (Matt. xxvii. 11-37; Mark xv. 1-32), and as he actually affirmed before Pilate (John xviii. 37). He applied to himself the regal power, as the words of his prayer to God show: Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee: as thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him (John xvii. 1, 2). In his very acts he showed himself a king, when he entered Jerusalem, according to the ancient prophecy: Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Sion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh unto thee: he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass (Zech. ix. 9; cf. John xii. 15; Matt. xxi. 5), and when he received the solemn acclamation of the people: Hosanna to the Son of David; blessed is the King of Israel that cometh in the name of the Lord (Matt. xxi. 9; John xii. 13). Finally, in all his glory and power he appeared as a king in the condition of his glorification, when he said to his disciples: All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth (Matt. xxviii. 18), and when God actually set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come: and hath put all things under his feet (Eph. i. 20-22).”
Those are the proofs of the regal order which the church ascribes to him who said that what is great before men is an abomination before God.
158. In what actions was the royal ministration of Jesus Christ expressed? His miracles. His ministration was expressed in miracles. They are all counted out: Cana of Galilee, and Lazarus, and the casting out of the devils. “Even thus in the days of the exhaustion of our Saviour, when he was achieving mainly his pro​phetic and sacerdotal ministration, his miracles showed that he was at the same time the King of the Universe, the vanquisher of hell and death.” (p. 168.)
159. The descent of Jesus Christ into hell and his victory over hell. Another regal action of Christ’s descent into hell and his victory over it. “I. The teaching that the Lord Jesus actually went into hell with his soul and divinity, when his body was in the grave, and that he went down there to preach salvation, is an apostolic teaching.” There follow proofs. But not all agree upon what Christ did in hell. Some say that he took them all out, while others maintain that he took out only the righteous.
“St. Epiphanius: ‘Christ’s divinity together with his soul went down into hell in order to lead to salvation those who had died before, namely the holy patriarchs.’ St. Cassianus: ‘Having penetrated into hell, Christ with the splendour of his glory dispelled the impenetrable darkness of Tartarus, broke the brazen doors, and led the holy prisoners, who were kept in the impenetrable darkness of hell, with him to heaven.’ St. Gregory the Great: ‘The wrath of God, in relation to the souls of the righteous, passed away with the arrival of our Redeemer, for the intercessor of God and of men freed them from the prisons of hell, when he himself went down there and led them up to the joys of Paradise.’
“It must be added that if some of the ancients expressed the idea that Christ led out of hell not only the just men of the Old Testament, but also many others, or even all the prisoners of hell, they expressed that only in the form of guesses, suppositions, private opinions.”
160. Resurrection of Jesus Christ and his victory over death. “As Christ destroyed hell by his descent into hell, though he had even before shown his regal power over the forces of hell, even so he vanquished death by his resurrection from death.” ​161. The ascension of Jesus Christ into heaven, and the opening of the kingdom of heaven to all who believe in him.
“Before the descent upon earth of the Son of God, heaven was, so to speak, shut against all earth-born men and, though in the house of the Father there are many mansions (John xiv. 2, 3), there were no places in them for the sinful posterity of Adam; the just men of the Old Testament, after their death, themselves descended with their souls to hell (Gen. xxxvii. 35). But, after our Lord appeared in the flesh and reconciled God with men, heaven with earth; after he had freed the just men of the Old Testament from hell, by his descent into it, and had risen from the dead, he, at last, solemnly ascended heaven with the human essence which he had assumed and in this manner opened for all people a free access to the kingdom of God.”
A proof of this is the expression of the symbol, which is to be taken in the direct sense: Having ascended heaven (in the body), and sitting (in the body) on the right hand of his Father.
162. Will the royal ministration of Jesus Christ come to an end? The kingdom of Christ will end when there will be the judgment. All will be resurrected. Then Christ will transfer the kingdom to the Father, say some, “but the Evangelist Luke (i. 33) and Solomon (Wis. iii. 4-8) understood the original power, in which, having an uninterrupted dominion from eternity to eternity, the Son never received his dominion from the Father and never will turn it over to the Father.” (p. 178.)
Thus there appears an explanation of the royal dignity of Christ. The words about the kingdom of heaven give the church an idea about the royal dignity of Christ. The royal dignity is considered by the church as something very good and it attaches it to Christ, to him who proclaimed the blessedness of the poor, who preached to ​them, and who himself said that the last will be the first.
163. Moral application of the dogma about the mystery of the redemption. One would think that there could be but one application of the dogma: Christ earned above his calculation, with a surplus. These deserts saved us from all present, past, and future sins; so one has to believe firmly in that, and one is saved. Thus says a part of the Reformed Church, and thus live all our Orthodox Churches. But for decency’s sake, it says among the lessons that in order to follow the teaching of Christ it is necessary: (1) to believe and live thus; (2) to walk in the regeneration of life; (3) to esteem the law; (4) to give thanks for the sacrifice; (5) to make the sign of the cross with the hand, because Christ died on the cross; (6) to live holily; (7) not to be afraid of suffering; (8) to pray to him; (9) not to be afraid of the devil; (10) to hope that we shall be resurrected; (11) to hope for the kingdom of heaven.
Christ appears and brings with him a joyful message of blessedness for men. His teaching is humility, a submission to the will of God, love. Christ is tormented and executed. Up to his death he continues to be true to his teaching. His death confirms his teaching. His teaching is adopted by his disciples, and they preach him and say that he is equal to God by his virtues, and that by his death he has proved the truth of his teaching. But his teaching is salutary for people. The crowd joins the new teaching. They are told that he is a divine man and that by his death he has given us the law of salvation. Of all his teaching the crowd understands best that he is divine, consequently a God, and that his death has given us salvation. The crude concep tion becomes the possession of the crowd and is mutilated, and the whole teaching recedes, and the first place is taken. up by the divinity and the saving quality of his death. ​The whole business is to believe in this new God and that he has saved us: it is necessary to believe and pray. That is contrary to the teaching itself, but there are teachers who undertake to reconcile and elucidate and they reconcile and elucidate. It turns out that he is God-man, that he is the second person of the Trinity, that sin and a curse were upon us, and he has redeemed us. And the whole teaching is reduced to the faith in this redemption, and the whole teaching is left out and gives place to faith. It is necessary to believe in Christ the God and in redemption, and in that alone lies the salvation.
Of the teaching of Christ, since it cannot be rejected, there is the merest mention. It says that, among other things, Christ taught self-renunciation and love, and that it does not hurt and is even good to follow him. Why follow? Nothing is said about that, since, in reality, it is not needed for salvation, and salvation is obtained anyway by the sacerdotal and royal ministration of Christ, that is, by the very fact of the redemption. Here we have again the same as in the case of the original sin and the deification of Christ. The doctrine about the redemption is obviously crude; a true idea, verbally comprehended, is reduced to a teaching, and a prohibition is imposed on any other interpretation than the one accepted by the church. With a certain effort, as I recall my childish years and some feeble-minded persons, I can imagine how such a narrow conception of the meaning of Christ may be alone accessible. But why not permit me to think, as I do, that Christ has saved us by having discovered the law which gives salvation to those who follow it, and that he has redeemed us by having sealed the truth of his teaching by his death on the cross? My conception includes that of the church, and not only does not destroy anything, but puts forward as the first important work effort, that effort by which, according to the ​words of Christ, the kingdom of heaven is now received; it does not exactly reject, but merely ascribes less importance to those reflections about the purposes and means of God, about which I can know nothing, and which I understand less the more I am told about them. Is it not better for me to believe only that God has certainly done the best for me, and that I, too, must do the best I can? If I am going to do so, without discussing what the redemption consisted in and what it was, whatever it may have been, it will not get away from me. And how about it, if I put my reliance in the redemption of Christ and neglect that which I ought to do for my redemption?
XIII.
Division II. About God the Saviour and his special relation to the human race.
Such is the title of this division. All this division, with the exception of the last chapter about retribution, is occupied with the exposition of the teaching about the church and its mysteries.
Chapter I. About God as a sanctifier. 165. Conception of sanctification; participation of all the persons of the Most Holy Trinity in the matter of sanctification, and recital of means or conditions for sanctification. In this article, after the teaching and the proofs of the fact that all three persons take part in our sanctification (the Father is the source, the Son—the cause, the Holy Ghost—the one who achieves the sanctification), it says:
“IV. In order that we might be able to make the deserts of our Saviour our own and really be sanctified, he (1) founded on earth his kingdom of grace, the church, as a living instrument through which our sanctification takes place; (2) communicates to us in the church and through the church the grace of the Holy Ghost, as a force which sanctifies us; and (3) has established sacraments in the church, as means through which the grace of the Holy Ghost is communicated to us.” (p. 187.)
Christ has founded the church for our sanctification. The concept of the church I met in the very beginning of the Theology. In the very beginning it said that a dogma was a decree of the church, and later on, in the whole exposition of the dogmas, their correctness was defined by stating that the church taught so in regard to ​them. But heretofore there has been no definition of the church, of what is to be understood by the word. From everything which I knew before, from everything which had been expounded so far, I assumed that the church was a collection of believers, established in such a way that it can express and determine its decrees. But now begins the teaching about the church as being an instrument for the sanctification of men. It says that the church is Christ’s kingdom of grace, that it communicates to us the grace of the Holy Ghost, and that it has sacraments, but nothing is said about the church on which the dogmas which have been expounded heretofore are based; on the contrary, the church receives here an entirely different meaning from what I ascribe to it as the foundation of the whole teaching about faith. Then follows:
166. The different meanings of the word “church.” The sense in which the teaching about it will be expounded here, and points of view on the subject. The various meanings of the word “church” are explained. All three meanings which are ascribed to the word “church” are such that with them is impossible the conception of that church which has established the dogmas.
The first meaning of the word “church” is, according to the Theology, “a society of all the rational and free beings, that is, of the angels and of the men who believe in Christ the Saviour, and of the men who are united in him as in their one head.” (p. 187.)
Such a definition of the church not only does not make clearer the conception of the church which establishes dogmas, but imparts in advance to the forthcoming definition of the church certain symptoms, with which it is still harder to understand how such a church could ever have established any dogmas. The further elucidations of this first meaning do not clear it up. All it says is: “that in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in ​heaven, and which are on earth; even in him: and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come: and hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all (Eph. i. 10, 20-23).” (p. 188.)
This, according to the Theology, forms one meaning of the word “church.” Here is the second meaning:
“According to the second, less broad and more accepted meaning, the church of Christ embraces all men who profess and who have professed the faith of Christ, every one of them, no matter at what time they have lived and wherever they may be, whether living upon earth, or already in the country of the dead.”
According to this second meaning, the church cannot be what I supposed it to be, and cannot establish dogmas, for an aggregate of all men living and of those who have lived at any time cannot express any dogmas. Then follows an analysis who of the dead belong to this church and who do not (pp. 190, 191), and after dividing the church into militant and triumphant, there is given the third meaning of the word “church.”
“Finally, in a still narrower, but most accepted and usual sense, the church of Christ signifies only the militant church of the New Testament, or Christ’s kingdom of grace. ‘We believe as we have been taught to believe,’ say the bishops of the East in their epistle on the Orthodox faith, ‘in the so-called and real, the One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic Church, which embraces all in every place, no matter who they may be, who believe in Christ, who, still existing in their earthly pilgrimage, have not yet taken up their abode in the kingdom of heaven.’ In this sense we are going to take the church in the present exposition of the doctrine concerning it.” (p. 191.)
​According to this meaning, by the word “church” are understood all those who believe or have believed in Christ. This meaning is in general intelligible, but even in this sense the church does not correspond to that activity of the church, the sanctification of men, and still less to that other activity, the establishment of dogmas, of which the Theology has been speaking in all preceding chapters. Such a church cannot serve as an instrument of sanctification, for, if by church are to be understood all the believers in Christ, then all believers will be sanctifying all believers. In order that the church should be able to sanctify all believers, it must of necessity be a special institution among all the believers. Still less can such a church establish any dogmas, for, if all believing Christians believed alike, there would be no dogmas and no teaching of the church in refutal of heretical teachings. The fact that there are believers in Christ who are heretics and who reject some dogmas and put forward others which in their opinion are true, shows that the church must of necessity be understood not as all believers in Christ, but as a certain establishment, which not only does not embrace all the Christians, but even is a special institution among Christians who are not heretics.
If there are dogmas which are expressed in definite, unchangeable words, these words must be expressed and worked out by an assembly of men who have agreed to accept this, and not another expression.
If there is an article of a law, there must of necessity exist lawgivers or a legislative assembly. Although I may be able to express myself by saying that the article of the law is a true expression of the will of the whole nation, I, in order to explain this institution, must show that the legislative assembly which gave the law is a true exponent of the will of the people, and for that I must define the legislative assembly as an institution. Just so the Theology, which has expounded so many dogmas, ​which has recognized them as the only true ones, and which asserts their truth by saying that the church has accepted them as such, must tell us what the church itself is that has established these dogmas. But the Theology does nothing of the kind: on the contrary, it gives to the church the meaning of a union of angels and men, both living and dead, and the union of all believers in Christ, from which can result neither sanctification, nor the establishment of dogmas. The Theology in this case acts as would act a man, who, trying to assert his right to a legacy, instead of announcing first of all those grounds on which he bases his rights, should speak of the legality in general and of the right of inheritance, should prove the falseness of the pretensions of all the others, and should even explain his own management of the debatable property, but should not say a word about that on which his rights are based. That is precisely what the Theology does in all this division about the teaching of the church. It speaks of the foundation of the church by Christ, of the heretical teachings which do not agree with the church, of the activity of the church, but not a word is said as to what is to be understood by the true church, and the definition of the church as such which corresponds with its activity—the sanctification of men and the establishment of dogmas—is given only at the end, and here again not in the form of a definition, but in the form of a description and subdivision. And thus, without giving a definition of the church which would correspond to reality, the Theology says:
“In order that this exposition may be as detailed as possible, we shall view the church: (1) from the more external side, namely, from the side of its origin, dissemination, and purpose; (2) from a more internal side (‘more’—for it is impossible entirely to separate the internal from the external side of the church), and we shall speak of the composition and internal structure of the church; (3) finally, ​as a consequence from everything which has been said, we shall give an exact idea about the essence itself of the church and of its essential properties.” (p. 191.)
167. Here the Theology speaks of the establishment of the church by our Lord Jesus Christ. It is proved that the church, according to the definition of the Theology,—as men who believe in Christ,—was established by Jesus Christ. In this article it is proved that Jesus Christ wished that men, having accepted the new faith, should not maintain it separated from each other, but should form for this purpose a separate religious society.
“The desire to form one society out of his followers, the Saviour has frequently expressed, for example, (a) after the Apostle Peter, in the name of all the apostles, professed him as the Son of God: Upon this rock, that is, on this confession, our Lord then said to us, will I build. my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it (Matt. xvi. 18); (b) in the parable of the good shepherd, in these words: I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine. And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd (John x. 14, 16); (c) in the prayer to the Heavenly Father: That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us (John xvii. 20, 21). With the idea of founding his kingdom of grace upon earth he began his first. sermon to men, as the Evangelist Matthew tells us: From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand (Matt. iv. 17). With the same sermon the Lord sent his disciples out among the Jews: Go, he said to them, to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And as ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand (Matt. x. 6-8). And how often he spoke to men about this kingdom of God, both in parables ​and not in parables! (Matt. xiii. 24, 44-47; xxii. 2; xxv. 1; Luke viii. 10, and elsewhere).” (p. 192.)
All that so far only tells us that Christ wanted to disseminate his teaching,—the teaching about the kingdom of heaven. So far nothing contradicts the meaning which the Theology ascribes to the church. All believers in Christ naturally had to unite in faith in Christ. But after that the Theology says:
“(2) What Christ intended to do, that he accomplished. He himself laid the foundation for his church, when he chose his twelve disciples, who, believing in him and being under his power, formed one society under one head (John xvii. 13) and formed his first church; when, on the other hand, he himself arranged everything necessary in order to form a definite society out of his followers, namely: (a) he established the order of the teachers who were to disseminate his faith among the nations (Eph. iv. 11, 12); (b) he established the sacrament of the baptism, in order to receive into that society all those who believed in him (Matt. xxviii. 19; John iii. 22; iv. 1; Mark xvi. 16); (c) the sacrament of the eucharist, for the closer union of the members of the society among themselves and with him, as the head (Matt. xxvi. 26-28; Mark xiv. 22-24; Luke xxii. 19, 20; 1 Cor. xii. 23-26); (d) the sacrament of repentance, for the reconciliation and new union with him and with the church of those members who violate his laws and decrees (Matt. xxviii. 15-18), as also all other sacraments (Matt. xviii. 18; xxviii. 19; xix. 4-6; Mark vi. 13, and elsewhere). For that reason the Lord spoke in the days of his public service about his church as already existing (Matt. xviii. 17).” (p. 193.)
Here with the words “definite society” begins the obvious departure from the given meaning of the church, and there is introduced an entirely different idea of the church than as being a union of believers. Here the Theology is apparently speaking of the teaching church, of ​which nothing has as yet been said. It says that Christ appointed teachers for the dissemination of his faith among the nations, although the idea of the teaching church does not enter into the definition of the church as being a union of believers. Still less do the sacraments enter into that definition: both define the church of the chosen among the believers. But let us suppose that the Theology is not sticking closely to its definition, that it expounds the teaching about that exclusive church which has the power to teach and impart the mysteries. Let us see what it is based upon. It says that Christ himself established the church with its teachers and with the sacraments of the baptism, eucharist, and repentance, and the texts are referred to, but not quoted. Here are the texts:
“And now come I to thee; and these things I speak in the world, that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves (John xvii. 13).” This is adduced as a proof that Christ established the one society, the church. It is evident that the text has nothing in common with the establishment of the church.
“And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ (Eph. iv. 11-12).” These words of Paul, who did not even know Christ, are ascribed to Christ. The other texts have been quoted, but striking is the text which proves that Christ established the sacrament of repentance:
“And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth (Matt. xxviii. 18).”
On this passage the Theology bases the establishment of the sacraments by Christ, without considering that all that is said here is that (according to an incorrect interpretation of the Theology, which will be examined later) ​Christ transfers his power to the apostles. But it does not say wherein this power is to consist. Consequently any false teaching may with equal right be based upon these words. But, having picked out these quasi-confirmatory texts, the Theology in the end corrects itself and admits that in the time of Christ there did not yet exist a church with sacraments and teachers. In these discussions the Theology already prepares the reader for that substitution for the conception of the church as a union of all believers of the conception of a teaching and sacramental church.
In the following discussion the church is mentioned no longer in the sense in which it was mentioned before, as being a union of all believers, but as an exclusive church, separate in its structure and in its rights from all the other believers.
“(3) Having received power from above (Luke xxiv. 45), the holy apostles, after receiving the divine message, went forth, and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word with signs following (Mark xvi. 20), and (a) from the believers in various places tried to form societies which they called churches (1 Cor. i. 2; xvi. 19); (b) enjoined these believers to have gatherings in which to hear the word of God and send up prayers in common (Acts ii. 42, 46; xx. 7); (c) exhorted them to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace, presenting to them that they formed one body of the Lord Jesus, of whom they were but members in particular, and had one Lord, one faith, one baptism (Eph. iv. 3, 4; 1 Cor. xii. 27), and were all partakers of the one bread (1 Cor. x. 17), that is, had everything for their internal as well as their external union; (d) finally, they were commanded not to forsake their assemblings, under the penalty of expulsion from the church and eternal perdition (Heb. x. 24, 25). Thus, with the will and coöperation of the Saviour, who himself immediately put ​down the foundation of his church, it was then planted in all the corners of the world.” (p. 194.)
It says that the church was not one, but that there were many separate churches. It says that they were all one body of Christ, but that at the same time there was one church, from which were expelled those who left the assemblings. What kind of a church it was that expelled members it does not say. Thus, it is evident that the Theology no longer is treating about the church which it defined before, but some other church, of which the definition is not given. In the proper place I will show how incorrectly the Theology makes use of the texts of the Gospel, in order to confirm its statements. In the next article it becomes apparent that there is no longer any mention of the church as a union of all the believers in Christ, but of some other kind of a church.
168. The extension of the church of Christ: who belongs to this church, and who does not belong to it.
In this article the proof is brought that to this still undefined church belong all the Orthodox believers. But it does not say who decides the question of Orthodoxy and un-Orthodoxy. At the same time there is a detailed definition of who these un-Orthodox believers are. That is discussed on ten pages. This discussion about the heretics and dissenters, who are excluded from the Orthodox Church, which is not yet defined, is remarkable:
“In order to judge correctly in respect to the propositions disclosed by us as to the heretics and dissenters, it is necessary to know what heresy and what dissent is, and what kind of heretics are meant here. About heresy and dissent we receive the following ideas from the ancient teachers of the church: (a) From Basil the Great: ‘The ancients understood one thing by heresy, another by dissent, and still another thing by arbitrary concourse. They called heretics those who fell off and became es​tranged from faith; dissenters—those who differed in opinion in regard to certain church subjects and questions which admitted of healing; but arbitrary concourses—meetings formed by disobedient presbyters and bishops and the ignorant people;’ (b) from St. Jerome: ‘Between heresy and dissent there is, in my opinion, this difference, that heresy consists in the subversion of the dogma, while a dissent similarly expels from the church on account of a disagreement with the bishop (propter episcopacem dissensionem). Consequently these two things may in certain relations appear different by their origin; but in reality there is no dissent which has not something common with some heresy in its revolt against the church.’” (p. 202.)
Why not tell the truth? The following words are not merely remarkable, but simply disgusting:
​That is, lie before God, and we will not excommunicate you; but seek the truth and dare not to agree with us, and we will curse you. The church, in the sense in which the Theology takes it, consists in all the believers in Christ, and this church separates the heretics and excommunicates them.
169. The aim of the church is the sanctification of sinners “The church is ordained and therefore obliged: (a) to preserve the precious pledge of the saving faith (1 Tim. vi. 20; 2 Tim. i. 12-14) and to disseminate the teaching of that faith among the nations; (b) to keep and use for the good of men the divine mysteries and sacraments in general; (c) to preserve its government as established by God and to make use of it in conformity with the intention of the Lord.” (p. 206.)
The church is understood as all those who believe in Christ, and yet it speaks of the church as having to perform sacraments, and govern. It is evident that all the believers are not able to perform the sacraments and rule themselves, and so the Theology by the word “church” understands something different, which it puts in the place of the first definition of the church. Farther on it says:
170. Outside the church there is no salvation, and the proof is given that it is necessary to belong to the church. This is asserted in the following way:
“(1) The faith in Jesus Christ who reconciled us with God: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved (Acts iv. 12), and even before that the Saviour said: He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life; and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him (John iii. 36). But the true teaching of Christ and about Christ is preserved and preached only in his church and by his church, without which there cannot be a true faith (Rom. x. 17).” (pp. 206 and 207.)
​Thus the faith in Christ is no longer merely a definition of the church, but it turns out that in the place of the belief in Christ is put the belief in the church.
“(2) The participation in the holy sacraments, whereby are given unto us all divine powers that pertain unto life and godliness (2 Pet. i. 3).” (p. 207.) And—
“(3) Finally, the last, a good, godly life.”
The proofs for all that:
“Outside the church there is no hearing, no comprehension of the Word of God; there is no true divine worship; Christ is not found; the Holy Ghost is not communicated; the death of the Saviour does not furnish salvation; there is not the feast of the body of Christ; there is no fruitful prayer; there can be no works of salvation, nor true martyrdom, nor exalted virginity and purity, nor fasting salutary for the soul, nor the benevolence of God. (2) In the church, on the contrary, there is the benevolence and grace of God; in the church abides the triune God; in the church is the knowledge of truth, the knowledge of God and of Christ, and a superabundance of spiritual benefits; in the church are the true saving dogmas, the true faith as derived from the apostles, true love, and the straight path of life.” (pp. 209 and 210.)
Everything has been said about the church that the Theology has to say. It was said that it was founded by Christ; it was determined who belonged to it, and who not; its aims and means have been mentioned; it was said that it is necessary to belong to it in order to obtain salvation, but the church itself has not yet been defined. All that was said was that its meaning is—all the believers in Christ, but with this proviso, that the church is composed by those who believe in Christ precisely as the church teaches them to believe in him, that is, the meaning of the church is now modified to mean: all those who believe in the church. But what this church itself is, which sanctifies men and establishes dogmas, has not ​yet been determined. Only in the 2d Division, in Art. 171, this mysterious church at last gets, not a definition, but a description, from which, at last, we can deduce its definition, which corresponds to its activity,—the sanctification and the establishment of dogmas.
“171. Having determined the extent of his church, having pointed out to it its aim, and having given it the proper means for the attainment of that aim, the Lord Jesus gave it at the same time a definite structure, by which the attainment of this aim is secured and made easy. The organization of the church consists in this: (a) according to its composition, it is divided into two essential parts: the congregation and the divinely established hierarchy, which are placed in a certain relation to each other; (b) the hierarchy is subdivided into its three essential degrees, which are distinct from each other and are connected among themselves; (c) the congregation and the hierarchy are subject to the supreme judgment of the councils, and (d) last, the whole harmonious body of the church, which is formed from so many different and wisely apportioned members, has its only head in the Lord Jesus Christ himself, who vivifies it with his Holy Ghost.” (pp. 210 and 211.)
Only now do we at last get a definition of what the church is which has been talked about all the time, the same that is to sanctify men, the same that has uttered all the dogmas which have been expounded heretofore. I do not yet protest against this, that the establishment of the church which has determined all the dogmas is one and holy and has Christ for its head, and that it is not possible to find salvation outside it, but I should like first the subject uttered, and then the predicate; I should like first to know what they are talking about that is holy and one and has Christ for its head, and then only that it is holy, and so forth. But in the exposition of the Theology the reverse order has been observed. All the time it spoke ​of the unity, holiness, infallibility of the church and expounded its teaching, and only now it says what it is. Only now it becomes clear from Art. 171 what that church is which sanctifies men through sacraments, and which, amidst false dogmas, establishes those that are true. It says that the church is divided into a hierarchy and the congregation. The hierarchy sanctifies and teaches, the flock is sanctified, ruled, and taught by the hierarchy. It must obey, consequently it is only the hierarchy that sanctifies and establishes dogmas, and so the hierarchy alone answers that definition of the church, from which results its activity of the sanctification and of the establishment of the dogmas, and so the hierarchy alone is holy and infallible, and only the hierarchy answers completely to that which has all the time been mentioned under the name of the church. In Art. 173, it says that the pastors must teach the flock, must perform the sacraments for it, and must govern it, and that the flock must obey.
“St. Gregory the Divine says: ‘As in the body some parts govern and, as it were, preside, while the other parts are under their rule and dominion, even so it is in the churches. God has decreed that some, for whom this is more useful, should by word and deed be directed to the performance of their duties, should remain herded and under rule, while others, standing above the rest in virtue and nearness to God, should be pastors and teachers for the perfecting of the church, and should have the same relation to others that the soul has to the body, and the mind to the soul, so that one and the other, the defective and the superabundant, being like the members of the body, united and joined into one composition, bound and coupled with the Spirit, may represent one body, perfect and truly worthy of Christ our head. For that reason the societies of the Christians, who of their own will departed from their obedience to the bishop and the presbyters, ​were regarded by the ancient teachers of the church as unworthy of the name of the church, and were called heretical, a rabble of apostates, evil-thinking, harmful, and so forth.’” (p. 217.)
The church, the one upon which the whole teaching is based, is the hierarchy. The Theology before that expounded about the one church, the kingdom of grace, the body of Christ, the church of the living and the dead and the angels; then of all those who believed in Christ; then by degrees it added to this first definition another concept; then at last the hierarchy is substituted for that church. The Theology knows very well that according to its conception the church is nothing but the hierarchy, and sometimes it says so, as in the Introduction to the Dogmatic Theology, as in the expressions of the Eastern Patriarchs, as always in the expressions of the Catholic Church; but the Theology has at the same time to confirm its definition that the church is an assembly of all the believers, and so it does not like to say directly that the church is the hierarchy. The Theology knows that the essence of the matter is the infallibility and sacredness of the hierarchy, and so it has to prove first that the hierarchy was established by Christ, and that the Theology is an exposition of the dogmas as confirmed by that same hierarchy. All that is necessary is to prove that the hereditary hierarchy was established by Christ, and that we are the inheritors of this hierarchy, and then, no matter how you may understand it, the church, the essence of the church, as the keeper of truth, will be nothing but hierarchs. For that reason the Theology uses all its efforts to prove the impossible, namely, that Christ established the hierarchy, and a hereditary one at that, and that our hierarchy is the legitimate heir, and such and such a hierarchy, not ours, is illegitimate.
172. The flock and the divinely established hierarchy with their mutual relations. “I. It is not difficult to ​show, in spite of the opinion of certain evil-thinking men, that the division of the church into the two abovementioned classes has its origin with the Saviour himself. Unquestionably the Lord himself founded in his church a special order of men, who formed the hierarchy, and empowered those men, and only those, to make use of those means which he gave to the church for its purposes, that is, he empowered them to be teachers, ministers of the sacraments, and spiritual guides, and in no way left it indiscriminately to all the believers, having, on the contrary, enjoined them to obey the pastors.” (p. 211.)
“The Protestants, who do not acknowledge that Christ established in the church a special priesthood, or hierarchy, affirm that all the believers, by force of the sacrament of the baptism, are equally priests of the most high God; but as it is impossible for all to perform the duties of priesthood, the believers choose from their own midst special men as their representatives, whom they clothe in the rights of priesthood.”
In the above quotation it says that a large part of Christendom, the Protestants, do not recognize the hierarchy. This proof is very important, for the whole. teaching of the church has been reduced to the doctrine about the hierarchy. It turns out that Christians who are not worse or more stupid than we directly deny according to Scripture what we assert, that is, the hierarchy. Here is the way the Theology proves the establishment of the hierarchy by God. I cite the following places from the Theology, which are supposed to prove the establishment of the hierarchy by Christ. I quote every one of them, not in order to refute them, for any one who reads them will see how useless that is, but in order to present all the proofs of the church in favour of the hierarchy.
“(1) As we read the Gospel, which contains in itself the history of the life and words of our Saviour, we see: ​(a) that he chose from among his followers twelve disciples whom he called apostles: And when it was day, says St. Luke, he called unto him his disciples: and of them he chose twelve, whom also he named apostles (Luke vi. 13), and so he said to them: Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you (John xv. 16).” (p. 211.) That is the first proof. Christ chose twelve apostles. Apostle means messenger in Greek, and so it says that Christ chose twelve messengers. If he had chosen seventeen, he would have sent seventeen messengers. The Theology adduces that as a proof that the hierarchy was established by Christ. To that are added the words: Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you. These words were said in the chapter of the farewell speech, where Christ spoke of his love for his disciples, and have nothing in common with the passages in connection with which they are quoted, and still less with the establishment of the hierarchy.
Second proof: “(b) That to them alone he gave the command and the power to teach all the nations, to perform the holy sacraments for them and to direct the believers to salvation (Matt. xxviii. 19; xviii. 18; Luke xxii. 19).”
The verses are not cited. Here they are: Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost (Matt. xxviii. 19). Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven (Matt. xviii. 18). And he took bread and gave thanks, and brake it, and gave unto them, saying, This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me (Luke xxii. 19).
The Theology gives only the number of the verses, but does not quote the passages themselves, knowing that the verses do not confirm the statement that Christ gave to ​anybody a special right to teach the nations. There is nothing there about the power, and nothing about the sacraments. Something is said about baptizing, but it does not say that the breaking of the bread is a sacrament, or that these actions are left in charge of the hierarchy. One cannot help observing the strange phenomenon that continually exactly the same obscure texts are chosen to prove all kinds of theses: such are the texts Matt. xxviii. 19, Luke xxii. 19, John xx. 23, and several others. These texts are repeated a hundred times. On them is based the Trinity, and the divinity of Christ, and the redemption, and the sacraments, and the hierarchy. That is all about the second proof.
Third proof: “(e) That he transferred the power to the holy apostles just as he received it from the Father: All power is given unto me . . .; go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost (Matt. xxviii. 18, 19); as my father hath sent me, even so send I you. And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost: whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained (John xx. 21-23).” (p. 212.)
In order to confirm the power which is supposed to be transferred, the texts are tampered with here. The text is quoted as, “All power is given unto me . . .; go ye,” and so forth. The real text runs like this: “All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. (Period.) Go ye therefore, and teach all nations.” Considering the period, it cannot be said that he gave the power; but with the several dots and by omitting “in heaven,” which cannot refer to the disciples, it is possible to interpret it as that he gave the power to the disciples. The text from John does not say anything about the hierarchy or about the power; all it says is that Christ gave the ​Holy Ghost to his disciples and commanded them to teach men, that is to deliver them from sin, as it is correctly translated; but even if it be translated by “remit the sins,” the hierarchy does not in any way result from the remission of the sins.
Fourth proof: “(d) That to these twelve he immediately added seventy definite disciples, whom he sent out on the same great work. (Luke x. 1, et seq.)” (p. 212.)
The fact that Christ sent out, at first twelve messengers, and then seventy more men, whom he ordered, like pilgrims, without a supply of clothing, without money, to visit the cities and villages, is regarded as a proof that the ruling hierarchy of the present day derives its origin by heredity from Christ. Those are all the proofs that Christ himself established the hierarchy. Everything that could possibly be adduced, has been adduced. In the opinion of the Theology, the quotations with their tampered texts confirm the establishment of the hierarchy. No other proofs could be found. After that follow proofs that later this power was transferred from the apostles to the fathers of the church, and then to the hierarchy which came after them. This is the way the transmission is proved:
“(e) That transmitting his heavenly message to the twelve disciples, he wanted it to pass from them directly to their successors, and from these, passing from generation to generation, to be kept in the world to the end of the world itself. For, when he said to the apostles, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature (Mark xvi. 15), he immediately added, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world (Matt. xxviii. 20). Consequently he, in the person of the apostles, sent out for the same work and encouraged by his presence all their future successors, and in the literal sense gave the church not only apostles, prophets, and evangelists, but also pastors and teachers (Eph. iv. 11).” (p. 212.)
​Here again the texts are changed in order to bring forward a specious proof. It does not follow from anything that after the words, “Preach the gospel to every creature,” he said “immediately” afterward, “I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.” Nor can it in any way be said that one passage follows immediately after the other, since one thing is said by one evangelist, Mark, while the other is said by Matthew. Mark says: “Go into all the world, and preach the gospel,” which has no meaning of any transmission; but the words, “I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world, Amen,” are the concluding words of the Gospel of Matthew, and therefore can by no means signify that hel wanted to transmit the power to them. But even if that meant what the Theology wants it to mean, there is nothing to warrant the assertion that he encouraged with his presence all their future successors. That cannot be argued out of anything.
Here is the second proof of the succession:
“(f) Finally, that, having in this manner clothed his apostles with divine power, he, on the other hand, very clearly and with terrible curses compelled all men and the future Christians to receive the teaching and the sacraments from the future apostles, and to obey their words: He that heareth you, heareth me; and he that despiseth you, despiseth me; and he that despiseth me, despiseth him that sent me (Luke x. 16); Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned (Mark xvi. 15, 16; cf. Matt. x. 14; xviii. 15-19).” (p. 212.)
I do not leave out a single word. And that is given out as a proof not only of the establishment of the hierarchy, but also of the succession, and it says:
“And that is why, even when the Lord ascended to heaven, Matthias was, by his indication, added to the ​eleven apostles, in the place of Judas (Acts i. 26); and only by the voice of the Holy Ghost were Barnabas and Saul separated for the work whereunto our Redeemer had called them (Acts xiii. 2; cf. ix. 15).” (p. 212.)
This last proof, the meaning of which I absolutely fail to make out, contains the first part of the proofs as to why the hierarchy is to be considered as founded by Christ.
After that follow proofs from the Acts and the Epistles. One would think that here it would be easier to find texts which might confirm the divine origin of the hierarchy, but again the same takes place. It turns out that in all the texts, quoted and not quoted, there is nowhere a word about those rights (as though it were a legal establishment) which the Theology proclaims from the very first words.
“(2) Still more clearly is this intention of the Lord seen in the actions of the apostles who were guided by his Spirit. These actions are of two kinds and both equally refer to the confirmation of the truth under discussion. The actions of the first kind are the following: (a) the holy apostles constantly asserted their right and carried out the obligations which the Lord had enjoined on them (Acts v. 42; vi. 1-5; 1 Cor. iv. 1; v. 4-5; ix. 16), in spite of all obstacles on the part of the enemies who tried to take that divine power from them (Acts iv. 19; v. 28-29).” (pp. 212 and 213.)
These references to the apostles and especially to the Acts are remarkable. The author does not write them out, because he knows that, if anything at all is to be deduced from them, it is the very opposite of what he is trying to prove. Every passage where Christ’s disciples preach his teaching is adduced as a proof that the hierarchy was established; for example, in Acts iv. 19, Peter and John said: “Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye.” ​The other references are of the same kind. Thus it goes on for two pages, from which it is clear, to any one who has read even a short Seminary history of the church, that no one at any time, during the first centuries of Christianity, ascribed any especial rights or power to himself. Elders (presbyters, bishops, overseers) were appointed, and all those appellations meant one and the same thing, and were a human institution, which was diversified according to men and places. All that is evident from the texts which are quoted by the Theology itself.
After that follows the third part of the proofs, in which it says directly in the name of the holy fathers that this power was given to the hierarchy by Christ himself. But here we get the proofs only of the fact that those men who ascribed the power to themselves asserted quite arbitrarily that the power had passed to them from God, that is, what now our, and any other, hierarchy asserts at the present time. Here it says:
“(b) The pastors, who formed that special class, always deduced their power from Jesus Christ himself and called themselves the successors of the apostles and the representatives in the church of the Saviour himself. Here, for example, are the words of Clement of Rome: ‘Having received a full foreknowledge, the apostles appointed the above-mentioned men (that is, bishops and deacons) and at the same time handed down the rule that when they deceased other experienced men should take up their ministry.’ St. Ignatius Theophorus: ‘Bishops are appointed in all the corners of the world, by the will of Jesus Christ.’ St. Irenaus: ‘We can name those whom the apostles have placed as bishops and their successors over the churches down to our time, but they taught nothing of the kind and knew nothing of what the heretics have invented. For, if the apostles knew the secrets, which they revealed only to the perfect, and to no other, they ​so much the more certainly revealed them to those to whom they entrusted the churches themselves: for the apostles wished that those whom they left as their successors, transmitting to them their own ministration of the teaching, should be quite perfect and without a blemish in every respect.’ St. Cyprian: ‘We are the successors of the apostles, ruling the church of God by the same power.’ St. Ambrose: ‘The bishop represents in his person Jesus Christ and is the vicegerent of the Lord.’ St. Jerome: ‘With us the place of the apostles is occupied by the bishops.’” (pp. 214 and 215.)
Having armed itself with these proofs, that is, with the barren assertions of those men who appropriated to themselves the divine power, that this power had been transferred to them from God, the Theology now gives the direct definition of the church, a part of which (namely, the words of Gregory the Divine) I have quoted before. After that it says (from p. 217-229) that there are three degrees of the ecclesiastic hierarchy: the episcopal, the presbyteral, and the diaconal; but, it is necessary to remark that there are no more of them. The utterances of the fathers of the church confirm that:
“Clement of Alexandria: ‘The degrees of bishops, presbyters, and deacons, which exist in the church, are, in my opinion, the representation of the angelic order.’ Origen: ‘Paul speaks to the rulers and chiefs of the churches, that is, to those who judge the people who are in the church, namely, to the bishops, presbyters, and deacons.’ Eusebius of Casaria: ‘Three orders: the first of the presiding officers, the second of the presbyters, the third of the deacons.’” (p. 223.)
174. There is a detailed description of the different orders of the spiritual persons among themselves and in relation to their flocks.
“The bishop is the chief overseer in his own particular church (Acts xx. 28; cf. Epistle of the Eastern Patriarchs ​about the Orthodox faith, section 10). First of all he has the power over the hierarchy under his rule and over the clergy. All priests and servants of the church are obliged to obey his injunctions, and without his permission nothing is done in the church; all are subject to his surveillance and judgment (1 Tim. v. 19), in consequence of which he may subject them to various punishments. In addition to the clergy, the whole flock which is entrusted to his care is subject to the spiritual power of the bishop. He is under obligation to watch over the execution in his eparchy of the divine laws and church commandments. He has more especially and preeminently the right to bind and loose, according to the rules of the holy apostles, the holy councils, and according to the unanimous testimony of the ancient teachers of the church. For that reason the apostles so forcibly impressed all the believers with the necessity of obeying the bishops. The presbyters have also power to bind and loose, and in general to feed the flock of God which is entrusted to them (1 Peter v. 1, 2), but this power they receive from their archpastor by means of the sacramental ordination. Some chosen ones are, by the will of the bishop, admitted, in general to bear with him the burden of the church government and even form with him for that purpose a permanent council. But, according to an old expression, they only serve in the place of the bishop’s eyes and in themselves, without his consent, can do nothing. But the deacons have not received from the Lord the right to bind and loose, and so in themselves do not have any spiritual power over the believers. But the deacons may be the eye and the ear of the bishops and presbyters, as also the hands of the presiding officers, with their consent, for the purpose of performing ecclesiastic duties.
“After all which has been said, we find quite comprehensible the high names and expressions which are applied to the bishops, such as that they are alone, in the ​strict sense, the successors of the apostles, that the church is resting firmly on its bishops, as on supports; that a bishop is ‘a living image of God on earth, and, by force of the sacramental power of the Holy Ghost, a prolific source of all the sacraments of the church, by means of which he procures salvation; and so he is as necessary for the church as breathing is for man, as the sun is for the world’ (Epistle of the Eastern Patriarchs, Section 10); that in the bishops is the centre of the believers who belong to his eparchy; that he is even the particular head of his spiritual realm; that, finally, as Cyprian says, ‘the bishop is in the church, and the church (which is subject to him) is in the bishop, and that he who is not in communion with the bishop is not in the church.’” (pp. 227-229.)
The pastors of various degrees, united among themselves, decide, and the people have to obey, and all that which is called the church not merely as an ornament of speech, but in reality, that is, that organ which expresses the faith which men must follow,—that church is the bishops.
175. This article shows that the church is the bishops, and that the higher power above them is an assembly of all the bishops, which is called a council, that is, of several bishops. In this article there is a very detailed account, such as is given in the Statute about the justices of the peace, about the relations of all these persons among themselves:
“From this may be seen, without any new proofs, that the right to sit in councils, both local and ecumenical, and the right to pass on ecclesiastical matters belong exclusively to the bishops as the heads of the separate churches; and the presbyters, who in everything depend on their local arch pastors, may be admitted to the councils only by their consent, and then only as counsellors, or assistants, or their plenipotentiaries, and may occupy only ​the second place. Even so may be admitted the deacons, who must stand before the face of the bishops. For this reason the councils were by the holy fathers of the church generally called assemblies of the bishops. The Second Ecumenical Council called the Symbol of Faith which was composed at the first council, ‘the faith of 318 holy fathers’ (for that was the number of bishops present at that council); the council in Trullo called the definitions of faith of all the previous cecumenical councils ‘profession or faith of the holy fathers, the bishops, according to the number of those who met at these councils.’” (p. 231.)
Then comes Art. 176, in which we have an exposition of Christ’s being the head of the church. That is apparent (1) from the fact that Christ before the ascension said, not to the church but to his disciples, “I am with you to the end of the world, Amen.” In the Theology, the following words are added to that: “and with all your future successors,” and that is taken as a proof that all those who call themselves the interpreters of Christ regard themselves as his successors.
“(2) From this fact in particular that, although he entrusted the power of teaching to the apostles and their successors, he told them to call him only the supreme teacher, who invisibly, through them, taught the believers (Matt. xxiii. 10), and so he said: He that heareth you heareth me; and he that despiseth you despiseth me (Luke x. 16).” (p. 232.)
This passage with its references is striking. I thought that nothing in the Theology would startle me, but the boldness with which this verse is quoted, and with which an opposite significance is given to it, is staggering. Here is the verse, or, rather, the whole passage: But be not ye called Rabbi: for one is your Master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren. And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven. ​Neither be ye called masters: for one is your Master, even Christ (Matt. xxiii. 8-10).
This very verse, these words, which are said directly against those who call themselves teachers, fathers, and masters,—this verse is connected with the verse (Luke x. 16), which has absolutely nothing in common with the first, and is adduced as a proof that those very teachers, who call themselves so against the command of Christ, have Christ as their head. After that follow proofs that (Art. 177) the church is One, (179) Holy, (180) Catholic and Universal, and (181) Apostolic.
In Division III., about the Universal Church, it says:
“III. The special privilege of the Catholic, or Universal, Church consists in this, that in matters of faith ‘it cannot err in any way, nor deceive, nor be deceived; but, like Divine Scripture, it is infallible and has eternal dignity’ (Epistle of the Eastern Patriarchs, Section 12), a privilege of which enough has been said by us in the proper place.”
The moral application of this dogma for the first time results directly from the dogma. The application of the dogma consists in obeying the church.
“(1) The Lord Jesus founded his church that it might regenerate men and educate them for eternal life; and so our relation to it has to be that of children to their mother; we are obliged to love the church of Christ as our spiritual mother and to obey it in everything as our spiritual mother. In particular our Lord Jesus: (2) enjoined the church to keep and teach to men its divine doctrine; it is our duty to receive this teaching from the mouth of the God-given church, and to understand it precisely as the church, which is instructed by the Holy Ghost, understands it; (3) he entrusted to the church the performance of mysteries and, in general, sacraments for the sanctification of men; it is our duty in awe to make use of the saving mysteries and all the other sacraments, which it performs over us; (4) he entrusted the church ​with the guidance of men and with confirming them in their godly lives; it is our duty without murmuring to submit to the inspiration of such a guide and holily to execute all the commands of the church; (5) he himself established the hierarchy and priestly order in the church, pointed out the difference between the flock and the pastors, and showed each a definite place and service; it is the duty of all the members of the church, of the pastors and the flock, to be that which they are called to be, and to keep well in mind that we have gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us (Rom. xii. 6), and that to every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ (Eph. iv. 7).” (p. 246.)
So that is what the church is as an establishment, as a keeper and announcer of truths, of dogmas! That on which the whole Theology is based is a self-constituted hierarchy and, in distinction from all others, a hierarchy which regards itself alone as holy and infallible and as being the only one that has the right to preach the divine revelation. Thus the whole doctrine of the church, as the Theology teaches it, is all based on establishing the conception of the church as the only true keeper of divine truth, in order to substitute for this conception that of a certain, definite hierarchy, that is, to connect a human institution, the outgrowth of pride, malice, and hatred, which utters dogmas and instructs the flock only in that teaching which it alone regards as true, with the conception of the assembly of all believers who have invisibly at their head Christ himself,—the mystical body of Christ. To that the whole teaching of the Theology reduces itself.
This teaching asserts that the only, true church,—the body of Christ, is it alone. The train of thought is as follows: Having collected the disciples, God revealed the truth to them and promised to be with them. That truth ​is complete and divine. The truth which we preach is the same truth. Even leaving out of discussion the fact that for every man who has read Holy Scripture and who has seen the arguments which the Theology adduces in proof, it is evident that Christ never established any hierarchy, any church, in the sense in which the Theology understands it; leaving out of consideration that for every one who reads history it is evident that many men have imagined themselves to be such churches, while they contended with one another and did one another harm,—there involuntarily rises the question: on what grounds does our hierarchy consider itself to be the true one, and the other hierarchies and assemblies not to be true? Why is the Nicene symbol an expression of the true, holy church, and why not the Arian symbol, which our hierarchy has been contending against, for were not the bishops, partisans of Arius, as much ordained by succession from the apostles as the partisans of the Nicene symbol? And if this ordainment does not save men from error, why is our church the keeper of truth, and not of untruth? The Theology does not even make an attempt at answering this, for by its doctrine it cannot give any answer, since subjects that are arbitrarily passed upon cannot be proved, and so the hierarchy says only that it is right because it is holy and infallible, and it is holy and infallible, because it is a follower of the hierarchy which has acknowledged the Nicene symbol. But why is the hierarchy which has acknowledged the Nicene symbol the true one? To that there is, and there can be, no answer, so that the recognition of the hierarchy, which calls itself the true, holy, only, universal and apostolic church, is only an expression of a demand that faith should be put in it, an assertion like the one made by a man who says, “Upon my word, I am right.” But this assertion is particularly weakened by the fact that every assertion of the hierarchy about being holy is always due ​to this, that another hierarchy, which on some point disagrees with it, says precisely the opposite and asserts that it is right and to the words, “It is permitted to us and to the Holy Ghost,” replies that the Holy Ghost lives in it,—something like what happens when two men swear, denying each other.
All the theologians, no matter how much they may try to conceal it, speak and do nothing else. The church the union of all believers, the body of Christ is only an adornment of speech, in order to add importance to a human institution, the hierarchy and its assumed succession, upon which everything is built up. Remarkable and instructive in this respect are the attempts of the modern theologians, of Vinet and his followers, of Khomyakov and his scions, to find new supports for the teaching about the church, and to build up the definition of the church not on the hierarchy, but on the whole assembly of the believers, on the flock. These new theologians, without noticing it themselves, in their attempts to make stable the tree which is planted without roots, make it fall entirely. These theologians deny the hierarchy and prove the falseness of that foundation, and they think that they are giving it a different foundation. But, unfortunately, this other foundation is nothing but that sophism of theology, under which it tries to conceal the crudity of its doctrine about the church being the hierarchy. That sophism the new theologians take for a foundation and they completely overthrow the doctrine of the church, while they themselves are left with a most palpable sophism, but without a foundation.
Their error is like this: The church has received among believers two main meanings,—one, that the church is a human, temporal institution, and the other, that the church is the totality of men living and dead, who are united by one true faith. The first is a definite historical phenomenon: an assemblage of men subject to certain ​rules and regulations, and one from which statutes may issue. Whether I speak of the Catholic Church of such and such a year, or of the Roman, or Greek Orthodox Church, I am speaking of certain people,—the Pope, patriarchs, bishops,—who are organized in a certain manner and who in a certain way direct their flocks. The second is an abstract idea, and if I speak of the church in this sense, it is evident that attributes of time and place cannot be its definitions, and under no circumstance can there be definite decrees, expressed in definite words. The only definition of such a church, as the carrier of divine truth, is a correspondence with what is the divine truth.
The equating of these two conceptions to each other, and the substitution of one for the other, has always. formed a problem of all Christian confessions of faith. An assemblage of people, wishing to convince others that it possesses the absolute truth, asserts that it is holy and infallible. Its holiness and infallibility it builds on two foundations: on the manifestations of the Holy Ghost, which find their expression in the holiness of the members of that community and then in miracles, and on the legitimate succession of the teachership, which proceeds from Christ.
The first foundation does not stand criticism: holiness cannot be measured or proved; miracles are detected and proved deceptions, and so miracles cannot be adduced as proofs, so there is left but one proof, the correct succession of the hierarchy. That, too, cannot be proved, but equally it cannot be refuted, and so all the churches hold themselves on that foundation; on that argument alone do the churches at the present time hold themselves, and it is the only one on which they can hold themselves. If a Catholic, an Orthodox, an Old Ceremonialist, affirm that they have the truth, they can incontrovertibly base their assertions only on the infallibility of the succession of the keepers of the Tradition. The ​Catholic Church recognizes the Pope as the head of the hierarchy, and in its development inevitably had to acknowledge the infallibility of the Pope. The Greek Church could fail to recognize the Pope, but in not recognizing the necessity of that supreme member of the hierarchy, it could not help but recognize the infallibility of the hierarchy itself; even so the Protestant Church, in failing to recognize Catholicism during its decadence, could not help but recognize the infallibility of that hierarchy whose dogmas it recognizes, for without the infallibility of the succession of the keepers of the Tradition it would have no foundation for the assertion of its truth.
All the churches maintain themselves only by recognizing the infallibility of that hierarchy which they accept. You may not agree in saying that such and such a hierarchy is the only correct one, but when a man says that he accepts as true the hierarchy whose, dogmas he accepts, you cannot prove to him the incorrectness of his dogmas. That is the only indestructible foundation, and so all the churches cling to it. Now, the new theologians destroy this only foundation, thinking that they are substituting a better one for it. The new theologians say that divine truth is kept, not by the infallibility of the hierarchy, but in the totality of all believers who are united in love, and that only to men who are united in love is divine truth given, and that such a church is defined solely by faith and oneness in love and in concord. This reflection is good in itself, but, unfortunately, from it cannot be deduced a single one of the dogmas which the theologians profess.
The theologians forget that, in order to recognize a certain dogma, it was necessary to recognize Tradition to be holy and definitely expressed in the decrees of the infallible hierarchy. But by rejecting the infallibility of the hierarchy, it is impossible to affirm anything, and there is not a single proposition of the church which could unite ​all the believers. The affirmation of these theologians that they recognize those decrees which express the faith of all undivided Christians and reject all the arbitrary decrees of the separate Christians is quite incorrect, because there has never existed such a complete oneness of the Christians. Side by side with the Nicene symbol, there was an Arian symbol, and the Nicene symbol was not accepted by all, but only by one part of the hierarchy, and other Christians recognized that symbol only because. they recognized the infallibility of the hierarchy which expressed it, saying, “It pleased us and the Holy Ghost.” But there has never been a time when all the Christians agreed on anything, and the councils were assembled for the very purpose of getting in some manner away from the controversies about the dogmas, which divided the Christians.
Thus the oneness in love has, in the first place, never existed, and, in the second place, this oneness in love, by its very essence, cannot be expressed or defined in any way. The new theologians affirm that by church they understand the union of all the believers, the body of Christ, and by no means the infallible hierarchy and a human institution; but the moment they touch on matters of the church, it becomes evident that by church they understand, and must of necessity understand, a human institution. The cares of all these theologians, beginning with Luther, about the relation of church and state, prove conclusively that these theologians understand by church a still more debased human institution than is understood by the Catholics or the Orthodox. The church theologians are more consistent in their discussions. The church, according to their doctrine, is the bishops and the Pope; thus they speak, and so it is. The Pope and the bishops must, according to their teaching, stand at the head of all worldly institutions, and there can be no question about the relation of the church to the ​state. The church is always the head of everything. Among the Protestants there appears, in spite of the apparently high significance which they ascribe to the church, the question about the relations of church and state. They are all busy now separating or freeing the church from the oppression of the state, and all of them complain of the wretched condition of divine truth and of Christ at its head, who is in captivity under Bismarck, Gambetta, and so forth, but they forget that if the state can exert any influence on the church, it is evident that, in speaking of the church, we are speaking not of the divine truth which has Christ at its head, but of a human institution.
Men who believe in the teaching of the church cannot base their faith on anything but the legality, the regularity of the succession of the hierarchy. But the regularity and legality of the succession of the hierarchy cannot be proved in any way. No historical investigations can confirm it. On the contrary, historical investigations not only fail to confirm the regularity of any hierarchy, but show directly that Christ did not establish an infallible hierarchy, that in the first times it did not exist, that that system arose in the time of the decline of the Christian teaching, during the time of hatred and malice on account of some interpretation of dogmas, and that all the most varied Christian teachings have asserted just as positively their rights in the regularity of the succession in their church, and have denied that regularity in others, so that the whole doctrine of the Theology, which in regard to the church is not verified in any respect, comes down for me to the desire of certain persons to advance, in opposition to other teachings (which have just such pretensions and which with just as much right assert that they are in the right), their own teaching as the only one which is true and holy.
So far I have not seen in this teaching anything true ​and holy, and not even anything rational and good. The attempts of these theologians, especially of our Khomyakóv, to overthrow the foundation of the church, the infallibility of the hierarchy, and to put in its place the mystical conception of all the believers who are united in love, is the last convulsion of this church teaching, a support which brings the whole structure to its fall. Indeed, a remarkable quid pro quo takes place here. To conceal its crude assertion that the church is the infallible hierarchy, the Theology cloaks itself with false definitions of the church in the sense of an assemblage of all the believers. The new theologians grasp this external and false definition and, imagining that they are basing their church upon it, destroy the one essential support of the church, the infallibility of the hierarchy. Indeed, for any one who does not even wish to trouble himself to investigate the arguments of the church about the infallibility of the hierarchy, it is sufficient to read all that which the Protestant literature has worked out in this respect. The foundation of the infallibility of the hierarchy is destroyed in the name of the foundation of the church as an assemblage of believers united in love. However, an assemblage of believers united in love can, obviously, not define any dogma, or a Nicene symbol, as Khomyakóv and other theologians believe.
XIV.
Section II. Of divine grace as a force with which the Lord sanctifies us. This whole division expounds the Saviour’s special relation to men. Section I. expounded the conception of the church, that instrument by which the human race is saved; now, it would seem, ought to be expounded those means by which men are saved, but that will be expounded in Section III. This 2d section will expound wherein the salvation will actually consist. It is this doctrine that will be expounded in this section. This doctrine is called the doctrine about grace. What is meant by the word “grace”?
Art. 183 begins with various definitions of grace:
“1. Under the name of divine grace is in general understood all that which the Lord gives to all his creatures without any deserts on their parts (Rom. xi. 6; 1 Peter v. 10).”
That is the definition of grace. Then follow subdivisions.
“For that reason divine grace is divided into natural and supernatural. To natural grace belong all natural gifts of God to the creatures, such as, life, health, reason, freedom, external well-being, and so forth. To supernatural grace belong all gifts which are communicated by God to the creatures in a supernatural manner, in addition to the gifts of Nature, when, for example, he himself directly enlightens the mind of rational beings with the light of his truth, and strengthens their will with his power and cooperation in matters of godliness. This ​supernatural grace is divided into two species: into the grace of God the Creator, which he communicates to his moral creatures that abide in a condition of innocence; he communicated it to man before his fall, and even now imparts it to his good angels; and into the grace of God the Saviour, which he has given more properly to fallen man through Jesus and in Jesus Christ (Tit. iii. 4).” (p. 248.)
This latter subdivision is further subdivided into three parts: grace is divided into (1) the incarnation of Christ and the redemption; (2) extraordinary gifts for the advantage of the church, such as prophecy, miracles, and so forth, and (3)—
“Last, by grace is understood a special force, a special action of God, which is communicated to us on account of the deserts of our Redeemer, and which achieves our sanctification, that is, which, on the one hand, purifies us. from sin, renovates, and justifies us before God, and, on the other, confirms us and turns us back to virtue for eternal life. In this latter sense grace forms the proper subject of the dogmatic teaching about it.” (p. 249.)
This latter subdivision contains in it three more particular conceptions.
“(1) It is: (a) a special force, a special divine action in man, as is to be seen from the words of the Lord himself to the Apostle Paul: My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness, and then from the words of St. Paul: Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me (2 Cor. xii. 9). (b) It is given to us for nothing, on account of the deserts of Jesus Christ, as the same apostle teaches us: For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus (Rom. iii. 23, 24). (d) It is given to us for the sake of our sanctification, that is, for our purification and justification, ​for our success in godliness and salvation. That is confirmed by the following passages in Scripture: Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord, according as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue (1 Peter i. 2, 3), and so forth. This sanctifying grace is, for the greater clearness of its teaching, subdivided into two particular kinds. It is called external in so far as it acts upon man externally, through external means, such as, the Word of God, the preaching of the Gospel, miracles, and so forth; and internal, in so far as it acts directly in man himself, destroying the sins in him, enlightening his reason, exciting and directing his will toward the good. It is called temporary, when it produces special impressions upon a man’s soul and coöperates in his special good deeds; and constant, when it abides constantly in man’s soul and makes him righteous and pleasing before God. It is called premonitory, when it precedes each good deed and incites man to commit good deeds; and accompanying or coactive, when it accompanies each good deed. It is called sufficient, when it imparts to man sufficient force and convenience to act for his salvation, though it may not be accompanied by the action itself on the part of man; and real, when it is accompanied by the action itself and produces in man saving fruits.” (pp. 249 and 250.)
Thus there are in all fourteen different kinds of grace, and all those will be properly disclosed. All the contrary opinions will be refuted, and everything will, according to the usual method, be confirmed by Holy Scripture. In no part of the doctrine, so manifestly as in the doctrine about grace, will the remark be confirmed that the less the doctrine is necessary in order to explain the meaning of life to man and to guide him to union with God, the more has the church been talking about it, the less it is com​prehensible, and the more controversies, lies, malicious attacks, wars, and executions have taken place because of it, as we know from history. Indeed, what can be more remarkable, for uselessness, than this remarkable teaching about grace, about what, according to the definition of the Theology, is given by God to his creatures without the least desert on their part. One would think that according to this definition grace is the whole of life, everything, for everything is given to us by God without the least desert on our part, and that therefore the relation of man to grace is the relation of man to life. So it is, but since the Theology understands man’s relation to life in the most perverse manner, all the discussions about grace reduce themselves to the attempt to lower the meaning of life to a most monstrous and crude conception.
First it takes the account of the creation of man, in which Holy Scripture expresses in the person of Adam the relation of man’s freedom to grace, that is, to the external world. The whole account is taken by the Theology in the historical sense only. Adam fell, and the whole human race perished, and before Christ there was no relation of man’s freedom to grace, that is to life, there was no life, and men did not do wrong. Christ came and redeemed the whole human race, and then, speaking strictly, according to the teaching of the Theology, there was again destroyed the relation of man’s freedom to grace, to the external world, for according to the church teaching man became all holy and now does only what is good. But, as we know, nothing of the kind has ever happened, and the whole meaning of the Old Testament and Gospel teaching and of all moral and philosophical teachings consists only in finding a solution of the contradictions of good and evil, which are struggling in man. Although theology asserts that man after his redemption became entirely good, it knows that that is an untruth. It is not true that all men were bad before the redemption and ​became all good after that, and so the Theology sees that the question, as it stood before Adam,—whether to eat or not to eat the apple, and as it stands before us,—whether to live or not to live according to the teaching of Christ, is still standing before men, and so it was compelled to invent a doctrine by which the question of what man must do should be supplanted by the question of what he ought to confess and speak. And for that purpose is invented the teaching, at first, of the church, and now, of grace.
But, as we shall later see, this teaching about grace is insufficient, and there is invented another, a new teaching about faith, which is to cooperate in the obfuscation before people of the chief religious and moral question as to how men ought to live. It is impossible connectedly to render this teaching about grace in the manner in which it is expounded. The more you penetrate into it, the less you comprehend it. You read and fail to understand, not only what is being expounded, but even why it is all expounded. Only after reading the whole Theology through, after reading the chapter on the sacraments and on the mysteries, and recalling the contradiction with reality, which is put in the dogma of the redemption, is it possible, at last, to divine the cause which made them invent those strange aberrations, and to explain to ourselves that remarkable doctrine.
The explanation of the doctrine about grace I find to be as follows: the hierarchy (for exactness’ sake I will from now on use this word instead of the obscure “church”) teaches us that Christ redeemed the human race, destroyed sin, evil, death, diseases, and the unfruitfulness of the earth. In reality nothing of the kind has been destroyed; everything was left as of old. How, then, justify the unjustified assertion? In order to justify it, it is necessary to attach to the salvation of the human race by Christ another condition, without which this salvation cannot take place, so as ​to have the right to say that the redemption took place, but is not active, because men did not observe the condition with which alone it is active. That teaching is grace. The Theology says outright:
“Divine grace is necessary for the sanctification of sinful man in general, that is, in order that the sinner shall be able to come out from his sinful state, become a true Christian, and, in this manner, make his own the deserts of the Redeemer, or else be changed, purified, justified, renovated, and then abide in godliness and attain eternal salvation.” (p. 259.)
Thus the redemption became active only on condition that grace be obtained, and so the non-achievement of the redemption is explained by the absence of grace, and the whole aim of the believers is now directed toward obtaining grace, and grace is transmitted through the sacraments. This sanctification by sacraments, that is, the drawing of people toward sacerdotal rites, forms another cause for the teaching about grace. Thus the teaching about grace has two causes, one—logical, an explanation of the statement that the whole world has changed, whereas it has not, and the other—practical, the use of sacraments and mysteries as means for obtaining grace.
The doctrine about grace is, on the one hand, an inevitable result of a false premise that Christ by his redemption has changed the whole world, and, on the other, it is the foundation of those sacerdotal rites, which are necessary for the believers, in order to throw dust in their eyes, and for the hierarchy, in order that it may take advantage of its sacerdotal calling. This teaching about grace is in itself striking by its complexity, entanglement, and absolute barrenness of contents. If previously some parts of the teaching involuntarily reminded one of a man who pretended before a public to measure hundreds of yards of the imaginary hair of the Virgin, this teaching may be compared with the action of this man, who, after measuring ​the imaginary hairs, should make it appear that the hairs which he has measured out have become tangled and he is trying to unravel them. Besides, this teaching about grace, the purpose of which is to pull the wool over the eyes of the believers because of the non-achievement of the promise of redemption, and to increase the income of the clergy, bears in itself that terrible germ of immorality which has morally corrupted the generations that confess this teaching. If a man is going to believe in the deception that he can be cured from diseases by the grace of the chrism, or that he will be immortal if he receives the grace, or in the concealment of the fact that the earth continues to be unfruitful,—all these deceptions have been comparatively harmless, but the deception about man’s being always sinful and impotent and about the uselessness of his striving after good, if he does not acquire grace,—this teaching cuts down to the root everything which is best in human nature. The immorality of this teaching could not help but startle all the best men who have lived amidst this confession, and so against this side of the doctrine—about the relation of man’s freedom to grace—have risen the more honest men in the church itself, and so this question has been complicated by endless controversies, which until the present divided the different creeds.
In Art. 184 there is an exposition of these controversies about grace:
“The dogma about grace which sanctifies sinful man has been subject to very many mutilations on the part of the heterodox and heretics. I. Some of these have erred and still err, in a greater or lesser degree, as regards the necessity of grace for man. To these belong the Pelagians, Semi-Pelagians, Socinians, and rationalists. The Pelagians, who appeared in the beginning of the fifth century in the Western church, taught as follows: ‘Since Adam by his fall in no way impaired his nature and consequently his ​descendants are born without any natural corruption or original sin, they may by mere natural forces attain moral perfection and have no need for that purpose of any supernatural divine aid and force.' Against Pelagius and his followers first of all rose St. Augustine, who wrote very many works in refutal of them. There rose also many other pastors of the church, and both in the East and in the West there met in a short time more than twenty councils which unanimously condemned that heresy. The defenders of the truth unanimously maintained: (a) that man, who has fallen and is born in original sin, cannot in himself create any spiritual good without the aid of grace; (b) that by it are to be understood not merely the natural forces of man, the law of Moses, the teaching and example of Jesus Christ, external aids, but the supernatural power of God, which is inwardly communicated to man’s soul; (c) that this grace does not consist merely in the remission of former sins, but offers real assistance in keeping man from committing new ones; (d) it not only illuminates reason and imparts to it the knowledge of what is to be done and what avoided, but also gives it the strength to carry out what has been found good, and pours love into the heart; (e) it not only makes easier for us the execution of the divine commands, which we are supposed to perform by ourselves, though inconveniently so, but acts as an assistance, without which we are not able to execute the divine law and to do the good which coöperates in our salvation.
“At the present time the teaching of the Orthodox Church, as directed against the heresy of the Pelagians, may be seen in the three following rules of the Council at Carthage, which is accepted among the number of the nine local councils, and which met to refute Pelagius: ‘If any one says that divine grace, by which men are justified in Jesus Christ our Lord, is active only in the remission of sins already committed, but does not in addition to ​that furnish any assistance, unless new sins be committed: let such a one be anathema. For divine grace not only gives the knowledge of what is proper to do, but also inspires us with love, that we may be able to carry out what we know.’ ‘If any one says that the same divine grace, which is about Jesus Christ our Lord, aids us only in keeping us from sinning, since by it is revealed and manifested to us the knowledge of sins, so that we may know what to seek and what to avoid, but that by it are not given to us the love and the power of doing that which we have found good to do: let such a one be anathema. For both are the gifts of God, both the knowledge of what is proper to do, and the love of the good which it is proper to do.’ ‘If any one says that the grace of justification is given to us so that what may be performed by our free will may be more conveniently done through grace, for, without receiving divine grace, we have been able, though inconveniently, to perform the divine commandments: let such a one be anathema. For of the fruits of the commandments the Lord has not said: Without me you will do inconveniently, but he has said: Without me ye can do nothing.’”
That, according to the Theology, is the first error. The second error consists in this, that to some God has given grace and has preordained them to the judgment, while to others he has given grace and has preordained them to salvation. This is the way it has to be considered:
“We believe that the all-good God has preordained to glory those whom he has chosen from eternity; and whom he has rejected he has turned over to the judgment, not, however, because he wishes in this manner to justify some, and leave others and judge them without cause: for that is not characteristic of God, who is common to all, and is not a revengeful Father, who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth (1 Tim. ii. 4); since he foresaw that some will make ​good use of their free will, while others will not, he has preordained some to glory, and others he has condemned. Of the use of freedom we judge in the following manner: since divine goodness has given us the divine grace, which, like the light illuminating the path of those who walk in darkness, guides us all, those who wish freely to submit. to it (for it assists those who have it, and who do not oppose it) and to fulfil its commands, which are absolutely necessary for salvation, for that reason receive a special grace, which, coöperating with them and strengthening and constantly perfecting them in divine love, that is, in those good works, which God demands of us (and which also the premonitory grace has demanded), justifies them and makes them preordained; but those, on the contrary, who will not obey and follow grace, and who therefore do not fulfil the divine commandments, but, following the instigation of Satan, make ill use of their freedom, which God has given them for the purpose of arbitrarily doing good, are given over to eternal condemnation. But what the blasphemous heretics say of God’s preordaining and condemning, without paying any attention to the works of the preordained or the condemned, we regard as madness and ungodliness.” (pp. 255 and 256.)
The error cannot be rendered in one’s own words; here it is:
“In regard to the nature of the sanctification or justification, as taken in its broad meaning, the Protestants assert that it consists: (a) not in that the divine grace acts inwardly on man and actually, on the one hand, purifies him from all sins, and, on the other, cooperates with the renovated, righteous, holy; (b) but in this, that, by God’s will, the sins are pardoned only externally and are not put against the man, though in reality they remain in him,—that Christ’s righteousness is put to his account only in an external manner. Such is the ​teaching of the Lutherans and of the Reformers. The teaching of the Orthodox Church is of an entirely different kind. Speaking of the fruits of the sacrament of baptism, in which properly takes place our justification and sanctification through grace, the church teaches:
“‘In the first place, this sacrament destroys all sins: in babes—original sin, and in grown persons both original and arbitrary sin. In the second place, it reëstablishes for him that righteousness which he had in the condition of innocence and sinlessness.’ And in another place: ‘It cannot be said that the baptism does not free from all former sins, but that they remain indeed, but no longer have any force. It is extreme ungodliness to teach in that manner; it is an overthrowing of faith, and not a confession of it. On the contrary, every sin which exists or has existed before the baptism is destroyed and is regarded as though it did not exist or had never existed. For all the forms under which baptism is represented show its purifying power, and the utterances of Holy Scripture give us to understand that through it we receive complete purification, which is seen from the very name of baptism. If it is a baptism by the Spirit and by fire, it is evident that it offers complete purification, for the Spirit purifies completely. If it is light, every darkness is dispelled by it. If it is regeneration, everything old passes away; and this old thing is nothing but the sins. If the man who is baptized is divested of the old man, he is also divested of sin. If he is invested in Christ, he with the same becomes sinless through baptism (Epistle of the Eastern Patriarchs, Section 16).’” (pp. 256 and 257.)
186. The necessity of grace for the sanctification of man in general. It is proved by Holy Scripture, and this is the way it is determined by the councils:
“If any one asserts that for our purification from sins God waits for our desire, and does not confess that the desire itself to purify ourselves takes place in us through ​the emanation of the Holy Ghost and his coöperation, he contradicts the Holy Ghost.” (p. 262.)
It is not permitted to believe that God is waiting for our desire to purify ourselves, but we must believe that the Holy Ghost, that is, the same God in another person, produces this desire to purify ourselves. If the desire has already taken place and I am myself a creature of God, and the desire is directed toward God, it is evident that this desire must not be acknowledged as anything else but as having emanated from God. All these utterances remain completely unintelligible, if we do not keep in mind the aim toward which they lead. This aim consists in replacing the tendency to do good by the external actions of the sacraments which impart grace. Further:
“If any one asserts that a man may, by the force of his nature, think rightly, or choose something good, which refers to eternal salvation, and agree to receive the saving, that is, the evangelical, sermon without the illumination and instigation of the Holy Ghost, he is seduced by a heretical spirit (Rule VII.).” (p. 262.)
A man cannot wish for anything good without the inspiration of the Holy Ghost; but the inspiration of the Holy Ghost is imparted through grace; grace is communicated through the sacraments; and the sacraments are communicated by the hierarchy.
187. The necessity of grace for faith and for the very beginning of faith, or for a man’s conversion to Christianity. “Divine grace, which is necessary in general for man’s illumination and salvation, is necessary in particular for his faith and for the very beginning of the faith in the Lord Jesus.” (p. 263.)
Proofs from Holy Scripture and decrees of a council:
“If any one says that the increase, as well as the beginning of faith, and the very disposition toward it, by which we believe in the justification of the ungodly ​and proceed to the regeneration in the sacrament of baptism, are in us not by the gift of grace, that is, by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, who directs our will from unbelief to belief, from godlessness to godliness, but takes place naturally,—such a one proves himself to be an opponent of the apostolic dogmas (Rule V.).” (p. 267.)
The meaning of the decree is that the believers must acknowledge that the change from godlessness to godliness cannot take place naturally, but is only the result of grace, that is, of some unnatural, external action. But if our will is completely directed by the Holy Ghost, then what free will has the Theology just been speaking about when it said that God wants all men to be saved, but that he foresaw that some would make good. use of their free will, while others would not? If he wants to save and everything depends on him, why does he not save?
“188. Being necessary for the very conversion of man to Christianity, for his faith, and for the beginning of faith, divine grace remains necessary for man even after his conversion, so that he may fulfil the evangelical law for a worthy life according to Christ.” (p. 271.)
Proofs from Holy Scripture conclude with this:
“Although man may be inclined toward good before his regeneration, and choose and do moral good, nevertheless, in order that he may be able after his regeneration to do spiritual good (for the works of faith, being the cause of salvation and being performed by supernatural grace, are generally called spiritual), it is necessary for grace to premonish and guide, so that he cannot by himself do works that are worthy of a life according to Christ, but can only wish or not wish to act in accordance with grace.” (p. 274.)
The meaning of this discussion is still more definite, and its expression is much bolder. Here it says distinctly ​that, although a man may be able to do good deeds without grace, he loses the possibility of doing good deeds the moment he accepts the teaching of the church, and can only wish for it, by invoking the aid of the hierarchy. But even the desire for grace, as has just been said, is given only by the Holy Ghost, that is, again by grace. The Theology is evidently moving in a magic circle.
“189. If without divine grace man cannot become a believer, or believe in Christ, or do deeds that are worthy of a life according to Christ, it follows naturally that without the cooperation of divine grace man cannot abide in the Christian faith and godliness to the end of his life.”
Here it says that the cooperation of this external grace is not exhausted by baptism and faith, but that for the salvation the constant aid of the hierarchy is needed. All that would seem to be clear, but now follows Art. 190, which refutes the heretics. In this and the following articles the whole disconnection of the teaching becomes manifest.
The hierarchy needs a teaching which would reduce the whole teaching about life to a teaching about the sacraments, but that cannot be expressed outright: the immorality of such a teaching is too obvious. Besides, there have been many controversies in regard to this question. Some reflected consistently: if grace saves, the free efforts of man are useless; others said: if the free efforts of man are needed, the whole thing lies in them, and grace is imparted to them; but our Theology refutes both, and itself becomes entangled and persists in that tangle.
“Contrary to the errors of the Calvinists and Jansenists, which are that God gives his grace only to a few men, whom he has unconditionally preordained to righteousness and eternal bliss, and therefore gives an invincible grace, the Orthodox Church teaches: (a) that divine grace extends over all men, and not only on the preordained to ​righteousness and eternal bliss; (b) that the preordainment of some by God to eternal bliss and of others to eternal damnation is not unconditional, but is based on the foreknowledge whether they will take advantage of the grace, or not; (e) that divine grace does not embarrass man’s freedom, does not act invincibly upon it, and (d) that, on the contrary, man takes an active part in what divine grace works in him and through him (Epistle of the Eastern Patriarchs, Section 3).” (pp. 277 and 278.)
The preceding article defines man’s salvation in such a way that it obviously no longer results from his efforts, but completely depends on the communication of grace from without. Consequently there had naturally to appear the reflection: if salvation depends not on man, but on God, and God is omniscient, some people are predetermined to salvation, and others to perdition. But the Theology does not agree with the Calvinists.
191. Divine grace extends over all men, and not only over those who are preordained to righteousness and eternal bliss. Proofs are adduced to refute the Calvinists. And here it turns out involuntarily that in refuting the Calvinists the Theology refutes all the decrees of the councils, which determined that man cannot save himself by his own efforts.
“St. John Chrysostom: ‘If Christ lighteth every man that cometh into the world (John i. 9), how then do men remain without illumination? He actually illuminates everybody. But if some, voluntarily closing the eyes of their intellect, do not wish to receive the beams of this light, their abiding in darkness does not depend on the nature of the light, but on the ungodliness of those who by their will deprive themselves of that gift. For the grace has poured forth on all, and those who do not wish to make use of such a gift must, in justice, blame themselves for their blindness.’ St. Ambrose: ‘He rose, like a mysterious sun, for everybody; if some one does not ​believe in Christ, he deprives himself of the universal benefit.’ St. Augustine: ‘God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved (John iii. 17). And then as to the physician: he came to cure a patient; and he who does not wish to keep the commands of the physician achieves his own ruin. The Saviour came into the world,—why is he called the Saviour if not because it is his aim to save the world, and not to condemn it? Do you not wish to be cured by him? You will be your own judge.’” (p. 280.)
Before this it was said in the councils that he who asserts that for our purification from sins God expects our consent, and that we can choose the good, is not right, but here it suddenly turns out that a man must choose by all means. Then follows Art. 192, which is to prove that there is a predetermination, and that there is no predetermination.
“3. St. Paul teaches distinctly that divine predetermination is based on prescience, saying: For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son . . . , moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called; and whom he called, them he also justified (Rom. viii. 29, 30). He did not simply predestinate, says the apostle, but he predestinated, because he foreknew; whose deserts he foresaw, those he preordained, or, as St. Jerome expresses himself: ‘Of whom God knew that they would be conformed to the image to his Son in their lives, those he preordained to be conformed to him in the glory itself.’”
This whole article about predestination bears upon itself the distinctive character partly of the Byzantine but more especially of the Russian theology. Here is repeated what we find in all debatable passages of the Theology. Some theologians say that the whole matter is in works, while others say that the whole matter is ​in grace. Either may be proved with a certain degree of consistency, but Russian theology never takes the trouble to analyze thought and to go consistently from deduction to deduction. It says: You say it is grace, then we will generalize it and say: it is both works and grace, and it does not in the least trouble itself about the fact that one excludes the other. It strings out a few unintelligible sentences, quotes the fathers of the church, and comes to a conclusion, imagining that the question is solved. Proof from Scripture.
“4. The doctrine about the unconditional predestination of God is contrary to common sense, Common sense is convinced that God is just and that, consequently, he cannot without any cause preordain some to eternal happiness, and others to eternal damnation. It is convinced that God is infinitely good and, consequently, can not without any cause condemn any one to eternal perdition. It is convinced that God is infinitely all-wise and, consequently, cannot give man freedom and yet embarrass it by his unconditional predetermination and take away the whole moral value of its actions.” (p. 286.)
This discussion directly ignores everything which has been said against it in the previous articles. And with this obvious contradiction the whole argument is closed.
Art. 193 still more mixes up the matter. Here there is a contradiction in every word: “Though God worketh in us to do of his good pleasure (Phil. ii. 14), and we are not able without his grace to undertake anything, nor accomplish anything truly good: still that divine power, working in us and through us, in no way embarrasses our freedom and does not draw it invincibly to the good.” (p. 286.)
What does that mean? Translating the sentence into intelligible language, it turns out that grace does not embarrass our freedom, but we can do nothing good without it. Where is the freedom? According to this defi​nition it consists only in doing all kinds of evil. The whole discussion is of the same character, so that in conclusion it says:
“5. Common sense on its side cannot help but remark that if divine grace embarrasses man’s freedom and draws it forcibly to the good, then every merit is taken away from a man’s good actions, every incitement to do good, and in general his whole morality is undermined, and the cause of it all is God himself! Can such ideas be admitted? It is true, reason cannot explain in what way the mighty power of God, acting upon man, leaves his freedom intact, and cannot with certainty define their mutual relations; but none the less this mystery must be for us above all doubt, since we have so many grounds for belief that man is not only not deprived of liberty under the influence of grace upon him, but also actively takes part in its action, which takes place in him and through him.” (p. 288.)
That is, in other words, the Theology confesses that it does not understand anything of what it has said, but that it thinks that it is necessary to believe in that mystery, that is, in something meaningless and contradictory, which it is even impossible to express.
Art. 194 continues the tangle, proving that man takes an active part in what divine grace accomplishes in him and through him.
​Thus the article asserts that a man who cannot do anything good without grace at the same time takes part in the action of grace. Leaving out the absurdity, contradictoriness, and immorality of the whole doctrine, one asks himself involuntarily: For what and for whom is that wanted? And if any one needs it, what is that tangle for? All right, a man cannot do anything without grace: then say so. But no, the proof is given that man cannot be saved without grace, and yet he must look for that grace, and coöperate, and through the whole tangle it would seem impossible to answer the question what it is all for. And if we did not know what is going to follow, we should get no answer. But there is a direct answer: grace, as understood by the hierarchy, is not the grace of the Calvinists, a preordained salvation, but the grace of the hierarchy,—its sacraments, and these have to be sought for.
The sacraments are transmitted to the flock by the priests, and the priests get money for them. Consequently it is impossible to be saved without grace, and grace must be looked for in the sacraments. What is bad about it is that with that is not only destroyed the whole moral significance of the teaching of Christ, but every moral teaching is obscured by the search after these sacraments which can be bought for money. But what is to be done? Without it there would be no hierarchy. Consequently the whole doctrine about grace is very important. That alone can explain to us the wonderful doctrine about grace.
XV.
The doctrine about grace is now regarded by the Theology as firmly established, and there begins the exposition of the statement that upon it is based the doctrine about sanctification:
“In rejecting the error of the Protestants, who under the name of justification or sanctification of man by grace understand the mere remission of sins, although man in reality perseveres in them, and a mere external imputation of the righteousness of Christ, though in reality man does not become righteous, but as a condition for justification and sanctification recognize only faith on the part of man, the Orthodox Church teaches: (a) that the sanctification of man consists in his being actually purified from sin by the grace of God and, with its aid, becoming righteous and holy.” (pp. 292 and 293.)
Here by the words “sanctification of man” are meant the sacraments. Thus, after the proofs from Holy Scripture, is quoted the utterance by St. John Chrysostom:
“The Jewish priests had the power to cleanse bodily leprosy, or, more correctly, not to cleanse, but to testify to the cleansing. But these (the Christian priests) have received the power not merely to testify the cleansing, but completely to cleanse (ἀπαλλάτειν παντελῶς), not the bodily leprosy, but the impurity of the soul.”
Thus the action of grace, which heretofore was unintelligible, so long as the question was about grace in the abstract, becomes clear at once. Grace is a holiness which is communicated by the priests, and so we now can com​prehend what is meant by the statement that grace is necessary for salvation, and that man cannot be saved by good works without the sanctification through sacraments. Without the teaching about the sacraments a man will strive to become better. According to the doctrine of the hierarchy that is not necessary; what is needed is nothing but grace. To seek grace means to seek the sacraments. To seek the sacraments means to accept the sacraments from the priest. The concluding words of this article are important, because they strikingly confirm the proposition which I have enunciated that the dogma of redemption is one of the foundations of the sacerdotal institution, of the hierarchy:
“The reestablishment or redemption is nothing but the reduction of man to his original condition, in which he was before the fall. But before the fall man was actually innocent, righteous, and holy. Consequently it is necessary for him through this reëstablishment to return to precisely the same condition. In other words, if those who are reëstablished, or justified, remain as before in sin, without righteousness or holiness, and receive only a remission of sins, and externally cloak themselves in the righteousness of Christ, there is in that case no reëstablishment properly speaking, and it is nothing but a phantasm or a seeming reestablishment.” (p. 297.)
Reëstablishment is man’s elevation to the former state of innocence. Redemption, according to the assertion of the hierarchy, has done that. But the hierarchy itself sees that nothing of the kind exists: redemption has done nothing of the kind. In what, then, is this reestablishment to be assumed? It is impossible to recognize that the reëstablishment consists in this, that actually good men, having learned the law of Christ, do more good than evil, because in that case only good men would be redeemed, and bad men would be in perdition. Nor is it possible to assume that the bad men are no longer bad, ​and that they are reëstablished in innocence, because Christ has redeemed them; consequently it becomes necessary to invent an imaginary innocence and holiness, and such visible instruments for the communication of sanctity as will make it possible to assure all men without exception that, no matter how bad they may be, they are none the less holy. And it is precisely this that is invented.
But for the rearing of this artificial building, the imaginary redemption, the teaching about grace is not sufficient: there is needed a new link in this chain of deception. And so, in Art. 197, there is an exposition of that very method of self-deception by means of which men, doing good deeds, cannot regard their deeds as good, if they do not observe certain conditions established for the purpose, and unrighteous and not innocent men may in fulfilling those conditions regard themselves as reestablished, holy. This self-deception is based on the conception of faith, which is introduced into the book now for the first time, and which is understood in an intentionally most mixed up manner. What is said is that faith is the first condition on the part of man for his sanctification and salvation. A most tangled definition of faith is given: its tendency is to substitute for the idea of faith an action which is in the power of each man, and the conclusion is drawn that he who believes that he is becoming sanctified and reestablished in complete sanctity and innocence, that he alone is actually reestablished in complete sanctity and innocence. But, if one believes that he is holy, and there is no other means for ascertaining his sanctity but the faith in his sanctity, it is impossible to assert that he is actually holy, though he may unquestionably regard himself as such. If an insane man believes that he has a tower on his nose, there can be no doubt about his actually imagining that there is a tower on his nose, but no one will think of asserting that there is really a tower ​on his nose. And yet on precisely such a consideration is built the whole doctrine about the sanctification through faith. Here is the discussion:
“197. Divine grace, which achieves our sanctification, indeed extends over all men, but does not act upon them against their will, and in fact sanctifies a sinner, and thereupon saves him, only when certain conditions are observed on his part. The first of these is faith.”
This unexpected introduction into the discussion of the idea of faith is particularly remarkable because all those dogmas which have been disclosed to us heretofore, beginning with the concept of God, were nothing but truths of faith. Up till now there has not once been any mention made about faith and there has not been any definition of what is to be understood by the word “faith.”
Heretofore it was assumed that faith was that correct knowledge of God, as indeed the Eastern Patriarchs say, that correct conception about God, which lies at the foundation of every other knowledge, and that everything else resulted from faith, but there has by no means been given that definition of faith by which it is the action of the human will. Here it turns out to be some kind of an action:
“(1) Under the name of faith in general is understood here the free acceptance and appropriation by man with all the powers of his soul of those truths which it has pleased God to reveal to us in Christ for our salvation. By faith is meant this acceptance and appropriation, because the revealed truths are for the most part incomprehensible to our reason and inaccessible to knowledge, but can be appropriated only through faith.” (p. 298.)
Grace does not act against the will. Men must make an effort of will in order to accept it. Faith is a free acceptance, an appropriation of incomprehensible truths. Involuntarily there arises the question: how does the appropriation take place? Through reason, or through the will? Impossibly through reason, since the truths ​are incomprehensible; consequently through the will. What, then, is meant by “to appropriate by an effort of will”? Speaking plainly, it means “to obey.” Thus faith, according to this definition, is reduced to obedience. Precisely in this way the word “faith” is understood in the Theology, though farther down, to obscure the definition, another misty definition is made, in which faith is mixed up with charity and hope. (p. 301.)
“The necessity of faith for our sanctification and salvation is comprehensible also from considerations of reason. Without faith we cannot appropriate to ourselves the truths of the divine revelation; consequently we shall not know what God has done for our salvation, nor what we are obliged to do. In this manner revelation, together with the whole house-management of salvation, will remain foreign to us, and we shall be foreign to revelation and salvation. In believing in Christ the Saviour and in his revealed word, we, so to speak, open our soul for all divine actions of salvation upon us; and in not believing, we shut ourselves up against these actions, and repel the divine assistance. For this reason, although faith is roused in us by premonitory grace and in its origin is a divine gift, it becomes on our part, the moment it is germinated in us, with our free consent, the first instrument for the actual acceptance in our soul of the saving grace, or of the divine powers that pertain unto life and godliness (2 Peter i. 3), the very first condition for our regeneration, sanctification, and salvation through grace.” (pp. 303 and 304.)
Heretofore I understood faith as the foundation of man’s whole activity, but here faith is spoken of as an activity. Involuntarily the question arises: on what is the activity based, which is seeking the faith and even choosing in advance the faith, which it is seeking? Strangest of all is the fact that nothing has been said about faith so long as the revealed, fundamental truths ​of faith about God, creation, man, soul (for it is necessary to believe in all that) were expounded; nothing was said about faith, but here, where it behoves the Theology to expound about sanctification and reestablishment, which do not exist, it suddenly becomes necessary to define faith, and unexpectedly faith is defined, not as the knowledge of God, but as confidence in what the hierarchs say. Indeed, under the word “faith” the Theology understands something quite different from what it is generally understood to mean. This is seen in the clearest and quickest way from the following passage of Filarét’s Catechism. There is there a question about which is more necessary, faith or good works. And the answer is: “Faith, because Scripture says, Without faith it is impossible to please God.” And immediately after that comes the question: “Why must good works be inseparable from this faith?” And the answer: “Because it says, Faith without works is dead.” The second answer to the question as to why good works must be inseparable from faith, because faith without works is dead, destroys the separation of faith from good works. If faith cannot exist without good works, why then separate them, and say: (1) faith, and (2) good works. This logical blunder is not an accidental one.
The same intentional blunder is repeated in the Theology. It is clear that by the word “faith” the Theology does not want to understand what the word actually means, not what Paul and the Eastern Patriarchs understand by it, and what we understand by it. “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen, that is, a trust in the unseen as though it were seen, in what is wished and waited for, as if it were present,” says Paul. Paul says nothing about this evidence and hope being communicated by any one. “By faith we mean the correct knowledge of God and of divine subjects,” say the Eastern Patriarchs. “Nobody can be saved without faith,” they say further on. “Faith is the ​substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen, and a correct understanding about God.” The same it is understood by all men to be. We perish in this life without the knowledge of God,—faith gives us salvation. All the works of salvation are by that very thing good works, and all good works are good only because they are works of salvation, which result from our knowledge of God, that is, from faith. Faith is not exactly inseparable from good works, but is the only cause of good works; but good works are inevitable consequences of faith. Consequently, it would seem impossible to ask which is more important: faith or good works? that is the same as asking which is more important, the sun or its light? And yet precisely such a division has been made in consequence of having given to faith a false, narrow definition, not of faith, but of trust and obedience.
The separation of faith from works, and the comparison between them, show clearly that by faith is understood something different from the definition given by Paul and by the Eastern Patriarchs, and from what the word itself means, but what it signifies here is what the Eastern Patriarchs say in another place: “We believe as we are taught to believe (Section 10).” It is evident that in Filarét, as well as in all the theological works, by faith is meant only an external agreement with what theology preaches, and this mere agreement is regarded as necessary for sanctification and salvation, and so we get here a definition not merely of faith in general, but at the same time of what men ought to believe in, and an explanation that he who believes will get great advantages, and he who does not believe will fare badly. Before this, in the exposition of each dogma, there was an exposition of the dogma, say of God, the Trinity, redemption, the church, and the causes which led us to that faith were adduced, but nowhere was it said that it was necessary to believe and that it was profitable to believe. But here, ​instead of proofs, instead of the disclosure of truths, we suddenly hear that it is necessary to make a free effort, not to oppose oneself, but to try to believe, and that he who believes will be saved, and he who does not believe will perish.
Before this were disclosed the God-revealed truths, and it was assumed that this disclosure led us to the only aim of the teaching, to faith, that is, to the knowledge of God. Now an opposite method is used: we are told that in order that the truth about sanctification should be disclosed to us, it is necessary first to believe in that sanctification: believe, and then everything will be disclosed to you. But does not the whole purpose of the teaching consist in bringing me to faith? But if you abandon that path of the disclosure of truths which lead me to faith, and tell me that it is necessary to believe what you say, as any man would say it, if he wanted to be believed, I have no longer any right to believe. If it comes all to a question of trust, my trust will depend only on the greater or lesser respect for him who is trying to convince me, and on the comparative probability of the evidence of truth. There is, however, no probability of this evidence in the teaching of the hierarchy, as we have seen heretofore, and so only one thing is left for me to do: to become frightened at the threats which are uttered against me for not believing, and, out of fear, to submit my reason to what is called grace, that is, to what the hierarchy teaches.
This attempt to su submit our reason, this non-resistance to grace, we have all tried; it not only becomes inactive, but all the proofs in its favour militate against it, the moment a man seriously searches after truth. You say that I shall for ever ruin my soul if I do not believe you, but I do not believe you for the very reason that I am afraid that I may ruin my soul for ever. Especially now, when, after analyzing this article, it has become clear to me that the Theology, in taking up that which is most ​precious and important to it, the establishment of the sacraments, has itself declined to ascribe any meaning to that institution, and has been unable to justify it by anything but a naïve assertion that it is necessary to believe that it is so.
By reducing in this manner the conception of faith to trust and obedience, and by dividing the inseparable, the Theology has involuntarily arrived at the question about the relation to each other of these two imaginary, unthinkable conceptions of faith, trust in what you are told, and good works, which are independent of faith. The following Art. 198 analyzes the relation of these two imaginary conceptions.
In order to understand the following article, it is necessary to keep in mind that since the earliest times when the false conception of trust in place of faith was introduced, there has arisen the question as to what saves, whether faith, or good works, and that those who have confessed this teaching have since the earliest times been divided into two hostile camps. Some say that faith saves, and others say that works save. Our Theology, with its customary method and complete freedom from all bonds of logic, affirms that both save. And here is the import of the following 198th article:
“However, no matter how great may be the value of faith, which embraces in its broader sense both hope and charity, and although this faith is the first condition for the appropriation by man of Christ’s deserts,—it alone is not sufficient for its aim. By faith alone a man may receive his justification and cleanse himself from sin in the sacrament of baptism, only when he just enters the kingdom of Christ’s grace: he may after that receive the gifts of grace through the other sacraments of the church. But, that he may be able, after having entered the kingdom of grace, to preserve the righteousness and purity which he has acquired in baptism; that he may be ​able to make use of the gifts of the Holy Ghost, which he has received through all the other sacraments; that he may be able to strengthen himself in his Christian life and gradually rise in Christian sanctity; that, finally, he may be able, after having completed his terrestrial activity, to appear as justified and sanctified at the terrible judgment of Christ,—for all that, in addition to faith, he needs good works, that is, those in which faith, hope, and charity, which abide in the soul of a Christian, are expressed in an external manner, as in their fruits, and which may serve as a precise execution of the divine will, which has been imparted to us in the Gospel law.” (p. 305.)
After that are adduced proofs from Holy Scripture, which directly deny the whole preceding division into faith and works, and the preeminence of faith over works:
“(a) That faith alone without works is insufficient for salvation, is testified: (aa) by Christ the Saviour himself: Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven (Matt. vii. 21; cf. xvi. 27); (bb) by Apostle James: Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only (James ii. 24); (cc) by Apostle John: He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him (1 John ii. 4); (dd) by Apostle Paul: For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified (Rom. ii. 13); (b) that a Christian is obliged to show his faith, hope, and charity in good works: Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone . . . shew me thy faith without thy works. . . . For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also (James ii. 17, 18, 26); every man that hath this hope in him (in our Lord Jesus) purifieth himself, even as he is pure (1 John iii. 3); he ​that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me (John xiv. 21); my little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth (1 John iii. 18); (c) that men are called to the kingdom of Christ’s grace for the very purpose that they may do good works: For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them (Eph. ii. 10); For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ; who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works (Tit. ii. 11-14.)” (pp. 305 and 306.)
All the texts quoted, especially those from the evangelists, show incontestably that faith cannot be separated from good works and that works are the results of faith, and consequently it would seem that this article directly destroys the whole meaning of the preceding article about the first meaning of faith. But the Theology is not in the least embarrassed by that. In the first article it contended against all the Christians who recognized salvation in works, and here it contends against those who recognize it in faith, and calmly destroys its own propositions, which does not keep it in the end from declaring triumphantly that the true teaching consists in accepting both, in spite of the fact that one excludes the other.
Indeed, no matter how irregular the separation of faith from works is, if that separation has once taken place in the conception of the believers, it is naturally possible to affirm that either faith alone or works alone can save. If through faith we become completely purified and holy, good works evidently are superfluous. They are assumed ​in themselves, but no longer form an aim. But if we are saved by an effort of our will, as was said in the preceding article, it is obvious that first of all there must be that condition of will, that is, the act, and then only will there be faith and salvation. Both assertions are logical and consistent, but our hierarchy, arming itself with faith in itself, regards any logical consistency as superfluous; it enunciates both the contradictory propositions in the same breath. The concluding words of the article, which are to prove the necessity of good works, prove precisely the opposite.
“We cannot do good works except with the cooperation of divine grace, for which reason they are called the fruits of the Holy Ghost (Gal. v. 22). But since in the performance of good works we need the participation of our free will; since through this free participation in good works we express our faith, charity, and hope in God; since this participation frequently costs us great endeavours and troubles in our struggle with the enemies of our salvation, the world, the flesh, and the devil,—our Lord God has been pleased to take our good works into account, and, in proportion as we succeed in godliness with the aid of grace, he has been pleased to increase in us our spiritual gifts, in order that by its aid we may ascend from power to power, from glory to glory (2 Cor. iii. 18).” (p. 311.)
The whole part quoted is a repetition in different expressions of one and the same contradiction: we cannot do good works except through grace, but for that purpose we need the participation of our free will.
The moral application of this dogma is more ludicrous than ever. Indeed, it is very hard to find any moral application for the most immoral of dogmas, whose aim it is to justify and permit vices and give an income to the hierarchy, but still we find à propos: (1) to pray to God that he may give us grace; (2) to thank God; (3) again to ​pray; (4) to follow the inspiration of grace; (5) man who has become as innocent as Adam ought to try to become innocent; (6) “let us walk with a true heart in the substance of faith to the throne of grace!”
XVI.
Section III. Of the sacraments of the church, as means through which divine grace is communicated to us. The sacraments are defined as follows:
“(1) A sacrament is a holy action which under a visible form communicates to the soul of the believer the invisible grace of God, an action which was established by our Lord, and by which every one of the believers receives divine grace.
“Consequently the nature of the sacraments the church assumes to consist in this, that there are sacramental actions which actually communicate divine grace to the believer, that they ‘are not only signs of divine promises, but instruments which necessarily act through grace upon those who proceed toward them.’ As essential qualities of each of the sacraments it regards: (a) the divine establishment of the sacrament, (b) some visible or sensual image, and (c) the communication of invisible grace by the sacrament to the soul of the believer.” (p. 313.)
It is necessary to direct the attention to the definition of the nature of the sacraments and to the words “divine establishment of the sacraments,” in order that we may later be able so much the more clearly to analyze the deception on which the Theology tries to establish the dogma of the sacraments. Seven sacraments are counted out, and the heresies of all the other Christians, except of our hierarchy, are refuted. Here are the heresies:
“(1) Of the nature of the sacraments. According to ​Luther, they are simple signs of divine promises for the sake of rousing our faith in Christ, who remits sins. According to Calvin and Zwingli, they are divine signs, by which the one who is chosen is confirmed in the faith into which he is received and in the divine promises, or, he still more confirms his church in his faith than he confirms himself. The Socinians and Arminians see in the sacraments mere external rites, by which the Christians differ from the Gentiles. The Anabaptists regard the sacraments as allegorical signs of spiritual life. The Swedenborgians regard them as symbols of a mutual union between God and man. The Quakers and our Dukhobors completely reject the visible side of the sacraments, and recognize them only as internal, spiritual actions of the heavenly light. All these and other similar conceptions about the sacraments, which are held by various Protestant sects, with all their differences, agree in this, that they equally reject the true conception about the sacraments as external sacramental actions, which actually communicate divine grace to the believers, and through it regenerate, renovate, and sanctify man. (2) Of the number of sacraments. As though not satisfied with the mere rejection of the true conception about the nature and efficacy of the sacraments, Protestantism has extended its sacrilegious hand upon this, in that it has diminished the number of sacraments, and, although in the beginning the Protestants showed a great diversity of opinions in this matter, they have finally agreed, of course each sect in its own way, to recognize only two sacraments: baptism and the eucharist. Of our dissenters, the so-called Popeless sectarians, though not denying that seven sacraments have been established, are satisfied with two only, saying, In need two of them are sufficient, baptism and repentance, and the others are not necessary.’ (3) Of the conditions for the performance and actuality of sacraments. According to Luther’s doctrine, no lawfully ​established priest or bishop is needed for the performance of the sacraments; the sacraments may be performed by any clergyman or layman, by either man or woman, and they preserve their power, no matter how they are performed, even without any intention of performing, and even with ridicule or mystically. A full half of our dissenters, who form the Popeless sect, permit laymen also to perform the sacraments; but the other half, under the name of the Popish sect, leave them to the clergy, but to clergymen who are either under the ban or even entirely unfrocked, and who have in any case run away from the Orthodox Church, and have renounced it for the sake of joining the dissenting sect. On the other hand, the ancient Donatists, in the twelfth century, and later the Waldenses and the Albigenses, and beginning with the fifteenth century, the Wycliffites, fell into the opposite extreme, asserting that for the performance and efficacy of the sacraments not only a legally established priest but even a virtuous priest was needed, and that the sacraments which were performed by a tainted servant of the altar had no significance whatever. Finally the Reformers and Lutherans invented a doctrine that the efficacy of the sacraments depended not on the worth and inner disposition of the performer of the sacraments, but on the disposition and faith of the persons who received the sacraments, so that the sacrament is a sacrament and has power only during its acceptance and application together with faith, and that when it is not used, or when it is not accepted with faith, it is not a sacrament and remains sterile.” (pp. 314-316.)
The Theology does not refute these heresies, but proceeds to expound its doctrine about the sacraments, each separately. I will analyze each one of these so-called sacraments, but first it is necessary to point out the deceit of the specious proof of the divine establishment of the sacraments, which alone and in one and the same form ​will be applied to all the sacraments. The deception consists in the following: in the definition of the sacrament it was said that it is an external action which communicates actual grace, that is, a special spiritual power, given to him who receives the sacrament as established by Christ, and then it is pointed out that Christ has prescribed to the believers and to his disciples (but only in the case of baptism) a certain external action, and from this the conclusion is drawn that Christ has established the sacraments, that is, such actions as, when they are performed by the hierarchy, communicate to the believers a special spiritual power. The deception consists in this, that the assertion is made that Christ established the sacrament, that is, an external action which communicates internal grace, or, to speak more correctly, that Christ established the dogma of the sacrament, that is, the teaching that the immersion into water or the eating of bread and drinking of wine communicates some especial power to him who is immersed, or who eats bread and drinks wine. In order to prove the establishment of the Christian dogma of the sacraments, it is necessary to show that Christ ascribed to those external actions, to which the hierarchy points, calling them sacraments, those properties which the hierarchy ascribes to them, whereas there is not only no indication, but not even the slightest hint at such an understanding of the sacraments as practised by Christ. In asserting that Christ commanded men to bathe and sup in remembrance of him, the hierarchy has not the slightest foundation for the assertion that Christ established the sacraments of baptism and of the eucharist with all the meaning which the hierarchy ascribes to them, and about which there is, and there can be, no hint in Christ’s teaching. Thus Art. 202 proves the divine origin of baptism as a sacrament by pointing out that Christ said to his disciples: “All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore and teach all ​nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world (Matt. xxviii. 18-20); he that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved; but he that believeth not, shall be damned (Mark xvi. 16).”
In the first place, Mark xvi. 16 is a later addition to the Gospel, like that other tempting addition that believers shall take up serpents and not be hurt by drinking deadly things. Even if the genuineness of this passage be admitted, neither from it, nor from Matt. xxviii. 19, does it follow that baptism communicates any special power to those who are baptized. In Matthew men are to be baptized and taught to observe whatever Christ has commanded; in Mark it is mentioned that he who believes and is baptized shall be saved. Where is there the establishment of the sacrament such as it is defined to be by the Theology? All that may be said from these verses in Matthew and in Mark in favour of the rite of bathing is that Christ has selected, or, more correctly, has not rejected, the external sign of bathing, adopted by his predecessor John, for all the believers in his teaching.
But everything which is understood by the hierarchy under the invisible action of baptism has been established by that hierarchy, and by no means by Christ. That may be seen from the subsequent exposition of the article, in which there is a detailed account of the visible and the invisible side of the sacrament, for which no indication can be found in Holy Scripture.
203. The visible side of baptism. There is a detailed exposition of the sacrament about what to bathe in, how many times to immerse, who is to do the bathing, and what is to be said during the act. The proof is given that those who do differently are heretics, and that grace does not operate if there is any deviation from these rules. ​204. The invisible actions of the sacrament of baptism and its unrepeatedness. Here it is said that at the same time “that the catechumen is visibly immersed in the waters of baptism, with the words, ‘The slave of God is recognized . . . in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost,’ divine grace invisibly operates on the whole being of the one who is baptized and (1) regenerates or re-creates him; (2) purifies him from all sin, and justifies and sanctifies him; (3) makes him a child of God and a member of Christ’s body; (4) saves him from eternal punishment for sins and makes him an inheritor of eternal life.” All that has not the slightest foundation in Christ’s teaching.
205. The necessity of baptism for all. The baptism of babes. Baptism by blood. The proof is given that it is necessary to baptize infants because they are cursed by the original sin, and if an unbaptized child dies, it goes to hell, whereas if it is baptized it goes to heaven. All that is proved from Holy Scripture.
206. Who may perform baptism, and what is demanded of those who are baptized. It is proved that priests ought to baptize, but deacons may sometimes, and sometimes even simple people may. All that is proved from Holy Scripture. To be baptized, one needs faith, the same that was spoken of in the article about grace and repentance. When infants are baptized, the sponsors must guarantee their faith, that is, pronounce the words of the creed and renounce the devil.
It is evident that all that has been established, not by Christ, but by one of the many diverging hierarchies. After baptism follows unction with chrism.
207. Connection with what precedes; the place of the sacrament of unction with chrism in the series of the rest; the conception about this sacrament, and its name. "Through baptism we are born into spiritual life, and pure from all sin, justified, and sanctified do we enter into ​Christ’s kingdom of grace. But as a natural living man, the moment he is born, has need of air, light, and the other external assistances and powers for the support of his existence, for his gradual strengthening, and for his growth, even so it is in spiritual life: immediately after man’s birth from above, he has need of the grace-giving powers of the Holy Ghost, which may serve for him as spiritual air and light, and with the aid of which he may not only support his new life, but also constantly strengthen himself and grow. It is these divine powers which pertain unto life and godliness (2 Peter i. 3) that are given to each who is reborn in baptism, through another sacrament of the church, through the sacrament of unction with chrism.” (pp. 345 and 346.)
It is proved that the sacrament of unction with chrism was established by Christ. Here are the proofs:
“(1) Gospel history proves that Christ the Saviour had intended and promised to give the Holy Ghost to those who believed in him. In the last day, that great day of the feast, says St. John the Divine, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. He that believeth on me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. (But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified) (John vii. 37-39). Here, evidently, mention is made of gifts of the Holy Ghost, which are offered to and consequently are necessary for all believers in our Lord Jesus, and not of extraordinary gifts, which are communicated only to a few believers for special purposes (1 Cor. xii. 29, and so forth), though it does not say by what visible mediation the necessary gifts of the Holy Ghost are to be transmitted to all believers. (2) The Book of the Apostolic Acts tells us that after Jesus Christ was glorified, the apostles actually gave the Holy Ghost to those ​who believed in him, and that they did by the laying on of hands. Such, for example, is the following case: Now when the apostles which were at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent unto them Peter and John: who, when they were come down, prayed for them, that they might receive the Holy Ghost: (for as yet he was fallen upon none of them: only they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus). Then laid they their hands on them, and they received the Holy Ghost (Acts viii. 14-17). From this it is quite clear: (a) that the Holy Ghost was communicated by the apostles, not through baptism (in which the believers are only regenerated or re-created by the Holy Ghost suddenly, without receiving him for ever), but by the laying on of hands on the one who is baptized; (b) that by this laying on of hands the apostles communicated to the believers the gifts of the Holy Ghost, which are necessary for all who have received baptism, but not extraordinary gifts, which are communicated only to the few; (c) that this laying on of hands, united with a prayer to God about sending the Holy Ghost down on those who are baptized, should form a special sacrament, distinct from baptism, and (d) finally, that this sacrament, distinct from baptism, has a divine origin, because the apostles in all their words and acts, in spreading the Gospel teaching, were inspired by the Holy Ghost, who taught them every truth, and brought to their remembrance all the things which the Lord Jesus had commanded them (John xiv. 26; xvi. 13).” (pp. 347 and 348.)
The deception which the hierarchy has appropriated to itself for the purpose of assuring the flock that Christ has established the sacraments consists, as we have seen, in taking the slightest hint given by Christ or the apostles in regard to some external action and ascribing to it the improper meaning of a sacrament, and of asserting that Christ has established that sacrament. But this de​ception has some plausibility only in the case of baptism; in the other cases there is not even any cause for deception, and the hierarchy has to invent the cause itself, as it has done in the present case. Because Christ has said, “He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water,” it follows that all have to be anointed with oil, and that Christ. promises a special advantage from it. Then follows the exposition of the dogma.
209. The visible side of the sacrament of unction with chrism. The visible side consists in this, that the anointing is done in the form of a cross and certain words are pronounced. Proofs from Holy Scripture.
210. The invisible side of unction with chrism, and its unrepeatedness. The invisible action consists in this, that the Holy Ghost enters into him who is being anointed, and there enters grace, (1) which enlightens in the truth of faith, (2) confirms in godliness. Mention is made that in former days they began to prophesy and speak in various tongues after it, but now that does not happen,—the Holy Ghost merely enters.
211. To whom the sacrament of unction with chrism belongs, and when it is to be performed. A priest, and not the bishop only, may anoint with chrism, and so the Catholics are wrong, and that is proved at great length.
212. Connection with the preceding. Conception of the sacrament of the eucharist. Its superiority and different appellations.
The Ceremony of Preparing the Holy Oil
Photogravure from Drawing by Martin
​and blood of our Lord Jesus, and most sincerely unite with the very fountain of life (Psalm xxxvi. 9).” (pp. 366 and 367.)
This sacrament, in which we most sincerely unite with God, surpasses all the others:
“(1) By its superabundance of mysteriousness and incomprehensibility. In all the other sacraments the incomprehensibility consists in this, that under a certain visible form divine grace is invisibly operating upon man, but the substance of the sacraments itself, for example, in baptism, the water, in unction with chrism, the chrism, remain unchangeable. Here, on the contrary, the substance itself changes: the bread and the wine, which keep their form, are miraculously changed into the true body and blood of our Lord, and only then, when they have been received by the believers, do they invisibly produce in them their actions of grace. (2) By the superabundance of the Lord’s love for us, and by the extraordinary grandeur of the gift, which is communicated to us in this sacrament. In the other sacraments the Lord Jesus communicates to those who believe in him such or such particular gifts of saving grace, in conformity with the substance of each sacrament,—gifts which he acquired for men by his death on the cross. But here he offers as food for his believers his own self, his own body and blood, and the believers, directly uniting with their Lord and Saviour, are in this manner united with the very fountain of saving grace. (3) Finally, by this, that all the other sacraments are only sacraments which act savingly upon man, but the eucharist is not only the most incomprehensible and the most saving of the sacraments, but at the same time is a sacrifice to God, a sacrifice which is brought to him for all the living and all the dead, and gains his favour.” (pp. 367 and 368.)
The doctrine about this sacrament indeed differs from all the others. It differs first of all in that it completely ​departs from the former definition of the sacrament. This sacrament, according to the Theology: (1) not only gives power to him who receives it, but also represents a constantly repeated miracle; (2) gives us God to be eaten up; (3) is a sacrifice which God himself brings for himself,—all kinds of phenomena which do not enter into the first definition. According to the definition of this sacrament, it not only communicates grace to those who receive it, but is also a transmutation of a substance, a conversion of God into food for men, and a sacrifice of God, brought by God himself. But that does not disturb the Theology. It goes on to prove that this especial sacrament was established by Christ.
213. The divine promise of the sacrament of the eucharist, and its very establishment. To prove that this sacrament was established by Christ, there is adduced from the Gospel the sixth chapter of John, the words from the holy supper, and the Epistle to the Corinthians. In looking through the chapter of John, it is easy to see that, avoiding all interpretation and sticking to the literal meaning, he, his flesh and blood, is the bread of life, that he gives that bread of life to men, and that he who will not eat that bread will not have life. Christ promises to give to men the bread of life, which he calls his flesh and blood and, without saying what is to be understood by his flesh and blood, commands men to eat that bread. The only conclusion which can be drawn from that is that men must eat the bread which Christ has called his flesh and blood, that this bread exists and must exist, and that therefore men must seek that bread, as he told them to do, but in no way is it possible to draw the conclusion which the church draws, namely, that that bread is the baked leavened bread and grape wine, not every kind of bread and every wine, but that of which we shall be told that Christ has commanded us to partake of.
The other place on which is based the sacrament of ​the eucharist is the passage from the Gospel and from the Epistle to the Corinthians, where it says that Christ, bidding his disciples farewell, said to them: “Here I break bread and give you wine. This is my blood and my body, which is given to save you from sin. Eat and drink all of you!” Christ before his death said to his disciples, as he broke bread and handed them the cup: “This wine and this bread are my flesh and my blood. Drink now and then do it in remembrance of me!” From these words it may be concluded that Christ, bidding his disciples farewell, told them that he was dying for men and that he commanded them to do likewise, that is, like him to give their body and blood for men; it is possible to conclude that as he broke bread and gave them the wine he commanded them to think of him; it is possible to stick to the most literal meaning about the flesh and blood and conclude that he did a miracle before his disciples and gave them, in the form of bread and wine, his own body to eat and his blood to drink; it is even possible to conclude that he commanded his disciples to perform the same miracle, that is, out of bread and wine to make the body and blood of each particular disciple; if you wish, it is possible even to conclude the most far-fetched proposition, that he commanded them to perform a miracle, which was, to make Christ’s blood and flesh out of bread and wine,—but under no consideration is it possible to conclude what the church concludes from it, namely, that not only the disciples, whom he addressed, but certain men at a certain time and under certain conditions must produce something similar to that miracle, and must believe and assure others that the bread and wine which they offer is the very body and blood of Christ; that, in receiving this bread and wine with the assurance that they are Christ’s body and blood, men are saved. This conclusion, which our hierarchy makes, is absolutely impossible, the more so since the hierarchy ​asserts that many perform this miracle irregularly. It is impossible to tell when this miracle is performed and when not, for there are no other signs of that miracle but faith in the fact that it is being performed. However, it is superfluous to prove the irrationalness and arbitrariness of this sacrament; it is sufficient to follow out the conclusions to which the Theology leads in this matter, having accepted that conception of it, in order that the absurdity of this sacrament and its blasphemy may become manifest.
214. The visible side of the sacrament of the eucharist. The visible side of the sacrament consists: (1) of the substance employed; (2) of the sacramental action, and (3) of words pronounced. The bread used in it must be of wheat, pure and leavened. There are five pages of proof that the bread must be leavened. The wine must be made from grapes. There are described all the manipulations which the priest must perform during it: the offertory, the liturgy, and the words which are to be pronounced. It also mentions which words are the most important of all.
215. The invisible essence of the sacrament of the eucharist; the actuality of the presence of Jesus Christ in that sacrament. The invisible action consists in this, that not symbolically (τυπικῶς), as some say, not with a superabundance of grace, as others say, not essentially (ὑποστατικῶς), not through the penetration of the bread (κατ᾿ ἐναρτισμόν), “but truly and actually, so that after the sanctification of the bread and wine, the bread is transformed, transubstantiated, transmuted into the true body of Christ, which was born in Bethlehem of the Evervirgin, was baptized in the Jordan, suffered, was buried, was raised from the dead, ascended to heaven, sits on the right of God the Father, is to appear in the clouds of heaven.”
Precisely thus must we believe.
​There follows a controversy. All are wrong, but:
“The doctrine of the Orthodox Church about the actuality of the presence of Jesus Christ in the sacrament of the eucharist has imperturbable foundations in Holy Scripture, as well as in Holy Tradition.” (p. 386.)
Here is a sample of the proofs why this action is to be understood as the church understands it: “In establishing the eucharist, the Lord established the greatest sacrament of the New Testament, which he commanded to be performed at all times (Luke xxii. 19, 20). But the importance of the sacrament necessary for our salvation, and the nature of the promise, and the nature of the commandment demanded alike that the clearest and most definite language be used, so that it might not lead to any misunderstandings in so important a matter.”
216. The manner and consequences of the presence of Jesus Christ in the sacrament of the eucharist. “(1) If this presence consists, as we have seen, in this, that after the sanctification of the holy gifts, there are present in the eucharist and are communicated to the believers not the bread and wine, but the real body and the real blood of the Lord,—that does not mean that he is present in the sacrament, that he, as it were, penetrates (according to the Lutheran heresy) the bread and wine, which remain intact, and only coexists with them (in, cum, sub pane) with his body and blood, but that the bread and wine are transformed, transubstantiated, transmuted into the very body and blood of the Lord. (2) Although the bread and wine in the sacrament of the eucharist are transformed properly into the body and blood of the Lord, he is present in this sacrament, not with his body and blood alone, but with his whole soul, which is inseparably connected with this body, and with his very divinity, which is hypostatically and inseparably connected with his humanity. (3) Although the Lord’s body and blood are broken in the sacrament of the communion and are ​divided up, that happens only with the forms of the bread and wine, in which Christ’s body and blood may be seen and felt; in themselves they are completely integral and indivisible. (4) Similarly, although the sacrament of the eucharist is performed in endless places of the world, Christ’s body is always and everywhere one, and Christ’s blood is always and everywhere one, and everywhere one and the same Christ, complete God and complete man, integrally takes part in it. (5) If the bread and wine through the sacramental sanctification is transubstantiated into the real body and blood of Christ the Saviour, that means that from the time of the sanctification of the holy gifts he is constantly present in the sacrament, that is, he is present not only in the application and reception of the sacrament by the believers, as the Lutherans assert, but even before the reception, for the bread and wine, having been transubstantiated into Christ’s body and blood, no longer change back into their former substances, but remain the body and blood of the Lord for ever, independently of whether they will be used by the believers or not. (6) If the bread and wine in the holy, life-giving sacraments are the real body and the real blood of our Lord Jesus, then these sacraments ought to receive the same honour and divine worship which we owe to our Lord Jesus himself.” (pp. 396-402.)
217. Who may perform the sacraments of the eucharist. Who may receive the communion, and wherein the preparation for it is to consist.
The power to perform this sacrament belongs to the bishop. The bishops transfer the power to the presbyters, but deacons may not perform it; nor can laymen. But all, even babes, may receive the communion. There is a controversy about that.
218. The necessity of the communion of the eucharist, by all means under two kinds, and the fruits of the sacrament.
​All must receive the communion. Proofs. Men must be communed over bread and wine, and not over bread alone. Again controversy and proofs. For this controversy Hus was burnt and his followers were tortured. I mention only in words the controversy and the proofs. But, O Lord, what a terrible book would be that history of theology, which should tell about all the violence, deceptions, tortures, murders, which have taken place because of each of these controversies! As one now reads about these controversies, all that seems so unimportant and ludicrous, but how much wrong they have done in the world!
219. The eucharist as a sacrifice: (a) the verity or actuality of this sacrifice. “In believing and confessing that the most holy eucharist is a true sacrament, the Orthodox Church believes also and confesses, in spite of the aberrations of the Protestants, that the eucharist is at the same time a true and real sacrifice, that is, that in the eucharist is the body and blood of our Saviour, which on the one hand are offered as food to men, and on the other are brought as a sacrifice to God.” (p. 414.)
220. (b) Relation of this sacrifice to the sacrifice on the cross, and its properties. “The sacrifice which is brought by God in the sacrament of the eucharist is precisely the same as the sacrifice on the cross.”
Further on it says that this sacrifice has the property of propitiating God, and so it is necessary immediately after it, and as soon as possible to remember men. That will cause God to help men.
“Since a bloodless sacrifice has the power of propitiating and inclining God toward us, it naturally has the power to gain for us various benefits from God, and, being propitiatory, it is at the same time precatory and intercessory. For this reason the holy church, in bringing a bloodless offering, not only prays God to remit sins and save the living and the dead, but also asks God for all kinds of ​gifts, spiritual and bodily, which are necessary for human life.”
That ends the exposition of the sacrament of the eucharist. It took up eighty pages. Everything which has been expounded here, the whole blasphemous delirium, all that was founded by Christ. The fall is taking place with terrible celerity, the fall from the height of questions into the bog of most incomprehensible superstitions. The first fall happened when it was asserted that God redeemed us in a visible manner, and now the last, when there are described the actions of that grace. There is no place to go any lower. What is the difference between a Chuvash, who smears his God with cream, and an Orthodox, who eats a small piece of his God, or who is hastening to offer five kopeks, that his name may be mentioned in a certain place and at a certain time? Then follows the sacrament of repentance.
221. Connection with the preceding; conception of the sacrament of repentance and its various appellations. “In the three saving sacraments of the church, heretofore discussed by us, there is imparted to man the whole abundance of spiritual gifts, which are necessary for him to become a Christian and, having become one, to abide in Christian godliness and attain everlasting happiness. Baptism purifies sinful man from all of his sins, both the original and the voluntary, and introduces him into Christ’s kingdom of grace. Unction with chrism communicates to him divine powers for his strengthening and growth in the life of grace. The eucharist furnishes him with divine food and unites him with the fountain of life and of grace. But since, having become completely cleansed from all sin in the bath of baptism, man is not freed from the consequences of original sin and inherited corruption, such as, in the soul, the propensity to do evil, and in the body, diseases and death (Arts. 91-93), since even after baptism, being a Christian, he may sin, ​and even very often (1 John i. 8, 10), and be subject to diseases, sometimes very serious ones, which bring him to the grave,—it has pleased the all-good God to establish in his church two other sacraments, as two saving remedies for his ailing members: the sacrament of repentance, which remedies our spiritual ailments, and the sacrament of unction with oil, which extends its saving action over the bodily ailments.”
But why only over the ailments? Did we not hear before that the redemption freed men from diseases and death, and that this redemption becomes operative through the sacrament of unction with oil? Consequently unction with oil destroys diseases and death. But laws are not written for the Theology. Unction with oil, as will be seen later, operates against diseases and death, but only a tiny little bit.
“Repentance, taken in the sense of a sacrament, is a sacramental action in which the pastor of the church, by strength of the Holy Ghost, absolves the repentant Christian from all sins committed by him after his baptism, so that the Christian again becomes innocent and sanctified, such as he came out of the waters of baptism.” (pp. 425 and 426.)
From the standpoint of the church, what is important in this sacrament is not the humility with which the repentant man approaches it, not that verification of himself, but only that purification from sin which the hierarchy dispenses by force of an imaginary power. I even wonder why the church does not entirely abelish this sacrament, substituting for it that remissory prayer, which it has introduced and which is said over the dead: “I, unworthy man, by force of the power given to me, remit your sins.” The church sees only this external imaginary purification and cares only for it, that is, it sees only the external action to which it ascribes a curative significance. What is taking place in the soul of the repentant sinner ​is of no consequence to it. Though there are added certain reflections about how the repentant sinner is to approach the sacrament, they are given only en passant and are no important condition under which the imaginary purification takes place. The whole matter is in the imaginary purification over which the hierarchy has the power. The proof is given, as in the case of all the other sacraments, that it was established by Christ, but, as in all sacraments, there is not the slightest proof that Christ uttered the words which he spoke, no matter how we may understand them, having the sacraments in view.
222. The divine establishment and the efficacy of the sacrament of repentance. To prove this imaginary power, there are adduced the words of Matthew (xviii. 17, 18), which are explained in this sense, that the pastors have always enjoyed the divinely given right to bind and loose. The hierarchy understands these words to mean that it has the right to remit sins, and everything is based on that conversation: And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church: but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican. Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth, shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth, shall be loosed in heaven (Matt. xviii. 17, 18).
Here is the whole passage: “If thy brother shall trespass against thee (these words the hierarchy omits in order to introduce its own interpretation), go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone: if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained a brother. But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established. And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church: but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican. Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on ​earth, shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth, shall be loosed in heaven (Matt. xviii. 15-18).”
This clear place, which is given as an instruction for all men, is expounded topsyturvy only because here is used the word ἐκκλησία, assembly, which later has received a different meaning, and is represented as a confirmation of an imaginary power of the hierarchy, which is that of remitting sins.
But, let us assume, contrary to the text and to common sense, that these words were addressed by Christ not to all men, but exclusively to his disciples; let us assume that he gave them the power to remit sins,—in what way does from that result the sacrament of repentance, which makes each who receives it an innocent man? Again there is the old trick: a sacrament, which was established after Christ, and of which no one in his time could have had any conception, is ascribed to Christ. Then follows the exposition of the rules of that sacrament.
223. Who may perform the sacrament of repentance, and who receives it. This sacrament, that is, the remission of sins, may be performed only by the priests.
224. What is demanded of those who approach the sacrament of repentance? Approaching repentance it is necessary to have: (1) contrition for sins. There is even a description of the character of that contrition: “As regards the nature of the contrition respecting the sins, it is necessary to see to it that it does not result merely from the fear of punishment for the sins, not from the conceptions in general of the deleterious consequences for us arising from them in the present and in the future life, but mainly from love for God, whose will we have violated, and from a living consciousness that with our sins we have offended our greatest benefactor and Father, have appeared ungrateful before him, and have become unworthy of him;” (2) an intention of not sinning again; ​(3) an oral confession of our sins, and then the priest says: “Our Lord and God Jesus Christ, with the grace and gifts of his philanthropy, may forgive thee, my child, all thy trespasses, and I, unworthy priest, by the power given me forgive and loose thee from all thy sins, in the name of the Father and the Holy Ghost. Amen.” (p. 437.)
And then the man is purified. It is very useful and necessary that the guiltiness of the sins should be loosed by the priest’s prayer before the last day. But it does not say what will happen if there is not that contrition which is demanded, when there is not the firm and determined intention not to sin again, while the priest gives the remission of sins; but we know that there never is that contrition which is demanded, nor that intention not to sin and to believe. Thus from the whole description of this sacrament of the church, which considers all its essence to consist in the power of remitting sins through its hierarchy, we get a kind of a toy, something ridiculous, or, at least, a senseless action.
225. The visible side of the sacrament of repentance; its invisible actions, and its extent.
Here it is proved that there is no sin that could not be forgiven by the hierarchy, except the sin of not believing in what the hierarchy teaches.
226. Penances, their origin and use in the church. “Under the name of penances (ἐπιτιμία) are meant prohibitions or punishments (2 Cor. ii. 6), which, according to the church rules, the minister of the church, as a spiritual physician, determines in the case of certain penitent Christians for the sake of curing their moral ailments.”
This power the hierarchy has received from God.
227. The significance of the penances.
228. The incorrectness of the doctrine of the Catholic Church about the indulgences. For twenty-two pages we ​get an extended controversy with the Catholics about penances and indulgences. Penances are correctionary punishments, and not punishments of revenge. All that is proved by Holy Scripture against the Catholics, who prove the opposite from the same Holy Scripture. In regard to the indulgences, the question stands as follows: Christ has redeemed the whole world with a profit,—a surplus is left; besides, the priests by their good lives have increased this surplus so that there is now a big pile of goodness. All these profits are at the service of the church. With these profits, which are hard to dispose of, the church, all the time guided by the Holy Ghost, pays God for the sins of its members, and the members pay to it not with something mysterious, but simply with cash. Now this doctrine is not so much objected to, as it is corrected. Our hierarchy agrees to the fact that the church has complete charge of this capital and with this capital pays for the sins of men, remitting the sins to these men in the sacrament of repentance; but the controversy is as to whether the church or its head may arbitrarily forgive these sins without the penitence of the sinner himself. The Catholics say that it can, our men say that it cannot. Of course, there is no sense in either assertion, just as there is no human sense in the question itself; but in this case, as in many other controversies with the Catholics and Protestants, our hierarchy, if it has any distinguishing feature at all, is characterized by stupidity and by an absolute inability to express itself in conformity with the laws of logic. Precisely the same happens in this controversy. The Catholics are logically more correct. If the church can remit sins by dint of its power, and the church is always holy, why should it not pardon robbers, as indeed all the churches do? After that follows the sacrament of unction with oil.
229. Connection with the preceding; conception of unction with oil, and its appellations. “The sacrament of ​repentance, as a healing of grace, is intended for all Christians, but only for curing their spiritual ailments. The sacrament of unction with oil is another healing of salvation, which is intended for Christians who are infirm of body, and has for its purpose the healing of not only their spiritual, but also their bodily infirmities.” (p. 464.)
Here is precisely a case which confirms what I have more than once said about the characteristic feature of our church,—its stupidity. It was said before that repentance heals the soul of sins, and that unction with oil heals the body of diseases and death. It would, therefore, be necessary to explain why unction with oil cures neither diseases nor death. It cannot be concealed that there is no such cure. About the soul it is possible to say what you please, but here that cannot be done: the matter is too obvious; it is necessary either not to say anything about its ability to cure death, or to invent something. The Catholics are bound by logic, and so they have decided that this sacrament is imparted as a farewell ceremony over such patients as are sick unto death, and call it the extreme unction. But our church does not refute its power to cure, and has not invented anything to conceal the matter, but, as always, gets out of the difficulty by saying: “It does cure, but only in part, a tiny little bit, and at certain times.” Then follow proofs of the divine origin of the sacrament.
230. The divine origin of the sacrament of unction with oil and its efficacy. There is not even a single hint in the Gospels as to the establishment of this sacrament by Jesus Christ, but that does not keep the Theology from asserting that it has been established by God:
“Of the sacrament of unction with oil distinct mention is made in Holy Scripture by Apostle James, when he instructs the Christians: Is any among you afflicted? let him pray. Is any merry? let him sing psalms, and ​immediately adds: Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord; and the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him (James v. 14, 15). From these words there are disclosed to us at once the divine origin and its efficacy, as a sacrament. (1) The divine origin: for on the one hand it is evident from the context that the apostle does not speak of unction with oil, as of something new, which the Christians did not know before, but points out to them this means of healing, as something which has existed before and which was universally known to them, and which he commands them to use in case of sickness. On the other hand, it is evident that the apostles never preached anything of themselves (Gal. i. 11, 12), but taught only what they had been commanded by our Lord Jesus (Matt. xxviii. 20), and what the Divine Spirit inspired them with (John xvi. 13); and it is known that they called themselves the servants of Christ, and stewards, and not establishers, of divine sacraments (1 Cor. iv. 1). Consequently unction with oil, which is commanded to the Christians by St. James, as a sacramental healing of diseases, both bodily and spiritual, was commanded by our Lord Jesus Christ himself and by the Divine Spirit. We do not find any statement in Scripture at what particular time our Lord established this sacrament, for many things which he taught and did on earth are not transmitted in writing (John xxi. 25). But it is most natural to think that this sacrament, like two others (baptism and repentance), through which remission of sins is granted, was established by our Lord after his resurrection, when all power was given unto him in heaven and in earth (Matt. xxviii. 18), and when he showed himself to the apostles for forty days and spoke to them of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God (Acts i. 3), that ​is, of the establishment of his church, an essential part of which is formed by the sacraments.” (pp. 465, 466.)
There are no other proofs. What is striking is that not only are there no foundations for any sacrament, but there is not even the slightest cause for this particular sacrament; none the less it is proved that this, too, was founded by God.
231. To whom and by whom the sacrament of unction with oil may be communicated. We are told that all the sick, and not merely the dying, as with the Catholics, may be anointed, and that the anointing may be done by priests, still better, by bishops. Best of all it is if seven priests do the anointing, but even three, or one, may do it.
232. The visible side of the sacrament of unction with oil, and its invisible actions of salvation.
The visible side consists in anointing and saying prayers, and the invisible side,—what do you suppose it is? The invisible side is the healing of bodily infirmities.
“The sacrament of unction with oil is established more particularly for those who are sick in body: consequently the healing of bodily ailments forms the very first saving fruit of this sacrament.” (p. 472.)
The healing is classed with the invisible side, because, of course, unction with oil does not produce it. The Theology is not embarrassed, but says outright that there is a cure, but it is invisible.
Marriage Ceremony
Photogravure from German Print
​a healing of ailments, perhaps for the same reason that those who receive the sacrament of the eucharist, instead of saving fruits, only eat and drink damnation for themselves (1 Cor. xi. 29), that is, on account of their unworthiness, on account of an absence of a living faith in our Lord Jesus, or on account of hard-heartedness. Finally, (d) to wish or to demand that each time when a man is receiving unction with oil he should be cured of his diseases would be the same thing as demanding that he should never die; but that is contrary to the very plan of our regeneration, according to which it is necessary for us to depose this sinful, mortal body, in order to clothe ourselves in proper time, beyond the grave, in an immortal body. For this reason every man who approaches the sacrament of unction with oil, every sick person, ought entirely to abandon himself to the will of God, who knows better than we, to whom it is more useful to send down a cure and prolong his life, and whose life is to be cut short before its time.” (pp. 472 and 473.)
What use was there then of talking about the cure of diseases and of death? And so the first invisible action is the non-existing cure of diseases; the second is the cure of spiritual infirmities.
After that there is a refutal of the doctrine of the Catholics, which ascribed at least some meaning to the sacrament; what is refuted is that this sacrament is meant as a farewell action before death. Then follows the sixth sacrament, established by God.
233. Connection with what precedes. Marriage as a divine institution, and its aim; the conception of marriage as a sacrament, and its appellations. “Three sacraments of the Orthodox Church, baptism, unction with chrism, communion, are intended for all men, so that all may become Christians and then abide in Christian godliness and obtain everlasting salvation. Two other sacraments, repentance and unction with oil, are intended for all ​Christians as two saving remedies, one, in case of spiritual infirmities, and the other, in case of bodily and, at the same time, spiritual ailments. But there are two more sacraments, established by God, which, even though they are not predetermined and necessary for all men and though they are not necessary directly for each of the members of the church, are necessary for the purposes of the church in general, for its existence and flourishing condition. Those are: (a) the sacrament of marriage, which communicates to certain persons grace for the natural procreation of children, the future members of the church, and (b) the sacrament of priesthood, which communicates to special persons the grace for the supernatural procreation of the children of the church and for their education for the eternal life.” (pp. 475 and 476.)
But, according to its definition, a sacrament is a holy action which under a visible form communicates to the soul of the believer the invisible grace of God. But the procreation of children is not an invisible grace. Besides, in defining a sacrament, it was said: “For the performance of a sacrament three things are needed: a proper substance, such as water is in baptism, bread and wine in the eucharist, oil, and other substances according to the sacrament.” (p. 314.)
Here no substance is needed. Marriage apparently does not fit in with the definition of a sacrament, and in general differs from all the other sacraments by this essential feature, that in all the other sacraments (including priesthood) by sacrament are understood external actions, which are performed over something which is supposed to take place, which is not connected with anything real, and which is entirely useless, whereas here by sacrament are meant certain external actions, which are performed over something real, and one of the most important acts in human life. The Theology says:
“Marriage may be considered from two sides: as a law ​of Nature, or as a divine institution, and as a sacrament of the New Testament church, which now, after the fall of man, sanctifies this law.” (p. 476.)
The sanctifying sacrament consists in this: “In order to sanctify, uplift, and strengthen the law of matrimony, which is holy and pure in itself as to its origin from God and as to its purposes, but which because of the disturbance of human nature has fallen under the harmful influence of sin and has in many ways been distorted by men who have abandoned themselves to sensuality, our Lord Jesus has been pleased to establish in his church a special sacrament, that of marriage. Under the name of this sacrament is understood a sacred action in which to the contracting parties, who before the church make a promise of mutual conjugal fidelity, there is communicated from above, through the blessing of the servant of the church, divine grace, which sanctifies their conjugal union, elevates it to an image of Christ’s spiritual union with the church, and then cooperates with them in the blessed acquisition of all the purposes of marriage.” (pp. 478 and 479.)
That is, in connection with the law of marriage, which in itself is holy, the hierarchy finds it necessary to sanctify again.
234. A divine origin of the sacrament of marriage, as a sacrament, apparently does not, and cannot, exist in the Gospels, nor is there anything in them to hitch on to, and so the place is chosen in the Gospel where the word “marriage” is used. That place about the marriage in Cana of Galilee, which has nothing in common with the establishment of marriage, not even with its blessing and approval, is, taken as a basis. The Theology itself feels, as in the case of the unction with oil, that there is nothing to hitch on to, and so it says:
“Of when and how the Lord established the sacrament of marriage, whether when he was present at the marriage ​in Cana of Galilee (John ii. 1-11), or when, in consequence of the well-known question of the Pharisees, he disclosed the true conception about marriage, and said, What God hath joined together, let no man put asunder (Matt. xix. 3-12), or after his resurrection, when for forty days he appeared to his disciples, and spoke to them of the things pertaining to the kingdom of heaven, that is, of what had reference to the establishment of his church (Acts i. 3), the Gospel does not say anything: for there are many other things, which Jesus did, which are not written in these books (John xx. 30; xxi. 25).” (p. 479.)
But that is the very reason why it is considered proved.
235. The visible side of marriage, and invisible actions. The visible side of marriage is this, that groom and bride promise to be husband and wife, and the priest pronounces certain words. The invisible side: (1) grace sanctifies the union, as of Christ with the church; (2) strengthens, as Christ with the church; (3) coöperates in the performances of the obligations, as Christ with the church. Suddenly there is for some reason introduced the comparison of Christ and the church with husband and wife, and in that the invisible side of the sacrament is supposed to lie.
236. Who may perform the sacrament of marriage, and what is demanded of those who proceed to this sacrament. Popes may unite in marriage; the Orthodox (or at least one of the contracting parties an Orthodox) may marry. All others do not marry, but only cohabit.
237. The properties of Christian marriage, sanctified by the sacrament. One may marry only one woman, and divorce is granted only in the case of adultery. All that is regarded as a sacrament founded by God himself.
Of the sacrament of priesthood.
238. Connection with the preceding; the priesthood, as a special divinely established ministration in the church ​(hierarchy), and its three degrees; conception about priesthood as a sacrament.
“In expounding the doctrine of the sacraments, we have heretofore remarked in the case of each of them that it may be performed and communicated to the believers only by the pastors of the church, by bishops and presbyters. But in order that men may become pastors of Christ’s church and receive the power to perform the sacraments, the Lord has established a special sacrament, the sacrament of priesthood.” (p. 490.)
Indeed, leaving out of consideration the fact that of all the sacraments not one has been established by Christ as a sacrament, and that in reference to four of them, to unction with chrism, repentance, unction with oil, and marriage, not even the slightest reference has been discovered,—all the sacraments, even according to the definition of the church, become sacraments only when they are performed by pastors of the church, that is, by true pastors, and so all the preceding sacraments are based on this sacrament of priesthood. If this is not a sacrament, and its origin cannot be proved, all the other sacraments fall of themselves, even though their efficacy may be proved. Farther on it says:
“Priesthood is understood in two senses, as a special class of men, a special ministration in the church, known under the name of hierarchy, and as special sacerdotal action, by which men are consecrated and ordained for this ministration. In the first case, we have already discussed the priesthood, and we have seen that the Lord himself established the hierarchy, or the order of pastors, whom alone he has empowered to be teachers in the church, performers of sacraments, and spiritual stewards, and that he has by no means permitted all the believers to assume all that.” (p. 490.)
The sacraments may be performed only by priests, but, in order to be a priest, it is necessary that the sacrament ​of priesthood be performed on him. In the preceding articles it was said that every sacrament is inefficacious, if it is not performed by real priests. In the explanations much was said about the heretical teachings which have a false priesthood. Consequently the whole strength, not only of this sacrament of priesthood, but of all other as well, lies in the clear proofs that the priesthood was established by Christ, that the transmission of this priesthood was established by him, and that among the many existing usurpating priesthoods the one under discussion is the only true one. And so we get:
239. The divine establishment and efficacy of the sacrament of priesthood. The proof is given that this sacrament is from God. Not only are there no proofs of the establishment of this sacrament, but, as in the case of the sacraments of unction with chrism and with oil, there is not the slightest reference to this sacrament in the Gospels. Here are the proofs:
“The divine establishment of the sacrament of priesthood is to be seen from the actions of the holy apostles, who themselves, by the instruction from the Holy Ghost who reminded them of everything which the Lord Jesus commanded them (John xiv. 26), performed this sacrament, and by the laying on of hands raised to the three degrees of the hierarchy.” (p. 491.)
Then follow the proofs of the fathers and of the councils, so that it is even more obvious than in the case of the previous sacraments, that this sacrament was invented by the hierarchy independently of the teaching of Christ. Then follows an exposition of the sacrament.
240. The visible side of the sacrament; its invisible action and unrepeatedness. The visible side of the sacrament consists in the laying on of hands on the head, and in the saying certain words.
“The invisible action of the sacrament of priesthood consists in this, that by it, after the prayer, there is ​actually imparted to him who is being ordained divine grace to correspond to his future ministration, the grace of priesthood.” (p. 495.)
The importance of the sacrament is as follows: “If any one will reflect how important it is for a man, while he is still burdened with flesh and blood, to be present near the blessed and immortal essence, he will see clearly what honour the grace of the Spirit has bestowed on the priests. By them the sacrifices are offered and all the other high ministrations are performed, which have reference to our dignity and salvation. They still live and move about upon earth, and they have received the power which God has granted neither to the angels, nor to the archangels.” (p. 495.) "The grace of priesthood, which is imparted through the laying on of hands, though in various degrees, upon deacons, presbyters, and bishops, and which vests them with a certain measure of spiritual power, abides in the soul of each of them unchangeably, for which reason neither a bishop, nor a presbyter, nor a deacon is a second time ordained for the same dignity, and the sacrament of priesthood is regarded as being unrepeatable.” (p. 496.) Controversies about it.
241. Who may perform the sacrament of priesthood, and what is demanded of those who receive it.
“According to the teaching of the Orthodox Church, the power to lay on hands for an order of priesthood belongs only to the immediate successors of the apostles, the bishops.”
Then follow long controversies about when this laying on of hands is efficacious, and when not. Priests must be: “(1) Orthodox Christians; (2) men experienced in the word of faith and in life, according to the righteous word; (3) if they are chosen to the dignity of bishop, they must be free from the bonds of marriage; but if they are chosen to the rank of presbyter or deacon, they may, if they so wish, live in a condition of matrimony.” (p. 500.)
​Then there comes a controversy about celibacy, but the question as to how it is proved that our hierarchy is the true successor of the apostles, and not one of the other hierarchies, which regard themselves as such, is not even mooted, so that of all the sacraments the one on which all the others are based not only fails to be proved or determined, but is also introduced quite arbitrarily and without the least sign by which it may be distinguished from anything resembling it. After that follows a division which is called Division VIII. General remarks on the sacraments. In these general remarks we find an exposition:
243. Of the nature of the sacraments. “The sacraments are not only signs of divine promises for the purpose of rousing faith in men, not merely simple rites, which distinguish Christians from Gentiles, not only symbols of spiritual life and so forth, as the heretics wrongly think (Art. 200), but sacramental actions, which under some visible form really impart to the believers an invisible grace of God; they are instruments which of necessity operate as grace on those who approach unto them.” (p. 505.)
244. On the septenary number of the sacraments. It is proved that there are precisely seven sacraments. From these proofs the very opposite is clearly demonstrated.
“After that we must not be misled by the fact that some ancient teachers, as the need arose, or in conformity with the purpose ose chosen by them, or for some other reasons, speak in their writings now of two, now of three, and now of four sacraments, without mentioning the rest. It is quite wrong to conclude from that, as the Protestants have concluded, that the ancient church recognized only two sacraments (why not three or four?), baptisım and the eucharist, for it is known that other teachers of the church at the same time or even earlier mentioned also all the rest; for it is known that the same teachers, mentioning baptism and the eucharist by name, at times point also to ​other similar sacraments and in various passages of their writings clearly speak separately of each of the seven sacraments.” (pp. 511 and 512.)
Any one who has read church history knows that there were seven sacraments, precisely seven, because there are seven gifts of the Holy Ghost, seven candelabra, seven seals, and so forth.
245. On the conditions for the performance and efficacy of the sacraments. For the performance of the sacraments, that is, for the communication of grace to the believers, are needed: “(1) A legally ordained presbyter or bishop; (2) a legal (that is, according to the divine ordainment) sacramental action of the sacraments.” (pp. 513 and 514.)
“But, on the other hand, many heretics have wrongly thought: (a) that for the performance and efficacy of the sacraments is needed not only a legally ordained minister of the church, but also a pious servant, so that the sacraments performed by tainted servants of the altar have no significance, or (b) that the actuality and efficacy of each sacrament depends on the faith of the persons receiving it, so that it is a sacrament and has its full power only during the time of its reception or use with faith, and that when not used, or in case of acceptance without faith, it is not a sacrament and remains sterile (Art. 200). (1) The first is wrong, for the power of grace of the sacraments depends really on the deserts and the will of Christ the Saviour, who himself performs them invisibly, and the pastors of the church are only his servants and visible instruments, through whom he imparts the sacraments to men. (2) Wrong is also the second opinion, which assumes that the power and actuality of the sacraments is in complete dependence on the faith and disposition of the persons who receive the sacraments.” (pp. 514-517.)
That is clear. The sacraments are purely external ac​tions, like incantations against the toothache which act upon people, and there is no sense of speaking or thinking of any spiritual side either on the part of the one who pronounces the incantation, or on the part of those who are being cured. It is necessary to make certain motions with the hands and feet, and grace will come down.
246. Moral application of the dogma. The application of the dogma concludes the section about the sacraments. The only obvious application is to have recourse to the hierarchy for sanctification by means of sacraments. The whole doctrine about the sacraments, after it has been analyzed, is reduced to the following: among the number of senseless, discordant followers of Christ there are some who consider themselves to be ordained by those men who themselves have been ordained by the laying on of hands, who, finally, were ordained by the apostles. These people give no signs of their right of succession, but they assert that the grace of the Holy Ghost has come down to them, and that, in consequence of it, they know seven actions through which the grace of the Holy Ghost descends upon people, and this grace, though it is not determined by anything visible, they are able to bring down on people. The communication of this invisible grace by these men is in reality the doctrine about the sacraments.
XVII.
Chapter II. Of God as the Judge and Retributer.
Here the didactic part of the Theology is really ended. The doctrine about the sacraments is the aim and crown of all. It is necessary to prove to people that their salvation does not lie in them, but depends on the hierarchy, which can sanctify and save them. All men have to do is to obey and seek salvation; paying the clergy for it in honours and money. The next chapter is really not a teaching, but a threat, which will incite the flock to have recourse to the hierarchy. There is a short recapitulation of the doctrine from the beginning.
247. Connection with the preceding; conception of God as the Judge and Retributer, and the composition of the church doctrine about it.
“For the full rehabilitation and salvation of fallen man it was necessary to perform three great acts: (a) to reconcile the sinner with God, whom he has infinitely offended by his fall; (b) to cleanse the sinner from sins and make him righteous and holy; (c) to free the sinner from the punishments themselves for his sins, and to present to him the benefits which he has earned in accordance with his sanctity (Art. 124). The first act the Lord God achieved himself without our participation, when he sent down upon earth his only-begotten Son, who, having become incarnate and having taken upon himself the sins of the whole human race, has by his death brought full satisfaction to eternal justice, and in this manner has not only redeemed us from sins and from ​punishments for sins, but has also made us partake of the gifts of the Holy Ghost and of eternal happiness (Art. 153). The second act the Lord God achieves with our coöperation. He has founded on earth his holy church as a living and constant instrument for our purification from sin and for our sanctification; he sends down to us in the church and through the church the grace of the Holy Ghost, as an actual force, which purifies us from sins and sanctifies us; he has established various sacraments in the church for communicating to us the various gifts of this saving grace, in conformity with all the needs of our spiritual life, and it lies with us whether we shall make use, or not, of the means of sanctification, which God offers to us.” (pp. 520 and 521.)
God took pity on men who were perishing from their evil will, and redeemed them. But the condition of men after the redemption remained the same that it had been in the time of Adam and the patriarchs. Just as they who were before the redemption had to look for salvation, so we must do, who come after the redemption. The difference between the condition of the Old Testament and that of grace is this, that then there did not exist the mechanical means of the sacraments, but now it exists. The difference is this, that Jacob and Abraham could save themselves by their good lives, by the fulfilment of God’s will in life, and now we can be saved through sacraments.
All that would be very nice, but with this teaching, it would seem, it would be impossible to recognize retribution, because retribution results from the absolutely free activity of man, while with salvation through the sacraments man is not free. Salvation through good works differs from any other in that it is absolutely free. A man is for moral good as free on the cross as at home; but the salvation through sacraments does not fully, and sometimes does not at all, depend on the will of man, so ​that, in spite of the whole desire to be baptized, anointed, communed, man may not have the chance to be so. Consequently retribution appears as unjust, when grace is taken into consideration. Adam could be punished for the apple; he could have eaten, or not eaten it; but a punishment because a man had no chance or possibility to be baptized or to commune, such a punishment destroys the idea of God’s justice, and that is precisely what results from church grace. According to the Old Testament, God is represented as crude and cruel, but none the less just; according to the new grace, as the hierarchy teaches it, he is represented as an unjust judge, as one gone mad, who punishes men for what is beyond their will.
Evidently one cannot get away from the laws of reason. The first error, or lie, of the redemption led up to the greater lie of grace, and grace led to a still greater lie, to the faith of obedience, and this again to the mechanical actions of the sacraments. The necessity of an incitement for the performance of the sacraments led up to retribution, and that teaching has found its expression in a horrifying monstrosity.
God, to save all men, gave his Son up to execution, and from this it follows that if a pope is too late with his sacrament when I am dying, I shall go, if not directly to hell, somewhere where I shall be much worse off than he who has stolen a lot of money and has hired a pope or several popes to be always about him. That is not a misuse, but a direct conclusion. But that does not embarrass the Theology. It says: “The first thing is that God has saved us; the second thing is that he has given us sacraments; the third thing the Lord God achieves after the performance of the second, which he achieves with our help: he then appears as the judge of men, who justly weighs our deserts, whether we have made proper use, or not, of the means of purification from sins and of sanctifi​cation, which he has given us on earth, and whether we are worthy, or not, to be freed from punishments for sins and to receive happiness; he appears thereupon as a just Retributer, who determines the due part for each man according to his deserts.” (p. 521.)
The means against it are the sacraments. Then follows the usual exposition. In the retribution all three persons of the Trinity take part.
248. The circumstance which prepares the private judgment. Man’s death. Death is spoken of as something new and unknown to anybody. The cause of death is the fall of the first man, and from the first man we took that habit. All that is proved.
249. The actuality of the private judgment. It is proved that after death there takes place a private judgment of man in distinction from the general judgment. The judgment, that is, a certain process of investigation and the retribution which follows from it, is ascribed to omniscient and all-good God.
250. Representation of the private judgment: teaching about the torments. “Holy Scripture does not tell us how a private judgment takes place. But an objective representation of this judgment, based mainly on Holy Tradition and in agreement with Holy Scripture, we find in the teaching about the torments (τελωνία), which has existed since antiquity in the Orthodox Church.” (p. 528.)
The torments are described and confirmed by Holy Scripture on ten pages. We are told that “at the parting of our soul from our body there will arise before us, on the one hand, a host of the heavenly powers, and on the other, the powers of darkness, the evil keepers of the world, the aerial chiefs of torments, the inquisitors and arraigners of our deeds. Upon seeing them, the soul will be excited, and will be convulsed and tremble, and in confusion and terror will seek for defence among the angels of God; but ​even when it will be accepted by the holy angels, and under their protection will flit through the aerial spaces and rise to the height, it will encounter various torments, as it were barriers or toll-gates where taxes are collected, which will bar its way to the kingdom and will stop and arrest its striving toward it. At each of these torments an account of some special sins will be demanded: at the first torment, of the sins committed by means of the lips and mouth; at the second torment, of the sins of vision; at the third, of the sins of hearing; at the fourth, of the sins of smell; at the fifth, of all lawlessness and abominable deeds done by means of the hands. To the other torments belong the other sins, such as anger, hatred, envy, vanity, and pride. . . . In short, every passion, every passion of the soul, every sin will similarly have its tormentors and inquisitors.” (p. 529.)
252. Retribution to the righteous: (a) their glorification in heaven, in the church triumphant.
“Retribution for the righteous, by the will of the heavenly Judge, also has two forms: (a) their glorification, though not yet complete, in heaven, in the church triumphant, and (b) their glorification upon earth, in the church militant.” (p. 534.)
It is hard to understand how the word “glorification” occupies such an important place in the teaching of the church, especially when one thinks of Christ's teaching, which is constantly directed against glory, and one feels with his heart that the love of glory, of glorification, is one of the most petty of human feelings. I can understand as a reward the contemplation of God, peace, Paradise, Eden, even Mohammed's Paradise, Nirvana; but in order to understand the reward in glorification, I have to imagine myself in the place of the crudest of men or when I was only fifteen years old. But the Theology regards glorification as a great reward. This glorification is represented to consist in this, that wreaths will be put on them and ​that they will be in honour and glory. That is proved from Holy Scripture.
253. The glorification of the righteous upon earth, in the church militant: (aa) the worship of the saints. “At the same time that the righteous Judge and Retributer honours the righteous, after their decease, with a glorification, anticipatory though it be, in heaven, in the church triumphant, he honours them also with a glorification upon earth, in the church militant.” (p. 546.)
This glory is again represented in the form of wreaths, gold, precious stones, obeisances, censers, singing, masses, and so forth. Then follow controversies with those who do not consider it necessary to worship the saints in such a way. All that is proved from Scripture.
254. (bb) Invocation of the saints. “Respecting the saints, as true servants, favourites, and friends of God, the holy church at the same time invokes them in its prayers, not as some gods, who might help us by their own power, but as our intercessors before God, the only sources and distributers of all the gifts and favours to the creatures (James i. 17), as our representatives and intercessors, who have the power of mediation from Christ, who alone is in the proper sense the independent mediator between God and men, who gave himself a ransom for all (1 Tim. ii. 5, 6). Holy Scripture teaches us that dogma.” (pp. 553 and 554.)
It is a dogma. The dogma consists in this, that: (a) it is necessary to pray to the saints, (b) that the saints hear us, (c) that they pray for us.
All that is proved by Holy Scripture, and the proof is concluded by an excerpt from a decree of a council:
Kiev Monastery
Photogravure from Photograph
​the permission to mediate for the world, according to the church tradition: anathema.”
That is, obviously, a sufficient proof.
255. (cc) The worship of holy relics and of other remainders of those who have pleased God. Besides, it is necessary also to glorify the relics and other remainders of the saints. That is proved:
“(a) Because when a dead man barely touched the body of Prophet Elisha, he revived, and stood up on his feet (2 Kings xiii. 21); (c) because the mantle of Elijah, which was left by him to Elisha, with its touch opened the waters of the Jordan for the passage of the latter prophet (2 Kings ii. 14); that even the handkerchiefs and aprons of St. Paul, which in his absence were put on those who suffered from diseases or were possessed by devils, cured the diseases and drove out the devils (Acts xix. 12). (2) In the history of the church we find an endless number of similar miracles, which the Lord has performed through the relics and other remainders of the saints for all those who had recourse to them with faith.
“(3) The most startling miracle, with which the Lord has glorified the bodies of many saints, is their incorruptibility. This incorruptibility of the holy relics, this exemption of theirs through the miraculous divine action from the universal law of corruption, serving, as it were, as a living lesson of their future resurrection and as strong incitement to us to worship the very bodies of the saints who are glorified by God and to emulate their faith, is not subject to the slightest doubt. In Kíev and Nóvgorod, in Moscow and Vológda, and in many other places of our divinely guarded country openly rest many incorruptible relics of saints, and by the incessant miracles, which are wrought on those who have recourse to them in faith, they loudly testify to the truth of their incorruptibility.” (pp. 563-567.)
All of us know about the Duke Decroix, of hundreds ​and hundreds of incorruptible bodies, due to physical conditions; we know that accidentally a certain Siberian bishop did not decompose and now is lying in Kiev in a cellar, waiting for the opening of the relics; we know of those relics that are kept under a bushel, about the scarecrows, with which pennies are gathered in for the hierarchy, and whose garments are clandestinely changed by the members of the hierarchy; we know about the oil which is poured into the fragrance-spreading heads. Not a single student of a seminary nor a peasant believes in all that, so what sense is there in expounding it in the Theology as a dogma? Even if there were in the Theology anything resembling a disclosure of the truths of faith, even if everything were sensible and correct in it, such an assertion about the relics would invalidate the whole thing.
The proof is given that the relics and all kinds of handkerchiefs and pantaloons have to be honoured and kissed, and that pennies are to be put on them, and the whole concludes with a decree of the Seventh Ecumenical Council:
“And thus, those who dared to reject the relics of the martyrs, which they knew to be genuine and true: if they are bishops or clergymen, let them be deposed; if they are monks or laymen, let them be deprived of communion.” (p. 570.)
But all that is not enough. It is not enough to substitute saints, their fingers and pantaloons, in the place of God. We need still the images.
256. (dd) The worship of the holy images. The church commands us: (a) to use images in churches, houses, and streets; (b) to honour them with the burning and offering of tapers; and it condemns: (a) the ancient iconoclasts, (b) the modern Protestants, (c) those who worship them as though they were gods. There begin proofs and controversies. Those controversies have cost ​much malice, many executions, much blood. Only by an absolute departure from the questions of faith can we explain those controversies and those assertions and proofs, which are adduced in the book.
“III. The endless signs and miracles which the Lord has been pleased to perform through the images for the believers serve as a new incitement for the worship of the holy images. With accounts of these miracles are filled the chronicles, of the church in general, as also of our church in particular. Several images of Christ the Saviour, of his immaculate Mother, of St. Nicholas, and of other saints have, on account of the abundance of miracles wrought by them, since antiquity been known under the name of miracle-working images, and, being found in various places of the Orthodox Church, by the will of God our benefactor, have not yet ceased to be as it were channels or guides of his miraculous power, which gives us salvation.” (p. 580.)
It is for these channels of his miraculous power that controversies have existed and differences of opinions still exist: the question is whether they are channels or not. If the Lord has deigned to work miracles through those images, then not only a rude peasant, but even the greatest philosopher cannot help but pray to the image. If a case is decided through a secretary, the secretary has to be invoked, and there is no way out of it. We have long ago descended upon earth from the sphere of questions about religion. The discussion was about sacraments which mechanically impart grace, independently of the spiritual condition of the pastor and believer, only when there are no causes for cassation; and now the subject under discussion is the images, which are channels of miraculous power, which therefore have to be prayed to, though they are not gods.
About the history of these channels we learn from the Theology, that during the first three centuries “the pa​gans at times rebukingly asked the Christians why they had no certain representations,” because “one of the councils in Spain, the one at Elvira, which took place in the year 305, in its 36th rule directly forbade the use of images in temples. But: (a) first of all this rule incontestably proves that images were then in use in the churches; (b) this rule forbade men to represent upon the walls of the temples that which the Christians worshipped (quod colitur et adoratur), that is, as is assumed, to represent God in his substance, which is invisible and unrepresentable; (c) not improbable is another guess, which is, that the rule was enunciated in conformity with the conditions of place and time: in Spain just then raged the Diocletian persecution, and the Pagans, who frequently broke into the temples, desecrated the holy representations of the Lord and his saints, and so, in order to avoid that, this rule was adopted for a certain time.” (p. 584.)
257. Retribution to sinners: (a) their punishment in hell. “The sinners, suddenly after death and the private judgment, depart with their souls to a place of sorrow and grief.” (p. 584.)
Proofs from Holy Scripture. The place to which they depart is called the extreme darkness, a fiery furnace. Not all agree where that Gehenna is, but there are several subdivisions in hell: “It may be assumed that hell has its separate abodes, lockups, and dungeons of the souls, its separate divisions, of which one is properly called Hell, another Gehenna, a third Tartarus, a fourth a Fiery Lake, and so forth. At least there is in Revelation a passage where hell and the lake of fire are distinguished (Rev. xx. 13, 14). These unequal torments of the sinners in hell after the private judgment are not full and complete, but only anticipatory.”
Proofs from Holy Scripture.
258. (b) The possibility which some sinners have of receiving alleviation, and even immunity from the pun​ishments of hell, because of the prayers of the church. “However, while the Orthodox Church teaches that all sinners, after their death and the private judgment over them, all alike depart to hell, a place of sorrow and of grief, it at the same time confesses that for those who have repented before their departure from the present life, but have not had time to bring the fruits which are worthy of repentance (such as prayer, contrition, the consolation of the poor, and the expression in acts of love for God and for their neighbours), there is still left a chance of getting alleviation in sufferings and even of being completely freed from the bonds of hell. Such an alleviation and immunity the sinners may obtain, not through any of their own deserts or through repentance (for after death and the private judgment there is no place either for repentance or for deserts), but only through the infinite grace of God, through the prayers of the church, and through the benefactions done by the living for the dead, and especially through the power of the bloodless sacrifice, which in particular the servants of the church bring for every Christian and for the deceased, and which the Catholic and Apostolic Church in general brings every day for all.” (p. 589.)
That is proved. That natural consideration how, if God is just (as a man is just), as the hierarchy understands it, he can forgive a sinner for somebody else’s prayers is decided in the following way:
“St. Augustine: ‘There is no cause for the slightest doubt that they (prayers of the holy church, saving sacrifices, and alms) are beneficial to the dead, but only to those who before their death have lived in such a way that they can be beneficial to them. For in behalf of those who have departed without faith, which is accompanied by charity, and without the communion in the sacraments, their friends will in vain perform the works of that godliness, an earnest of which they did not have ​in themselves, when they were here, and when they did not receive or vainly received divine grace, and treasured up for themselves not mercy, but wrath. Thus, no new deserts are obtained for the dead, when their friends do something good in their behalf, but the consequences are extracted from the foundations which they have laid before.’” (p. 599.)
What good is there, then, in prayers? Is it possible God will not make out the foundations which they have laid before, without the mediation of advocates? What use is there, then, in the prayers and sacrifices of the church? However disagreeable it is to say so, there is no other cause for them except that of collecting pennies. Indeed, this natural heartfelt sentiment of every praying person, in addressing God, to remember the souls of friends,—this holy, this good sentiment, the hierarchy, by its touch, has managed to change into something stupid, base, and degrading.
Then follow reflections about the prayers of the church: (1) the deceased are divided into those for whom it is necessary to pray, and into those for whom it is not necessary to pray (the unrepenting and the stubborn); (2) there is a refutal of the opinions of those who assert that there is no need of praying for those who have passed away having received the last sacrament, on the ground that they are holy as it is; (3) it is proved that it is necessary to pray for them; (4) prayers have an effect only on the private judgment; the same reflection by St. Augustine as quoted above, that prayer is a kind of remembrance; (6) that there are some who can no longer be saved by prayers, while others may be saved; (7) the church prays “on the third day for the sake of him who on the third day rose from the dead; on the ninth day in commemoration of the living and of the dead; on the fortieth, because for that length of time the people lamented Moses;” (8) in case we pray for those who are ​already “in heaven or among the number of the rejected,” the prayers, “though no longer useful to them, can do them no harm;” (9) “if the church prays for all who have died in repentance, and its prayers are very strong before God and beneficial to them, then all will be saved, and no one shall be deprived of bliss? To that we shall say, ‘Let it be so, and oh, if it were so!’” (p. 606.)
259. (c) Remarks about purgatory. Controversy with the Catholics about purgatory, and proofs that they are in the wrong.
260. The moral application of the dogma about the private judgment and retribution naturally is to be afraid of the judgment and have recourse to the relics and images and pay money to the hierarchy that it may pray for the departed.
Section II. On the general judgment. 261. Connection with what precedes; the day of the general judgment; the uncertainty of that day, and signs of its approach, especially the appearance of the antichrist.
“The private judgment, to which every man is subjected after his death, is not the complete and final judgment, and so naturally makes us wait for another, the full and decisive judgment. At the private judgment the soul receives its award without any participation of the body, although the body has shared with it its good and bad works. After the private judgment, the righteous in heaven and the sinners in hell have opened unto them only an anticipation of that happiness or torment, which they have deserved. Finally, after the private judgment a few sinners still have a chance to alleviate their fate and even to free themselves from the bonds of hell, if not through their own deserts, at least through the prayers of the church. But the day, the last day, will certainly come for the whole human race (John vi. 39-40).” (p. 613.)
The day will come when the body will receive accord​ing to its deserts. Then are defined the symptoms of the coming of that day:
“(1) On the one hand extraordinary successes of good upon earth,—the dissemination of Christ’s Gospel in the whole world: (2) on the other hand, extraordinary successes of evil and the appearance of the antichrist upon earth.”
This is who the antichrist is going to be:
“(a) It will be a definite person, by all means a man, but only a lawless man under the special operation of Satan; (b) he will in his character be distinguished by extraordinary pride and will give himself out as a God; (c) for the purpose of attaining his end he will preach a false doctrine, which is contrary to the saving faith of Christ, an enticing teaching, with which he will draw after him many weak and unworthy people; (d) in confirmation of his teaching and for the greater seduction of men, he will perform false signs and miracles; (e) finally he will perish from the actions of Jesus Christ the Saviour, when he comes to judge the living and the dead. We shall further remark: (a) he will come from the tribe of Dan; (b) he will be a powerful lord, who will usurp the power by force, and will extend his dominion over all the nations; (c) he will cause a terrible persecution of the Christians, will demand divine worship of himself, will draw many after him, and those who will not follow him he will put to death; (d) for the counteraction to the antichrist, God will send from heaven two witnesses, who, as is said in Revelation, shall prophesy the truth and work miracles, and when they shall have finished their testimony, they shall be killed by a dragon, and after three days and a half they shall rise from the dead and ascend to heaven; (e) the dominion of the antichrist will last only three years and a half.” (pp. 616-618.)
All that is proved by Holy Scripture.
“It will not be superfluous to remark that the predic​tions about the antichrist have more than once been applied to various persons. Some, according to the testimony of St. Augustine, saw the antichrist in Nero; others saw him in the Gnostics; others again in the pontiff at Rome and in general in popery: an idea which arose and was quite common in the Middle Ages in the West among many sectarians, but which became especially strengthened with the appearance of Protestant communities, and which has penetrated into their theological systems and has many times been discussed in special works, and so forth.” (p. 619.)
The author does not mention that the greater part of the Russian people regards our hierarchy as the hierarchy of the antichrist.
262. Events which are to take place on the day of the general judgment, and their order. “The actions of the antichrist on earth will last to the very judgment day.” (p. 619.)
263. The premonitory circumstances of the general judgment: (a) the arrival of the Lord Judge over the living and the dead. On that day the Lord Jesus Christ will come down upon earth. Everything is proved by Holy Scripture.
264. (b) The resurrection of the dead, and the transformation of the living. “On that last day (John vi. 40-14) and just at the time that the glorious descent of the Lord upon earth, surrounded by those who live in heaven, will take place, he shall send before him with a great sound of a trumpet (Matt. xxiv. 31), and the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God (John v. 25); for the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive shall be changed (1 Thes. iv. 16, 17; 1 Cor. xv. 52).” (pp. 622 and 623.)
That is, in Russian: first all the dead shall arise, and ​then the living shall be changed. It is proved by Holy Scripture that there shall certainly be a resurrection of the dead, and that the possibility of the resurrection of the dead cannot be subject to doubt. This is the way it is proved:
“In the world nothing is destroyed or annihilated, but everything remains whole in the power and in the right hand of the Almighty; our bodies lose their existence through death only for us, but not for God, who knows full well all the smallest particles of each dead body, though they may be scattered everywhere and may be united with other bodies, and is always able to reunite these particles into the former organism.” (p. 625.)
When it comes to talking about particles, the question is not about replacing the particles, but about the fact that there will not be enough particles to go around. The body of my great-grandfather is rotten parts of his body have gone into the grass; a cow has eaten the grass; a peasant boy has drunk those parts in his milk, and these particles have become his body, and his body has rotted. There will not be enough particles to go around, so that it is absolutely impossible for God to do that by means of the particles. It would be better to prove that in the old way like this:
“(a) In reply to the objection that the resurrection of the dead is incomprehensible to us, men have pointed to other, not less incomprehensible things, such as: the birth of each man, the original formation of the human body out of the dust, the creation of the world out of nothing, and so forth.”
That proves the possibility of the resurrection in the body, and the necessity of it is proved like this:
Peasants Celebrating Easter Morning
Photogravure from Drawing by Carl Buddeus
​troyed (1 Cor. xv. 26). Otherwise the purpose of Christ’s descent upon earth, the purpose of the whole Christianity, will not be fully realized: man will not be all saved, his enemies will not be all vanquished, and in Christ we shall receive less than we have lost in Adam. (p. 628.) Асcording to their qualities, the resurrected bodies: (1) will be essentially the same that they have been in connection with certain souls during their life upon earth; (2) but, on the other hand, they will also be distinct from the present bodies: because they will arise in a transformed state in resemblance to the resurrected body of Christ the Saviour. They will be: (a) incorruptible and immortal; (b) glorious or light-bearing; (c) strong and sound; (d) spiritual (p. 629.) We shall all of us have eternal bodies, but not all alike. If one is righteous he will receive a heavenly body in which he will be able properly to have relations with the angels; but if one is sinful, he will receive an eternal body, which is to suffer torments for sins, in order to burn for ever in fire and not to be destroyed. (pp. 631 and 632.) Some have thought that after the resurrection of the bodies the distinction of sexes will be abolished; others, on the contrary, have assumed that the distinction will remain; others again, that all the dead will rise as males, an opinion against which St. Augustine had armed himself. Some have divined that all the dead, old men, middle-aged men, youths, and children will rise as being of one age, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ (Eph. iv. 13); others have said that they will not be of the same age, though they have not admitted that babes and youths would rise in their respective ages, but have thought that they would rise at a maturer age.” (p. 632.)
Besides the resurrection of the dead, there is disclosed also the mystery in regard to those whom the judgment will find still living, and who will be transformed in a very short time.
​265. The general judgment itself: its actuality, manner, and properties. “Soon after the appearance upon earth of the Judge of the living and the dead in all his glory, when with his voice there shall arise the dead and the living shall be changed, the judgment over them, the general judgment, will begin.” (p. 633.) The representation of the general judgment, as sketched to us in the Word of God, shows to us: (1) the Judge sitting on the throne of glory; (2) the executors of his will, the angels; (3) the defendants: (a) all the living and the dead people; (b) the righteous and the bad; (c) the devils. (4) As subjects for the judgment will serve: (a) not only the works of men, (b) but also their words.
Nothing is said about the devils.
When the judgment is over, the righteous will be separated from the bad. Some will be placed on the right, the others on the left. Then will take place the proclamation of the sentence by the Judge to either division:
“Then shall the King say unto them on the right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world (Matt. xxv. 34). Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels (ib. 41). The holy fathers and the teachers of the church have recognized this representation of the general judgment as unquestionably correct, and have written their interpretations of it.”
Here are the interpretations:
“We must not think that the coming of the Lord will be local and carnal, but we must expect him in the glory of the Father suddenly throughout the whole world. . . . But we must assume that much time will be lost before each will see himself and his works; and the mind will in a twinkling of time represent to itself the Judge and the consequences of the divine judgment with unspeakable power; all that the mind will vividly sketch before ​itself, and in the mightiness of his soul, as in a mirror, will see the pictures of what he has done.” (p. 637.)
The Theology says that the judgment is not to be understood as local and carnal, but how is it to be understood? for it says that the judgment will be:
“(1) General. . . . The King comes down from his place in order to judge over the earth; his hosts accompany him in great terror and trepidation. These mortal members come to be witnesses of the terrible judgment; and all men, no matter how many there have been and are upon earth, come into the presence of the King. No matter how many have been born or will be born will all come to this spectacle, to see the judgment.” (p. 637.)
“(2) Solemn and open. . . . And he will call heaven and earth to be with him at the judgment; and those who are above and far away will appear with terror and trepidation. And the celestial hosts and the legions of hell will tremble before the Judge who knows no favours, and who will come accompanied by terror and by death.”
That is the way Christ will come!
“(3) Stern and terrible: because it will be done according to the whole divine righteousness, and according to nothing but righteousness; it will be a day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God (Rom. ii. 5.)
“(4) Decisive and the last: because it will unchangeably determine for eternity the fate of each of the defendants.”
That is, it will condemn the sinners to torments. Nothing can be added to that. The only feeling which I experienced in quoting these passages was that of terror and horror before that blasphemy which I was committing in copying and repeating them.
266. Concomitant circumstances of the general judgment: (a) the end of the world. “During that last day, in which the last judgment of God will take place over the whole world, there will also ensue the end of the ​world.” (p. 638.) “The end of the world will not consist in its being completely destroyed and annihilated, but in its being changed and renovated by fire.—The matter of the reëstablishment of men will come to an end with the general judgment, where will take place the revelation of the sons of God. Consequently, the creatures themselves must be freed from labour and corruption, into the freedom of the glory of the children of God; the whole material world must be purified from the deleterious consequences of human sin and be renovated. This renovation of the world will take place on the last day by means of fire, so that in the new heaven and the new earth nothing sinful will be left, but righteousness alone will abide (2 Peter iii. 13).” (p. 639.)
So here is clearly expressed the idea that the renovation of the world was not achieved by the redemption, that that was spoken of only as an adornment of speech, and that the present renovation will be produced by Christ, not at his first, but at his second coming.
Proofs from Holy Scripture of the correctness of this end and the renovation of the world by fire.
267. (b) The end of Christ’s kingdom of grace and the beginning of the kingdom of glory; remarks about the chiliasm, or millennium, of Christ. That is confirmed. The kingdom of grace will come to an end and the kingdom of glory will begin, that is, the real liberation from sin and death, that is, what heretofore has been asserted of the kingdom of grace. Proofs of that from Holy Scripture, and a controversy with those who said that one thousand years before the end Christ would come upon earth, would raise the righteous from the dead and would reign with them for a thousand years. That is not true.
268. Connection with the preceding, and nature of this retribution. After the judgment, Christ will pronounce the sentence. “This retribution after the general judgment will be full, complete, decisive. Full, that is, not ​only for the soul of man, as after the private judgment, but both for the soul and the body,—for the full man. Complete: for it will not consist merely in an anticipation of happiness for the righteous and of torment for the sinners, as after the private judgment, but in complete happiness and torment, in accordance with the deserts of each. Decisive: for it will persist unchangeable for ever, and not for one of the sinners will it be possible ever to free himself from hell, though such a chance is open to some of the sinners after the private judgment.” (p. 649.)
269. Retribution for the sinners. (a) In what will the everlasting torments consist? The eternal torments of the sinners will consist: (1) in the separation from God and in the curse; (2) in the deprivation of the benefits of the kingdom of God; (3) they will be in hell with the devils, who will torture them; (4) they will experience internal torments; (5) they will experience external torments, of the undying worm and the unextinguished fire.
“When you hear of the fire, do not imagine that the fire of that place is like what it is upon earth: our fire will burn whatever it gets hold of, and changes it into something else; but that other fire will eternally burn the one it gets hold of, and will never stop,—and so it is called inextinguishable. For the sinners, too, have to be vested in immortality, not for their honour, but as an eternal requisite for the torment in hell. No mind is able to imagine how terrible it is, unless from the experience of small calamities one may get a small conception of those great, great torments: if you are ever in a bath-house which is heated more than is proper, you may imagine the fire of Gehenna; and if you ever burn in a high fever, you may mentally transfer yourself to that flame, and then you will be able properly to understand that distinction. For, if the bath-house and the fever torment and worry you so, what are you going to feel ​when you fall into that river of fire which will be flowing before the terrible judgment?”
(a) They will eternally weep and gnash their teeth.
“What will be,” says another holy father, “the condition of the body which is subjected to these unending and unbearable torments where there is the inextinguishable fire, the immortally tormenting worm, the dark and terrible pit of hell, bitter sobbing, unusual groans, weeping and gnashing of teeth, and where there is no end to sufferings? From all that there is no liberation after death, and there are no means and no chance to be freed from those terrible torments.” (p. 654.)
Such is the condition of the sinner; but what will be the condition of the good God who will eternally look upon it?
270. (6) Degrees of the torments of hell. “However, although all sinners will be subjected to torments in hell, they will not be in the same degree, but each in conformity with his sins.” (p. 654.)
All that is proved by Holy Scripture.
271. The eternity of the torments of hell. “But differing from each other in degree, the torments of the sinners in hell will by no means differ in respect to duration, for they will be equally eternal and unending for all.” (p. 656.)
All that is confirmed by Holy Scripture, and there is a refutal of the opinion that the teaching about the eternity of torments is contrary to common sense (not to common sense, but to some low conception of God).
According to the teaching of the Theology torments that are not eternal are contrary to sound reason.
272. Retribution for the righteous: (a) wherein will their happiness consist? “As much as, on the one hand, the Word of God depicts in gloomy colours the fate of the sinners after the general judgment, so, on the other, it depicts in bright and joyous colours the fate of the ​righteous. (1) They inherit the kingdom which is prepared for them from the foundation of the world; (2) in this kingdom, city, house of God, the first source of the happiness of these righteous people will be their constant coexistence and cohabitation with God himself and with the Lord Jesus Christ, and the constant participation in the divine glory, as much as that is possible for a creature; (3) living all the time with the Lord in the kingdom of heaven, the righteous will be permitted to behold the Tri-hypostatic One face to face.”
That is, that terrible God who, having created men out of love, torments them for ever.
273. (b) Degrees of the happiness of the righteous:
“The happiness of the righteous in heaven, which is common for all of them, has its degrees, in accordance with the moral dignity of each.” That is proved by Holy Scripture.
274. (c) The eternity of the happiness of the righteous.
The happiness of the righteous is eternal.
275. The moral application of the dogma about the general judgment and retribution. “Oh, if we only thought often and attentively of that great day (Acts ii. 20), the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God (Rom. ii. 5), with which some day the whole house-management of our salvation will end! If we only presented to ourselves vividly and in detail those endless benefits which are prepared for the righteous in heaven, and those eternal torments which await the sinners in hell! How many incitements we should find for ourselves to abstain from sins and to abide in godliness! So give us all, O Lord, and for ever, the living and undying remembrance of thy future glorious coming, of thy last terrible judgment over us, of thy most just and everlasting retribution for the righteous and for the sinners,—that in its light and in the light of thy grace and aid we may live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present ​world (Tit. ii. 12), and in that manner finally attain the eternal, blissful life in heaven, so as to glorify thee with all our being, thee, with thy beginningless Father and most holy and good and life-giving Spirit, for ever and ever.”