CHAPTER II
A meeting of the brethren had been convoked at the monastery to discuss Avakoum’s controversial epistles.
The zealous priest had sent to his friend the old Monk Sergius in Kerjenetz a letter relating to the Holy Trinity, with the superscription:—
“Receive, Sergius, this eternal Gospel, written not by my hand, but by God’s.”
He asserted that the substance of the Holy Trinity is divided into three co-equal distinct natures. The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, each have their separate place, sitting on three thrones as three heavenly kings. Christ sits upon a fourth throne, apart, co-regnant with the Holy Trinity. The Son of God, born of the Virgin, is not hypostatized.
The deacon Theodore accused Avakoum of heresy. Old Onouphry, the disciple of Avakoum, formulated a similar accusation against the deacon Theodore. The followers of Theodore, “Con-substantialists,” called the followers of Onouphry “Tri-substantialists,” and they called each other liars. A schism rose; ardent love gave way to hatred; the monastery was invaded by lying and evil thoughts.
To end these discussions a meeting had been called at “the Banks of Mosses.” Old Onouphry being dead, his disciple Father Hierotheus, now the head and teacher of his school, was summoned to defend himself.
They met at the house of Mother Golendoukha. Her abode was outside the enclosure of the monastery, in a clearing in the midst of the forest. The Onouphrians refused to enter into discussion within the monastery, fearing a quarrel which might end badly for them, their enemies being superior to them in numbers.
Tichon was present at the meeting. Old Cornelius had stayed away.
“What is the use of talking,” he said. “We must burn. In the fire, the truth will be revealed.”
The abode of the Golendoukha, a spacious hut, was divided into two parts; a smaller one to live in and a larger one for prayer. All round on the log-built walls were shelves on which were placed holy icons, sacred lamps, and candles glimmering before them. Woodcock tail-feathers were hung on the candlesticks to be used as extinguishers. Benches ran along the walls. Massive books, bound in wood or leather, with brass clasps, and manuscripts, the oldest treatises of the great masters of the desert, written on papyrus, lay upon the benches.
Though it was noon the room was dark and oppressive. The window shutters with leaded panes of dull fish-bladder were closed. Only through the chinks here and there entered shafts of light, which made the flames of lamps and tapers appear red and dim. The air was saturated with a smell of wax, leather, sweat, and incense. Through the open door the gloomy woods and the glade flooded with sunshine were visible.
Monks in black cassocks and hoods thronged round Father Hierotheus, who stood before the pulpit in the centre of the chapel. He looked sedate and well fed, with a pasty face, white as the holy loaves; his blue eyes, slightly squinting, had different expressions; one showed Christian humility, the other philosophic presumption. He had a persuasive voice, “like a sweet-singing ousel,” folk said. He was dressed with care; his cassock was of the finest cloth, he wore a velvet kaftan, and the cross on his breast was set with rubies. His sandy and slightly grey hair exhaled attar of roses. Among the shabby monks and moujiks from the forest, he appeared as a real boyar or a Niconian bishop.
Father Hierotheus was a learned man; he had absorbed knowledge from books as a sponge absorbs water. But his enemies affirmed that his wisdom was not from God; they said he had two doctrines: the one orthodox, which he proclaimed for all; the other heretical and secret, which he revealed only to the elect—for the most part to the rich and noble. Simple and poor folk he attracted by munificent alms.
From dawn till noon the dispute ran high, but with no results. Father Hierotheus always managed to avoid committing himself. Much as the monks tried they could not convict him.
At last, in the heat of the controversy, a disciple of Father Hierotheus, Brother Spiridon, a quick-eyed, dark little man with temples in curls, like Jewish ringlets, suddenly sprang forward and shouted at the top of his voice:—
“The Trinity sit together, the Son on the right, the Holy Spirit on the left of the Father. On separate thrones without confounding themselves, sit the three Heavenly Kings, while Christ sits on a fourth apart from them!”
“You split the Trinity into four,” cried the terrified monks.
“And you make one lump of it, one single Person! The Trinity is not one, but three! three! three!” roared Father Spiridon, thrusting up his hands as though he were felling with an axe. “Believe in the threefold Trinity! Without fear divide the Indivisible, the one into three; Christ makes a fourth.”
And he went on explaining the difference between essence and substance. The substance of the Son is within, the essence sits at the Father’s feet.
“God became Man not by His substance, but alone by His essence. Had he come down in His substance He would have scorched the universe, and the womb of the Pure Mother could not have borne the wholeness of God; it would have been consumed.”
“Oh, erring, worldly brother!” supplicated the fathers, “listen to your conscience, apprehend God. Cast out from yourself the root of heresy, go no further. Repent, beloved brother!” the monks implored him, “Who told you this thing, and where did you see whether the three Heavenly Kings sit separate and not confounding themselves? Neither the angels nor the archangels can see Him, yet you say, ‘They sit not confounding the persons.’ Why was your tongue not burnt for saying this?”
But Spiridon continued to shout:
“Three, three, three! I will die for my belief; even fire could not burn it from my soul.”
Seeing they could do nothing with him, the monks returned to Father Hierotheus,
“Be straightforward! tell us plainly what do you believe in! The Trinity in Unity or the Trinity in three distinct persons?”
Father Hierotheus remained silent and smiled disdainfully. It was evident that from the height of his learning he looked down upon these simple-minded men, these beggars, with utter contempt.
But the monks—like gnats—assailed him and more insistently.
“Why don’t you reply? are you deaf? Like the slate-coloured dragon, you have stopped up your ears to the counsels of the ancient Church!”
“He has hardened his heart like a Pharaoh!”
“You do not seek to live peaceably with us monks, you think yourself too far above us. You have broken the law of love.”
“Rebel! Tempter of Christians!”
“Back! What do you want of me!” Father Hierotheus at last burst out, his patience exhausted, receding imperceptibly towards the door. “Don’t press me! You will not be called to account for my opinions. Whether I shall be saved or no, what matter is it to you? You live by your lights, we live by ours; we have nothing in common. I pray you let me alone.”
Father Provost, an old man, hoary, thick-built and muscular, brandished his knotty staff in the face of Father Hierotheus:
“Mad heretic! when the judge pummels you with a stick like this, you will soon decide which is your faith; the Trinity in Unity or the Trinity in three distinct persons.”
“Peace be with you, my brethren in Christ!” said a gentle voice, so unlike the others that every one heard it. It was Father Missail, a hermit, who had come from a distant desert, a great saint, “young in years but old in wisdom.”
“What are you about, beloved fathers? Is it not the devil who rouses and fills us with hatred against our brethren? And nobody seeks the waters of life to quell Satan’s fire, only pitch and dry sticks to feed it. Verily, brethren, I have never seen such hate, even among the Niconians! If they get to know about this and begin to persecute us again, they will no longer sin before God, and the tortures they will inflict upon us will be but the beginning of the eternal torments.”
All suddenly were hushed as if awakening to reality.
Father Missail knelt and bowed first to the whole assembly, then to Father Hierotheus.
“Forgive me, brethren! Forgive me, beloved brother! Great is your learning; you have a fiery spirit, have mercy upon us simple-minded folk, and put aside these literary controversies, for the sake of charity!”
He rose and was going to embrace Hierotheus. But the latter forestalled him, and fell down on his knees before Father Missail.
“Pardon me, father! Who am I? A dead dog. How can I know more than your Holy Assembly? You say I have a fiery spirit. You make my soul vain. I, a man, am like the frogs which dwell in the marshes. I fill my belly like a pig. But for the Lord’s help my soul would go to hell. I can hardly breathe under the passions which oppress me. Oh! sinner that I am! And you, Missail! may God bless you for your words!”
Father Missail with a gentle smile again stretched out his arms to embrace Father Hierotheus. But the latter rose and repulsed him, with an expression of such anger and pride on his face that all were alarmed.
“God reward you for your admonition of me,” he continued in a voice suddenly changed and vibrating with fury: “for instructing and exhorting us poor ignorant folk! But it were as well, friend, to know the measure of your strength. You soar high; may you never come toppling to the ground! Who made you a teacher? Who made you a master? Nowadays every one teaches, and there is no one left willing to be taught. Woe unto us who live in this evil time! You are but a child, and yet you presume much. Really, we have no desire to listen to you. Teach them who are contented with such teaching, but keep off us, if you please. Fine teachers truly! One threatens us with his stick, the other tries to smooth matters over by ‘love’! What is the good of ‘love’ if based on the ruins of truth? Even Satan loves his faithful. As for us, we love Christ, and hate His enemies. Rather death, than union with impious apostates! I am innocent, and the very dust of this place on my feet I shake off before you, for it is written, ‘Better one who doeth the will of the Father than a multitude of sinners.’”
And taking advantage of the general confusion, Father Hierotheus, protected by his acolytes, swiftly passed out.
Father Missail went apart and began to pray in a low voice, repeating again and again: “Calamity threatens! Calamity threatens! Shield us, Holy Virgin!——”
But the monks began to shout and quarrel more wildly than before.
“Spiridon, you infidel, listen: the Son sits on a throne at the right hand of the Father!” “Well, that is right, leave him there!” “No, he drags the Son off the throne, and puts him down at His Father’s feet!”
“Cursed, cursed, cursed, Anathema! If an angel reveal what is not in the Scriptures let him be anathema!”
“You ignoramuses! You know not how to discuss the Scriptures! What is the good of wasting time or argument on you, village blockheads!”
“God has blinded you for standing up against Truth! Curse you, may you perish!”
“May we have nothing to do with you, either in this world, or the next!”
All spoke together, and no one listened. Now not only those who believed in the Unity of the Trinity disputed fiercely with those who believed in the three distinct Persons, but brethren of the same persuasion were ready to shout themselves hoarse over mere nothings: the swinging of the thurifer in the shape of a cross; the eating of garlic on Annunciation-day, the crossing of the legs during confession. Babel was let loose. Every comma and iota in the old books roused wrathful disputations.
“May not a little fault in copying engender a great heresy?”
“We will die for one letter!”
“Learn what is written in the old books, and repeat the Lord’s prayer unceasingly, this is all that is required.”
“Theodore, God’s enemy, thou dog of Hell! distinguish the Lord’s cross from that of Peter.”
“Christ’s cross hath a foot-stock!” Brother Julian tried to prove with a hoarse voice (he was the Reader at “Bank of Mosses.”) Usually quiet and meek, he now raged like a madman, with foam in his mouth, swollen veins on his temples, and bloodshot eyes.
Father Trophilius, another Reader, came to his help. He jumped up, like a flying-fish out of the water; his neck was stiff as a rod, he quaked and trembled from excessive zeal, his teeth chattered; his voice was like that of an infuriated camel, terrible, untameable in its passion.
He was no longer trying to prove anything, he only used bad language and got the same in return. They had begun with theology, they ended with mere scurrility.
“Satan has set up his house inside you.”
“You black scamp, you have sold your soul for a bottle of brandy!”
“Erring beasts!”
“Listen, hark ye about the Trinity!”
“What is there worth listening to? It is impossible to make out your meaning. It is like mat-weaving when the ends have got lost.”
“I proclaim heavenly mysteries, I am inspired!”
“Stop your rubbishy ravings!”
“Cursed, cursed, Anathema!”
This council of peasants in the forest of the Vetlouga resembled in many respects the Council of the Churches held at the Imperial Court of Byzantium in the time of Julian the Apostate, fourteen centuries before.
Tichon watched and listened. It seemed to him that these were not men who were discussing about God, but beasts who sought to devour one another. The peace of his beloved desert had been destroyed for ever.
Voices were heard from outside the windows. Mother Golendoukha, Mothers Merope and Onleya looked out and saw that a crowd was coming out from the wood beside the monastery. It was then remembered that during a religious dispute at Kerjenetz how some laymen, labourers and boatmen who had been bribed, came to the hut where the meeting was held, and fell upon the monks with pitchforks, clubs and axes.
Fearing lest something similar might happen now, the women rushed into the chapel, and bolted the door with the strong oaken bolts, just as the crowd was already knocking and calling out:—
“Open! open!”
They shouted something else besides, but Mother Golendoukha, who had assumed the command, was a little deaf and could not hear; the rest of the women ran hither and thither, cackling like scared hens. They were also prevented from hearing by the shouts inside the chapel, where the monks, oblivious of what went on around them, continued quarrelling.
Father Spiridon was declaring that Christ had entered the Virgin through her ear, and had come out inexplicably through her ribs.
Father Trifily spat in his face. Then Spiridon caught hold of Father Trifily’s beard, pulled off his hood, and was going to strike his bald head with a brass cross, when Father Provost knocked the cross out of his hand with a club.
An Onouphrian Reader, the sturdy young fellow Arhipka, rushed at Father Provost and dealt him such a blow on the temples with his fist that the old man fell down unconscious. A battle royal began. The monks appeared to be possessed by demons. In the suffocating gloom, scarcely lit up by the dim light of the holy lamps and shafts of sunlight, fearful faces rushed to and fro; the fight was carried on with clenched fists, leather straps, rosaries, torn books, leaden candlesticks and burning candles; bad language, scoffs, moans, and groans, howls and shrieks resounded in the air.
Meanwhile from without the knocks continued, with shouts:—
“Open! open!”
The wooden wall trembled under the blows; one of the shutters was hewn off.
Mother Onleya, puffy and pale as paste, sank down on the floor, and began to shriek so piercingly that all were frightened.
The other shutter cracked and gave way; through the burst fish-skin pane appeared the head of Father Minos, harness-maker to the monastery; his eyes were protruding as he shouted:—
“The soldiers, the soldiers are coming! You fools, what did you lock yourselves up for! Come out, be quick!”
All grew dumb. The fists raised, or the fingers clutching the hair of an adversary, remained suspended, petrified.
Dead silence ensued. Only Father Missail went on wailing and praying. “Calamity has come upon us! Mother of God, be gracious unto us!”
Coming to their senses they rushed to the door, opened it and ran out.
From the crowd, which had collected in the clearing, they learnt the terrible news: soldiers with priests and clerks, were making their way through the forest. They had already destroyed the neighbouring monastery, and to-day or to-morrow they might appear at “the Bank of Mosses.”