To-day L. N. was not well. I went to him; he was lying on the little sofa in the drawing-room. He told me of S. G. Verus’s book on the Gospels.
“His final conclusion is the denial of Christ as a historical person. In the earliest written parts of the New Testament—in Paul’s messages—there is not a single biographical fact about Christ. All the Gospels that have come down to us were composed between the second and fourth century A.D. Of the writers who were Christ’s contemporaries (Tacitus, Suetonius, Philo, J. Flavius) not a single one of them mentions Christ; so that his personality is not historical, but legendary.
“All this is very interesting and even valuable, for it makes it unnecessary to quarrel any more over refuting the authenticity of the Gospel stories about the miracles; and it proves the teaching of the Gospels to be not the words of one superman, but the sum of the wisdom of all the best moral teaching expressed by many people and at different times.”
L. N. also said this to me:
“Perhaps it is because I am unwell, but at moments to-day I am simply driven to despair by everything that is going on in the world: the new form of oath, the revolting proclamation about enlisting university students in the army, the Dreyfus affair, the situation in Serbia, the horrors of the diseases and deaths in the Auerbach quicksilver works.... I can’t make out how mankind can go on living like this, with the sight of all this horror round them!
“It always strikes me how little man is valued, even in the simplest way as a valuable and useful animal. We value a horse which can carry, but man can also make boots, work in a factory, play the piano! And 50 per cent are dying! When I used to breed merino sheep and their death-rate reached 5 per cent, I was indignant and thought the shepherd very bad. And 50 per cent of the people are dying!”
I read L. N.’s most wonderful Father Sergius.
Moscow, August 9th. I returned from Yasnaya in the evening of the 6th. This is what I find I have written down.
The talk turned upon the woman question. The conversation was carried on in a half-jocular tone.
L. N. said: