It might be thought that the solution suggested by Christ was the wrong one, and a better one might be substituted after the standard had been found which is to define evil once and for all. One might not know of the existence of such a question, as is the case with the barbarous races, but no one can be permitted to pretend, like the learned critics of the Christian doctrine, that no such question does exist, or that the recognition of the right of certain individuals or groups of individuals, and still less of one's own right, to define evil, and to resist it by violence, decides the question, because we all know that such a recognition does not decide it at all, for there are always persons who will refuse to admit that such a prerogative can exist.
And yet this very acknowledgment, that anything that seems evil to us is evil, or else an utter misconception of the question, affords a basis for the conclusions of secular critics concerning the doctrine of Christ; hence not only the utterances of the clerical, but also those of the secular critics in regard to my book, have made it evident to me that most men totally fail to comprehend either the doctrine of Christ, or the questions which it is intended to decide.
[CHAPTER III]
MISCONCEPTION OF CHRISTIANITY BY NON-BELIEVERS
The meaning of the Christian doctrine, which is clear for the minority, has become unintelligible for the majority of men—The cause of it is the false conception of Christianity and the misguided assurance of believers, as well as of unbelievers, that they apprehend it—The apprehension of Christianity for believers is concealed by the Church—The apprehension of Christianity—Its essence and its unlikeness to the pagan doctrines—Misunderstood at first, it has grown clear to those who embrace it owing to its correspondence with the truth—Contemporaneously with it arose the assertion that the true meaning of the doctrine was understood, and had been confirmed by miraculous transmission—The Council of Disciples according to the Acts—Authoritative and miraculous assertion of the true conception of Christ's doctrine has found its logical conclusion in the acknowledgment of the Credo and the Church—The Church could not have been established by Christ—Definition of Churches according to the Catechism—There are various Churches, ever antagonistic to one another—Where is heresy?—The work of Mr. Arnold concerning heresies—Heresies are the sign of activity in the Churches—Churches always divide mankind, and are ever inimical to Christianity—In what the activity of the Russian Church consists—Matthew xxiv. 23—The Sermon on the Mount, or the Credo—The Orthodox Church conceals from the people the true meaning of Christianity—The same is done by other Churches—All the contemporary external conditions are such that they destroy the doctrine of the Church, and therefore Churches use all their efforts to defend it.
The knowledge which I obtained after the publication of my book in regard to the views which the minority of mankind have held, and still hold, concerning the doctrine of Christ in its simplicity and real significance, as well as the criticisms of clerical and secular writers, who deny the possibility of apprehending it in its actual meaning, have convinced me that while the minority has not only always possessed a true conception of this doctrine, and that this conception has grown steadily more and more clear, for the majority, on the other hand, its sense has become more and more vague, reaching at last such a degree of obscurity that men fail to understand the simplest commands expressed in the Bible, even when couched in the plainest possible language.
The inability that prevails at the present time to comprehend the doctrine of Christ in its true, simple, and actual meaning, when its light has penetrated into the remotest recesses of the human understanding, when, as Christ said, they proclaim from the roofs that which He whispered in the ear; when this doctrine penetrates every phase of human life, domestic, economical, civil, politic, and international,—this failure to apprehend it would be inexplicable, if one had not discovered the reasons for it.
One of the reasons is, that believers as well as unbelievers are perfectly sure that they long ago understood the doctrine of Christ so completely, unquestionably, and finally, that it can have no other meaning but the one which they attribute to it. That is because the tradition of this false conception has been handed down for ages,—and therefore its misconception.