The consolation of the doctrines of Quietism, the final apotheosis of Tolstoï’s entire literary work, was yet in reserve for him, revealed through an humble apostle of these doctrines. He too was destined to find his Karatayef.
After the appearance of “Anna Karenina,” a new production from this author was impatiently anticipated. He undertook a sequel to “War and Peace,” and published the first three chapters of the work, which promised to be quite equal to his preceding novels; but he soon abandoned the undertaking. Only a few stories for children now appeared, some of which were exquisitely written. In them, however, you could but feel that the soul of the author had already soared above terrestrial aims. At last, the report spread that the novelist had renounced his art, even wishing no allusion made to his former works, as belonging to the vanities of the age, and had given himself up to the care of his soul and the contemplation of religious themes. Count Tolstoï had met with Sutayef, the sectary of Tver. I will not here dwell upon this original character—a gentle idealist, one among the many peasants who preached among the Russian people the gospel of the Communists. The teachings and example of this man exerted a strong influence upon Tolstoï, according to his own statement, and caused him to decide what his true vocation was.
We could have no excuse for intruding upon the domain of conscience, had not the author, now a theologian, invited us so to do, by publishing his late works, “My Confession,” “My Religion,” and “A Commentary on the Gospel.” Although, in reality, the press-censorship has never authorized the publication of these books, there are several hundred autographic copies of them in circulation, spread among university students, women, and even among the common people, and eagerly devoured by them. This shows how the Russian soul hungers for spiritual food. As Tolstoï has expressed the desire that his work should be translated into French, we have every right to criticise it. But I will not abuse the privilege. The only books which can interest us as an explanation of his mental state are the first two.
Even “My Confession” is nothing new to me. In his “Childhood, Boyhood, and Youth” we have the same revelation in advance, as well as from the lips of Bezushof and Levin. This is, however, a new and eloquent variation in the same theme, the same wail of anguish from the depths of a human soul. I will give a quotation:—
“I became sceptical quite early in life. For a time I was absorbed, like every one else, in the vanities of life. I wrote books, teaching, as others did, what I knew nothing of myself. Then I became thirsty for more knowledge. The study of humanity furnished no response to the constant, sole question of any importance to me—‘What is the object of my existence?’ Science responded by teaching me other things which I was not anxious to learn. I could but join in the cry of the preacher, ‘All is vanity!’ I would gladly have taken my life. Finally I determined to study the lives of the great majority of men who have none of our anxieties—those classes which you might say are superior to abstract speculations of the mind, but that labor and endure, and yet live tranquil lives and seem to have no doubts as to the end and aim of life. Then I understood that, to live as they did, we must go back to our primitive faith. But the corrupt teachings which the church distributed among the lowly could not satisfy my reason; then I made a closer study of those teachings, in order to distinguish superstition from truth.”
The result of this study is the doctrine brought forth under the title of “My Religion.” This religion is precisely the same as that of Sutayef, but explained with the aid of the theological and scientific knowledge of a cultivated scholar. It is, however, none the clearer for that. The gospel is subjected to the broadest rationalistic interpretation. In fact, Tolstoï’s interpretation of Christ’s doctrine of life is the same as the Sadducees’—that is, of life considered in a collective sense. He denies that the gospel makes any allusion to a resurrection of the body, or to an individual existence of the soul. In this unconscious Pantheism, an attempt at a conciliation between Christianity and Buddhism, life is considered as an indivisible entirety, as one individual soul of the universe, of which we are but ephemeral particles. One thing only is of consequence—morality; which is all contained in the precepts of the gospel, “Be ye perfect…. Judge not…. Thou shalt not kill, …” etc. Therefore there must be no tribunals, no armies, no prisons, no right of retaliation, either public or private, no wars, no trials. The universal law of the world is the struggle for existence; the law of Christ is the sacrifice of one’s life for others. Neither Turkey nor Germany will attack us, if we are true Christians, if we study their advantage. Happiness, the supreme end of a life of morality, is possible only in the union of all men in believing the doctrine of Jesus Christ—that is, in Tolstoï’s version of it, not in that of the church; in the return to a natural mode of life, to communism, giving up cities and all business, as incompatible with these doctrines, and because of the difficulty of their application in such a life. To support his statements, the writer presents to us, with rare eloquence and prophetic vividness, a picture of a life of worldliness from birth to death. This life is more terrible in his eyes than that of the Christian martyrs.
The apostle of the new faith spares not the established church; but, after relating his vain search for comfort in the so-called true orthodoxy, violently attacks this church from Sutayef’s point of view. He declares that she substitutes rites and formalities for the true spirit of the gospel; that she issues catechisms filled with false doctrines; that since the time of Constantine she has ruined herself by deviating from the law of God to follow that of the age; that she has now, in fact, become pagan. Finally, and this is the key-note and the most delicate point of all, no attention should be paid to the commands and prohibitions of any temporal power as long as it ignores the truth. Here I will quote an incident illustrative of this idea:—
“Passing recently through the Borovitzki gate at Moscow, I saw an aged beggar seated in the archway, who was a cripple and had his head bound with a bandage. I drew out my purse to give him alms. Just then a fine-looking young grenadier came running down towards us from the Kremlin. At sight of him, the beggar rose terrified, and ran limping away until he reached the foot of the hill into the Alexander garden. The grenadier pursued him a short distance, calling after him with abusive epithets, because he had been forbidden to sit in the archway. I waited for the soldier, and then asked him if he could read.—‘Yes,’ he replied: ‘why do you ask?’—‘Have you read the Gospel?’—‘Yes.’—‘Have you read the passage in regard to giving bread to the hungry?’—I quoted the whole passage. He knew it, and listened attentively, seeming somewhat confused. Two persons, passing by, stopped to listen. Evidently, the grenadier was ill at ease, as he could not reconcile the having done a wrong act, while strictly fulfilling his duty. He hesitated for a reply. Suddenly his eyes lighted up intelligently, and, turning toward me, he said: ‘May I ask you if you have read the military regulations?’ I acknowledged that I had not.—‘Then you have nothing to say,’ replied the grenadier, nodding his head triumphantly, as he walked slowly away.”
I have, perhaps, said enough respecting “My Religion”; but must give a literal translation of a few lines which show the superb self-confidence always latent in the heart of every reformer:—
“Everything confirmed the truth of the sense in which the doctrine of Christ now appeared to me. But for a long time I could not take in the strange thought that, after the Christian faith had been accepted by so many thousands of men for eighteen centuries, and so many had consecrated their lives to the study of that faith, it should be given to me to discover the law of Christ, as an entirely new thing. But, strange as it was, it was indeed a fact.”