The Theological Works of Leo Tolstoy. Leo Tolstoy

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ large set of people, some of them thoughtful and conscientious people — were hypnotised by authority. Instead of thinking with their own heads and asking themselves the purpose of life, they accepted an answer given them by some one else: by some Church, or Pope, or book, or newspaper, or Emperor, or Minister. Many people are hypnotised by one or other of the Churches, and still more are hypnotised by patriotism and loyalty to their own country and their own rulers. In all nations — Russia, England, France, Germany, America, China and everywhere else — people may be found who know that it is not good to boast about their own qualities or to extol their own families, but who consider it a virtue to pretend that their nation is better than all other nations, and that their rulers, when they quarrel and fight with other rulers, are always in the right. People hypnotised in this way cease to think seriously about right or wrong, and, where their patriotism is concerned, are quite ready to accept the authority of anyone who to them typifies their Church or their country. However absurd such a state of mind may be, it keeps many people absorbed and occupied. How many people in France eagerly asserted the guilt of Dreyfus on the authority of General Mercier, and how many people in England were ready to fight and die rather than to agree to arbitration with the Transvaal after Chamberlain told them that arbitration was out of the question!

      There were a fourth set of people, who seemed to Tolstoy the most contemptible of all. These were the epicureans: people who saw the emptiness and purposelessness of their lives, but said, “Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.” Belonging to the well-to-do classes and being materially better off than common people, they relied on this advantage and tried to snatch as much pleasure from life as they could.

      None of these people could show Tolstoy the purpose of his life. He began to despair, and was more and more inclined to think suicide the best course open to a brave and sincere man.

      But there were the peasants — for whom he had always felt great sympathy, and who lived all around him. How was it that they — poor, ignorant, heavily-taxed, compelled to serve in the army, and obliged to produce food, clothing and houses, not only for themselves but for all their superiors — how was it that they, on the whole, seemed to know the meaning of life? They did not commit suicide, but bore their hard lot patiently, and when death came met it with tranquillity. The more he thought about it, the more he saw that these country peasants, tilling the soil and producing those necessaries of life without which we should all starve, were living a comparatively good and natural life, doing what was obviously useful, and that they were nearer to a true understanding of life than the priests or the scribes. And he talked of these things with some of the best of such men, and found that, even if many of them could not express themselves clearly in words, they had firm ground under their feet. Some of them, too, were remarkably clear in thought and speech, free from superstition, and able to go to the roots of the matter. But to break free from the superstitions of science, and the prejudices of the ‘cultured crowd’ to which he belonged, was no easy matter even for Tolstoy, nor was it quickly accomplished.

      When the peasants spoke to him of “serving God” and “not living for oneself,” it perplexed him. What is this “God”? How can I know whether he, or it, really exists? But the question: What is the meaning of my life? demanded an answer, and the peasants, by example as well as by words, helped him towards that answer.

      He studied the sacred books of the East: the scriptures of the Chinese, of the Buddhists, and of the Mahommedans; but it was in the Gospels, to which the peasants referred him, that he found the meaning and purpose of life best and most clearly expressed. The fundamental truths concerning life and death and our relation to the unseen, are the same in all the great religious books of the East or of the West, but, for himself at least, Tolstoy found in the Gospels (though they contain many blunders, perversions and superstitions) the best, most helpful, and clearest expression of those truths.

      He had always admired many passages in the Gospels, but had also found much that perplexed him. He now re-read them in the following way: the only way, he says, in which any sacred books can be profitably studied.

      He first read them carefully through to see what they contained that was perfectly clear and simple, and that quite agreed with his own experience of life and accorded with his reason and conscience. Having found (and even marked in the margin with blue pencil) this core that had been expressed so plainly and strongly that it was easy to grasp, he read the four little books again several times over, and found that much that at first seemed obscure or perplexing, was quite reasonable and helpful when read by the light of what he had already seen to be the main message of the books. Much still remained unintelligible, and therefore of no use to him. This must be so in books dealing with great questions, that were written down long ago, in languages not ours, by people not highly educated and who were superstitious.

      For instance, if one reads that Jesus walked on the water, that Mahommed’s coffin hung between heaven and earth, or that a star entered the side of Buddha’s mother before he was born, one may wonder how the statement got into the book, and be perplexed and baffled by it rather than helped; but it need not hinder the effect of what one has understood and recognised as true.

      Reading the Gospels in this way, Tolstoy reached a view of life that answered his question, and that has enabled him to walk surefootedly, knowing the aim and purpose of his life and ready to meet death calmly when it comes.

      Each one of us has a reason and a conscience that come to us from somewhere: we did not make them ourselves. They oblige us to differentiate between good and evil; we must approve of some things and disapprove of others. We are all alike in this respect, all members of one family, and in this way sons of one Father. In each of us, dormant or active, there is a higher and better nature, a spiritual nature, a spark of the divine. If we open our hearts and minds we can discern good from evil in relation to our own conduct: the law is “very near unto you, in your heart and in your mouth.” The purpose of our life on earth should be to serve, not our lower, animal nature but the power to which our higher nature recognises its kinship. Jesus boldly identifies himself with his higher nature, speaks of himself, and of us, as Sons of the Father, and bids us be perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect.

      This then is the answer to the question: What is the meaning and purpose of my life? There is a Power enabling me to discern what is good, and I am in touch with that Power; my reason and conscience flow from it, and the purpose of my conscious life is to do its will, i.e. to do good.

      Nor do the Gospels leave us without telling us how to apply this teaching to practical life. The Sermon on the Mount (Matthew, chaps. v. vi. and vii.) had always attracted Tolstoy, but much of it had also perplexed him, especially the text: “Resist not him that is evil; but whosoever smiteth thee on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.” It seemed to him unreasonable, and shocked all the prejudices of aristocratic, family and personal ‘honour’ in which he had been brought up. But as long as he rejected and tried to explain away that saying, he could get no coherent sense out of the teaching of Jesus or out of the story of his life.

      As soon as he admitted to himself that perhaps Jesus meant that saying seriously, it was as though he had found the key to a puzzle; the teaching and the example fitted together and formed one complete and admirable whole. He then saw that Jesus in these chapters is very definitely summing up his practical advice: pointing out, five times over, what had been taught by “them of old times,” and each time following it by the words, “but I say unto you,” and giving an extension, or even a flat contradiction, to the old precept.

      Here are the five commandments of Christ, an acceptance of which, or even a comprehension of, and an attempt to follow which, would alter the whole course of men’s lives in our society.

      (1) “Ye have heard that it was said to them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment: but I say unto you, that every one who is angry with his brother shall be in danger of the judgment.”

      In СКАЧАТЬ