17Aprilапреля · 17-е апреля
Христианство — это учение о божественном в человеке.
Christianity is the teaching about the divine in the human being.
1. Христианство — простое дело, очень простое: любовь к человеку, любовь к богу. Будь совершенен, как отец твой небесный; живи в боге, т. е. делай наилучшие дела, лучшим способом и ради наилучших целей.
Всё это очень просто: малое дитя может понять это; и так прекрасно, что великий ум не придумает ничего прекраснее.
1. Christianity is a simple thing, a very simple thing: love of man, love of God. Be perfect like your heavenly Father; live in God, that is, do the best deeds, in the best way, and for the best ends.
All this is very simple: a little child can understand it; and it is so beautiful that a great mind can devise nothing more beautiful.
From A Discourse of the Transient and Permanent in Christianity · shortened by Tolstoy .
What Tolstoy read · Theodore Parker: Passages from his Writings, selected by Albert Walkley, in Unity Church…Christianity is a simple thing; very simple.
All this is very simple; a little child can understand it; very beautiful, the loftest mind can find nothing so lovely.
Source text: archive.orgParker’s own wordsChristianity is a simple thing, very simple. It is absolute, pure morality; absolute, pure religion; the love of man; the love of God acting without let or hindrance.
Its watchword is, Be perfect as your Father in heaven. The only form it demands is a divine life; doing the best thing in the best way, from the highest motives; perfect obedience to the great law of God.
All this is very simple—a little child can understand it; very beautiful—the loftiest mind can find nothing so lovely.
Source text: en.wikisource.orgDetails
The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. A Discourse of the Transient and Permanent in Christianity (Boston, 19 May 1841), in The Collected Works of Theodore Parker, ed. Frances Power Cobbe, vol. VIII, Miscellaneous Discourses (London: Trübner), Toward the end of the discourse, after 'come to the plain words of Jesus of Nazareth'; Wikisource transcription of Cobbe's vol. VIII.
Parker's paragraph with its middle left out. 'Christianity is a simple thing, very simple' is kept; of 'It is absolute, pure morality; absolute, pure religion; the love of man; the love of God acting without let or hindrance' Tolstoy keeps 'love of man, love of God'. The creed ('there is a God') is left out. 'Its watchword is, Be perfect as your Father in heaven' becomes the command itself, 'Be perfect, as thy heavenly father'; 'The only form it demands is a divine life; doing the best thing in the best way, from the highest motives' becomes 'live in God, that is, do the best deeds, in the best way and for the best ends' (живи в боге, т. е. делай наилучшие дела…); 'perfect obedience to the great law of God' and the sentence on its sanction are left out. The close, 'All this is very simple—a little child can understand it; very beautiful—the loftiest mind can find nothing so lovely', is kept as a paragraph of its own, with 'the loftiest mind can find nothing so lovely' as 'a great mind will devise nothing more beautiful'. Walkley's selection in Unity's Church-Door Pulpit (1885) begins and ends the passage where Tolstoy does, and the selection just before it is the passage of 4-17.2. The Jubilee list of Tolstoy's sources names 'Freedom, Fellowship and Character in Religion, Unity Mission № 18, Chicago'. That is the masthead of Unity's Church-Door Pulpit, whose Series II gave four numbers to 'Gospel passages' of Channing, Parker, Emerson, and Martineau; the Parker number (No. 10, 1885) prints the passages of 4-17.1 and 4-17.2 one after the other, with the same cuts and the same ending as Tolstoy's, so it was probably what he read. Its No. 18 (16 February 1886) is a discourse, S. H. Sonneschein's 'Darwin and Emerson', so the Jubilee's '№ 18' does not match it; the series' Channing and Emerson numbers were not found (Nos. 12 and 13 are missing on archive.org). No printable.
Translation note. Matthew 5:48 (KJV: “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect”).
2. От Моисея до Иисуса совершилось великое умственное и религиозное развитие среди отдельных людей и народов. От времени Иисуса до нашего это движение, как в отдельных людях, так и в народах, было еще значительнее. Старые заблуждения откинуты, и новые истины вошли в сознание человечества. Один человек не может быть так же велик, как человечество. Если великий человек настолько впереди своих собратий, что они не понимают его, — приходит время, когда они сначала догоняют, потом обгоняют его и уходят так далеко, что, в свою очередь, становятся непонятными для тех, которые стоят на том месте, где стоял прежний великий человек, и тогда нужен новый великий человек, и он является и открывает дальнейший путь.
2. From Moses to Jesus a great intellectual and religious development took place among individuals and nations. From the time of Jesus to our own, this movement, in individuals and nations alike, has been still greater. Old errors have been cast off, and new truths have entered the consciousness of humanity. One man cannot be as great as humanity. If a great man is so far ahead of his fellows that they do not understand him, a time comes when they first catch up with him, then overtake him, and go so far ahead that they in their turn become incomprehensible to those who stand where the former great man stood; and then a new great man is needed, and he appears and opens the way onward.
From The Popular Theology, a sermon in Sermons of Theism, Atheism, and the Popular Theology · reworded by Tolstoy .
What changedAdds a closing clause of Tolstoy’s own, “and then a new great man is needed, and he appears and opens the way onward”; “No man is so great as mankind” becomes “One man cannot be as great as humanity.”
What Tolstoy read · Theodore Parker: Passages from his Writings, selected by Albert Walkley, in Unity Church…From the time of Jesus to our own time this progress, both in individuals and in nations, has been more rapid.
Every great genius for religion will add new facts to the world’s experience of religion, just as much since the death of Jesus as before his time.
Source text: archive.orgParker’s own wordsFrom the time of Moses to Jesus there was a large intellectual and religious development of mankind, a marked progress in the religious sentiments, ideas, and actions of individual men, and of the leading nations of mankind.
From the time of Jesus to our time this progi'ess, both in individuals and in nations, has been yet more rapid. Old errors have been cast away, new truths have been added to the consciousness of mankind.
No man is so great as mankind. If the great genius at first is so far before his brothers as to be incomprehensible, by and by they overtake him, pass by him, and go still farther …
… on till they become incomprehensible to the man who stands where the genius once stood.
Source text: archive.orgTolstoy’s own version · На каждый деньВсякий великий религиозный гений все больше и больше уясняет религиозные истины и содействует этим все большему и большему единению людей.
Source text: tolstoy.ruDetails
The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. The Popular Theology, a sermon in Sermons of Theism, Atheism, and the Popular Theology (Boston, 1853), Pp. 92–93, after 'I make a distinction between his theology and his religion'.
Close until its last clause, which is Tolstoy's. Parker's five sentences are kept in order, as Walkley's selection gives them: the sentence on the theology of the most eminent Catholics and Protestants, and the one on how wicked it is thought to say this, are left out in both. 'a marked progress in the religious sentiments, ideas, and actions of individual men, and of the leading nations' becomes 'among individual men and peoples'; 'more rapid' becomes 'more significant' (значительнее); 'No man is so great as mankind' becomes 'One man cannot be as great as mankind'; the genius becomes 'a great man'. To the man who stands where the genius once stood Tolstoy adds 'and then a new great man is needed, and he appears and opens the way further' (и тогда нужен новый великий человек, и он является и открывает дальнейший путь), where Parker's selection goes on, 'Every great genius for religion will add new facts to the world's experience of religion'. «На каждый день» (19 February) ends with a version of Parker's sentence instead: 'Every great religious genius makes religious truths ever clearer and so furthers the ever greater union of people', the union being Tolstoy's. The sermon has 'yet more rapid' and 'to our time', the selection 'more rapid' and 'to our own time'; Tolstoy's 'yet more significant' (еще значительнее) and 'to ours' do not decide between them. The Jubilee list of Tolstoy's sources names 'Freedom, Fellowship and Character in Religion, Unity Mission № 18, Chicago'. That is the masthead of Unity's Church-Door Pulpit, whose Series II gave four numbers to 'Gospel passages' of Channing, Parker, Emerson, and Martineau; the Parker number (No. 10, 1885) prints the passages of 4-17.1 and 4-17.2 one after the other, with the same cuts and the same ending as Tolstoy's, so it was probably what he read. Its No. 18 (16 February 1886) is a discourse, S. H. Sonneschein's 'Darwin and Emerson', so the Jubilee's '№ 18' does not match it; the series' Channing and Emerson numbers were not found (Nos. 12 and 13 are missing on archive.org). No printable.
3. Без ясного понимания смысла своей жизни, без того, что называется верой, человек всякую минуту может отречься от всего того, во имя чего он жил, и начать жить во имя того, что он проклинал.
3. Without a clear understanding of the meaning of our life, without what is called faith, we may at any moment renounce everything we have lived for and begin to live for what we used to curse.
Translation note. The Russian italic is broken only at the commas; it is set here as one span.
4. Человеку не может быть доступна цель его жизни. Знать может человек только ее направление.
4. The aim of our life cannot be accessible to us. We can know only its direction.
5. Сущность всех религиозных учений — в любви. Особенность христианского учения о любви — в том, что оно ясно и точно определило главное условие любви, — условие, нарушение которого уничтожает возможность любви.
Условие это есть непротивление злу насилием.
5. The essence of all religious teachings lies in love. What is distinctive in the Christian teaching of love is that it has clearly and precisely defined the chief condition of love — a condition whose violation destroys the possibility of love.
This condition is nonresistance to evil by violence.
6. Любовь христианская вытекает из сознания единства божественного начала в себе и во всех людях, и не только в людях, но и во всем живом.
6. Christian love flows from the consciousness of the oneness of the divine principle in oneself and in all people, and not only in people, but in everything that lives.
Хотите быть спокойны и сильны — утверждайте в себе веру.
If you want to be calm and strong, establish faith within you.
Tolstoy TodayТолстой сегодня · tolstoytoday.org/april/17