Félicité de LamennaisФелисите де Ламенне

2. The people (I speak of the good, of those whom the corruption that comes from the ruling classes has not touched), freed from what Christ calls the blindness of riches, content with their daily bread, asking of the heavenly Father only what he gives the little birds, which neither sow nor reap — the people live the true life, the life of the heart, more than other men, sunk in the desires and cares of this world. That is why heroic deeds, self-sacrifice, must be sought in them, in the people. Take away the people — what will become of the precepts of duty, of that by which alone society holds together, of what makes up the greatness and strength of nations? When nations grow weak, who renews them, revives them, if not the common people? And if the disease is incurable, if the peoples must die, from what does the young shoot come that is destined to replace the old tree, if not, once again, from the people? And so it is to the people that Christ turns, and so the people recognize in him the messenger of the Father, glorify his name, proclaim his authority, submitting to it. But the princes of the church, the scribes, curse him and kill him. Yet, in spite of their violence and cunning, in spite of the execution, Christ has triumphed in the people; the people have founded his kingdom in the world, and by the people it will spread through the world; by the people the new life will be born whose divine seed the powers of violence would so like to stifle — powers already seized with terror at their approaching end.

Lamennais.

Translation note. Matthew 13:22 and Mark 4:19, where the KJV has “the deceitfulness of riches”; Tolstoy’s word is «ослепление», “blindness”.

3. Why do you torment yourselves in vain in your wretched state? Your desire is good, but you do not know how to attain it. Know that only he who gives up his life can receive it. You will achieve nothing without God. You toss on your bed of suffering, and what have you found? You have destroyed a few oppressors — others have appeared, worse than the former ones. You have destroyed the laws of slavery, and you have been given new laws of blood and yet more new laws of slavery. Do not trust the people who stand between you and God so that their shadow may hide him from you. These people have evil intentions. For only from God comes the power that sets free; for only from God comes the love that unites. What can a man do for you who is guided only by his own thought and by the law of his own will? If he has good intentions and wishes only good, he will still give you his will in place of law, and his thought in place of a rule. This is what all oppressors do. It is not worth pulling down only to replace one violence with another. Freedom consists not in this one ruling rather than that one, but in no one ruling. And where God does not rule, man rules. The kingdom of God is a kingdom of justice in minds and of mercy in hearts; its foundation is faith in the law proclaimed by Christ, the law of mercy, the law of justice. The law of justice teaches that all are equal before God the Father and Christ, the one teacher. The law of mercy teaches love and help for one another, as sons of one father and disciples of one teacher.

But if people say to you: “Before us no one knew what justice is; justice comes from us; believe us, and we will set up for you such a justice as will satisfy you,” then such people are deceiving you, or, if they sincerely promise you freedom, are deceived themselves — because they want you to acknowledge them as your masters, and then your freedom will be only obedience to these new masters. Answer them that God alone is your master, and you want no other, and God will set you free.

Lamennais.

4. In times when the nations wait only for a sign to begin the greatest battle between good and evil that has ever been on earth — when in every part of the world the dull rolling of thunder is already heard, when people feel that the time is near when two armies will clash, the army of God and the army of Satan, and that the future fate of humanity, its liberation or its enslavement, depends on this clash — in these solemn times we must remember above all that the title of soldier in God’s army can be earned only by following the example of its leader, who made himself like the poor in order to save people: to renounce everything, to have no place to lay one’s head, so as not to grow soft, so as to be wholly free to be here today and there tomorrow, to be wherever there is danger, wherever the struggle is going on, and to leave the dead to bury the dead. And the dead are those who, sunk in cares about what passes and in bustle over material things, do not even know that there is in them a soul that demands liberation, that to live means to struggle, means to die, that only in this way can the great liberation be accomplished.

Lamennais.

Translation note. Christ’s words in Matthew 8:20 and 8:22 (KJV: “the Son of man hath not where to lay his head”; “let the dead bury their dead”).

1. Where is Christ? Where is his teaching? Where can it be found among the Christian nations? In institutions — it is not there; in laws steeped in the spirit of unjust inequality — it is not there either; in morals steeped in egoism — it is not there. Where, then, is the teaching of Christ? It is in what is to come, which is being prepared by a work in the depths of human nature; it is in the movement that stirs the peoples from one end of the earth to the other; it is in the strivings of pure souls and righteous hearts; it is in the consciousness of all, for all are conscious that what exists cannot last, because it is evil, the denial of mercy and of brotherhood; it is the inheritance of the race of Cain; it is something already cast off, destined to be scattered by the breath of God.

Lamennais.

1. Three temptations torment people: the lusts of the body, pride, and love of wealth. From this come people’s calamities. Without lusts, pride, and covetousness, all people would live happily. How, then, are we to be rid of these terrible diseases? It is hard to be rid of them, chiefly because their germ lies in our very nature.

To rid ourselves of them there is only one means: the work of each one on himself. People often think that laws and governments can help, but this cannot be, because those who write the laws and govern people are people just like the rest, suffering from the same temptations of lust, pride, and covetousness. And so there is no relying on laws and rulers. And so the one thing people can do for their good is to destroy in themselves lust, and pride, and covetousness. No improvement is possible until each one begins this improvement with himself.

After Lamennais.

3. The spirit of Jesus, which the mighty of this world strive to stifle from the heights of their thrones and pulpits, nevertheless shows itself brightly everywhere. Has not the spirit of the Gospel penetrated the nations? Are they not beginning to see the light? Have not the notions of rights and of duties become clearer to everyone? Are not calls heard on every side for juster laws, for institutions that protect the weak and are founded on just equality? Is not the old enmity dying out between those whom sovereigns kept divided? Do not the nations feel themselves brothers? The oppressors already tremble, as though an inner voice foretold their speedy end. Alarmed by terrible visions, the kings convulsively clutch in their hands the chains in which they have bound the nations whom Christ came to set free, and which will soon fall apart. An underground rumbling troubles their sleep. In the secret depths of society a work is going on that they cannot stop with all the strength of their power, and whose unceasing progress throws them into inexpressible alarm. It is the work of a germ ready to unfold, the work of love, which will take away the sin of the world, revive the failing life, comfort the afflicted, break the fetters of the prisoners, and open to the nations a new way of life, whose inner law will no longer be violence, but the love of people for one another.

Lamennais.

Translation note. “Take away the sin of the world”: the words of John 1:29 (KJV: “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world”).

4. Jesus laid the foundation of a new society. Before him the peoples belonged to one master or to many, as herds belong to their owners. Princes and the mighty of the world crushed the people with the whole weight of their pride and greed. Jesus puts an end to this disorder, raises bowed heads, sets the slaves free. He teaches them that, being equal before God, men are free; that no one can have, of himself, power over his brothers; that equality and freedom, the divine laws of the human race, are inviolable; that power cannot be a right; that in the social order it is an office, a service, a kind of slavery freely taken on for the sake of the common good. Such is the society that Jesus establishes. Is this what we see in the world? Is it this teaching that reigns on earth? Servants or masters — which are the princes of the peoples in our world? For nineteen centuries generation after generation has handed down the teaching of Christ and said that it believes in it, and what has changed in the world? The peoples, crushed and suffering, are all waiting for the promised deliverance, and not because the word of Christ is untrue or without force, but because the peoples either have not understood that the teaching must be carried out by their own efforts, by their firm will, or, having fallen asleep in their humiliation, have not done the one thing that gives victory: they are not ready to die for the truth. But they will awaken. Already something is stirring among them; they hear a voice that says: salvation is near.

Lamennais.

1. You are all wanderers in this world. Go north, south, west, or east — wherever you stop, there will be a man who drives you away, saying: “This is my land.” And when you have gone around all the countries of the world, you will come back having learned that nowhere is there a wretched patch of ground where your wife could give birth, and where you could stop to till the soil, and where your children could bury your bones.

Lamennais.

1. Jesus, as he draws near the end of his life, is occupied chiefly with two questions: the question of the abuse that will be made of his name, and that of the final establishment of his law after deep and destructive upheavals. Before his death Christ told his disciples and all people that after him false Christs and false prophets would appear, and that they must beware of them, however much these might astonish people. He says that they will be mighty and that their might will lead people astray.

He tells how it will be possible to know that their teaching is false. It can be known by the same thing by which we tell a good tree from a bad one — by their fruits. If there is no contempt in the teaching for the allurements of this world, no renunciation of self, no mercy and love toward all without any distinction — wherever these are lacking, there will be no true Christian teaching, but there will be false Christs and false prophets. And Christ says that there will be many of them. They will appear one after another until there comes that day and hour which only the heavenly Father knows.

But that hour will come; the time will come when everything in human societies will be shaken, when nations will fall upon one another, when authorities and powers will begin to fall and there will be universal turmoil. Then, says Christ, will come the end of the old world and the beginning of a new world and of the establishment of the kingdom of God. And the time of this new world is not far off, says Christ, because it can already be seen that the old world, the world of false Christs and false prophets, is passing away. And the nations are already lifting their heads with joy and looking around on every side to greet the coming of the kingdom of God.

After Lamennais.

Translation note. The words of Christ drawn on here are in Matthew 24 (false Christs and false prophets, v. 24; the day and hour that only the Father knows, v. 36) and Matthew 7:16–20 (a tree known by its fruits).

1. Everything great is accomplished in humanity only on condition of suffering. Jesus knew that he too must expect this, and he foresaw everything: the hatred of those whose power he had come to destroy, and their secret plots, and their violence, and the ungrateful betrayal by the people whose sickness he healed, whom he fed in the wilderness of the old society with the heavenly bread of his word; he foresaw the cross, and death, and abandonment by his own, more grievous still than death itself. And this thought did not leave him, but it does not stop him for a moment. If his bodily nature pushes away “this cup,” a stronger will accepts it without hesitation. And in this he gives to all who will carry on his work — to all who, like him, will come to labor for the salvation of people, for their deliverance from the burden of error and evil — he gives them an example that must always be remembered. If people want to reach the goal to which Christ leads, they too must go by the same way. Only at this price do people serve people. You want them to be truly brothers, you call them to the laws of their common nature, you fight against all oppression, all lawlessness, all hypocrisy; you call down upon the earth the kingdom of justice, duty, truth, love — how then can those whose power is founded on the opposite fail to rise up against you? Can they, without a struggle, leave you to destroy their temple and build another: not like theirs — no longer the work of human hands — but an eternal temple whose foundations God himself has laid? Give up that hope, if you were ever so thoughtless as to have it. You will drink the cup to the last drop. They will take you as thieves; they will seek false witness against you, and at the witness you yourselves bear of yourselves a cry will go up: He blasphemes! and the judges will say: He is worthy of death. When this happens, rejoice: it is the last sign — the sign that you are truly sent by the Father.

Lamennais.

Translation note. The passage follows the Gospel account of the Passion: “this cup” is from Matthew 26:39, the temple “made without hands” from Mark 14:58, and the false witness and the cry from Matthew 26:59–66, where the KJV has “He hath spoken blasphemy” and “He is guilty of death”.

3. Christ seeks to transform the inner man, contrary to what the Pharisees do, who are occupied only with externals. He reproaches them for having made void the commandment of God by their traditions. When the spirit of life leaves those who take upon themselves the teaching of the people, when institutions lose their first strength and grow weak, two things happen: the customs of outward worship multiply and grow more complicated, and an imaginary efficacy is ascribed to them; people are assured that outward worship takes the place of real virtue and frees them from fulfilling the true law. And then, in societies subject to so disastrous a teaching, there forms, as it were, a false conscience. Whole nations, often with great zeal, observe an abstract faith and at the same time calmly remain sunk in neglect of the most sacred duties and in a corruption that takes hold of their whole life. They wash their hands before they eat bodily bread, they cleanse copper vessels, without caring to cleanse the soul. The heart is neglected, and out of the heart come forth in a mass those terrible sins that Jesus lists. Jesus says, on the contrary: “Go down into your heart, to tear out of it the roots of all that is bad. What is outward is not important. Both good and evil are in what is inward.” This is what Christ teaches. Whoever teaches otherwise does not teach as Christ did; he is no disciple of Christ; he abuses the name of Christ to deceive people; he is one of those false prophets of whom Christ himself said: “Beware of those who will come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravening wolves.” And again: “All those who say, Lord, Lord, who pray with the tongue but in their desires abide in evil, will not enter the kingdom of heaven.”

Lamennais.

Translation note. The washing of hands and vessels and the sins that come out of the heart are from Mark 7:1–23. The last two quotations are free versions of Matthew 7:15 and 7:21, where the KJV has “Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves” and “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.”

7. There are teachings of the body and teachings of the spirit. Beware of the former: they lead nations into slavery. Whoever labors only for the body is forging for himself the shackles in which he will soon be bound. Woe to him who lives a life of the senses, forgetting the life of the spirit! Be it a man or a whole nation, whoever has fallen so far as to be wholly sunk in the interests of the flesh, and feeds and fattens on those interests, is preparing a feast for worms. Only the teachings of the spirit give freedom, life, salvation; by them alone what was already dead is born again to life. Listen, then, to the voice of the spirit, you who wish to be born again, who wish to come out of the grave of the old world, full of rot and bones. Where this voice comes from no one knows, for it is not the voice of anything known. You will not hear this voice from the pulpits; you will not hear it in public assemblies, where people gather to listen to the empty words of an indifferent teaching. It is like a breath of wind from the desert, of which no one can say: it was here that this breath arose, or there. How far this voice will reach is not known; today it is here, and tomorrow there, wherever it finds attentive ears and hearts made ready. And it is not known to what bounds it will lead those who say to this voice: Guide me.

Lamennais.

1. Son of Man, have you deceived your brothers? No, no; for you said to them: “Come to me, and I will give you rest.” But they did not come to you, did not receive your teaching with their hearts and their deeds, did not submit to your commands, did not love one another as children of one father. Had they truly come to you, they would love one another, they would all be one; and if they were all one, where is the force that could prevent them from establishing justice and founding the kingdom of God? As it is, they are powerless, because each of them, cut off from the rest, is weak and stands alone against oppressors who have gone astray. They are powerless because they have neither the faith that conquers all things nor the love that is stronger than faith itself. They are powerless because they have grown cold in their self-love, because they lack the very thing by virtue of which people sacrifice themselves, by virtue of which they struggle not for one day but for all their days, never tiring, never losing hope. They are powerless because they fear men, because they do not understand what you told them, namely, that he who has saved his life will lose it, and that he who has lost it for the sake of founding the kingdom of your law will save it.

Lamennais.

Translation note. “Come to me, and I will give you rest” is Matthew 11:28, shortened. The last words take up Matthew 10:39, where the KJV has “He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.”

3. Nothing is done without faith. Doubt kills man, kills peoples. Why is the liberation of peoples so difficult, so painful, so slow? Because they have no faith in their right, in the invincible power of their right. Why do the oppressed classes everywhere groan, waiting for a relief that never comes? Because they have faith neither in themselves nor in God, who is always ready to save them, though not without their own part in it; for it is the privilege of free beings to be what they wish to be, as it is their punishment to be what others wish to make of them, when they bow submissively under the weight of injustice and oppression. But even then God does not forsake them. To awaken them he sends the heralds of his mercy, puts his word into them, clothes them with his might — and suddenly the world is shaken, crowds come running to listen, the peoples are stirred, they rise like dough when the leaven works; a dim vision of a better future appears to their imagination. At the sight of it they tremble; they are filled with a feeling of overflowing life.

But now the oppressors appear as well, the Pharisees and the scribes. Disturbed, alarmed, trembling for their shaken power, they either strangle the messengers of the heavenly Father or, if they can, slander both their teaching and their deeds; in the very good done by these messengers they find pretexts for condemning them. They say: “True, we cannot deny it — these men cast out demons, but they cast them out by the power of the prince of demons.” Lift up, lift up your heads, and above the darkness that these hypocrites strive to thicken around you, you will see in the east the sun already rising, which will soon light you with its full light and warm you with its rays.

Lamennais.

Translation note. The Pharisees’ words recall Matthew 12:24, where the KJV has “This fellow doth not cast out devils, but by Beelzebub the prince of the devils.”

1. What will become of destitution if everyone seeks first of all the kingdom of God and his righteousness? That is, if everyone, submitting willingly to the law of God, strives for the conscientious fulfillment of the duties this law imposes?

Destitution is the daughter of injustice, of covetousness, of a criminal contempt for the sacred duties of humanity — of a violation of them so general and so constant that we, through an appalling darkening of our conscience, have even grown used to considering destitution a necessary condition of the order of life. And so, thy kingdom come, O Lord; may thy law be the law of the world’s renewal; may nakedness not be the lot of three quarters of the human race; may the world be not the dwelling of embittered enemies who harm one another, but the dwelling of brothers eager to rush to one another’s help. May the sons of God, multiplying daily, unite to destroy evil, to overthrow the temple of Satan, and to build thy temple from its ruins.

Lamennais.

Translation note. “Seek first of all the kingdom of God and his righteousness” is Matthew 6:33. The prayer opens with the Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:10) in its old Church wording, «да приидет царствие твое», so the English has “thy kingdom come” and keeps “thy” through the prayer.

3. In proclaiming the salvation to come, Jesus declares to the people what conditions are necessary for it on their part. It will be the fruit of love, self-sacrifice, mercy, and universal forgiveness.

So if deliverance has not yet come, if it is still a time of hunger, and a time of weeping, and a time of oppression, blame only yourselves for it.

Have you fulfilled the commands of Christ? Have you done what you ought to have done? More than once you have tried to regain your right, to break your old chains, to come out of the dark and wretched shelters into which lawless force had driven you, and to build yourselves a better dwelling. What have your efforts led to? Why was what you had built with such labor always destroyed so soon? Why, if not because you became like a man who built his house on the sand? The river rushed upon the house, and the house could not stand against that shock and collapsed, and great was the destruction of the house.

Lamennais.

1. Jesus does not say to the Samaritans: Leave your beliefs, your traditions, for those of the Jews; he does not say to the Jews: Join the Samaritans; but he says to the Samaritans and to the Jews: You are equally in error. God is spirit, and faith in him is inward only, bound neither to a place nor to any outward form. What matters is not the temple, nor the service in the temple. What matters is not Gerizim or Jerusalem. The time will come, and has come already, when the Father will be worshiped neither on Gerizim nor in Jerusalem, but when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such worshipers for himself.

He sought them in the days of Jerusalem. He seeks them still, even now. When will he find them? When everyone, weary of drawing from springs that do not quench thirst, says to Jesus: “Lord, give me this water, so that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw!”

Lamennais.

Translation note. Gerizim is the Samaritans’ holy mountain (John 4:20). The closing words are the Samaritan woman’s (John 4:15); the KJV has “Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw.”

1. Ask these millions of people who call themselves Christians what Christianity is, and they will answer you that to be a Christian means to adhere to a certain teaching. And yet those who profess this teaching all disagree among themselves. Some say that one must believe in this way, others in another, and out of these disagreements arise accusations and hatred, even persecutions that go as far as bloodshed. If true Christianity lay in this, how could Christ be the liberator, the savior of the peoples, the one whom the human race awaited? But he himself gives us quite another idea of his work. He was sent to bring the good news to the poor; to heal hearts broken by suffering, torment, and oppression; to announce to the blind that they will see, that they will no longer be deprived of the light that their rulers deny them so that, brutalized in ignorance, they will bear the rulers’ yoke more patiently; to set free those whom fetters crush; to put freedom in the place of universal slavery. Such was the work of Jesus; but is that what is taught in his name? Has he whom the people longed for fulfilled what he was to fulfill? Have the poor heard the good news? Are the broken hearts healed? Do the blind see? Have the fetters been taken off the imprisoned? Are the captives set free? No, Christ is still on the cross, awaiting his apostles. Let them come, let them come quickly, for the sorrow is great, and eyes grow weary of looking to the east, awaiting the dawn of the year of the Lord.

Lamennais.

Translation note. The account of Christ’s work follows Luke 4:18–19, which the KJV gives as “to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.” «Благая весть», “the good news,” is the Russian for the gospel.

1. As each man individually, so likewise all humanity collectively must be transfigured, must pass from a lower state to a higher, not halting in its growth, whose limit is in God himself. Every state is the consequence of the preceding state. Growth takes place continuously and imperceptibly, like the growth of an embryo — takes place in such a way that nothing breaks the chain of successive states of this continuous development. But if man and the whole human race are destined to be transformed, then for man and for the human race alike this transformation must be accomplished in labor and suffering.

Before being clothed in greatness, before coming out into the light, one must move in darkness, suffer persecution, give up the body to save the soul; one must die — die on the cross, in order to be reborn into a life mightier and more perfect. This is what Jesus teaches us by his word, by his example. And after eighteen centuries, having completed one of the cycles of its development, humanity again strives to be transfigured. The old systems, the old societies, all that made up the old world, are crumbling or have already crumbled — and the nations now live among ruins, in terror and suffering. At the sight of these ruins, of these deaths, already accomplished or yet to be accomplished — take courage. What is passing away is the worn-out garment of an imperishable being; what is falling is an autumn leaf. When the sun sinks lower, winter draws near; but after winter comes spring and the breath of the life-giving wind. And that time is coming.

Lamennais.

Translation note. «Преображаться» and «преобразиться», the verb of Christ’s Transfiguration, are “be transfigured”; «преобразоваться» and «преобразование» are “be transformed” and “transformation.”

1. Jesus foresaw the end of the old society, already shaken in its moral foundations. He makes a prediction to his disciples that the temple, the material sign of the order of life instituted by men, must be destroyed in order to be replaced by a more perfect institution. And to this prediction, which was soon to come true, he adds a prediction of like events that will come to pass in later times, and he presents these events in those familiar images in which his contemporaries pictured the end of the world.

We are living now in the time he foretold. From one end of the earth to the other, everything has been shaken loose. In all institutions whatsoever, in all the various systems on which the social life of the nations has been founded, there is nothing firm. Everyone feels that all this must soon be destroyed, and that in this temple too not one stone will be left upon another. But as the destruction of Jerusalem and of its temple, from which the living God had withdrawn, prepared the building of a new city and a new temple, to which people of all tribes and all nations will flow of their own free will, so from the ruins of the present temples and cities a new city and temple will arise, destined to become the universal temple and the common homeland of the human race, which is now still divided by doctrines hostile to one another, doctrines that make brothers strangers and sow among them godless hatred and abominable wars. When that hour, known to God alone, has come, the hour of the union of the nations in one temple and in one city, then will truly begin the reign of Christ, the final fulfillment of his divine work. For he came only to teach people to unite in the law of love. Let the birth of this holy society be painful: what of it? You must not fear the last struggle of evil with good, which is ready even now to be reborn: your duty is to fight. Each of you is a soldier of God. But in our time of frenzy and mad pride, beware of false Christs and false prophets. Christ is not in the desert. He is not in hidden places, and certainly not in any of the assemblies of those people who, separating themselves from others, think that salvation is destined for them alone, and by this very thing deny Christ, who destroyed all the barriers between people and promised peace and eternal joys to everyone who, loving God above all and his neighbor as himself, embodies this twofold love in his deeds. Where this love is, there is Christ. Do not seek him elsewhere: you will find only a deceptive shadow.

Lamennais.

Translation note. The Russian has «сеющих», a slip of the ending for «сеющими»; it is the doctrines that sow the hatred, and the slip is read so. Not one stone left upon another, the false Christs and false prophets, and the desert and hidden places where Christ is not are from Matthew 24:2, 24, and 26; for the hidden places the KJV has “the secret chambers.”

7. Has God given anything to one without giving the same to another? Has the universal Father EXCLUDED any of his children? You who claim the exclusive right to enjoy his gifts, show the will by which he disinherited your other brothers.

Lamennais.

Translation note. «ИСКЛЮЧИЛ» is in capitals in the Jubilee text; kept.

1. Herod is the man of power, of self-will, a man of a special nature, who owes nothing to others but to whom all are beholden; the king of the past, whom the king of the future will cast down from his throne. In the very first tidings of the birth of this king of the future he hears a threat. What does he do? First he schemes and pretends. After the lie comes murder. Without distinction he commits a multitude of murders; he kills children still sucking their mothers’ milk, for he fears a child, an unknown child. To be sure of destroying him, he has no other means. So let them all die, so long as he perishes. Yet he does not perish. The king of the time to come will live to fight the king of the past. It will be a long struggle; it will go on from age to age, from Herod to Herod, amid suffering, weeping and blood, amid the blood of children and fathers, amid the weeping of mothers and the suffering of all. But let not these calamities dismay you; do not lose heart, take courage, fight constantly, unflaggingly, without fear and without doubt, for the king of the time to come will triumph.

Lamennais.

4. There are men who love only themselves; these are men of hatred, because to love only oneself is to hate others.

There are men of pride, who cannot bear their equals and always want to command and to rule.

There are men of greed, who demand gold, honors, pleasures, and are never sated.

There are men who are robbers, who watch for a weak man in order to strip him by force or by cunning, and who prowl about the house of the widow and the orphan.

There are men of murder, who are full of thoughts of violence. They say: You are our brothers, and they kill those whom they call their brothers as soon as they suspect them of opposing their designs, and with their blood they write their laws.

There are men of fear, who tremble before the wicked man and kiss his hand, hoping by this to escape his oppression.

All these men destroy peace, security and freedom on earth.

But what could these oppressors of the peoples do if they were left to themselves, without the support of the people?

If, to keep the people in slavery, they had only the help of those to whom slavery is profitable, what would this small number count for against whole peoples?

The wisdom of God has so ordered the world that men can always resist despotism, and despotism would be impossible if men understood the wisdom of God.

But the lords of the world have set against the wisdom of God the wisdom of the prince of this world — the devil; and the devil, the king of the oppressors of the peoples, taught them a hellish cunning so as to make their despotism secure.

He said to them: “This is what must be done. Take in every family the strongest of the young men, give them weapons and teach them to use them, and they will fight against their fathers and brothers, for I will put it into their heads that their glory lies in this. I will make them two idols, which shall be called honor and loyalty, and whose law shall be called unquestioning obedience. And they will worship these idols and blindly submit to this law, because I will pervert their minds, and you will have nothing to fear.”

And the oppressors of the peoples did what the devil told them, and the devil did what he had promised the oppressors of the peoples.

And so men of the people raised their hands against their own, to strike down their brothers and imprison their fathers, and even to forget those who had carried them beneath their hearts. And when they were told: “In the name of all that is holy, think of the injustice and cruelty of what you are ordered to do,” they answered: “We do not think, we obey.”

And when they were told: “Have you no love for your fathers, mothers, brothers?” they answered: “We do not love, we obey.”

And when they were told of God and Christ, they said: “Our gods are loyalty and honor.”

Truly I say to you: there has been no temptation more terrible than this.

But this temptation is coming to an end.

A little while yet, and the devil will vanish together with the oppressors of the peoples.

Lamennais.

1. He who said, “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest,” became through that word the center of all humanity, for all humanity lives under the weight of oppression and toil.

Count those who do not bear this burden but lay it on others, those who profit from the labors of others and from oppressing them — are there many of them? For one master, a million slaves; for one who is happy in Satan’s sense, a million beings bowed to the earth, which they water with their sweat and tears. These disinherited creatures are the sheep of the good shepherd, the sheep of Christ, those for whom he gave his life. He calls them to himself, and little by little, as the promised times draw near, they raise their heads, listen to his voice, recognize it, and make ready to follow him. From every sheepfold, from the midst of every people, these sheep will come running, for all belong to the good shepherd, and he will gather them. Scattered, divided, they crowd together in dim expectation of the one who will lead them to pastures where they will not be given over into the power of hirelings, who leave their sheep and run away when they see the wolf coming, or of strangers, who, caring only for their own gain and the satisfying of their greed, take them for themselves, clothe themselves in their wool and feed on their flesh. And when they have come to the good shepherd, all the sheep will gather around him, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd.

The aim of Christ’s mission on earth: to make of all people one people of brothers, to unite all people with one another by uniting them with God, to establish them in unity under the holy law of the infinite and boundless progress of love, which is the eternal life of all that exists.

Lamennais.

Translation note. Matthew 11:28 is given in the KJV’s wording, which Tolstoy’s matches. In John 10:16 the KJV has “one fold, and one shepherd”; Tolstoy’s «стадо» is a flock.