CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
THE RELIGIOUS PROBLEM OF RUSSIAN PHILOSOPHY
I
§ 193.
RUSSIAN philosophy, like western philosophy, aims at a solution of the religious problem in general. But, in addition, the ecclesiastico-religious problem demands solution, and to-day this matter is the more important. The Russians, however, follow the western example here also, for they are fonder of discussing the genera] problem of religion, and under the prevailing conditions of censorship this is the safer course. The earlier thinkers, beginning with Čaadaev and the slavophils, associated the philosophy of religion with the comparative study of creeds, for the comparison of Russia with Europe renders the association essential. In this matter Solov'ev followed the slavophils.
In a survey of Russian philosophy of religion, the following points are of especial interest.
1. Unanimously, Russian writers conceive religion as belief, as faith. Faith is contrasted with knowledge, with cognition. Solov’ev considers religious faith to be a special instance of belief. (See his theory of the cognition of objects.)
In this sense, religious belief is characterised by its objects. Theism, in particular, is regarded as the preeminent type of religious belief; atheism, of unbelief. The general problem of transcendence (spiritualism versus materialism) emerges in this connection.
Neither psychologically nor epistemologically has the prob- lem of religion been adequately analysed by the Russians. Above all, they have failed to grasp the consequences of criticism for the religious problem, and it must be admitted that in this matter a bad example was set them by western philosophers, not excepting Kant himself. For Kant declared that he had formulated his criticism in the desire to find his way back to faith. This was one of the numerous examples of Kant's inconsistency. As we have seen, Lavrov followed the bad example when he attempted to elucidate the relationships between faith and criticism solely on the ethical plane, instead of considering the matter above all in the light of the theory of cognition.
Epistemologically, Goethe is right when he insists, as he does more than once, that no one can return to faith, but only to conviction. His meaning is that faith (credulity) constitutes the essence of myth. That which theologians ever extol and demand as child-like faith is nothing but the blind belief, the confident credulity, of the uncritical human being. One who has understood Hume's scepticism and Kant’s criticism can no longer "believe"; he must know, must seek and find conviction.
Once for all, Hume and Kant destroyed the myths upon which childlike faith can alone be established, and all attempts to reconcile scientific philosophy with theology have since their day been of necessity fallacious and fugitive. This applies equally to the so-called liberal and mediatorial theology, and to the attempts made by those modern seekers after God who in the end effect nothing but a compromise with the church. In this connection the most recent Russian philosophy is perhaps less dangerous than the corresponding philosophy of the west, for in Russia such Jesuitism is less extensively buttressed by theological and philosophical learning.
Criticism has rendered impossible the cry, "Retrace your steps!" The only way to formulate the problem is to ask, how religion is possible for the critical and scientific thinker, and if possible, what religion (cf. § 41 a).
2. Mythical thought conceives religion in purely objectivist fashion, having faith in an alleged revelation. Russian philosophy is still so mythical and objectivist that even the opponents of ecclesiastical religion are nothing but objectivists. Tolstoi is typical in this respect. Despite his rationalism, he passively accepts the New Testament as an absolute revelation, his criticism of the record being confined to the crudest and most naive of the myths it contains. Such epistemological passivism is eminently characteristic of Russian thought.
3. This objectivism is likewise characteristic of Russian mysticism as direct contemplation of the godhead (Platonism).
By Čaadaev and Solov'ev mysticism is actually identified with religion, and even the adversaries of religion effect the same identification. Mihailovskii and Tolstoi are exceptions here; the former, while rejecting mysticism, refuses to identify it with religion.
4. Russian philosophers of religion do not stress morality as a constituent of religion to the extent that is customary in the west. Tolstoi, influenced by Kant, has gone furthest in this direction. Solov'ev strongly emphasises the moral element of religion (for he, too, is influenced by Kant); but in addition he demands belief in miracle, regarding the dogma of the resurrection as the most important among religious dogmas. Mihailovskii's thought in this matter is also akin to that of Tolstoi, in so far as Mihailovskii regards morality as the essence of religion.
Even the opponents of ecclesiastical religion look upon ritual and ritual mystagogy as the leading elements in religion.
5. Consequently, side by side with ordinary morality a higher religious morality is recognised, asceticism being considered the logical outcome of objectivist transcendentalism and of mysticism. In the ascetic cult, the aristocratic character of ecclesiastical religion finds expression; the cloister and the monk occupy a central position in ecclesiastical religion.
Solov'ev and Tolstoi approve religious asceticism; Leont'ev and Dostoevskii glorify the monk as Christian hero in contradistinction to the heroes of this world.
The adversaries of ecclesiastical religion, on the other hand, attack asceticism. Hence the great importance of utilitarianism (hedonism and eudemonism) in Russian philosophy. The westernisers and the liberals, the nihilists, the socialists, and the anarchists, all espouse utilitarian morality.
6. Religious objectivism and passivism proclaim the church as leading authority. Beginning with Čaadaev and Homjakov, this insistence on the importance of the church continually recurs. Tolstoi is an exception.
The church is a thoroughly aristocratic organisation, being primarily the organisation of the members of the priesthood as mediators on behalf of the laity, the latter being dependent in religious matters. In the Russian church, the aristocratic factor is further strengthened by the circumstance that the members of the hierarchy are appointed from among the celibate monks, not from among the married secular clergy. In the writings of Solov'ev, no less than in those of Leont'ev, the aristocratic character of priestcraft is conspicuous.
The church is the city of God (the πόλις Θεοῦ of Origen, the civitas dei of Augustine), and as such every social organisation, and in especial the state, must be subordinated to it. In and by itself, and also in association with the state, the church is theocracy (Solov'ev's free theocracy).
For as soon as the church conceives its doctrine and its guidance of life to be absolutely true, and therefore claims infallible authority alike in theoretical and in practical matters, and as soon as men come to believe in this authority and to bow before it, the primacy of the church over the state is the inevitable consequence. In so far as the state adduces ethical arguments for its own existence, in so far as it justifies on moral grounds the necessary existence of the state, an intimate association between state and church must result, for the church regards the moral guidance of society as its peculiar mission.
This intimate relationship is conspicuous in the origin of canon law side by side with the civil law to which the state owes its origin.[1]
The church and ecclesiastical religion present themselves as objective, integral, absolute authority; ecclesiastical religion is made to appear the central spiritual force of the individual and of society.
From this outlook we can readily understand why Russian philosophy lays so much stress upon individualism (Mihailovskii's "struggle for individuality"). Equally clear becomes the significance of socialism in general and of social democracy in particular. With the absoluteness of the Marxist doctrine, the social democratic organisation is authoritatively counterposed, not to the state alone, but to the church as well.
For the same reason, Russian anarchism is anti-ecclesiastical and antireligious. This is equally true of liberalism, which upholds nationality as social organisation and authority, against the church and the church's theocratic ideal of nationality.
7. The absolute religious authority of the church logically manifests itself as Catholicism. It is implicit in the idea of divine revelation that this revelation should be Catholic, that is to say, should be accepted always, everywhere, and by all. Traditionalism is the essential principle of belief in revelation. Messianism (Čaadaev, the slavophils, Solov'ev) is part of the very nature of objectivist ecclesiastical religion.
§ 194.
WITH the reforms of Peter there began in Russia the struggle of the rationalist enlightenment against the philosophy and the practice of the church. This struggle and its results form the substance of Russian literature, both philosophical and belletristic.
When we examine the long series of philosophers and writers, we are struck by the fact that independent Russian thought, even when friendly to religion, is hostile to ecclesiastical religion. With Čaadaev begins the phase of absolute negation of the church and its religion. The slavophils, too, criticise ecclesiastical religion, though somewhat less harshly. This is why Gogol's acceptance of Orthodoxy was so repugnant to his contemporaries, and why Bělinskii gave so lively an expression to his disapproval of Gogol's outlook. Bělinskii himself was averse, not only to ecclesiastical religion, but to religion in general. By way of Bakunin and Herzen we pass to Černyševskii and to nihilism, a doctrine in which antireligious negation secured its most characteristic form. This negation persists in the doctrines of contemporary Marxists and modern anarchists.
Among the westernisers we find a few thinkers friendly to religion, but on the whole in philosophical matters the westernisers agree with the nihilists. Mihailovskii, the progressive opponent of nihilism, is a noteworthy exception, Solov'ev defends religion, but opposes the church, though his hostility to the church is less marked than that of his great opponent Tolstoi.
Dostoevskii and Solov'ev have converted the successors of the nihilists. Dostoevskii's religious philosophy is definitely antinihilist.
Katkov, Pobědonoscev, and Tihomirov, outspokenly conservative and reactionary politicians, are unconditional defenders of religion. Leont'ev, for all that he became a monk, occupies a peculiar position among the reactionary religious philosophers, and the church has certainly no occasion to congratulate herself upon the accession of this apologist.
Thus Russia presents a picture of philosophic and religious disunion. Ecclesiastical religion is opposed by the absolute negation characteristic of nihilism. From its very program, nihilism is not merely empiricism and agnostic positivism, but it is materialism and atheism as well—especial stress being laid upon materialism. Herzen's "great disillusionment" is a consistent renunciation of ecclesiastical religion with its doctrines and its conduct of life; it is an assertion of the epistemological and metaphysical sufficiency of positivist materialism, which sees through the thought-creations of the ego as illusion and fantasy, and therefore looks upon the transient and mortal ego as a thing of no moment. Herzen's disillusionment and Herzen's interpretation of nihilism harmonise perfectly with Stirner's nihilistic iconoclasm. Herzen, like Stirner, deduces the ultimate logical conclusions from the teachings of Feuerbach.
Herzen rightly appraised nihilism as a transitional doctrine. Čaadaev had spoken of prepetrine Russia as a blank sheet of paper; the nihilist fought Russia in order to fill the intellectual void with a new content. As Kropotkin expresses it, nihilism is a struggle for individuality.
Saltykov, when his newspaper was suppressed, was utterly overwhelmed by this arbitrary act of authority. He tells us that he suddenly lost the use of his tongue. Awakening one day, he felt that he had gone utterly astray, that he had ceased to exist. Theocratic absolutism in Russia is, in fact, aphasia, is the cessation of thought and the abandonment of individuality.
We can understand why the progressive opponents of ecclesiastical doctrine lay so much stress on individualism, and why Russian socialism is so strongly individualistic. To the progressive Russian, individualism is so important and so dear because it is the converse of Orthodox passivism, of the individualism of the traditional faith of the church. In its radical and embittered negation of theocracy, Russian individualism is apt to pass into anarchism. This is why the opponents of ecclesiastical religion (Lavrov, Mihailovskii, etc.) are such enthusiastic advocates of the idea of progress.
The philosophical and socio-political nature of nihilism has been sufficiently analysed in the preceding pages (§§ 110–114), and we have studied the nihilist declarations of a number of representative thinkers. I may refer, above all, to Herzen; but in succession to Herzen the other writers I have analysed devoted attention to the problem.
As atheism and materialism, nihilism is a complex spiritual and social state.
For all the Christian churches morality forms an integral constituent of religion and of the religious conduct of life. Nihilism, therefore, with its atheism and materialism, with its negation of ecclesiastical morality, has moral and socio-political importance. It is, above all, the practical outcomes of nihilism which have been the subject of lively discussion in Russian philosophy and literature.
Prepetrine Russia had no secular culture, and properly speaking no spiritual culture. For this reason, when European culture made its way into Russia, it at once and necessarily took the form of opposition to what passed for culture in that land. As we have shown, Europeanisation was not effected suddenly, once and for all; but none the less the transition was too abrupt, for the intellectual leadership of the people had hitherto been in the hands of the Russian church, and the church was not only without a philosophy, but without a theology. In Constantinople, in Rome, and even in Germany and England, there had been independent developments of philosophy and theology; for centuries, scholasticism had prepared the ground for scientific and critical thought. There occurred the great spiritual movements of the renaissance and of humanism. In addition, by the reformation and by gradual developments within Protestantism, the way was paved for the coming of the new philosophy and the new science. In Europe, the ideas of Voltaire, Hume, Kant, Comte, Fichte, Hegel, and Feuerbach, were organic links in the evolutionary chain; but the introduction of these ideas into Russia signified a profound spiritual revolution.
Orthodox Russia, in a state of spiritual arrest, was overwhelmed by the flood of French anti-ecclesiastical and antireligious rationalism. Voltaire, Diderot, Rousseau, Montesquieu, gained a footing in Russia, mainly of course at court and in "society," though some of the works of Voltaire were issued from a village printing press! German influence was superadded to French, especially that of Hegel and of the radical Hegelian left, that of Feuerbach and Strauss; with Feuerbach came materialism (Vogt, etc.), the positivism of Comte and Mill, and the naturalistic evolutionism of Darwin and Spencer. The Russians, enslaved at home, sought political culture from the liberal and socialist leaders and writers of Europe. Constant, Saint-Simon, Fourier, Proudhon, Owen, and subsequently Lassalle and Marx, furnished the social and political ideals, whilst the ideas of Hegel and Feuerbach were a solvent to Byzantine Orthodoxy. To put the matter in a nutshell, Marxist astatist communism was to abolish and replace the medieval agrarian natural economy of theocratic Russia!
Let the reader call to mind Tolstoi's Confession, where that writer describes the revolution that took place within his mind when he learned, as a great novelty, that there was no God. In Europe, generations and centuries had prepared the way for this novelty; medieval philosophy and theocratic organisation had been transformed step by step; and none the less Europe was not everywhere prepared for the innovations. But think of theocratic Russia, enter into the mind of the religiously trained Russian, and realise how there came to him, like a bolt from the blue, the message of Voltaire, Diderot, Comte, Kant, Hegel, Feuerbach, Stirner, Vogt, Strauss, and Marx. In Europe as early as the thirteenth century the phrase "de tribus impostoribus" could be fathered upon the emperor; and we know that there were infidel popes. But what must have been the effect of the sudden invasion of unbelief in Russia, a land where the church and its monasteries had hitherto been the highest, and indeed the sole generally recognised, spiritual authority, a land where the state formed the right and left arms of this authority? In England, Mill and Darwin were buried in Westminster Abbey; in Russia, such men as Černyševskii, the adherents of Mill and of Darwin, found their way to the penitentiary or to Siberia!
In Europe, too, liberty was dearly bought by revolutions and reformations, and even to-day has not everywhere been secured. Such liberty, the outcome of great intellectual struggles and long-enduring mental labour, can already be partially endured in Europe; but in Russia, the influence of European thought, of European mental life, was perforce revolutionary. Theocracy prohibited and suppressed this thought, this mental life ; but the forbidden fruits of European civilisation were plucked all the more eagerly.
In Russia, therefore, philosophy and science, art and technical progress, were revolutionary instruments; literature became a social and political leader, and at the same time a "Newgate calendar" ("register of convicts" was Herzen's phrase), a record of the thoughts of exiles and refugees.
The issue of this sudden illumination was the revolution—a mental and political revolution against the dominant theocracy. Negation, pessimism, and nihilism, are the natural consequences of an unbridged transition from Orthodoxy to atheism, materialism, and positivism.
The German has been accustomed for centuries to be left to his own guidance; the German has passed through the reformation, the renaissance, the humanist movement, and the enlightenment; the German came to Feuerbach by degrees, through many intermediate stages. This is why the influence of such writers as Schopenhauer, Stirner, and Nietzsche is less devastating in Germany than in Russia. The German has made the acquaintance of other thinkers, he is accustomed to hearing arguments pro and con. But the Russian accepts Feuerbach, Stirner, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Darwin, etc., as isolated and supreme authorities. Hence the negation of theocracy, which implies here the negation of the entire past, and implies therewith the social and political revolution.
In the eighteenth century, doubtless, as previously explained, Voltaire influenced the Russians; but Voltairism, when compared with Humism and Kantianism, is after all nothing but sceptical lemonade as against the poison which Hume and Kant instil into the veins of medieval faith. If Hume awakened Kant from his dogmatic slumber, we may say with equal truth that Kant and German philosophy awakened the Russians from their dogmatic slumber!
Long ere this, Europe had exercised an influence upon Russia; in the Russian monastery, Peter had opened a window towards Europe; Voltaire had brought into the country a breath of European fresh air. But Kant and German philosophy shook the Russian monastery and tsarist absolutism to their foundations. Europe had influenced Russia before, but from the days of Kant onwards the influence was that of the new Europe![2]
Every struggle demands its victims, even the struggle of philosophy against theology and theoctacy. And the struggle we are now considering is characterised by the indecision which invariably ensues upon the direct contact between an old and a new civilisation. A general process of decomposition sets in, accompanied by abnormal and positively pathological manifestations.
In many instances, radical negation remains mere scepticism. The sceptic lapses into a mood of habitual criticism, but this criticism is itself uncritical, the inner void is again and again filled by the newest ideas and "idealets," but these are again and again discarded. The scepticism ends in a numbing instability, uncertainty, and vagueness. The will becomes enfeebled as well as the reason. The resulting condition is that which Mihailovskii has so thoroughly analysed (and condemned) as the modern Faust-malady. Ropšin shows us that the disease has invaded the camp of the revolutionaries, who prior to this have always preserved faith in the revolution.
Philosophy and theology fight the great fight concerning God. The struggle rages round the question of the revealed God, the main problem being that of revelation and tradition versus experience and science. Russian thinkers have from the religious and moral aspect attempted to sum up this problem as culminating in the weighty and oppressive alternatives of murder or suicide. Acceptance of modern German philosophy with its epistemological subjectivism and individualism, the negation of Old Russia, nihilism as atheism, forced these alternatives upon Herzen, Bělinskii, and Bakunin, Dostoevskii, above all, devoted his life to the exhaustive consideration of the problem, and for this reason the study of Dostoevskii will lay bare to us the soul of the modern Russian.
II
§ 195.
IN Europe, the term Byzantinism has been used to denote the defects of the Russian church and of Russian ecclesiastical religion; as we have seen, the Russians have themselves adopted the word and have accepted the criticism implied in its use. It suggests excessive formalism, undue clinging to inherited forms and doctrines (cf. Solov'ev's satire upon the Orthodox archeological museum), satisfaction with externals and with materialistic piety (ritual, liturgy, veneration for icons and relics); it suggests a passive demeanour in religious matters in general, coupled with extravagant mysticism (Solov'ev, though himself a mystic, disapproved of Russian mysticism); and suggests, finally, the amalgamation of the church with the state and with nationalism. The slavophils, despite their friendliness to the church and to religion, here join with Solov'ev in frank criticism.
Protestant theologians of the west, Kattenbusch, Müller, Loofs, and more recently Harnack, take the same view in their comparative judgments of the Orthodox church and of Orthodox ecclesiastical religion—above all in the case of Russia.
The essential characteristic of Russian religion is, in fact, the belief in the other world; for believing Russians, transcendence is no mere philosophical principle, but is actual reality; belief in God and in immortality are truly living faiths. Hence arises the endeavour whilst still in this life to participate in the life to come; hence mysticism, hence addiction to the contemplative life. Russian faith is faith in miracle, faith in thaumaturgy. To Russians, Jesus the God-man, the deity in human form who awakens men from the dead, seems a being close at hand. Transcendence is not conceived spiritually and ethically, but materially; the soul itself is regarded as but a refined form of matter; belief in immortality retains the quality of primitive animism, and is a belief in ghosts. Hence the anthropomorphic insistence upon the characteristics of the God-man (this is seen already in Origen, as shown in § 144); hence the delight in materialistic ritual and materialistic symbolism. Typical are the purely formalist and materialistic doctrines and customs which find expression in the raskol; and typical, too, is the fact that the state church, despite hesitations and vacillations, has not definitely repudiated and expelled the raskol (§ 4). Mysticism is itself materialistic (§ 145).
In practice, living faith in transcendence leads to asceticism. The Russian monk is nothing but an ascetic, a hermit, one who despises the life of this world, whereas Roman Catholic monks have often been attendants on the sick, doctors, teachers, and the like. When Herzen speaks of Christianity as the religion of death, he is thinking chiefly of religion in Russia. Nevertheless, the saying is true also of the Russian monk: contemptor suaemet ipsius vitae, dominus alienae.
The passivist demeanour of the Russian is thoroughly consistent; he blindly accepts the revelation and the practice of the church; for these derive from the God-man. There can be no progress, no development, for God has revealed in the God-man the highest truths and those that are most important to men. Man can add nothing to these truths, he must simply accept them unquestioningly as a means for moral improvement. Even Augustine considered that, properly speaking, history had come to an end with the appearance of Jesus; and Solov'ev therefore felt it incumbent on him to seek justificatory reasons for historical development after the days of Christ.
Russian religion and the Russian church are unprogressive on principle. Religious doctrine and religious practice must remain exactly as they were established as early as the third century by the great Greek (Alexandrian) dogmatists.[3]
Homjakov was opposed to this "Byzantinism" no less than Solov'ev; but Leont'ev unreservedly accepted it, and was not unwilling that Russia should remain petrified.
It was natural that the Greeks, philosophically trained, should be the founders of Christian doctrine. Clemens Alexandrinus, Origen, Methodios of Olympus, and the other Greek theologians, drew their ideas, not only from the Old and the New Testament, but also from Greek philosophy, in especial from Platonism and neoplatonism, but to some extent also from stoicism. Nor must we forget that the Greeks were early exposed to Asiatic influences, and that at the time when Christianity was developing, the influence of the religions of Asia was not restricted to the Old and the New Testament.[4] Pari passu with the political and cultural detachment of Byzantium from the west and with the development of Byzantium into an oasis of civilisation owing to the inroads of the uncultured nations of Asia and Europe (and above all of the Turks), religious and cultural stationarism evolved as a manifestation of self-sufficiency.
Russia received her church and her religion ready-made from Byzantium. The significance of this was explained at the very outset of these studies. All that need be added here is that while the Russians adopted Byzantine religion they did not adopt Byzantine civilisation. They acquired a rich heritage, but their timidity led them to bury the talent in the ground. Moreover, their powers were not equal to the digestion of Greek theology, and after prolonged attempts they secured in this respect no more than a partial success (cf. §§ 2 and 3).
The Russians were no less isolated than the Byzantines, and it was because of this isolation that, like the Byzantines, they cherished ecclesiastico-religious tradition. At the beginning of the Kievic epoch there doubtless existed a certain cultural community with the west, but this was of brief duration. Russia, cut off from the west, and before long from the east as well, had her cultural and religious development arrested, all the more seeing that the unceasing need for defence against hostile neighbours tended to promote a one-sided development of the political and military activities of the Russian state. Books on canon law and various other subjects entered Russia from Constantinople and from the southern Slav countries, but without promoting any effective community of civilisation. The isolation of Russia was intensified by the enmity to the Catholic Poles, and subsequently to the Protestant Germans and Swedes.
The Russians took over Byzantine theology, but did not acquire Hellenism, or acquired so much only as was implicit in the theology. When we compare Russia with the west we may say that the former knew nothing of Aristotle or of the corpus juris; Greek never played in Russia the part that Latin played in the west; there was no humanist movement, no renaissance, no independent growth of the sciences and of modern philosophy, and above all no reformation (or counter-reformation). On the other hand, in religious matters Asia from early days exercised considerable influence upon Russia, and Leont'ev's fondness for the stationary characteristics of Asiaticism was not wholly unrussian.
The slavophils extol Russia because she did not produce any counterpart to scholasticism. But Russia was not called upon to defend the doctrines of the church against classical paganism, and had no need to defend those doctrines against her own thinkers. The slavophils, therefore, are fully representative of the spirit of the Russian church when they attack logic and spurn Aristotle, and when they cling to Plato and his contemplation of eternal ideas and unchangeable verities. Altogether Russian, too, is their thought when they term scholasticism the mother of Protestantism and of rationalist notions in general, and when they wholly condemn rationalism.
Kirěevskii, Homjakov, and Solov'ev are representative exponents of Russian religious thought and feeling, and the same may be said of Leont'ev.
We saw that Russian philosophers of history lay great stress on the importance of the church. But for the Russians the church is not what it is for Catholics or Protestants. To the Russian, indeed to any member of the Orthodox church, the priest is not the teacher and guide in matters of religion, but is above all the miracle-worker, the magician. The Russian looks upon his priest as a live "good conductor" of divine grace, as a passive mediator. The Russian is a consistent passivist. Salvation comes to man without his personal collaboration, and even the priest plays no individual part here. This is why in Russia (as in the east) the monk is held in much higher esteem than the ordinary priest. Priests marry, and are therefore more closely akin to laymen; only during the actual performance of his priestly functions does the priest become in a peculiar way a passive mediator in the transmission of higher forces.
To the Orthodox Russian, therefore, the church is not what it is to the Roman Catholic westerner, for the Russian does not regard his priest as an exceptionally religious personality. Roman Catholics think of their church as a mighty and all-embracing organisation; but to Russians the church is no more than the hierarchical corporation of supreme leaders, who are appointed from the monkish ascetics (more highly esteemed than the secular priests). For the like reason the centralised papacy is impossible in the east, and the existence of the papacy is the most fundamental and most keenly felt reason for the severance from Roman Catholicism. The eastern church has always been federally organised, as a patriarchate.
We are now in a position to understand why the so-called caesaropapism originated in the east. The state was gladly recognised and utilised by the church as helper and protector. In Byzantium, owing to the assaults made on the empire by Asiatic and European enemies, a strongly organised state was a national necessity; and, in view of the political and national isolation of the realm, the eastern church could not develop along the internationalist lines characteristic of the western papacy. The Roman empire of the west fell a thousand years earlier than the Roman empire of the east; not until after the lapse of several centuries was the western empire reorganised after the eastern model, reorganised by the papacy, now fortified, and grown into an independent state.
In Russia, too, the church associated itself with the state to establish caesaropapism; but the Russian Orthodox church, continually struggling against Mohammedans and Catholics, and later against Protestants as well, became national, as contrasted with the international church of the west.
III
§ 196.
IN these studies I set out from the historical conception that society has hitherto been and still is organised theocratically, and that democracy puts an end to theocracy. It is not in Russia alone that church and state constitute a social integer. Everywhere definite laws exist to regulate the relationships between the two parts. To assure oneself of this fact, it suffices to consider the endeavours that began during the eighteenth century to bring about a separation between church and state. The first such separation was the one effected by the American union in 1787; France followed the example during and after the revolution (1789, 1794–1802); during the nineteenth century came the separation in Belgium (1831); and after the annihilation of the Papal States in 1870–1871, separation occurred in a number of European, American, and Australian states, among which France was the most important (1905).
The liberal program of disestablishment is a socio-political attempt to solve the religious problem; this program was formulated by liberalism in the struggle against the theocratic social order on behalf of spiritual liberty and toleration (§ 177). Locke, the first philosopher of liberalism, was the first advocate of the separation of church and state. Liberalism was to be understood as an endeavour to secure freedom—freedom from the spiritual oppression exercised by theocracy, by the union of church and state. Separation of church and state would afford a guarantee of freedom of conscience. Religion was to be a private matter (the phrase is not happily chosen); vis-à-vis the state, the church was to become an institution established upon civil law; education, including popular elementary education, was to be entirely removed from the hands of the church.[5]
In the historical introduction, we considered the character and development of the Russian theocracy. Subsequently, when dealing with individual thinkers, we examined their respective views, not only concerning religion, but likewise concerning the church and its relationship to the state. This involved a comparison between eastern and western conditions, and above all in our account of the slavophils we found it necessary to discuss in passing the nature of theocracy (§ 55). The consideration of this matter was amplified by a critique of the doctrines of Pobědonoscev, Leont'ev, and Solov'ev.
A summary of principles is now requisite.
Sociologists have clearly demonstrated that in the earlier phases of civilisation the functions of priest and ruler are not differentiated; the power of religion over all the members of society secures the intellectual primacy of the priest as magician, censor of morals, prophet, teacher, philosopher, and man of learning. The chief owes his dominion to his functions as war-lord and administrator of economic and social conditions, but, just like the priest, he bases his right and his power upon the will of God or of the gods; from the earliest times down to the present day he has been ruler by divine right. The chief's command is more direct than that of the priest; the priest has moral and spiritual influence, the chief has force at his disposal; the priest leads and educates, the chief must have recourse to material acts; the influence of the priest is chronic, that of the chief is acute; the priest's power is mental, the chief's is physical, i.e. military.
The relationship between priest and ruler has in different places and-ages exhibited numerous variations, many vicissitudes of mutual dependence; priesthood and chieftainship have been perfected, their functions have been differentiated, state and church have developed, and down to our own day society has been dualistically organised and led by state and church. During the middle ages, theocracy matured as an intimate fusion of the two institutions in their most highly developed form. In the secular empire of Rome, the church presented itself as the city of God (Origen and Augustine), claiming spiritual supremacy; and it ultimately came to exercise this supremacy in the two forms of Roman papacy and Byzantine caesaropapism.
In the western half of the empire, through the establishment of the Papal States, the church was able to effect a materialisation of its spiritual supremacy. But this was of less importance than the exercise of supremacy over the kings and the emperor, the spiritual power of the church and its head being recognised as higher and more estimable.
Augustine, already, declared the state to be the work of the devil; and this conception was emphasised in set terms by Gregory VII.[6] Widespread credulity, and the increasing power of the church, secured supremacy for the pope as spiritual ruler; the church became the city of God, and was generally recognised in practice as a real state. This revolutionary doctrine was systematised by Aegidius Romanus and James of Viterbo, followers of Thomas Aquinas, the greatest of the schoolmen.
The reformation and the associated revolution in religious and ecclesiastical affairs brought about notable transformations in the medieval theocracy. Great changes occurred in the religious and philosophical outlook, the influence of the renaissance and that of the beginnings of modern philosophy and modern science being superadded to that of the reformation. The reformation marked the attainment of a higher stage in religious thought, shown in the overthrow of priestly power. Morality, the relationship of man to man, was now regarded as the chief concern of religion; the priest lost his privileged position as mediator between man and God; men began to adopt the conception of a reign of law in the cosmos and in human historical development, became impressed with a feeling of personal responsibility, and inclined more and more towards independence in religion and in other spheres of thought. The ascetic ideal was replaced by endeavours to conduct life unascetically; the celibate priesthood disappeared; family life was exalted.
Socio-politically considered, the reformation and the new trend of thought mark the beginning of that process of secularisation which is not yet completed. The first stage was to free philosophy and science from the dominion of the church; next came the enfranchisement of the state and of law; the secularisation of morality and even of religion is still in progress.
Side by side with the Roman church there now came into existence the various Protestant churches, as props to those states in which the reformation had proved victorious. But the states, likewise, in which the counter-reformation had gained the day, now became stronger. In Catholic France and in Catholic Austria absolutism triumphed.
The state, as it gained power, took over various cultural functions that had hitherto been in the hands of the church.
Before all, came the work of education; next followed the assumption of various benevolent activities; and to an increasing extent the new state became supreme administrator for the society that had been trained by the church.
In the Protestant lands of the west there thus came into existence territorial churches (national churches, the system of territorial supremacy, and so on), and caesaropapism of a kind, the main distinction between this caesaropapism and the eastern variety being that in the west the church was no longer sacerdotal. The theologian Rothe carries this development to its logical conclusion by insisting that the churches are disappearing, are surrendering their socio-political functions to the state; but before Rothe, Schleiermacher, the founder of modern Protestant theology, had accepted the separation of church and state. Such is the development actually going on in the Protestant world.
But in Catholic countries we see a similar evolution. Since the French revolution, a separation of state and church has been effected almost everywhere, notably in Catholic lands, and above all in France. The rationalist trend of modern thought and feeling and the aspiration to make the whole of life as natural as possible (§ 42) have favoured the spread of radicalism in Catholic countries. As early as the eighteenth century, French liberalism was tinged with radicalism; socialism and anarchism, with their anti-ecclesiastical doctrines and policy, were first organised in France and the Catholic lands. It is where Catholicism is still enthroned that the movement for disestablishment has become antireligious as well as anti-ecclesiastical; in the regions where Protestantism prevails, this movement, though anti-ecclesiastical, is on the whole friendly to religion.
In the eastern empire there was not for many centuries anything corresponding to the decay and ultimate disappearance of secular emperordom in the west. The great reforms tending to promote the consolidation of the empire issued from the eastern capital. Owing to the power of the secular state and owing to the stationarism of the eastern church, that church remained far more dependent upon the state. The church accepted the traditional Roman emperor-worship, as it accepted and incorporated so many other ancient and pagan institutions, customs, doctrines, and ideas. The Byzantine empire maintained itself for more than a thousand years, whereas the western empire was only reestablished after the lapse of several centuries, and then with the help of the papacy and in Germanic form.
After the fall of Constantinople, Moscow, the third Rome, perpetuated Byzantium. In comparison with the west, Moscow, like Byzantium, was distinguished by knowing nothing of any Augustine, of any Gregory VII, of any Aquinas with radical disciples, or of any Boniface VIII, to maintain the prestige of the church vis-à-vis the state. Neither Byzantium nor Moscow produced monarchomachists to defend the right of tyrannicide—but in the west the theological defenders of the supremacy of the church, representing the secular chieftain as inferior and even as morally worthless, gave an initial impulse to the democratic principle of popular sovereignty (in accordance with which the people has the right to elect, depose, or punish the ruler) by defending the right of tyrannicide.
Neither in Byzantium nor in Moscow do we find indications of any struggle between patriarch and emperor analogous to the struggle between pope and emperor in the west. In Byzantium, doubtless, and in Moscow, there were defenders of the supremacy of church and priesthood as against state and secular chieftainship (§ 3), but this antagonism never developed into any such condemnation of secular chieftainship as was voiced by Gregory VII. Despots and criminal rulers like John the Terrible were not deposed. When the boyars struggled against him, it was merely on behalf of the privileges of their caste; they never challenged his right to supreme rule. Thus in Moscow as in Byzantium the emperor was recognised as head of the church in the sense previously explained.[7]
IV
§ 197.
CHRISTIANITY was responsible for the fuller development of theocracy and for the completion of the union between church and state. Indeed, the very concept of theocracy originated in the Christian notion of religion.[8]
The correct understanding of the problem demands attention to the following points.
1. Love of God and one's neighbour was doubtless represented as constituting the essence of Christianity; but from the first, continually and no less energetically, religion was identified with faith. But faith killed love. For practical purposes, to believe in God signified to believe in the priests represented as mediators between God and the laity. Revealed religion is of necessity a religious and priestly aristocracy; and as such, it is the foundation and the prototype of socio-political aristocracy.
Jesus himself demands blind faith; and indeed, on the solemn occasion of the ascension he is represented as saying that the unbeliever shall be damned (see the textually dubious passage, Mark xvi, 16). This was the basis of Thomas Aquinas' teaching that heretics should be punished with death. On the ground of this text the inquisition becomes comprehensible, and comprehensible too Calvin's death sentence on Servetus. Even Locke proposed that atheists should be put to death.[9]
"Disobedience is the root of all evil," said Methodios, who in the third century was the most influential teacher in the eastern church.
2. Christianity, with its ascetic doctrines, esteemed the passive virtues more highly than the active; humility was regarded as the highest merit of a Christian. This is why, in the eyes of modern philosophers from Machiavelli to Marx and Nietzsche, Christianity has appeared to be the religion of slaves; and unquestionably the dominion of priests and kings was intimately associated with Christianity.
Love is democratic, faith is aristocratic, and Christian aristocracy was stronger than Christian democracy. The greatest Christian scholastic, like his pagan teacher Aristotle, endeavoured to justify slavery; the church did not abolish slavery, but at most mitigated it, favouring its transformation into feudal retainership and serfdom.
3. Jesus declared that the love of God was of greater moment than the love of one's neighbour, but the result was to weaken the love of neighbours, for the goal of religion was sought mystically, in an illusory and ascetic union with God. The result was that the Christian love of one's neighbour was at most manifested socio-politically in works of benevolence and charity, whilst social inequality and the dependence of the masses was recognised on principle.[10]
4. From the very first, church doctrine was directly and expressly employed to favour the religious foundations of the theocracy. Paul, the founder of the church, contributed powerfully to this development, for in the thirteenth chapter of his epistle to the Romans he decisively and unambiguously expounded the notion of divine right. He declared that the powers that be were ordained of God. He wrote, "Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake." He declared, again, "Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation."
5. Paul writes as a Jew, as a man used to the Jewish form of theocracy, but at the same time he compromises with the Roman imperial rule.
Since the Christian church developed within the Roman state, absolutist theocracy was the inevitable outcome of such ethical and political views. The pagan emperors recognised the church as a state church; their Christian successors recognised the pagan apotheosis of the emperors. Theocracy originated in two forms, the Roman and the eastern, and of these the eastern was the primary.
To reflective minds, these considerations will suggest the solution of the much discussed problem whether and to what extent a Christian state can exist at all.
In our estimate of Russian Christianity and its caesaropapism, we are guided by the reflection that Russian Christianity is, as the Russians themselves contend, orthodox in fact as well as in name, is genuine Christianity. It is in conformity with historical development that the principal stress should be laid upon soundness of belief, for this is the derivative meaning of the term "orthodoxy."
"The Orthodox faith is an ascetic faith," says Archbishop Antonii of Volhynia, and caesaropapism furthered asceticism just as much as it furthered faith.
Russian Christianity is, in truth, older than western Christianity alike theoretically and practically; it is the more primitive and purer form.
But for this very reason we can understand why the leading Russian thinkers were averse to Christianity as they knew it. We can understand why Bělinskii associated the idea of God with the knout; we can understand Russian atheistic and materialistic nihilism, and the political struggle of nihilism against caesaropapism; we can understand why the radical thinkers and the revolutionaries for the most part cherish socialism, which aims at establishing the realm of justice in place of the realm of Christian love, and at establishing the republic in place of tsarism; and we can understand why the various forms and grades of anarchism have found adherents in Russia
Herzen abandons Christianity because in its contempt for the world and in its cult of asceticism he discovers the apotheosis of death; he seeks the religion of life, and he finds this religion in positivist scientific disillusionment and in socialism.
The oppression exercised by the Russian theocracy is so strong and so coercive that none but the social democrats and social revolutionaries have made the separation of the church from the state a definite part of their program, for the liberals merely demand that the Russian church and the other creeds shall be freed from state tutelage. We find that it is the reforming theologians to-day who are more inclined to demand the abolition of caesaropapism in religion's own interest.
V
§ 198.
ONE of the most important tasks of the philosophy of history is to demonstrate the development and explain the significance of the three great ecclesiastical systems, Roman Catholicism, Protestantism, and Orthodoxy, and to elucidate their reciprocal relationships. Important, likewise, in relation to social evolution as a whole is the peculiar relationship which, since the days when Greek influence became predominant, has existed between theology as the organon of myth and philosophy as the organon of science.)
Theology is Greek metaphysics with a mythological gloss (§ 41 a), or it is the mythology of the Greco-Roman cultural syncretism elevated into a metaphysic. From the very first, the relationship between philosophy and theology (mythology) has been one of mutual hostility; the general evolution of thought in these matters has been characterised by the increasing vigour of criticism and science, and by the corresponding decline in the strength of mythology; the process has sometimes been spoken of as "disanthropomorphisation."
But not merely is Christian theology the issue of classical and Asiatic mythology and philosophy, the church too is the work of the pagan, emperors and philosophers of Rome, as well as being the outcome of Jewish theocratic tradition. Even before the existence of the New Testament, the first foundations of Catholicism were laid under Augustus in the religious revival he promoted. Constantine, though he remained a pagan, made Christianity the religion of the state, and only submitted to baptism on his death-bed by way of precaution. Pagan as he was, he was none the less the first emperor-pope.
Christian ritual developed in like manner out of the pagan rituals of those days. To put the matter in general terms, Catholicism is the most highly developed form of classical and Asiatic polytheism in course of transition to monotheism. Protestantism represents a higher phase of religious evolution, and is therefore more distinctively monotheistic.
Orthodox Catholicism is distinguished from western or Roman Catholicism just as Byzantium is distinguished from Rome, just as the west is distinguished from the Greco-Asiatic east. In respect of theology and philosophy, Orthodoxy owes much to Plato as well as to Jesus and the Old and New Testaments; but in the growth of Roman Catholicism the influence of Paul, of Augustine, and subsequently of Aristotle, has been predominant.
Whereas, in the Orthodox east, self-sufficient Byzantinism soon became firmly established, in the west the passivism of Catholicism weakened the power of that creed. The most notable outgrowth of western Catholicism was scholasticism with its associated development of medieval theology. Evolving from Catholicism simultaneously with the great cultural movement of the renaissance came humanism and the new science and new philosophy of Protestantism.
The Protestant reformation secured a loftier position for the moral elements of religion, and effected the abolition of the priesthood; through the growth of religious and ethical individualism and subjectivism, the new Protestant churches became something quite different from the church of Rome. The new Protestant theology was based on the teaching of Paul, and before long became so permeated with the spirit of modern philosophy that the distinction between theology and philosophy tended to disappear. From this outlook the Russian philosophers of religion (Herzen as well as the slavophils) were perfectly right when they spoke of German philosophy as Protestant; and it was from this outlook that Kant was designated the philosopher of Protestantism. Modern philosophy is, in fact, Protestant in this sense, that it has developed in Protestant countries and upon a Protestant foundation. Catholic lands, and France in especial, have sent forth reechoes of Protestant philosophy: but their own independent philosophy is anti-ecclesiastical; and precisely owing to its animosity to church doctrine, this philosophy is more revolutionary, and in many respects more negational, than the philosophy of Germany or England.
As we have learned, Russian Orthodoxy and the Russian church, the inheritors of Byzantinism, have remained far more stagnant than Roman Catholicism—to say nothing of Protestantism. The third Rome, therefore, had to borrow from the west, not only for its general culture, but also to promote its ecclesiastical and religious growth (§§ 4 and 5).
Since the days of Peter, Russia has been unceasingly influenced by Catholicism and Protestantism. Theology, too, was fertilised by Peter's reforms; but, as we recognised when we were considering Javorskii and Theofan Prokopovič (§ 9), the influence of Protestant and Catholic theology was comparatively superficial. The first aim at this date was the acquirement of knowledge. Theology was studied in Europe as well as other subjects, a notable figure in this respect being that of Damaskin, who subsequently became a bishop, and died in the year 1795. But it was not until the reigns of Alexander I and Nicholas I that the theological and religious aspirations of the Russians were rendered more intense by the spread of French and German philosophy, and as an outcome of the religious revival of European romanticism. It was typical of the new movement that Russian scholasticism was not initiated by theologians but by secular thinkers, by such men as Čaadaev, the slavophils, Dostoevskii, Solov'ev, and Leont'ev. Homjakov, the ex-soldier, became a "father of the church" (§ 55). Quite recently (just before and after the revolution of 1905), the ideas of these writers and the influence of progressive Protestant theology and of the Catholic modernists have led to the development of a comparatively independent Russian theology. Its leading representatives, Tarěev for instance, may be regarded as the founders of Russian modernism.[11]
The nature of Orthodox passivism, its backwardness in religious and ecclesiastical matters, explains why, in quarters friendly to the church, and even within the church itself, a Catholic trend is so often and so conspicuously manifest (Čaadaev, Pečorin, Solov'ev, Leont'ev). This is no mere outcome of an adaptation in externals to those elements in the west that are ecclesiastically and religiously akin, for from within outwards Orthodoxy, now that the leaven of western philosophy has begun to work, tends logically towards Catholicism as the next stage upwards in ecclesiastico-religious evolution. Among the common people there is no Catholic trend, and the folk has no sympathy with the movement towards the union of the churches; but the inclination of the cultured classes and of instructed theologians towards Catholicism is thoroughly comprehensible.
In respect of ecclesiastical policy, no less than in respect of doctrine, Peter's adversary Javorskii continues to find followers; these endeavour to fortify clericalism and to further centralisation through the patriarchate. In connection with such efforts at ecclesiastical reform, it is essential to distinguish clearly between the progressive and the reactionary elements (§ 36).
Protestantism is less dangerous to Orthodoxy precisely because the gulf between the two is so much wider. The slavophils look upon Protestantism as a mere philosophy, and not as a religion at all. Hence Russian divinity students (and the remark applies also to the divinity students from the Greek and other branches of the Orthodox church) are officially sent to Protestant, not Catholic, theological faculties, above all in Germany. Protestant influence leads individuals (Tolstoi) and masses (the stundists) to break with the church, whilst Catholicism works an inward change. Dostoevskii was keenly aware of the Catholic peril, continually animadverting upon it in his later writings.
From this outlook we are enabled to understand the general differences between French and German influence, between Catholic and Protestant influence, upon Russia (§ 22).
In the west, modern philosophy and modern science developed as an opposition to the church and church doctrine, as an opposition to theocracy. In Russia the like opposition was implicit, and its development was accelerated and strengthened by the influence of western thought.
In contradistinction to the newest Russian scholasticism, Russian progressive philosophy early became antitheocratic and antireligious. Russian religious negation was more radical than that of Europe; the contrast between church doctrine and European philosophy was greater and more definite in Russia, owing to the absence in that country of a scholasticism and a theology competent to sustain their teachings in argument against the attacks of persons of education, and competent to render these teachings acceptable. Blind faith in authority succumbed to the unanticipated onslaught, and atheism and materialism were accepted with as much credulity as had of old been exhibited towards ecclesiastical theism.
This explains why Russian radical philosophers of history have displayed scant interest in the religious problems of Europe. Herzen makes a few casual references to Catholicism and Protestantism, both of which he consistently rejects just as he rejects Orthodoxy. Čaadaev can constrain himself to no more than passing observations on Catholicism.
To Protestantism, too, radical writers have devoted very little attention, although since the time of Peter, Protestantism has had much influence in Russia (e.g. the Protestant movement of Tveritinov during Peter's reign, the stundist movement, and so on). Very few Russian thinkers have done justice to Protestantism as a religious no less than as a civilising force.[12]
- ↑ Rothenbucher's, Die Trennung von Staat und Kirche, 1908, contains a discussion on the question whether canon law is really law, and if so, in what sense.
- ↑ In exemplification of the psychology of the sudden and unbridged revolution in thoughts and feelings, I may quote a writer who is quite unconcerned with philosophical problems, and merely records facts. I refer to Pantelěev, Siberian exile and progressive publisher, who has recently gained considerable reputation as a literator. In his Reminiscences, referring to the close of the fifties, he writes: "But now, one fine day, a veritable bomb was hurled at us, in the shape of a lithographed translation of Büchner's Force and Matter. We all read it with the utmost enthusiasm, and from every one of us, in a moment, it tore away the last shreds of traditional belief. . . . Notwithstanding the brilliant success of 'Sovremennik,' progressive socio-political ideas had secured comparatively few adherents even among young people; many had adopted them only to abandon them lightly, and even in our day such ideas had to struggle for existence; but the thoughts of Büchner and Feuerbach took the Russian mind by storm, and none of the severities of the subsequent reaction were able to restore to society the naive beliefs of the past."—I quote this passage because Pantelěev, who makes no pretensions to philosophic illumination, gives a frank and unadorned but perfectly accurate picture of the situation.
- ↑ Some historians consider that the definitive form of Orthodoxy was attained at a date later than that mentioned in the text, but these chronological differences have no bearing on the argument.
- ↑ An excellent though concise account of the facts is given by Seeberg in his Grundriss der Dogmengeschichte, 3rd edition, 1910. Consult also Harnack, Sitzungsberichte der preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1913, and Der Geist der morgenlandischen Kirche im Unterschied von der abendländischen. Additional authorities are mentioned under theological literature in § 47.
- ↑ A history of the movement considered in the text will be found in Rothenbücher's work, Die Trennung von Staat und Kirche, 1908; the book also contains an excellent survey of the political program of disestablishment. The literature of the subject is rapidly extending. I may refer to: Debidour, L'Eglise catholique et l'état sous la troisième république, 2 vols., 1906–1909; Troeltsch, Die Trennung von Staat und Kirche, der staatliche Religionsunterricht und die theologischen Fakultäten, Rektoratsrede, 1907; Kahl, Aphorismen zur Trennung von Staat und Kirche, Rektoratsrede, 1908.
- ↑ Quis nesciat, reges et duces ab iis habuisse principium, qui, deum ignorantes, superbia, rapinis, perfidia, homicidiis, postremo universis pene sceleribus mundi principe diabolo videlicet agitante super pares, scilicet, homines dominare caeca cupidine ut intolerabili praesumptione affectaverunt.
- ↑ Kattenbusch contends that the term caesaropapism is more applicable to ancient days than to recent times. The Russian tsars, he says, are mere guardians of the existing order; they have identified themselves, with the church, not the church with themselves, whilst the latter identification was the true index of caesaropapism.—I have in an earlier chapter referred to the passages in the state fundamental law wherein the relationship of the tsar to the church is defined. Distinctive is the fact that the church consecrates and voluntarily recognises tsarist absolutism, and in return is protected by the state with the absolutist powers thus consecrated by religion. We have seen the efficiency of this protection against hostile churches and against the enlightenment. As we have learned, the emperor does not venture to formulate new dogmas, for in the view of the eastern church this is a closed chapter; but Kattenbusch admits that Justinian's attitude towards dogma was papistical. Peter abolished the patriarchate (his action in this matter being uncanonical), and such an interference in church organisation was characteristically papistical.
- ↑ When I speak of Christianity, I am well aware of the vagueness of the term. It is necessary to distinguish between ecclesiastical doctrine and the teaching of Jesus, the teaching which we can discover in the New Testament by a process of analysis that is far from easy. Further, from the church doctrine (which was itself differently formulated and differently interpreted at difierent times) we must distinguish the concrete ministry of the church and the life lived within the church. Jesus' teaching and example were no more than the leaven; with these were amalgamated the doctrines of Paul and the other New Testament authors, and above all there were likewise incorporited materials from the Old Testament with its heterogeneous elements, contemporary philosophical and scientific culture being further called to assistance, Church doctrine and discipline were the product of this amalgamation.
- ↑ The nature of this relationship between love and faith was perceived already by Augustine, for he wrote: "Qui non amat, inaniter credit, etiamsi sint vera, quae credit"; nevertheless he considered the church to be the civitas dei.
- ↑ An extremely instructive document bearing on this matter is the letter from Cardinal Merry del Val to the French politician de Mun, "Il y a dans la doctrine sociale catholique des points délicats sur lesquels il importe d'être fixé, si l'on veut que I'action à exercer sur les masses populaires, au triple point de vue religieux, moral et matériel, non seulement soit régie, comme il est nécessaire, par la vérité, mais n'en vienne pas à se retourner contre elle pour la fausser. Faute de l'esprit que vous avez su imprimer à votre œuvre, ne voit-on pas, par exemple, le domaine de Ia justice élargi plus que de mesure au détriment de la charité. . . ."
"Le Temps," January 23, 1913.
- ↑ Buharev was mentioned in § 29, and reference was there made to his hostility to monasticism. We must speak once more of Bishop Antonii of Volhynia, a man who has been influenced by the slavophils and by Dostoevskii. His pupil Sergii, archbishop of Finland, is a thinker of greater note. (Among Sergii's writings may be mentioned, The Orthodox Doctrine of Salvation, An Analysis of the Moral and Subjective Aspects of Salvation.) A notable work is Tarěev's Christus, the Foundations of Christianity, 4 vols., 1908. This writer has been influenced by Dostoevskii and Antonii. Světlov likewise deserves attention. He has written: The Cross of Christ; The Significance of the Cross in the Work of Christ; An Attempt to Elucidate the Dogma of Redemption, 1907. The writings of Sergii, Tarěev, and Světlov signify a revolution in Russian theology. Not merely have they endeavoured to harmonise church doctrine with life and literature, but they have attempted to dissipate religious formalism, and above all to get rid of the formalist and legalist conception of redemption as effected by the sacrificial death of Christ. Nesmělov may also be mentioned here as providing a philosophical basis for ethics (The Doctrine of Man: I, Attempt at a psychological History and Criticism of the fundamental Problem of Life, 3rd edition, 1906; II, The Metaphysic of Life and the Christian Revelation, 1907). Nesmělov goes so far as to endeavour to reconcile the ideas of Feuerbach with a partial adoption of Orthodoxy. Janyšev, a thoroughly modern writer influenced by progressive Protestant theology, opened a discussion of ethical problems (The Orthodox-Christian Doctrine of Morality, 1887). Zarin deals with the topic of asceticism, one of peculiar importance to Orthodoxy (Asceticism in Relation to Orthodox-Christian Doctrine, 1907). Sergii's work was rejected by the St. Petersburg academy. Tarěev's essay, The Temptation of Our Lord, 1900, had to be rewritten before it could secure acceptance as a dissertation for the degree of Master of Arts.
- ↑ Šelgunov, the radical author, is extremely interesting in this connection (§ 202).