The Way of Martha and the Way of Mary/Part 2/Chapter 1
Russian Christianity is sharply in contrast with Western Christianity in the characteristic idea of denial of "the world," as opposed to our Western idea of accepting the world and "making the best of it." An essential idea in Russian Christianity is denial of "the world," denial of this mortal life as real life, denial of material force as real force, denial of speech as real speech. An act of denial is called a podvig, and a man who does some great act of denial is called a podvizhnik.
The act of Jesus on the mountain denying the road that led to the empire of the world in favour of the road that led to an ignoble death is a podvig—denial of the world.
"Turning the other cheek" is a podvig—denial of material power.
Going two miles with the man who forces you to go one is a podvig.
Mary, breaking the precious box of alabaster which might have been sold in aid of the poor, accomplished a podvig.
Simon Stylites, standing on the pillar when he might have been doing "useful work in the world," was a podvizhnik.
The hermits of the Thebaid were all doing podvigs—renouncing the world.
Father Seraphim, who took an oath of silence and was silent thirty-five years—proving in himself that silence was golden—accomplished a great podvig.
It is difficult in Russia to carry on a discussion of any point of religion without coming to a consideration of this idea of the podvig. For instance there is a saying in Russia, "Blessed is he who can escape and yet chooses to take the punishment the world would give him." A story is told in Russia that when Jesus was stretched on the cross many of those who had accepted his doctrines were in great distress not knowing that this had got to be; but they said among themselves, "You will see: there will be a miracle. I wouldn't be in the place of these stupid and brutal Roman soldiers for worlds. You will see He will step off the cross, and amaze and conquer the world." And in their anxiety and excitement they cried out: "Save thyself." Pessimists whispered to one another sad thoughts, "Alas, alas! has it not always been so in the world's history; mankind has stoned the prophets of God. Now He is going to die, to perish miserably, and the whole new movement will be ruined. People who never saw Him work miracles will say He was a charlatan, and that He never had any mission or any power. But we who saw Him raise the dead know He has the power to save Himself." But both the optimists and the pessimists were wrong. They did not realise that the Man on the cross was giving the lie to the reality of death and to the material power of the Romans and the Jews. The giving the lie is the podvig.
That strange German fairy tale of the three sluggards is probably taken from conquered Slavs. There lies in it something of the Russian point of view. The old king gave his kingdom to the son who would not save himself from the gallows-tree, even though a knife were put into his hand to cut himself down. The German version is that the king gave the throne to the laziest of the three, but in reality he gave it to the one who was most capable of denying the world.
Dostoieffsky had a habit of saying that he was glad to have gone through penal exile in Siberia, and he felt that those revolutionaries who fled abroad and did not accept the worldly judgment and punishment meted out by the Russian court were not true to Russian ideas and not in reality helping Russia. He would have preferred that they accepted the cross which Russia put upon them. Dostoieffsky constantly refers to himself as a slice from the loaf of Russia, a slice from the communion loaf—a share in the sacrifice. Those who flee from punishment are outside the communion, they have no real portion in Russia. "The religion of suffering" does not mean "suffering for its own sake," but rather the religion of not avoiding suffering, not avoiding or trying to avoid destiny. The religion of the podvig.
A tempter once came to a hermit living in a cave, and told him about the pain and misery and poverty of his fellow-men living in the world, and asked him what he would do if a million of money were brought to his cave and put at his disposal. The hermit crossed himself and muttered, "Get thee behind me, Satan!" The tempter was annoyed and urged his point. "But what would you do?" he asked.
"I should not alter my way of life," said the hermit.
That was a podvig, a denial of the reality of misery on earth, a denial of the power of money to gain real happiness for man.
One of the most interesting of Russian mystery plays, Andreief's Anathema, is concerned almost wholly with this idea. A man after God's own heart succumbs to the temptation of thinking he can put the world right with money. He inherits a million from a relative who has died in America, and he sets to work to alleviate human suffering. But the more suffering he tries to remedy the more appears before him, till finally he is drowned in suffering, and God says to Human Reason, "Not by these measures shall it be measured, nor by these numbers shall it be counted, nor by these weights shall it be weighed, O Anathema, dwelling among numbers and measures, and not yet born into light!"
This idea is so pervasive, so characteristic, that I would call it an extra letter in the alphabet of Russian philosophy.
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The history of literature is the history of ideas.
Man first made sounds to represent elementary ideas such as hunger, cold, warmth, danger, death. Then he made signs to represent sounds, and invented reading and writing. The signs were systematised; they were split up into letters and then remade as words. Alphabets and dictionaries were made. Languages grew.
At first people spoke only of hunger, cold, pain, pleasure, fighting, death, and such simple things. They had perhaps only five hundred or so words. But year by year they added to words as they discovered new things in the world and in themselves.
At first clever men, brave warriors, intrepid hunters gave us words; then philosophers and astrologers and historians; then priests and minstrels and poets. They named all the things on the world and their feelings about the things; they named the ideas for which men fought, for which tribes and nations fought. They named the things of which they were afraid, the evil spirits in the darkness, in the forests, in the earthquakes and tempests. Last of all, when they found and considered the great spirit of man, the spirit in themselves, they named the gods, and they named the transcendental glories and sorrows of man.
The minstrels struck their harps and sang of the great deeds of famous men, and then poets without harps wrote of the same deeds, changing into words the music of the harp as well. Priests burned sacrifices on altars, and the poets wrote of it and changed the smoke of the incense into words. Great warriors fought before Troy, and the poets changed their passion into words. They sailed the terrible seas ten years to get home, and the poets changed the storms into words. The poets found out the assonances of mankind, what every one admired, and they gave to whole generations watch-words, words that were battle-flags. The poets described the gods.
Poems were so much read that whole lines and verses were as familiar as ordinary words, and people could quote a line of poetry and everybody would know the idea that was meant. And when the name of a god or a hero was mentioned there rose at once to people's minds stories about him, poems about him.
Stories became like extra words in the language. That is what the wonderful Greek stories such as those of Narcissus, Demeter, and Persephone, and the labours of Hercules became—extra words in the dictionary or, better still, extra letters. For simple people took them into their lives, and combined them with their own thoughts, and made new words of their own. People learnt to use these stories in their prayers and in all their thoughts of mankind.
Some nations like the Jews, the Egyptians, the Greeks, grew to great culture, and the peoples in their beautiful capitals struck thousands of harps and sang thousands of songs, whilst away in the backwoods and lost places of the world the rest of mankind lived almost inarticulate, almost like beasts,—in Germany, in Gaul, in what is now Russia, in Britain. But their upward movement was at hand. A new idea came into the world and all the old order changed, giving place to new. The last of the stories which became a word was the story of Christ on the cross. "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us." An extraordinary new letter was given to the world, and people fitted it into their thoughts and made new words, new languages, new cultures.
The savage races of Western Europe came turbulently to the knowledge of the God-like in themselves, and threw the world into confusion, observing the old words and stories and culture of the ancient world. They followed the word-flags of Christianity, the watchwords. Once more the making of language was first in the hands of clever artificers, brave warriors, intrepid hunters, adventurous sailors. It passed into the hands of mediæval philosophers, alchemists, and scholars, to minstrels, priests, and poets. At last they realised a wide and wondrous culture, and they took from the ancient world all the stories and extra words and letters now called myths, and they added them to their own stories and words, as one might add strings to a stringed instrument. They learned to praise God on many strings.
To-day we express ourselves with great orchestras as formerly, long long ago, man, emerging from the animal, the rude Pan learned to express himself on a simple reed.
The discovery of words has been the history of self-expression. Words have no value in themselves. They are symbols or tokens of ideas in us. And when we find words continually adding themselves to our vocabulary and our culture, we know ourselves increasing in the knowledge of ourselves and of the beauty and passion which lie latent in our souls. Education in its highest sense is the learning of words and the learning how to use them, learning the notes of the great instrument, learning how to play the music of the ages, and to express with that music and with that playing the passion and the mystery of our own souls.
The highest of literature, like the noblest of music, is that wherein the great stories are used as extra letters and words. Rich writing is that which is full of allusions which we all understand. Poor literature is often that in which the author is frequently making allusions to events and stories which are known only to a few and have no strong significance. To use stories as words when the majority of people do not know the stories is to write in a language that is not understood, it is to write in words that are not in use. The reality of a book that draws its allusions from the Bible and from the Greek myths and general European history is immeasurably greater than one that is constantly referring to the Koran or the stories of the Buddha or Zoroaster or Khrishna or Confucius. That is in itself an adequate defence of Christianity as a religion for us. Its stories are our stories. Its Word is the living Word. The other stories are not our stories. Christianity is our language. If ever asked to defend Christianity, the defence lies not in the historical accuracy of Christian documents or the verity of records. Christianity is the Word. All words are at our disposal for the expression of our passion and the sense of our mystery. The Christian story is the word that fits.
Our golden deeds, the deeds we consider as golden, are our extra letters. Let the poets and musicians blend them into their music. Every time a golden deed is made to sound beautifully in allusion a common chord is struck in the souls of men.
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And the podvig is an extra letter. There are many who claim that it is the word itself; that denial of "the world" is actually the logos of Christianity. Even in Russia, where there is also the richer and grander conception of the Church, there are those who stand for the podvig only, for denial of the world and material force only. Witness Tolstoy and many of his followers. It is even held by some that the whole of true and vital and historical Christianity is founded on—"If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out; if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off." The important sect of Skoptsi go so far as to say that the begetting of children is sin, and they mutilate themselves, and in that way deny life in the name of the spiritual life.