The Kingdom of God Is Within You by Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy (readera ebook reader txt) 📕

>prove at all that each branch was the only one. It is precisely

the same with the Church. Every church presents exactly the same

proofs of the succession, and even the same miracles, in support

of its authenticity, as every other. So that there is but one

strict and exact definition of what is a church (not of something

fantastic which we would wish it to be, but of what it is and has

been in reality)—a church is a body of men who claim for

themselves that they are in complete and sole possession of the

truth. And these bodies, having in course of time, aided by the

support of the temporal authorities, developed into powerful

institutions, have been the principal obstacles to the diffusion

of a true comprehension of the teaching of Christ.

 

It could not be otherwise. The chief peculiarity which

distinguished Christ’s teaching from previous religions consisted

in the fact that those who accepted it strove ever more and more

to comprehend and realize its teaching. But the Church doctrine

asserted its own complete and final comprehension and realization

of it.

 

Strange though it may seem to us who have been brought up in the

erroneous view of the Church as a Christian institution, and in

contempt for heresy, yet the fact is that only in what was called

heresy was there any true movement, that is, true Christianity,

and that it only ceased to be so when those heresies stopped short

in their movement and also petrified into the fixed forms of a

church.

 

And, indeed what is a heresy? Read all the theological works one

after another. In all of them heresy is the subject which first

presents itself for definition; since every theological work deals

with the true doctrine of Christ as distinguished from the

erroneous doctrines which surround it, that is, heresies. Yet you

will not find anywhere anything like a definition of heresy.

 

The treatment of this subject by the learned historian of

Christianity, E. de Pressens�, in his “Histoire du Dogme” (Paris,

1869), under the heading “Ubi Christus, ibi Ecclesia,” may serve

as an illustration of the complete absence of anything like a

definition of what is understood by the word heresy. Here is what

he says in his introduction (p. 3):

 

“Je sais que l’on nous conteste le droit de qualifier ainsi

[that is, to call heresies] les tendances qui furent si

vivement combattues par les premiers P�res. La d�signation

m�me d’h�r�sie semble une atteinte port�e � la libert� de

conscience et de pens�e. Nous ne pouvons partager ce scrupule,

car il n’irait � rien moins qu’� enlever au Christianisme tout

caract�re distinctif.” [see Footnote]

 

[Footnote: “I know that our right to qualify thus the

tendencies which were so actively opposed by the early

Fathers is contested. The very use of the word heresy

seems an attack upon liberty of conscience and thought.

We cannot share this scruple; for it would amount to

nothing less than depriving Christianity of all

distinctive character.”

 

And though he tells us that after Constantine’s time the Church

did actually abuse its power by designating those who dissented

from it as heretics and persecuting them, yet he says, when

speaking of early times:

 

“L’�glise est une libre association; il y a tout profit a se

s�parer d’elle. La pol�mique contre l’erreur n’a d’autres

ressources que la pens�e et le sentiment. Un type doctrinal

uniforme n’a pas encore �t� �labor�; les divergences

secondaires se produisent en Orient et en Occident avec une

enti�re libert�; la th�ologie n’est point li�e a d’invariables

formules. Si au sein de cette diversit� apparait un fonds

commun de croyances, n’est-on pas en droit d’y voir non pas un

syst�me formul� et compos� par les repr�sentants d’une

autorit� d’�cole, mais la foi elle-m�me dons son instinct le

plus s�r et sa manifestation la plus spontan�e? Si cette m�me

unanimit� qui se r�v�le dans les croyances essentielles, se

retrouve pour repousser telles ou telles tendances ne serons

nous pas en droit de conclure que ces tendances �taient en

d�sacord flagrant avec les principes fondamentaux du

christianisme? Cette pr�somption ne se transformerait-elle

pas en certitude si nous reconnaissons dans la doctrine

universellement repouss�e par l’�glise les traits

caract�ristiques de l’une des religions du pass�? Pour dire

que le gnosticisme ou l’�bionitisme sont les formes l�gitimes

de la pens�e chr�tienne il faut dire hardiment qu’il n’y a pas

de pens�e chr�tienne, ni de caract�re sp�cifique qui la fasse

reconna�tre. Sous pr�texte de l’�largir, on la dissout.

Personne au temps de Platon n’e�t os� couvrir de son nom une

doctrine qui n’eut pas fait place � la th�orie des id�es; et

l’on e�t excit� les justes moqueries de la Gr�ce, en voulant

faire d’Epicure ou de Z�non un disciple de l’Acad�mie.

Reconnaissons donc que s’il existe une religion ou une

doctrine qui s’appelle christianisme, elle peut avoir ses

h�r�sies.” [see Footnote]

 

[Footnote: “The Church is a free association; there is much to

be gained by separation from it. Conflict with error has no

weapons other than thought and feeling. One uniform type of

doctrine has not yet been elaborated; divergencies in

secondary matters arise freely in East and West; theology is

not wedded to invariable formulas. If in the midst of this

diversity a mass of beliefs common to all is apparent, is one

not justified in seeing in it, not a formulated system, framed

by the representatives of pedantic authority, but faith itself

in its surest instinct and its most spontaneous manifestation?

If the same unanimity which is revealed in essential points of

belief is found also in rejecting certain tendencies, are we

not justified in concluding that these tendencies were in

flagrant opposition to the fundamental principles of

Christianity? And will not this presumption be transformed

into certainty if we recognize in the doctrine universally

rejected by the Church the characteristic features of one of

the religions of the past? To say that gnosticism or

ebionitism are legitimate forms of Christian thought, one must

boldly deny the existence of Christian thought at all, or any

specific character by which it could be recognized. While

ostensibly widening its realm, one undermines it. No one in

the time of Plato would lave ventured to give his name to a

doctrine in which the theory of ideas had no place, and one

would deservedly have excited the ridicule of Greece by trying

to pass off Epicurus or Zeno as a disciple of the Academy.

Let us recognize, then, that if a religion or a doctrine

exists which is called Christianity, it may have its

heresies.”

 

The author’s whole argument amounts to this: that every opinion

which differs from the code of dogmas we believe in at a given

time, is heresy. But of course at any given time and place men

always believe in something or other; and this belief in

something, indefinite at any place, at some time, cannot be a

criterion of truth.

 

It all amounts to this: since ubi Christus ibi Ecclesia, then

Christus is where we are.

 

Every so-called heresy, regarding, as it does, its own creed as

the truth, can just as easily find in Church history a series of

illustrations of its own creed, can use all Pressens�‘s arguments

on its own behalf, and can call its own creed the one truly

Christian creed. And that is just what all heresies do and have

always done.

 

The only definition of heresy (the word [GREEK WORD], means a

part) is this: the name given by a body of men to any opinion

which rejects a part of the Creed professed by that body. The

more frequent meaning, more often ascribed to the word heresy, is

—that of an opinion which rejects the Church doctrine founded and

supported by the temporal authorities.

 

[TRANSCRIBIST’S NOTE: The GREEK WORD above used Greek letters,

spelled: alpha(followed by an apostrophe)-iota(with accent)-

rho-epsilon-sigma-iota-zeta]

 

There is a remarkable and voluminous work, very little known,

“Unpartheyische Kirchen-und Ketzer-Historie,” 1729, by Gottfried

Arnold, which deals with precisely this subject, and points out

all the unlawfulness, the arbitrariness, the senselessness, and

the cruelty of using the word heretic in the sense of reprobate.

This book is an attempt to write the history of Christianity in

the form of a history of heresy.

 

In the introduction the author propounds a series of questions:

(1) Of those who make heretics; (2) Of those whom they made

heretics; (3) Of heretical subjects themselves; (4) Of the method

of making heretics; and (5) Of the object and result of making

heretics.

 

On each of these points he propounds ten more questions, the

answers to which he gives later on from the works of well-known

theologians. But he leaves the reader to draw for himself the

principal conclusion from the expositions in the whole book. As

examples of these questions, in which the answers are to some

extent included also, I will quote the following. Under the 4th

head, of the manner in which heretics are made, he says, in one of

the questions (in the 7th):

 

“Does not all history show that the greatest makers of

heretics and masters of that craft were just these wise men,

from whom the Father hid his secrets, that is, the hypocrites,

the Pharisees, and lawyers, men utterly godless and perverted

(Question 20-21)? And in the corrupt times of Christianity

were not these very men cast out, denounced by the hypocrites

and envious, who were endowed by God with great gifts and who

would in the days of pure Christianity have been held in high

honor? And, on the other hand, would not the men who, in the

decline of Christianity raised themselves above all, and

regarded themselves as the teachers of the purest Christianity,

would not these very men, in the times of the apostles and

disciples of Christ, have been regarded as the most shameless

heretics and antiChristians?”

 

He expounds, among other things in these questions, the theory

that any verbal expression of faith, such as was demanded by the

Church, and the departure from which was reckoned as heresy, could

never fully cover the exact religious ideas of a believer, and

that therefore the demand for an expression of faith in certain

words was ever productive of heresy, and he says, in Question 21:

 

“And if heavenly things and thoughts present themselves to a

man’s mind as so great and so profound that he does not find

corresponding words to express them, ought one to call him a

heretic, because he cannot express his idea with perfect

exactness?”

 

And in Question 33:

 

“And is not the fact that there was no heresy in the earliest

days due to the fact that the Christians did not judge one

another by verbal expressions, but by deed and by heart, since

they had perfect liberty to express their ideas without the

dread of being called heretics; was it not the easiest and most

ordinary ecclesiastical proceeding, if the clergy wanted to get

rid of or to ruin anyone, for them to cast suspicion on the

person’s belief, and to throw a cloak of heresy upon him, and

by this means to procure his condemnation and removal?

 

“True though it may be that there were sins and errors among

the so-called heretics, it is no less true and evident,” he

says farther on, “from the innumerable examples quoted here

(i. e., in the history of the Church and of heresy), that there

was not a single sincere and conscientious man of any

importance whom the Churchmen would not from envy or other

causes have ruined.”

 

Thus, almost two hundred years ago, the real meaning of heresy was

understood. And notwithstanding that, the same conception of it

has gone on existing up to now. And it cannot fail to exist so

long as the conception of a