1 By the Councils of the Church. The expression first occurs in Acts xv. 28.
WHAT I BELIEVE torah (in the meaning of the written law) which he could not but reject. That torah is acknow- ledged to be the production of the revelation of his Spirit of truth, of the Holy Ghost, and he is himself caught in the meshes of his own revelation, and his whole teaching is reduced to nothing.
So that is why, after 1,800 years, so strange 1 a thing befell me, as to have to discover the meaning of Christ’s teaching as though it were something new.
I did not have to discover it, but I had to do what has been done and is being done by all who seek God and His law: to disentangle the eternal, law of God from among all the other things people have called by that name.
CHAPTER VI THE FIVE COMMANDMENTS And so, when I understood Christ’s law to be the law of Christ, and not the law of Moses and Christ, and understood the statement of that law, which directly disavows the law of Moses, the Gospels as a whole, instead of their former obscurity, disunion, and contradictoriness, dis- closed themselves as one indivisible whole, and amid them the essence of the whole teaching became clear, expressed in the five simple, clear j commandments of Christ, accessible to every- one (Matt. v. 21-48), but about which I had till then known nothing. Throughout the Gospels Christ’s commandments and their fulfilment are spoken of.
All the theologians speak of Christ’s com- mandments, but what those commandments were I formerly did not know. It seemed to me that the commands of Christ consisted in this: to love God, and my neighbour as myself. But I did not see that this could not be Christ’s commandment, because it is a commandment of ‘ them of old time ’ (Deut. and Lev.). The words (Matt. v. 19) 4 Whosoever shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of WHAT I BELIEVE WHAT I BELIEVE heaven,’ I attributed to the laws of Moses. And the fact that the new commandments of Christ are clearly and definitely expressed in verses 21-48 of Matt. v. never entered my head. I did not see that where Christ says, ‘ It was said to you; but I say unto you,5 new and definite commands of Christ are given, namely, according to the number of references to the ancient law (and counting two references to adultery as one), five new, clear, and definite commandments of Christ.
About the Beatitudes and their number I had heard, and had met with enumerations and explanations in Scripture lessons, but of Christ’s commands I had never heard anything. To my surprise I had to discover them.
This is how I did so. In Matt. v. 21-26, it is said: 4 Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill [Exod. xx. 13], and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgement. But I say unto you, that whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgement: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council; and whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire. If therefore thou art offering thy gift at the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath aught against thee; leave there thy gift before the altar and go thy way, first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift. Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him; lest haply the ad- versary deliver thee to the judge and the judge THE FIVE COMMANDMENTS 183 deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison.. Verily I say unto thee, Thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing.’
When I understood the commandment of non-resistance to him that is evil it seemed to me that these verses about anger ought to have ■ I as clear a meaning, and one as applicable to life as the commandment about resisting him that is evil. The meaning I had formerly attributed i to those words was that every one should always avoid anger against others and should never use words of abuse, but should live at peace with all men without exception; but there were words in the text which excluded that meaning. It was said: Do not be angry 4 without a cause,’ so that no unconditional injunction to be peace- able is found in the words. Those words 4 with- out a cause ’ perplexed me: and to solve my doubts I consulted the interpretations of the I theologians, and to my amazement I found that the interpretations of the Fathers of the Church are chiefly directed to explaining when anger is excusable and when it is not excusable. All the Church interpretations lay particular stress on the meaning of the words without a cause, and explain the passage in the sense that one must not insult innocent people, and one must not employ words of abuse, but that anger is not always unjustifiable; in confirmation of which view they quote the anger of saints and Apostles.
I I could not but admit that, though it contra- dicts the whole sense of the Gospels, this WHAT I BELIEVE explanation that anger, as they say, is not for- bidden by the word of God, follows from and finds support in the words without a cause— which occur in verse 22. These words change the meaning of the whole utterance.
Be not angry without a cause. Christ bids us forgive all, forgive endlessly. He himself for- gives, and forbids Peter to be angry with Malchus when Peter, not without cause it would seem, defended his Master who was being led to crucifixion. And this same Christ, for the in- struction of all men, says: Do not be angry without a cause, and thereby sanctions anger with a cause — anger which is deserved. Christ preaches peace to all the plain folk, and suddenly, as though explaining that this does not refer to all cases, but that there are cases when one may be angry with one's brother, he inserts the words without a cause. In the interpretations it is explained that there is timely anger. But who, asked I, is to be judge of when anger is timely? I have never seen angry people who considered their anger untimely. They all consider their anger just and useful. Those words destroy the whole meaning of the verse. But the words stood in Holy Writ, and I could not cancel them. Yet those words were as though to the saying, Love thy neighbour were added, Love thy good neighbour, or, Love the neighbour whom thou approvest of.
The whole meaning of the passage was de- stroyed for me by the words without a cause. The verses that said that before praying one must be reconciled to those who are angry THE FIVE COMMANDMENTS 185 with one, which without the words ‘without a cause ’ would have had a plain and obli- gatory meaning, also acquired this conditional meaning.
It seemed to me that Christ should have for- bidden all anger, all ill-will, and, for its elimina- tion, bidden every one, before he brings his sacrifice — that is to say, before entering into communion with God — to remember whether there is not some one who is angry with him. And if there is any one who rightfully or wrong- fully is angry with you, you must first go and be reconciled, and only then bring your offering or your prayer. So it seemed to me; but according to the commentaries the passage must i be understood conditionally.
In all the commentaries it is explained that one must try to be at peace with all, but if that is impossible, owing to the depravity of those who are at strife with you, you must be at peace in your soul, in your thoughts, and then the enmity of the others against you need not prevent your praying. Besides this, the words that declare that whoso says 4 Raca 9 and ‘ Thou fool * is terribly guilty always seemed to me strange and obscure. If one is forbidden to scold, why are such weak, almost unabusive words selected as examples? And also why is so terrible a threat directed against him who lets fall such a weak word of abuse as ‘ Raca/ which means ‘ a nobody J i This too is obscure.
* I felt that there was a misunderstanding similar to that which occurred with reference to WHAT I BELIEVE the words, ‘ judge not/ I felt that, as in that interpretation so in this, what is simple, im- portant, definite, and practicable is all changed into what is obscure and indefinite. I felt that Christ could not understand the words, * Go, be reconciled to thine adversary/ in the way they are explained to us, as meaning, 4 Be reconciled in your thoughts/ What does being reconciled in one's thoughts mean? It seemed to me that Christ was demanding what he else- where expressed in the words of the prophets: 4 I will have mercy and not sacrifice ' — that is to say, love to man. And therefore, if you wish to please God, before praying at morning and evening, at matins and evensong, remember whether any one is angry with you and go and arrange matters so that he may not be angry with you, and, after that, pray if you please. And then we are told that this is only 4 in thought/ I felt that the whole interpretation which destroyed for me the direct and clear meaning of the passage was based on the words 4 without a cause.' If they were struck out, the meaning would be clear; but against my interpretation all the expositors were ranged, as well as the canonical Gospel, with the words, 4 without a cause.' If I yield on this point I may as well yield on others at my fancy; and other people may do the same. The whole matter lay in those words. If they were not there, all would be clear. And I tried to find some philological explanation of the words which would not infringe the whole meaning. I looked up the Greek word interpreted 4 with- THE FIVE COMMANDMENTS 187 out a cause, in the dictionaries; and I saw that this word, in Greek eUr), means ‘ without purpose/ 4 inconsiderately/ I tried to give it a meaning which would not infringe the sense of the passage, but evidently the addition of that word has the meaning which is given it. I consulted other dictionaries, but the meaning given of the word was the same. I consulted the context, and found that the word is em- ployed only once in the Gospel, namely, in this passage. In the Epistles it is employed several times. In the First Epistle to the Corinthians, xv. 2, it is used just in this sense. Therefore it is impossible to explain it otherwise, and one has to admit that Christ said: Do not be angry unnecessarily! I must confess that for me to admit that Christ could in this passage use such obscure words, which can be understood so that nothing remains of their meaning, was tanta- mount to rejecting the whole Gospel. There remained one last hope: Is the word found in all the manuscripts? I looked up the manu- scripts. I referred to Greisbach, who shows all the variations — that is to say, he shows in what manuscripts and by what Fathers of the Church an expression is used. I looked, and was at once thrown into an ecstasy by observing that to this passage there are remarks — there are I variations. I went on and found that the variations all refer to the word cUrj, c without a cause/ Most of the manuscripts of the Gospel and the quotations of the passage in the Fathers of the Church do not contain the word at all! Therefore most of them understood the matter WHAT I BELIEVE as I do. I then referred to Tischendorf — to the oldest text — and the word was not there at all!, I looked at Luther's translations, where I might j have got at the matter most quickly, and th e- word was not there either.
The very word which infringes the whole j meaning of Christ's teaching was added to the Gospels in the fifth century, and is not 1 to be found in the best manuscripts.
Someone inserted the word, and there were others who approved of it and wrote commen- taries upon it.
Christ could not, and did not, utter that dreadful word; and the first, simple, direct meaning of the whole passage, which occurred. to me and occurs to every one, is the true j meaning. ( But, more than this, I had only to understand { that Christ's words always forbid all anger < against any one whatever, for the injunction not j | to say to any one, 4 Raca,' or ‘ Thou fool,' which j had formerly perplexed me, to receive another j meaning than that Christ forbids the use of ( abusive words. The strange, untranslated € Hebrew word, Baca, supplied me with the clue.! r Baca means trampled on, destroyed, non- existing; and the word rah, a very usual word, c has the sense of exclusion, only not. Baca means j a man who should not be accounted a man. In j, the plural the word rchim is used in the Book j j of Judges (ix. 4) where it means 4 lost persons.' j ] And that is the word Christ bids us not to use of j any man. As he bids us not use another a word, fool, so also he bids us not use raca, a THE FIVE COMMANDMENTS 189 which professes to free us from our human obligations to our neighbour. We get angry and do evil to men, and to justify ourselves we say that he with whom we a,re angry is a lost or insane man. And just those two words Christ bids us not to use of men or to men. Christ bids us not be angry with any one, and not justify our anger by declaring a man to be lost or insane.
And so, instead of a cloudy, indefinite ex- pression admitting of arbitrary interpretation, in Matt. v. 21-28, I found Christ’s first clear and definite commandment: Live at peace with all men, and never consider your anger against any man justified. Do not consider any one nor call any one lost or a fool (v. 22). And not only must you not consider your anger against another justifiable, but you must not consider another's anger against yourself causeless; and therefore if any one is angry with you, though he be in the wrong, yet before saying your prayers go and remove his hostile feeling (v. 23, 24). Try in advance to destroy any enmity between yourself and others that it may not flame up and destroy you (v. 25, 26).
After the first commandment, with equal clearness the second revealed itself to me. It also begins with a reference to the ancient law. In Matt. v. 27-30 it is said: £ You have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery [Ex. xx. 14]. But I say unto you, that whosoever looketh on *!a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. And if WHAT I BELIEVE thy right eye causeth thee to stumble, pluck t1 it out, and cast it from thee 1; for it is profitable \ for thee that one of thy members should perish, |! and not thy whole body be cast into hell. But if thy right hand causeth thee to stumble, cut it off and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not thy whole body go into hell/ Matt. v. 31-2: ‘ It was said also, Whosoever * shall put away his wife, let him give her a J writing of divorcement [Deut. xxiv. 1]. But I say unto you, every one that putteth away his wife [besides the sin of adultery, gives her cause to commit adultery], and whosoever shall marry her that is put away committeth adultery/ 2 The meaning of these words appeared to 1 me to be this: a man should not admit even the thought that he can have connexion with 1 any woman but the one with whom he first s has sexual relations,3 and must never change * 1 Tolstoy sometimes carries his adherence to the • letter of Christ’s saying to an extreme, but in the case of this text it will be noticed that he does not s agree with those Russian sectarians who rely on the l surgical operation of castration as a desirable correc- < tive of sexual desire. ( 2 It will be noticed that Tolstoy’s translation' of. this passage, in the words inserted in square brackets, * differs from our Authorized or Revised Versions and 1 helps to make sense of the passage.
3 Note that this view was alluded to in Anna | Karenina (vol. i, chap, xxiv, p. 98, World’s Classics j edition), where the incident was borrowed from the j actual life of Tolstoy’s brother, Dmitry, who took a, woman he had found in a brothel to live with him, and ( regarded her as a wife to whom he was bound for life, i THE FIVE COMMANDMENTS 191 her for another, as was permitted by the Mosaic law.
As in the First Commandment against anger we are advised to extinguish anger at its com- mencement, advice that is illustrated by the comparison with a man brought before a court of justice, so here Christ says that adultery arises from the fact that women and men re- gard each other as objects of desire. That this may not be so, it is necessary to remove all that might arouse lust. One must avoid all that evokes lust, and, having once united oneself with a woman, must under no circumstances abandon her, for the abandonment of wives causes depravity. The abandoned wives tempt other men, and spread depravity abroad in the world.
The wisdom of this commandment impressed me. It removes all the evil that flows from sexual relations. Men and women, knowing indulgence in sexual relations to lead to strife, should avoid all that evokes desire; and, knowing it to be the law of man's nature to live in couples, should unite with one another in couples and never under any circumstances infringe these alliances; so that the whole evil of strife caused by sexual relations is removed by the fact that there are no solitary men or women left deprived of married life.1 1 Tolstoy delighted in absolute laws, and was eager to attribute perfection and finality to those he formu- lated. But this law, of which he fully approved when lie wrote this book in 1884, no longer satisfied him )when in 1889 he wrote the Kreutzer Sonata, and in the Afterword thereto declared that marriage for a WHAT I BELIEVE But the words which had always surprised me when reading the Sermon on the Mount, except for the sin of adultery, understood in the sense that a man may divorce his wife if she has committed adultery, now struck me yet more forcibly.
In addition to the fact that there is something undignified in the way of expressing this thought, putting this strange exception to the general rule (which is introduced like a note to a paragraph of a code of laws) beside profoundly important truths, the exception itself contra- dicts the fundamental thought.
I turned to the commentators, and they all (St. John Chrysostom and the others), end even the learned theological critics such as Reuss, admitted that these words meant that Christ sanctions divorce in case of a wife's adultery, and that in Matt. xix. in Christ's remarks forbidding divorce, the words ‘except for fornication ' mean the same thing. I read and re-read chapter v. 32, and it seemed to me that it could not mean an approval of divorce. To verify this I referred to the contexts, and found in the Gospels of Matt, xix., Mark x., and Luke xvi. and in the First Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, an explanation of the teaching Christian must always be 4 a fall, a sin.’ The ex- planation of his change of view lay in the fact that his wife disagreed with his wish to renounce his property, and he found that his physical affection for her made it hard for him to adhere to his principles. Marriage was therefore an obstacle to right life, and as such, it seemed to him, should be shunned by a Christian.
THE FIVE COMMANDMENTS 193 of marriage inviolability without any excep- tions.1 In Luke xvi. 18 is said: 6 Every one that putteth away his wife, and marrieth another, •committeth adultery: and he that marrieth one that is put away from a husband committeth adultery/ In Mark x. 5-12 it is also said, without any exception: £ For your hardness of heart Moses wrote this commandment. But from the beginning of the creation, male and female made he them. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave unto his wife; and the twain shall become one flesh: so that they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together let no man put asunder. And in the house his disciples asked him again of this matter. And he said unto them, Whosoever shall put away his wife, and marry another, committeth adultery against her. And if she herself shall put away her husband, and be married to another, she committeth adultery/ The same is repeated in Matt. xix. 4-9.
In the First Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, vii. 1-12, the idea of forestalling depravity by each husband and wife, when once they have united, not abandoning one another, but 1 At a time when Parliament has to deal with the marriage laws, it is in place to remember that Tolstoy wrote solely of what he considered to be Christian duty, entirely apart from legal enactment or Church ceremony of any kind. He disapproved of legal interference with the right of man or woman to form or rescind ■unions with one another.
H 194 WHAT I BELIEVE satisfying one another in sexual relation^, is developed. It is also plainly said that neither of them must on any account desert the other to have relations with some one else.
By Mark, Luke, and Paul’s Epistle divorce is not sanctioned. The sense of the explanation I that a husband and a wife are one flesh, united by God — an explanation repeated in two of the Gospels — does not sanction divorce. By Christ’s whole teaching which bids us forgive all, and makes no exception in the case of an unfaithful wife, divorce is not sanctioned. The meaning of the whole passage, which explains that the dismissal of a wife is the cause of depravity, gives it no sanction.
On what is the interpretation based which sanctions divorce from an adulterous wife? Only on the words in Matt. v. 32, which seemed to me so strange. They are interpreted by every one to mean that Christ sanctions divorce if a wife commits adultery, and these same words are repeated in many of the copies of the Gospels and by many Fathers of the Church instead of the words except for fornication Again I began to consider these words, but it was long before I could understand them.
I saw that there must be a mistake in trans- lation and interpretation, but where the mis- take lay I was long unable to discover. The mistake was evident. Contrasting his com- mandment with the law of Moses, under which any man, as is there said, who hates his wife, can dismiss her and give her a writing of THE FIVE COMMANDMENTS 195 divorcement, Christ says: ‘ But I say unto you, that every o^e that putieth away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication [or, besides the cause \ of fornication ], causeth her to commit adultery * These words present no antithesis to the Mosaic law, nor even any decision as to whether one may, or may not, divorce. It is only said that putting away a wife gives her occasions to commit adultery.
And then suddenly an exception is made in the case of a wife guilty of adultery. This exception concerning a wife guilty of adultery, when the matter in hand related to the husband, would in any case be strange and unexpected, I and occurring wdiere it does it is simply stupid, i for it destroys even such doubtful meaning as the verse otherwise had. It is said that putting away a wife occasions her to commit adultery, and it then allows you to put away a wife guilty of adultery; as though a wife guilty of adultery will then no longer commit adultery.
But, more than that, when I examined this (passage more carefully I noticed that it does not even make sense grammatically. It is said that every one that putteth away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery, and the sentence ends! It refers to a man, and says that if he puts av/ay his wife he gives her occasion to commit adultery. Why is it said, saving for the cause of the wife's adultery? If it were said that a man, divorcing his wife for any cause except ^her commission of adultery, commits adultery, then the sentence would be correct. As it is, WHAT I BELIEVE WHAT I BELIEVE to the grammatical subject, every one that putteth away, there is no predicate except eauseth. How can that predicate r^ate to the words saving for the cause of ornication?
# It is impossible to ‘ cause, saving for the wife’s fornication 5! Even if with the words ‘ saving for the cause of fornication ’ were included the words ‘the wife’s,’ or ‘her’ (which is not done), even then those words could not relate to the predicate ‘ eauseth.’ These words, in the accepted interpretation, are related to the predicate, putteth away, but putteth away is not the chief predicate: the chief predi- cate is eauseth. Why is ‘ except for the cause of fornication ’ wanted? With adultery or without it a husband who puts away his wife equally eauseth. The expression reads as though some one were to say: ‘ Whoso depriveth his son of food, except for [or besides] the sin of cruelty, eauseth him to be cruel.’ Such an expression evidently cannot imply that the father may deprive his son of food if the son is cruel. If it has any meaning it can only be that the father who deprives his son of food, besides the sin of being cruel himself, causes the son too to be cruel. So the Gospel ex- pression would have a meaning if, instead of the words the sin of fornication, it read ‘ the sin of voluptuousness, dissoluteness,1 or any- 1 Tolstoy’s indictment of the received translation of various passages in the Gospels has had consider- able circulation, and by many readers is accepted as authoritative. As yet, so far as the present trans- lator knows, no prominent Churchman has either admitted any of the alleged errors, or produced any THE FIVE COMMANDMENTS 197 thing of that kind, expressing not an action but a quality.
And I asked myself: Is it not simply said that he who puts away his wife, besides being himself guilty of dissoluteness (since people divorce one wife in order to take another), causes his wife also to commit adultery? If the word ‘ fornication ’ in the text is expressed by a word that may also mean dissoluteness, the meaning is clear.
What has so often happened in such cases occurred again this time. The text confirmed my supposition, so that no further doubt about it was possible.
The first things that caught my eye on looking at the Greek text was that the word iropvda is translated by the same word ‘ fornication 5 that is used to translate the word reasoned rejoinder to Tolstoy’s assertions. A pro- nouncement on these matters from some recognized and impartial authority of admitted competence would therefore be valuable as a help towards clearing up questions which are as important as they are doubtful.
The only contribution the present translator can make to the matter is to record the fact that, some fifteen years after What I Believe was written, he asked Tolstoy whether he still held to the interpreta- tions he had advanced when dealing with the Gospels. Tolstoy replied that he had ceased to attach special importance to precise words attributed to J esus, and admitted that, in his anxiety to counteract the bias he detected in the ‘ Orthodox ’ translation, he had sometimes overstrained the sense too much in a contrary direction, as one engaged on demagnetizing a watch may sometimes expose it to too strong an opposite influence; but he thought his Greek reliable.
WHAT I BELIEVE WHAT I BELIEVE fjbOLxacOaL, which is quite a different word. But perhaps these words are synonymous, or are used in the Gospels alternatively? I looked up all the dictionaries, both the general dictionary and the Gospel dictionary, and I saw that the word iropvda, which corresponds to the Hebrew zono, and to the Latin fornicatio, the German Hurerei, French lihertinage, and the English c incontinence,’ has a most definite meaning, and never, in any dictionary, has meant or can mean the act of fornication, aduliere, Ehebruch, as it is translated. It means a sinful condition or quality, and never an action, and should not be translated by 4 fornication.’ Moreover, I see that the word 4 adultery,’ and £ to commit adultery/ is everywhere in the Gospels, and even in these verses, represented by the word /xoiyeuV And I only had to correct this evidently intentional error in translation for the meaning given by the commentators on this passage and on the passage in chap. xix. to become quite impossible, and for it to be- come indubitable that Tropveta relates to the husband.