(John viii. 40.) He says to the Jews: £ Ya seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth, which I heard from God.’ (46) 4 Which of you convicteth me of sin? If I say truth, why do ye not believe me? ’ (xviii. 37) He says, ‘ To this end was I born, and to this end am I come into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice.’ (xiv. 6) He says, ‘ I am the way, and the truth, and the life.’ (16) ‘ The Father,’ says he to the dis- ciples, 4 shall give you another Comforter, that he may be with you for ever.’ (17) ‘ That Comforter is the Spirit of truth, whom the world neither sees nor knows, but whom ye know, for he is with you and shall be in you.’
He says that his whole teaching, and that he himself, is truth.
1 The judgement (Kpiais) does not mean the judge- ment, but the division. — L. T.
WHAT I BELIEVE The teaching of Christ is the teaching of truth. And therefore faith in Christ is not credulously accepting something concerning Jesus, but is knowledge of the truth. The teaching of Christ is not a thing any one can be induced to believe in, nor is it possible to bribe any one to fulfil it. He who understands the teaching of Christ will also have faith in it, because that teaching is the truth. And he who knows the truth neces- sary for his welfare cannot but believe it, as a man who has understood that he is really sinking cannot but catch at the rope of salva- tion. And the question: What must I do to believe? is a question which merely displays a non-comprehension of Jesus Christ’s teaching.
CHAPTER X ‘ MY YOKE IS EASY ’ We say, ‘ It is difficult to live in agreement with the teaching of Christ! ’ And how can it but be difficult when we ourselves laboriously, by the arrangement of our whole life, hide our position from ourselves and laboriously con- firm ourselves in a credulous belief that our position is not at all what it is, but is quite different? And, having called this credulity faith, we make of it something sacred, and by every means — by working on their feelings, by threats, flattery, and deception — we allure men to this false credulity. In this demand for credulous belief in the impossible and unnatural we have reached such a pass that the very irrationality of that for which we demand credulous belief is considered a sign of its validity. A man, ‘ a Christian,’ was found who said, Credo quia ahsurdum,1 and other Christians repeated this with enthusiasm, assuming that absurdity is the very best method of teaching 1 The actual words used by Tertullian were, Credo quia impossibile. One might amend the above passage to make it read: ‘ Others have repeated this, assuming that the assertion of impossibilities is the best method of inculcating truth.’
WHAT I BELIEVE people the truth. Recently I had a conversa- tion with a learned and clever man who told * me that Christian teaching, as a moral teaching f of life, is unimportant. ‘All that/ said he to | me, ‘ could be found among the Stoics and the Brahmins and in the Talmud. The essence ' of the Christian teaching is not in that, but in u the theosophic teaching expressed in its dogmas/ In other words, that is not precious in Christian I teaching which is eternal and common to all mankind, necessary for life and reasonable, but that is important and precious which is quite unintelligible and therefore unnecessary, and for the sake of which millions of people have [ been slaughtered.
We have formed for ourselves a false percep- tion of our life and of the life of the world, based on nothing but our own enmities and personal desires; and belief in this false perception, which is artificially connected with Christ’s teaching, we consider to be what is most neces- sary and important for life. Were it not for this credulous belief in falsehood, which has been maintained among men for centuries, the falsity of our conception of life, and the truth of Christ’s teaching, would long ago have be- come plain.
It is terrible to say, but it sometimes appears to me that if Christ’s teaching, with the Church teaching which has grown out of it, had not existed at all, those who now call themselves Christians would have been nearer to the truth of Christ — that is to say, to a reasonable teaching of what is good in life — than they now are. The ‘ MY YOKE IS EASY, ‘ MY YOKE IS EASY, moral teaching of the prophets of all humanity would have not been closed to them; they would have had their own small preachers of truth, and would have believed in them. But now the whole truth is open to them, and that whole truth has seemed so terrible to those whose deeds were evil, that they have reinterpreted it into falsehood, and people have lost their belief in what is true. In our European civilized society, in reply to Christ’s statement that he came into the world to witness to the truth, and that therefore every one who is of the truth hears him — people have long ago answered in the words of Pilate, 4 What is truth? ’ Those words, which express the profound and sad irony of a single Roman, we have accepted seri- ously and have adopted as our belief. All in our world live, not merely without the truth, not merely without a desire to know it, but with a firm conviction that, of all useless occupations, the most useless is the search for truth defining human life.
The teaching of life — which among ail nations, before the age of European society, was always considered the most important thing, that about which Christ said that it was the one thing needful — this one thing is excluded from our life and from the whole activity of humanity. With this matter the institution which calls itself the Church is occupied: an institution in which all, including even those who compose it, have long ceased to believe. The solitary i window towards the light, to which are directed the eyes of all who think or who suffer, has been WHAT I BELIEVE boarded up. In reply to the question, £ What am I? ’ and 4 What am I to do? Can I not aid | my life by the teaching of that God who, you 9 say, came to save me? 5 I am told, 4 Obey the demands of the powers that be, and believe in j the Church.’ 4 But why is it so hard for me to; live in this world? ’ asks a despairing voice; i 4 Why is there all this evil? Is it not possible ^ for me in my own life to abstain from participate p ing in this evil? Can it be that it is impossible to lessen this evil? ’ They reply: 4 It is im- possible. Your wish to live your life well and j to help others to do the same is pride and a j; snare. The one thing you can do is to save; yourself; that is, to save your soul for a future? life. If you do not wish to participate in the evil of the world, retire from it; that path is open to every one,’ says the teaching of the! Church. 4 But know that, on choosing that path, you must not take part in the life of the j world, but cease to live and must slowly kill j yourself.’ There are two paths, say our j teachers: (1) to believe and to obey us, and the powers that be, and participate in the evil we have organized, or (2) to retire from the world and go into a monastery, not sleeping and not eating, rotting your flesh on the top of a column,1 bending and unbending, and doing nothing of any use to men. Either admit the teaching of Christ to be impracticable, and therefore ac- | quiesce in the lawlessness of life the Church has j 1 Like St. Simeon Stylites and the other Stylites, who are more highly honoured in the Eastern than in L the Western world.
c MY YOKE IS EASY ' 297 sanctified, or renounce life — which is equivalent * to slow suicide.
Astonishing, to any one who understands Christ's teaching, as is the delusion which admits Christ's teaching to he very good for men, but impracticable, still more amazing is that delusion which acknowledges that a 1 man who wishes to carry out the teaching of Christ not in words only, but in deeds, ought to retire from the world.
The delusion that it is better for men to with- draw from the world is an old delusion, familiar long ago to the Jews, but quite foreign to the spirit, not only of Christianity, but even to that of Judaism. Against that fallacy, long before the time of Christ, was written the story of the prophet Jonah, of which Christ was so fond, and which he so often quoted. The thought of that story from beginning to end is identical. Jonah, the prophet, wishes per- sonally, by himself alone, to be a just man, and he withdraws from among depraved people, but God shows him that he is a prophet and that therefore it is necessary that he should impart his knowledge to the people who are in error, and so he should not flee from the erring people, but should live in contact with them. Jonah despises the depraved Ninevites and flees from them; but, however much he runs away from his destiny, God brings him back to the Nine- vites by means of the whale, and that is accom- plished which God desires, namely, the Ninevites receive God's teaching from Jonah, and their life becomes better. But Jonah, far from being L* WHAT I BELIEVE L* WHAT I BELIEVE glad that he is the instrument of God's will, is discontented, and is jealous of God's favour p to the Ninevites, and would like to be reasonable * and good alone by himself. He withdraws into the desert, weeps over his fate, and re- i proaches God: then a gourd grows up in one night over him and shields him from the sun, and in another night a worm eats the gourd, and Jonah reproaches God still more desper- ately because the gourd he valued has been lost. Then God says to him, ‘ You regret the gourd you call yours, which grew up in one night; but do I not regret the great people which was perishing, living like beasts unable to distinguish their right hand from their left? Your know- ledge of the truth was only of value if it was communicated to those who had it not.'
Christ knew the story and frequently quoted it, and we are also told in the Gospels how Christ himself, after visiting John the Baptist, who had withdrawn into the desert, underwent that same temptation before commencing his own preaching, and how he was led away by the devil (by a deception) into the desert to be tempted, and how he conquered that deception and in the strength of his spirit returned into Galilee, and how from that time ©n, without avoiding any depraved people, he spent his life among publicans, Pharisees, and sinners, teaching them the truth (Luke iv. I).1 1 Christ was led into the wilderness in order there to be tempted (Matt. iv. 3-7). The deception told Christ that he was not a Son of God if he could not turn stones into bread. Christ replied: ‘ I can!
mm * MY YOKE IS EASY ' According to Church teaching, Christ, the God-Man, gave us an example of life. The whole of the life of Christ known to us was led in the very whirlpool of life among publicans and adulterers in Jerusalem, and with the Pharisees. The chief injunctions of Christ were love of one's neighbour and the preaching of the truth to others; the one and the other demand continual intercourse with the world. Suddenly out of this is deduced the conclusion that, according to the teaching of Christ, one should withdraw from everything, have nothing to do with any one, and stand on a column. In order to follow the example of Christ, it appears that one must do exactly the opposite of what he taught, and of what he did. The teaching of Christ, according to Church com- mentators, is presented both for worldly people and also for the Religious Orders, not as a teaching of life — how to make it better for live without bread; I live by that which was breathed into me by God.’ Then the deception said: ‘ If you live by that which was breathed into you by God, throw yourself down from this high place; you will kill your flesh, but the spirit breathed into you by God will not perish.’ Christ replied: ‘ It is the will of God that I should live in the flesh; to kill my flesh means to act contrary to the will of God — to tempt God* (Matt. iv. 8-11). Then the deception said: 4 If that is so, then serve your flesh as all men do, and your flesh will reward you.’ Christ replied: ‘ I am not the owner of my flesh. My life is in the spirit; but I cannot destroy my flesh, because my spirit is in my flesh by the will of God, and therefore only by living in the flesh can I serve my Father, God.’ And Christ departed from the wilderness into the world.
WHAT I BELIEVE ourselves and for others — but as a teaching of what the worldly people should believe, in f order, by living badly, to save themselves in the next world; and, for the Religious Orders, how to make this life still worse for them- selves than it is.
But that is not what Christ taught. Christ taught truth, and, if abstract truth f is truth, it will also be true in practice; and if life in God is the only true life blessed in itself, then it is true and blessed here on earth amid all the possible accidents of life.
If life here did not confirm the teaching of j Christ about life, that teaching would be r untrue.
Christ does not call us to something worse instead of something better, but, on the contrary, to something better instead of something worse. He pities people who appeared to him like lost sheep, perishing without a shepherd, and he promises them a shepherd and good pasture.
He says that his disciples will be persecuted for his teaching and will have to suffer and to; endure worldly persecution with fortitude, but he does not say that by following his teaching they will suffer more than by following the world's teaching; on the contrary, he says that those who follow the teaching of the world will j be unhappy, and those who follow his teaching will be blessed.
Christ does not teach salvation by faith or by asceticism — that is, by a deception of the imagination or by voluntarily tormenting one- self in this life; but he teaches life in which, | ‘ MY YOKE IS EASY 5 besides salvation from the loss of personal - life, there will, here in this world, be less of suffering and more of joy than by a personal life.
Christ, revealing his teaching, says to people that, by following it, even among those who do not follow it, they will not be more unhappy S than before, but, on the contrary, will be happier than those who reject it. He says that there is true worldly advantage in not taking thought for the worldly life.
4 And Peter began to say unto him: Behold we have left all and followed thee; what shall we receive? * Jesus answered him and said, 4 Verily, I say unto you, there is not one who has left home, or brother, or sister, or father, or mother, or wife, or child, or lands, for my sake and the Gospel’s, who will not receive now, in this time, amid persecutions, a hundred times more houses, and brethren, and sisters, and fathers, and mothers, and children, and lands, and in the age to come, life eternal/ (Matt. xix. 27, 29; Mark x. 28-30; Luke Christ, it is true, says that those who follow him will be persecuted by those who do not listen to him, but he does not say that the disciples will lose anything thereby; on the contrary, he says that his disciples will here, in this world, have more of joy than those who do not follow him.
That Christ says and thinks this is shown beyond possibility of doubt by the clearness of his words and the drift of his whole teaching, WHAT I BELIEVE as well as by his way of life and that of his disciples. But is it true?
Examining the abstract question whether the position of the disciples of Christ or of the disciples of the world is the better, one cannot -but see that the position of the disciples of Christ should be better, because they, doing good to all men, would not evoke hatred. The disciples of Christ, doing harm to no one, would only be persecuted by evil men, but the disciples of the world would be persecuted by all, since the law of their life is the law of strife — that is to say, the persecution one of another. The chances of suffering are the same for these as for those, with only this difference, that Christ's disciples will be prepared for the sufferings, but the world's disciples will employ all the powers of their souls to escape them; and that Christ's disciples, when suffering, will think that the world needs their sufferings; but the world's disciples, when suffering, will not know why they suffer. Arguing in the abstract, the position of Christ's followers should be better than that of those of the world. But is it so in reality?
To verify this let every one remember all the painful moments of his life, all the physical and spiritual sufferings he has endured and still endures, and ask himself for what has he borne all these misfortunes, for the sake of the world's teaching, or for that of Christ's? Let every sincere man remember well his whole life, and he will see that never, not once, has he suffered from obeying the teaching of 4 MY YOKE IS EASY ' Christ, but that most of the misfortunes of his f life have come about because, contrary to his own inclination, he has followed the world's teaching which constrained him.
In my own life, exceptionally fortunate in a worldly sense, I can recall sufferings borne by me in the name of the world's teaching, which 1 would be sufficient to supply a good Christian martyr. All the bitterest moments of my life, from the drunkenness and debauchery of student-days, the duels, war, and so on, to that ill-health and those unnatural and trying conditions of life in which I now live — all this was martyrdom in the name of the world's teaching.
And I speak of my own life, which is excep- tionally fortunate in a worldly sense. But how many martyrs are there who have endured, and are now enduring, for the sake of the world's teaching, sufferings which I cannot even vividly imagine to myself!
We do not see all the difficulty and danger of obeying the world's teaching’ merely because we consider that all we endure for it is un- avoidable.
We have assured ourselves that all these misfortunes which we inflict on ourselves are necessary conditions of cur life, and therefore we are unable to grasp the fact that Christ teaches just how we should free ourselves from these misfortunes, and live happily.
To be in a condition to discuss the question which life is happier, we should, if only in thought, dismiss that false notion, and look 304 WHAT I BELIEVE without prejudice within ourselves and around us.
Go among a large crowd of people, especially townsfolk, and notice the wearied, distressed, sickly faces, and then remember your own life and the lives of people about whom you have known; remember all the violent deaths, all the suicides of which you have heard, and ask yourself for whose sake was all this suffering, death, and suicidal despair? And you will see, strange as it at first seems, that nine- tenths of these sufferings are endured for the sake of the world's teaching; that all these sufferings are unnecessary, and need not exist; and that the majority of people are martyrs to the world's teaching.
Recently, one rainy autumn Sunday, I went by tram through the Bazaar at the Suk- harev Tower. For nearly half a mile the car made its way through a dense crowd of people, who immediately closed in again behind it. From morning to night these thousands of people, of whom most were hungry and ragged, swarm here in the dirt, scolding, cheating, and hating one another. The same thing occurs in all the bazaars of Moscow. The evening is passed by these people in the dram-shops and taverns, the night in their corners 1 and hovels. Sunday is the best day in their week. On Mom it P1 Cf 1 It was common for Moscow workmen to live in a corner of a room or passage, generally not even screened off from the rest of the room in which other people, besides the owner and his family, had other! corners.
4 MY YOKE IS EASY ' 305 day, in their infected dens, they will again resume * the work they detest.
Consider the life of all these people in the positions they left to choose that in which they have placed themselves, and remember the un- ceasing toil these people voluntarily endure — men and women — and you will see that they are * real martyrs.
Ail these people have left their home, field, fathers, brothers, and often their wives and children, and have abandoned everything, even their very lives, and have come to town to acquire that which, according to the teaching of the world, is considered indispensable for each of them. And they all — not to mention those tens of thousands of unfortunate people who have lost everything and struggle along on garbage and vodka in the doss-houses — they all, from the factory hands, cabmen, seamstresses, and prostitutes, to the rich merchants and Ministers of State, with their wives, endure the most trying and unnatural manner of life, and yet fail to acquire what, according to the teach* ing of the world, they need.
Search among these people for a man, poor or rich, for whom what he earns secures what he considers necessary according to the world’s teaching, and you will not find one in a thousand. Every one struggles with his whole strength to obtain what he does not need, but what is demanded of him by the teaching of the world, and the absence of which therefore makes him unhappy. And as soon as he obtains what is required, something else, and again something WHAT I BELIEVE WHAT I BELIEVE else, is demanded of him, and so this work of Sisyphus continues endlessly, ruining the life of men. Take the ladder of wealth of people who spend from £30 to £5,000 a year, and you will rarely find one who is not tormented and worn out with work to obtain £40 when he has £30, and £50 when he has £40, and so on endlessly. And there is not one who, having £50, would voluntarily exchange into the way of life of one having £40, or, if there are such cases, the exchange is made not to live more easily, but to save money and hide it away. They all have more and more to burden their already overladen life with work, and to devote their life and soul entirely to the service of the world’s teaching. To-day I obtain a coat and goloshes, to-morrow a watch and chain, after to-morrow a lodging with a sofa and a lamp, then carpets in the sitting-room and velvet clothes, then racehorses and pictures in gilt frames, then finally, I fall ill from my excessive labours and die. Another continues the same labour and also sacrifices his life to that same Moloch; he too dies, and also does not know why he did what he did. But perhaps the life itself during which a man does all this is happy?
Test that life by the measure of what all men have always described as happiness, and you will see that this life is terribly unhappy. Indeed, what are the chief conditions of earthly happiness — those which no one disputes?
One of the first conditions acknowledged by everyone is that man’s union with nature wi oi t!
k A a li o s ( ( ( ‘ MY YOKE IS EASY ' should not be infringed — that is to say, that he should live under the open sky, in the light of the sun and in the fresh air, in contact with the earth, with vegetation, and with animals. All men have always considered that to be deprived of those things was a great misfortune. Men confined in prison feel this deprivation more than anything else. But consider the life of people who live according to the teaching of the world: the more they achieve success according to the world’s teaching, the more are they deprived of this condition of happiness. The higher they climb in the scale of worldly fortune the less do they see of the light of the sun, of the fields and the woods, and of wild or domestic animals. Many of them, almost all the women, live on to old age seeing the rising of the sun only once or twice in their lives, and never seeing the fields and the woods except from a carriage or a railway train, and not only with- out having sown or planted anything, or fed or reared cows, horses, or hens, but without even having an idea of how those animals are bom, grow, and live. These people only see textiles, stone, and wood shaped by human toil, and that not by the light of the sun, but by artificial light. They only hear the sounds of machines, vehicles, cannons, and musical instru- ments; they smell scents and tobacco-smoke; under their feet and hands they have only textiles, stone, and wood; for the most part, on account of their weak digestions, they eat food that smells and is not fresh. Their movements from place to place do not save them from these WHAT I BELIEVE deprivations. They move about in closed boxes. In the country and abroad, wherever they go, they have the same textiles and wood under their feet, the same curtains hiding the light of the sun from them, the same footmen, coach- men, and porters depriving them of contact with the earth, with plants, and with animals. Wherever they may be they are deprived, like prisoners, of this condition of happiness. As prisoners console themselves with a tuft of grass that grows in the prison yard, with a spider or a mouse, so these people sometimes console themselves with puny indoor plants, a parrot, or a monkey, and even these they do not themselves rear.