/jthat Christ was God had to be proved by miracles com- / /pletely beyond our comprehension.
/ The more the understanding of Christ's teaching was obscured, the more the miraculous was introduced into it; and the more the miraculous was introduced into it, the more the doctrine was strained from its meaning and the more obscure it became; and the more it was strained from its meaning and the more obscure it became, the more strongly its infallibility had to be asserted, and the less com- prehensible the doctrine became.
One can see by the Gospels, the Acts, and the Epistles how from the earliest times the non-comprehension of the doctrine called forth the need for proofs through the miracu- lous and incomprehensible.
The first example in the book of Acts is the assembly which gathered together in Jerusalem to decide the ques- tion which had arisen, whether to baptize or not the uncir- cumcised and those who had eaten of food sacrificed to idols.
The very fact of this question being raised showed that those who discussed it did not understand the teaching of Christ, who rejected all outward observances — ablutions, purifications, fasts, and sabbaths. It was plainly said, " Not that which goeth into a man's mouth, but that which cometh out of a man's mouth, defileth him," and therefore the question of baptizing the uncircumcised could only have arisen among men who, though they loved their Master and dimly felt the grandeur of his teaching, still did not understand the teaching itself very clearly. And this was the fact, IS WITHIN Your 55 IS WITHIN Your 55 Just in proportion to the failure of the members of the assembly to understand the doctrine was their need of external confirmation of their incomplete interpretation of it. And then to settle this question, the very asking of which proved their misunderstanding of the doctrine, there was uttered in this assembly, as is described in the Acts, that strange phrase, which was for the first time found necessary to give external confirmation to certain asser- tions, and which has been productive of so much evil.
That is, it was asserted that the correctness of what they had decided was guaranteed by the miraculous partici- pation of the Holy Ghost, that is, of God, in their decision. But the assertion that the Holy Ghost, that is, God, spoke through the Apostles, in its turn wanted proof. And thus it was necessary, to confirm this, that the Holy Ghost should descend at Pentecost in tongues of fire upon those who made this assertion. (In the account of it, the de- scent of the Holy Ghost precedes the assembly, but the book of Acts was written much later than both events.) But the descent of the Holy Ghost too had to be proved for those who had not seen the tongues of fire (though it is not easy to understand why a tongue of fire burning above a man's head should prove that what that man is going to say will be infallibly the truth). And so arose the neces- sity for still more miracles and changes, raisings of the dead to life, and strikings of the living dead, and all those marvels which have been a stumbling-block to men, of which the Acts is full, and which, far from ever convincing one of the truth of the Christian doctrine, can only repel men from it. The result of such a means of confirming the truth was that the more these confirmations of truth by tales of miracles were heaped up one after another, the more the doctrine was distorted from its original meaning, and the more incomprehensible it became.
Thus it was from the earliest times, and so it went on, 5^ *' THE KINGDOM OF GOD constantly increasing, till it reached in our day the logical climax of the dogmas of transubstantiation and the in- fallibility of the Pope, or of the bishops, or of Scripture, and of requiring a blind faith rendered incomprehensible and utterly meaningless, not in God, but in Christ, not in a doctrine, but in a person, as in Catholicism, or in persons, as in Greek Orthodoxy, or in a book, as in Protestantism. The more widely Christianity was diffused, and the greater the number of people unprepared for it who were brought under its sway, the less it was understood, the more abso- lutely was its infallibility insisted on, and the less possible it became to understand the true meaning of the doctrine. In the times of Constantine the whole interpretation of the doctrine had been already reduced to a resume — sup- ported by the temporal authority — of the disputes that had taken place in the Council — to a creed which reckoned off — I believe in so and so, and so and so, and so and so to the end — to one holy. Apostolic Church, which means the infallibility of those persons who call themselves the Church. So that it all amounts to a man no longer believ- ing in God nor Christ, as they are revealed to him, but believing in what the Church orders him to believe in.
But the Church is holy; the Church was founded by Christ. God could not leave men to interpret his teaching at random — therefore he founded the Church. All those statements are so utterly untrue and unfounded that one is ashamed to refute them. Nowhere nor in anything, except in the assertion of the Church, can we find that God or Christ founded anything like what Churchmen understand by the Church. In the Gospels there is a warning against the Church, as it is an external authority, a warning most clear and obvious in the passage where it is said that Christ's followers should *^ call no man master.*' But nowhere is anything said of the foundation of what Churchmen call the Church, IS WITHIN Your 57 The word church is used twice in the Gospels — once in the sense of an assembly of men to decide a dispute, the other time in connection with the obscure utterance about a stone — Peter, and the gates of hell. From these two passages in which the word church is used, in the significa- tion merely of an assembly, has been deduced all that we now understand by the Church.
But Christ could not have founded the Church, that is, what we now understand by that word. For nothing like the idea of the Church as we know it now, with its sacra- ments, miracles, and above all its claim to infallibility, is to be found either in Christ*s words or in the ideas of the men of that time.
The fact that men called what was formed afterward by the same word as Christ used for something totally different, does not give them the right to assert that Christ founded the one, true Church.
Besides, if Christ had really founded such an institution as the Church for the foundation of all his teaching and the whole faith, he would certainly have described this institu- tion clearly and definitely, and would have given the only true Church, besides tales of miracles, which are used to support every kind of superstition, some tokens so unmis- takable that no doubt of its genuineness could ever have arisen. But nothing of the sort was done by him. And there have been and still are different institutions, each calling itself the true Church.
The Catholic catechism says: ** L'Eglise est la societe des fideles etablie par notre Seigneur Jesus Christ, repandue sur toute la terre et soumise a I'authorite des pasteurs legi- times, principalement notre Saint Pere le Pape," * under- standing by the words ^* pasteurs legitimes " an association * '* The Church is the society of the faithful, established by our Lord Jesus Christ, spread over the whole earth, and subject to the authority of its lawful pastors, and chief of them our Holy Father the Pope," S8 '' THE KINGDOM OF GOD of men having the Pope at its head, and consisting of certain individuals bound together by a certain organization.
The Greek Orthodox catechism says: ^' The Church is a society founded upon earth by Jesus Christ, which is united into one whole, by one divine doctrine and by sacra- ments, under the rule and guidance of a priesthood appointed by God," meaning by the '* priesthood appointed by God " the Greek Orthodox priesthood, consisting of certain indi- viduals who happen to be in such or such positions.
The Lutheran catechism says: " The Church is holy Christianity, or the collection of all believers under Christ, their head, to whom the Holy Ghost through the Gospels and sacraments promises, communicates, and administers heavenly salvation," meaning that the Catholic Church is lost in error, and that the true means of salvation is in Lutheranism.
For Catholics the Church of God coincides with the Roman priesthood and the Pope. For the Greek Orthodox believer the Church of God coincides with the establishment and priesthood of Russia.* For Lutherans the Church of God coincides with a body of men who recognize the authority of the Bible and Luther's catechism.
Ordinarily, when speaking of the rise of Christianity, * Homyakov's definition of the Church, which was received with some favor among Russians, does not improve matters, if we are to agree with Homyakov in considering the Greek Orthodox Church as the one true Church. Homyakov asserts that a church is a collection of men (all without distinction of clergy and laymen) united together by love, and that only to men united by love is the truth revealed (let us love each other, that in the unity of thought, etc.), and that such a church is the church which, in the first place, recognizes the Nicene Creed, and in the second place does not, after the division of the churches, recognize the popes and new dogmas. But with such a definition of the church, there is still more difficulty in reconciling, as Homyakov tries to do, the church united by love with the church that recognizes the Nicene Creed IS WITHIN^ Your, 59 IS WITHIN^ Your, 59 men belonging to one of the existing churches use the word church in the singular, as though there were and had been only one church. But this is absolutely incorrect. The Church, as an institution which asserted that it pos- sessed infallible truth, did not make its appearance singly; there were at least two churches directly this claim was made.
While believers were agreed among themselves and the body was one, it had no need to declare itself as a church. It was only when believers were split up into opposing parties, renouncing one another, that it seemed necessary to each party to confirm their own truth by ascribing to themselves infallibility. The conception of one church only arose when there were two sides divided and disputing, who each called the other side heresy, and recognized their own side only as the infallible church.
If we knew that there was a church which decided in the year 51 to receive the uncircumcised, it is only so because there was another church — of the Judaists — who decided to keep the uncircumcised out.
If there is a Catholic Church now which asserts its own infallibility, that is only because there are churches — Greco-Russian, Old Orthodox, and Lutheran — each assert- ing its own infallibility and denying that of all other churches. So that the one Church is only a fantastic and the doctrine of Photius. So that Homyakov's assertion that this church, united by love, and consequently holy, is the same church as the Greek Orthodox priesthood profess faith in, is even more arbitrary than the assertions of the Catholics or the Orthodox. If we admit the idea of a church in the sense Homyakov gives to it — that is, a body of men bound together by love and truth — then all that any man can predi- cate in regard to this body, if such an one exists, is its love and truth, but there can be no outer signs by which one could reckon oneself or another as a member of this holy body, nor by which one could put any- one outside it; so that no institution having an external existence can correspond to this idea.
6o *' THE KINGDOM OF GOD Imagination which has not the least trace of reality about it.
As a real historical fact there has existed, and still exist, several bodies of men, each asserting that it is the one Church, founded by Christ, and that all the others who call themselves churches are only sects and heresies.
The catechisms of the churches of the most world-wide influence — the Catholic, the Old Orthodox, and the Lutheran — openly assert this.
In the Catholic catechism it is said: *^ Quels sont ceux qui sont hors de Teglise? Les infideles, les heretiques, les schismatiques.*' * The so-called Greek Orthodox are regarded as schismatics, the Lutherans as heretics; so that according to the Catholic catechism the only people in the Church are Catholics.
In the so-called Orthodox catechism it is said: By the one Christian Church is understood the Orthodox, which remains fully in accord with the Universal Church. As for the Roman Church and other sects (the Lutherans and the rest they do not even dignify by the name of church), they cannot be included in the one true Church, since they have themselves separated from it.
According to this definition the Catholics and Lutherans are outside the Church, and there are only Orthodox in the Church.
The Lutheran catechism says: *' Die wahre Kirche wird darein erkannt, dass in ihr das Wort Gottes lauter und rein ohne Menschenzusatze gelehrt und die Sacramente treu nach Christi Einsetzung gewahret werden.'' f According to this definition all those who have added * ** Who are those who are outside the Church? Infidels, heretics, and schismatics."
f " The true Church will be known by the Word of God being studied clear and unmixed with man's additions and the sacraments being main- tained faithful to Christ's teaching."
IS WITHIN you:' 6i anything to the teaching of Christ and the apostles, as the Catholic and Greek churches have done, are outside the Church. And in the Church there are only Protestants.
The Catholics assert that the Holy Ghost has been trans- mitted without a break in their priesthood. The Orthodox assert that the same Holy Ghost has been transmitted without a break in their priesthood. The Arians asserted that the Holy Ghost was transmitted in their priesthood (they asserted this with just as much right as the churches in authority now). The Protestants of every kind — Lutherans, Reformed Church, Presbyterians, Methodists, Swedenborgians, Mormons — assert that the Holy Ghost is only present in their communities. If the Catholics assert that the Holy Ghost, at the time of the division of the Church into Arian and Greek, left the Church that fell away and remained in the one true Church, with precisely the same right the Protestants of every denomination can assert that at the time of the separation of their Church from the Catholic the Holy Ghost left the Catholic and passed into the Church they professed. And this is just what they do.
Every church traces its creed through an uninterrupted transmission from Christ and the Apostles. And truly every Christian creed that has been derived from Christ must have come down to the present generation through a certain transmission. But that does not prove that it alone of all that has been transmitted, excluding all the rest, can be the sole truth, admitting of no doubt.
Every branch in a tree comes from the root in unbroken connection; but the fact that each branch comes from the one root, does not 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 62 " THE KINGDOM OF GOD 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 teach- ing. 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 theologi- cal 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 Pressense, in his '' Histoire du Dogma" (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 IS WITHIN you:' 63 by the word heresy. Here is what he says in his intro- duction (p. 3): ** Je sals que Ton nous conteste le droit de qualifier ainsi [that is, to call heresies] les tendances qui furent si vivement combattues par les premiers Peres. La designation meme d'heresie semble une atteinte portee a la liberte de conscience et de pensee. Nous ne pouvons partager ce scrupule, car il n'irait a rien moins qu'a enlever au Christianisme tout caractere distinctif." * 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'eglise est une libre association; il y a tout profit a se separer d'elle. La polemique contre I'erreur n'a d'autres ressources que la pensee et le sentiment. Un type doctrinal uniforme n'a pas encore ete elabore; les divergences secondaires se pro- duisent en Orient et en Occident avec une entiere liberte; la theologie n'est point liee a d'invariables formules. Si au sein de cette diversite apparait un fonds commun de croy- ances, n'est-on pas en droit d'y voir non pas un systeme formule et compose par les representants d'une autorite d'ecole, mais la foi elle-meme dans son instinct le plus siir et sa manifestation la plus spontanee? Si cette meme una- nimite qui se revele dans les croyances essentielles, se retrouve pour repousser telles ou telles tendances, ne serons-nous pas en droit de conclure que ces tendances etaient en desacord flagrant avec les principes fondamentaux du christianisme? Cette presomption ne se transformera- t-elle pas en certitude si nous reconnaissons dans la doctrine universellement repoussee par I'Eglise les traits caracteris- * ' • 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."
64 " THE KINGDOM OF GOD tiques de Tune des religions du passe? Pour dire que le gnosticisme ou I'ebionitisme sont les formes legitimes de la pensee chretienne il faut dire hardiment qu'il n'y a pas de pensee chretienne, ni de caractere specifique qui la fasse reconnaitre. Sous pretexte de I'elargir, on la dissout. Personne an temps de Platon n'eut ose couvrir de son nom une doctrine qui n'eut pas fait place a la theorie des idees; et Ton e{it excite les justes moqueries de la Grece, en voulant faire d'Epicure ou de Zenon un disciple de I'Acad^- mie. Reconnaissons done que s'il existe une religion ou une doctrine qui s'appelle christianisme, elle peut avoir ses heresies.'* * The author's whole argument amounts to this: that every opinion which differs from the code of dogmas we * ' ' 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 repre- sentatives 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 have 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."
IS WITHIN Your (i^ 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 Pres- sense'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 aipeai^^ 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.
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 arbitrari- ness, 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: (i) Of those who make heretics; (2) Of those whom they made heretics; (3) Of heretical subjects them- selves; (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 ques- tions, the answers to which he gives later on from the works of well-known theologians. But he leaves the reader 66 '' THE KINGDOM OF GOD 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 hypo- crites, 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 Christi- anity 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 anti-Christians? " 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 pro- ductive 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 2)Z ' "And is not the fact that there was no heresy in the earliest days due to the fact that the Christians did not IS WITHIN YOUr 67 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 (/. ^., 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 church exists. Heresy is the obverse side of the Church. Wherever there is a church, there must be the conception of heresy. A church is a body of men who assert that they are in possession of infallible truth. Heresy is the opinion of the men who do not admit the infallibility of the Church's truth.
Heresy makes its appearance in the Church. It is the effort to break through the petrified authority of the Church. All effort after a living comprehension of the doctrine has been made by heretics. Tertullian, Origen, Augustine, Luther, Huss, Savonarola, Helchitsky, and the rest were heretics. It could not be otherwise.
The follower of Christ, whose service means an ever- growing understanding of his teaching, and an ever-closer fulfillment of it, in progress toward perfection, cannot, just because he is a follower of Christ, claim for himself or any OS '* THE KINGDOM OF GOD Other that he understands Christ's teaching fully and fulfills it. Still less can he claim this for any body of men.
To whatever degree of understanding and perfection the follower of Christ may have attained, he always feels the insufficiency of his understanding and fulfillment of it, and is always striving toward a fuller understanding and fulfillment. And therefore, to assert of one's self or of any body of men, that one is or they are in possession of per- fect understanding and fulfillment of Christ's word, is to renounce the very spirit of Christ's teaching.
Strange as it may seem, the churches as churches have always been, and cannot but be, institutions not only alien in spirit to Christ's teaching, but even directly antagonistic to it. With good reason Voltaire calls the Church rinfd7ne; with good reason have all or almost all so-called sects of Christians recognized the Church as the scarlet woman foretold in the Apocalypse; with good reason is the his- tory of the Church the history of the greatest cruelties and horrors.