The Religious Spirit of the Slavs Part 2

That is the princ.i.p.al feeling of the Slav soul: we are neither alone in this world nor destined for it. Whether I wander in the streets of London or stand in the green fields outside, I have always the same feeling of human loneliness and helplessness on one side, and the company of some overwhelming and invisible powers on the other. I say the _feeling_ and not _thought_, because I feel they touch me and I am unhappy because I cannot touch them. They seem to be like shadows, and still I am sure they are greater realities than I am. My life is dependent on theirs and their lives are connected with, but not dependent on, my life. My being is quite transparent to these higher intelligences, while their beings I can feel only in the most lucid moments of my life. The dreamy nature around me is pervaded by them, and my own life, I feel, is pervaded by them also. In some way they disindividualise me, but on the other hand they give me strength, light and inspiration.

What is the number of these powers surrounding us? "Many," answered Paganism. "One only," answered Judaism and Islam. "One in Trinity,"

answered Christianity.

So--_Christianity is a via media_ between limitless Polytheism and absolute Monotheism. Professor Haeckel of Jena, in his hatred of Christianity, instanced Mohammedanism as a better religion and scornfully called the Christian religion "Polytheism." The definition is not altogether untrue.

Paganism was not wholly false. The Christian dogma of the Trinity in relation to this world symbolically means unity in mult.i.tude. This dogma expresses a principle, an idea, rather than a number. As we cannot define G.o.d's being chemically, historically, psychologically, etc., how can we hope to define Him mathematically? G.o.d is beyond numbers; He is beyond scientific research; beyond all expression. _One in three_, that is half-way to Polytheism and to Monotheism. _One in three_ gives the substance of G.o.d's life and binds Him to His own work, the created world.

G.o.d's own life is dramatic internally, and externally (in relation to the world). That is the real meaning of the dogma of the Trinity. G.o.d is somehow one, and yet not one; rather He is a pluralistic unity. He can take part in the human drama and still remain the G.o.d of the Universe. He can suffer and still remain perfect. He can be omnipresent in the world and still not be wholly immersed in it. "I cannot understand it; it is a mystery to me," exclaimed Tolstoi. Certainly he could not understand it; who could? We cannot understand our own beings. Modern biology discovered that a human body consists of millions and millions of corpuscles, minute organic cells which live their life and go their way unconscious of the human person formed by themselves. New discoveries may open up new problems, but the ancient mysteries about everything in the world continue to be omnipresent. How could we have more knowledge about G.o.d except some few glances, some imperfect allusions, some symbolical combinations?

However, lacking a clear and perfect understanding, we still feel that we are not alone in the world. G.o.d is all round us like the atmosphere that we breathe. The more we try to escape from this atmosphere, the closer it seems to pervade us. Tolstoi felt this as strongly as the most orthodox Fathers of the Church. Yet his doctrines on G.o.d, vague and pantheistic as they are, slow to ascribe to G.o.d any traditional qualities and trying in vain to invent new ones--his doctrines on G.o.d are less comprehensible than the dogma of the Trinity--less comprehensible, less applicable, and unfruitful.

*G.o.d ONLY IS GREAT*

Not Napoleon, but G.o.d; not London, but G.o.d. Tolstoi a.n.a.lysed Napoleon's life and character, and found that he was no better or greater than thousands of other men who followed him. Why should London be called great?

Yes, perhaps it can be called great compared with anything on earth, except G.o.d. I say, _except G.o.d_, because after a thousand years, i.e., after one G.o.d's day, G.o.d will be surely the same, and London? Will it be in existence a thousand years hence? Who knows? Walking in the streets of London I look round me and see nothing great except G.o.d.

The famous Russian literature from Gogol to Dostojevsky is the finest psychological a.n.a.lysis of men. The result of this a.n.a.lysis was: there exists no great man. No one is great: neither Shakespeare nor Napoleon, neither Peter the Great nor Kutuzov, neither the Russian landlords nor the Czar himself, neither Prince Bolkonsky nor Raskolnikov, neither Nero nor St. Paul, neither Beaconsfield nor Osman Pasha, neither Pope nor Patriarch, neither Dalai-Lama nor Sheik-ul-Islam. How could they be great since they must sleep, and eat, and be sick and disappointed, and despair, and die? A review was made by the Russian authors--a review of ancient and modern great men--and a verdict arrived at. For a thousand years Christian Russia kept silent and listened to the hymns to the ancient and modern great men, to the heroes whom they wors.h.i.+pped. She listened to the hymns and wors.h.i.+p of the great men while she begrudged praise to the good and saintly and suffering men. Russia is called "Holy," not because she pretends to be _holy_, but because her ideal is holiness--not greatness but holiness. She first made use of the word in the nineteenth century. The poet Pushkin first used it, and he used it in the customary way, like Lord Byron, or Goethe, praising the great men, although still alluding here and there to the true Russian ideal--to the good and saintly man. But he spoke not in order to say a new, an original word to the world, but only to break the silence and to attract the attention of the world to Russia. He was the first of a series of preachers. He was listened to and applauded, but he said nothing new. After him followed the preachers: Gogol, Tolstoi, Goncharov, Tchehov, Turgeniev, Dostojevsky, and many others, like a choir, in which three voices are still the strongest and most expressive: Gogol, Tolstoi, Dostojevsky. What did they say?

They held a grand review of the souls, of the ancient and modern souls, and found that there exists no great man among them. That was their verdict. In all their writings they tried to show in the clearest manner, and to the smallest detail, that there is no great man in the world. They a.n.a.lysed everyone who was mentioned and adored by worldly society or by tradition as a great man, and proved that he was not a great man at all. It was very courageous indeed to speak like that in a world which was accustomed from the beginning, in the pagan as in the Christian epoch, to adore greatness, to divinise great men, to imitate and to wors.h.i.+p heroes. It was still more courageous to speak like that in the nineteenth century, when the wors.h.i.+p of great men found so many advocates, when the name of the demi-G.o.d Napoleon filled every corner of the earth; when German philosophy, poetry and music emphasised personality and individuality when the whole continental theology followed the way of Caesar and interpreted Christianity as a teaching and promotion of individualism in human life. Yea, it happened in the time when Carlyle, fascinated by German theories, ended the matter and pressed the whole world's history into some few biographies.

Carlyle's "Heroes and Hero-Wors.h.i.+p"--curiously enough--was published about the same time as Tolstoi's "War and Peace." Two antipodes! Dostojevsky's "Brothers Caramazov" was published nearly at the same time as Nietzsche's "Zarathustra" with its message of the Superman. Again two antipodes! You will in vain try to find such contrasts in the world as the Russian and Germano-Carlylean literature. Petronius and Seneca could read and understand very well Goethe and Carlyle, but they could not read and understand Tolstoi and Dostojevsky, nor could they understand the Christianity of their own time.

"Great men!" exclaimed the Roman world on their dying beds.

"Great men!" exclaimed rejuvenated Western Europe in the nineteenth century. History consists of great men. The very aim of history is to produce great men.

"No," answered Holy Russia, who kept silent for a thousand years. The ideal of the great man is the fast ideal of the childhood of mankind, of the youthful Pagan world. We are grown up in the Christian spirit; we can no longer live in the childish illusions and dreams of great men. We see them as they are. There has never existed and does not yet exist a great man. No one great man ever existed.

On this point Tolstoi and the Holy Synod were in agreement with each other and with the common spirit of the Russian people. They all agreed with their whole heart in the denial of the Greco-Roman wors.h.i.+p of great men, which wors.h.i.+p was everywhere revived in modern Europe in poetry, philosophy, politics, art and even in theology. For eighteen hundred years Western Europe was the spokesman of the Christian world and Russia kept silent. When, after eighteen hundred years, Russia came to the world, her answer was a decisive _No_. But that was not all she had to say. She had also to say a decisive _Yes_.

*PANHUMANISM.*

_No_ and _Yes_. There is in the Slav religious conscience a _No_ and a _Yes_.

_No_--for a great man; _Yes_--for a saintly man.

_No_--for pride; _Yes_--for humility.

_No_--for individualism; _Yes_--for panhumanism.

_No_--for longing after pleasure; _Yes_--for longing after suffering.

History has proved that a great man is impossible and, even more, undesirable, and that a saintly man is both possible and desirable. It is proved also that a so-called great man meant a great danger for mankind; a saintly man never could be dangerous. We do not need great men at all, we need good and saintly men. We ought not to seek after greatness, but after goodness and saintliness. Greatness is no real virtue, but goodness and saintliness are virtues. Greatness is only an illusion, but goodness and saintliness are realities. Christianity came to impress these realities on the human conscience and to sweep illusions away.

The whole history of Christianity is a continual struggle between realities and illusions. All the wars between Christians and pagans, and between Christians themselves, from the time of Christ until our time, had always the same meaning--a struggle between the Christian realities of goodness and saintliness and the pagan illusions of greatness. The present War has the same meaning as all the wars since Christ came until Bismarck. This war was prophesied by Dostojevsky forty years ago. Dostoievsky was the only contemporary man towards whom Nietzsche felt respect and even fear because of his deep thought and clairvoyance. With his genial insight into human nature, Dostojevsky saw clearly the inevitable conflict of the different camps of Europe, whose apparent and hypocritical peace was only a busy preparation for conflict. "Everything will be pulled down," he said, "especially European pride." He had also a vision of what will come after this great conflict. "Christ," he said, "nothing else but Christ Himself will come in the form of panhuman brotherhood and panhuman love."

YOUR SINS ARE MY SINS.

Love the sinner as well! Do not fly away from the sinners, but go to them without fear. After all--whoever you may be--you are not much better than they are. Try to love the sinners; you will see that it is easier to love those whom you despise than those whom you envy. The old Zosim (from the "Brothers Caramazov") said, "Brothers, don't be afraid of the sins of a sinner; but love a sinner also--that is the record of love upon earth." I know you love St. Peter and St. John, but could you love the sinner Zacchaeeus? You can love the good Samaritan but love, please, the prodigal son also! You love Christ, I am sure; but what about Judas, the seller of Christ? He repented, poor human creature. Why don't you love him?

Dostojevsky--like Tolstoi and Gogol--emphasised two things: first, there is no great man; secondly, there is no worthless man. He described the blackest crimes and the deepest fall and showed that the authors of such crimes are men just as other men, with much good hidden under their sins.

Servants and vagabonds, idiots and drunkards, the dirty _katorzniki_ from the Serbian prisons--all those people are G.o.d's sons and daughters, with souls full of fears and hopes, of repentance and longings after good and justice.

Between _saintliness_ and _vice_ there is a bridge, not an abyss. The saintliest and the meanest men have still common ground for brotherhood.

Your sins are my sins, my sins are your sins. That is the starting-point for a practical and lucid Christianity. I cannot be clean as long as you are not clean. I cannot be happy as long as you are unhappy. I cannot enter Heaven as long as you are in h.e.l.l. What does that mean? It means that you and I are blended together for eternity, and that your effort to separate yourselves from me is disastrous for you and for me. As long as you look to the greatest sinner in the world and say: "G.o.d, I thank thee that I am not as that man," you are far from Christ and the Kingdom of G.o.d. G.o.d wants not one good man only, He wants a Kingdom of good men. If ninety-nine of us are good and saintly but one of our brothers is far from our solace and support, in sin and darkness, be sure G.o.d is not among us ninety-nine, but He has gone to find our brother whom we have lost and forgotten. Will you follow him or will you stand self-sufficient? Never has there existed in the world such a social power binding man to man and commanding each to take and bear the other's sorrows as Christianity did. Your sins are my sins, my sins are your sins. Such a conception of the Christian religion had Tolstoi in common with Dostojevsky and Gogol, with the Holy Synod, with the popular religious conscience of millions and millions of the living and the dead, in the orthodox world, and with all the _jurodivi_, the fools for Christ's sake. That is the religious spirit of the best of the Slavs.

CHRISTIANITY AND CIVILISATION.

The following is the Slav point of view: Christianity came into the world, not in order to inaugurate a new civilisation, but to infuse a new religious spirit, to clear and purify the human conscience. A perfect Christian spirit can exist quite outside civilisation as well as in the midst of the most complicated civilisation. A Christian negro, in his nudity, picking up dates under a palm tree, can be as good and saintly a man as any business man from the Strand in London or from the Fifth Avenue in New York. And, on the contrary, the most civilised men, like Bismarck and Nietzsche can be of a much more anti-Christian spirit than any primitive human creature in Central Africa or Siberia. Many civilisations have been created without Christianity. You cannot say that Christian London is a more perfect and beautiful city than Pagan Rome or Mohammedan Cordova were. But you may perhaps say that the spirit of London is more sublime and humane, more good and saintly, than the spirit of Rome and Cordova. Well, it is the _spirit_ which regards Christianity, and nothing else. Civilisation is only an occasion for Christianity to prove its spirit. It is an occasion of suffering, and also of corruption. In both cases Christianity has to be tested. Christianity has to fight against a Pagan civilisation as well as a Pagan barbarism. It is sometimes harder for the Christian spirit to fight against the first than against the second form of Paganism. It was easier for the Christian mission to Christianise barbarous Africa than cultivated Rome. And imagine how much it will cost till Bismarckian and Nietzschean Germany "changes her spirit" as Sienkiewicz foretold.

I mention this relation between Christianity and civilisation to prove that a civilisation with _any_ spirit is not attractive to the Slav, but rather the civilisation with the Christian religious spirit _only_. Tolstoi denied all civilisation just because he did not see the Christian spirit in it.

The Church was reserved towards modern science and art just because she saw the anti-Christian, proud, egoistical spirit in many expressions of them.

Better the poor Christian spirit in a cottage of Macedonia than a rich and cultivated Paganism in Vienna. The spirit with which a railway is made counts and not the railway itself. We are never alone but always in the presence of a great Spirit who encircles and inspires us. Whatever we do through this inspiration is living and good; whatever we do without His inspiration, but under the supposition that we are alone in this world, is wrong and dead. A great civilisation may be wrong and dead Yea, as there is no great man, there is no great civilisation. The ideal of Slav Christianity is a good and saintly man, and also a good and saintly civilisation. The very essence of life is mystic and religious. What is a man or a civilisation without mysticism and religion? They are like a painted landscape on paper. You enjoy it from a distance, but when you touch it you are disappointed. Everything without G.o.d is discontentment, emptiness.

Blessed are those--I wish you all may be numbered among them--whose life is full of G.o.d. They are connected with the sun and the stars, with the living and the dead, with the past and the future. They possess a wonderful bridge over every abyss in life, and they are always safe. They are bright in darkness, joyful in suffering, hopeful in death. Their life on earth, in this very limited sphere of life, is escorted by the whole of the Universe, from one end to the other. I wish that such a religious spirit belonged not only to the Slavs but to all mankind.