| Leo Tolstoy: The Gospel In Brief (1/18) | |||
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| The Gospel In Brief by Leo Tolstoy Translated by Aylmer Maude Originally published in 1921. is easy and simple, for the Kingdom of God is announced as bliss. The Gospel In Brief CONTENTS Preface Prologue I THE SON OF GOD II THE SERVICE OF GOD III THE SOURCE OF LIFE IV THE KINGDOM OF GOD V THE TRUE LIFE VI THE FALSE LIFE VII I AND THE FATHER ARE ONE VIII LIFE IS NOT TEMPORAL IX TEMPTATIONS X THE STRUGGLE WITH TEMPTATION XI THE FAREWELL DISCOURSE XII THE VICTORY OF SPIRIT OVER MATTER A SUMMARY OF THE CHAPTERS THIS short exposition of the Gospel is a summary of a large work which exists in manuscript and cannot be published in Russia. That work consists of four parts: 1. An account (Confession) of the course of my own life and of the thoughts which led me to the conviction that the Christian teaching contains the truth. 2. An examination of the Christian teaching: first according to its interpretation by the Orthodox Russo-Greek Church, then according to its interpretation by the Church in general-by the Apostles, the Councils, the so-called Fathers of the Church-and an exposure of what is false in those interpretations. 3. An examination of Christian teaching not according to those interpretations but solely according to what has come down to us of Christ's teaching, as ascribed to him in the Gospels. 4. An exposition of the real meaning of Christ's teaching, the reasons why it has been perverted, and, the consequences to which it should lead. From the third of those parts the present account as been compiled. The harmonization of the four Gospels has been in accord with the sense of the teaching. In making it I hardly had to digress from the order in it is set down in the Gospels, so that there are not more but fewer transpositions of the verses than in most of the concordances known to me, or than in Grechulevich's arrangement of the Four Gospels. In my treatment of the Gospel of John there are no transpositions, but everything follows the order of the original. The division of the Gospel into twelve chapters (or six if each two be united) came about of itself from the sense of the teaching. This is the meaning of those chapters: 1. Man is the son of an infinite source: a son of that Father not by the flesh but by the spirit. 2. Therefore man should serve that source in spirit. 3. The life of all men has a divine origin. It alone is holy. 4. Therefore man should serve that source in the life of all men. Such is the will of the Father. 5. The service of the will of that Father of life gives life. 6. Therefore the gratification of one's own will is not necessary for life. 7. Temporal life is food for the true life. 8. Therefore the true life is independent of time: it is in the present. 9. Time is an illusion of life; life in the past and in the future conceals from men the true life of the present. 10. Therefore man should strive to destroy the illusion of the temporal life of the past and future. 11. True life is life in the present, common to all men and manifesting itself in love. 12. Therefore, he who lives by love in the present, through the common life of all men, unites with the Father, the source and foundation of life. So each two chapters are related as cause and effect. In addition to these twelve chapters an introduction from the first chapter of the Gospel of John is added, in which the writer of that Gospel speaks, in his own name, as to the meaning of the whole teaching, and a conclusion from the same writer's Epistle (written probably before the Gospel) containing a general deduction from all that precedes. These two parts do not form an essential part of the teaching, but though they both might be omitted without losing the sense of the teaching (the more so as they come in the name of John and not of Jesus) I have retained them because in a straightforward understanding of Christ's teaching these parts, confirming one another an the whole, furnish, in contradiction to the queer interpretation of the Churches, the plainest indication of the meaning that should be ascribed to the teaching. At the beginning of each chapter, besides a brief indication of its subject, I have given the words which correspond to that chapter from the prayer Jesus taught his disciples. When I had finished my work I found to my surprise and joy that the Lord's Prayer is nothing but a very concise expression of the whole teaching of Jesus in the very order in which I had arranged the chapters, and that each phrase of the prayer corresponds to the meaning and sequence of the chapters: 1. Our Father, Man is a son of God 2. Which art in Heaven, God is the infinite spiritual source of life. 3. Hallowed be Thy Name, May this source of life be held holy 4. Thy Kingdom come, May his power be realized in all men 5. Thy will be done, as in heaven, May the will oft his infinite source be fulfilled as it is in himself 6. So on earth, so also in the bodily life. 7. Give us our daily bread, Temporal life is the food of the true life. 8. Each day. True life is in the present. 9. And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors, And let not the mistakes and errors of the past hide that true life from us. 10. And lead us not into temptation, And may they not lead us into delusion, 11. But deliver us from evil, And so there shall be no evil. 12. For thine is the kingdom the power, and the glory, And may thy power, and strength, and wisdom, prevail. |
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