Leo Tolstoy
Translated by
Dmitry Fadeyev
The corruption of Christianity by the church has moved us further away from the realization of the kingdom of God, but the truth of Christianity, like the flame of a campfire that has been dampened for some time by wet brushwood piled over it, has already dried the wet twigs, and is beginning to envelop them and make its way out. Everyone can already see the true meaning of Christianity, and its influence is now more powerful than the deception that is trying to conceal it.
We must disentangle the religion that Jesus preached from the religion whose object is Jesus. And when we discover the state of consciousness that composed the core and the beginning of the eternal Gospel, we must hold onto it.
Just as the pitiful oil lamps that illuminate a village or the little candles of a procession fade away before the great miracle of sunlight, so will the insignificant, local, random and doubtful miracles fade away before the law of the life of the soul, before the great spectacle of human history, directed by God.
— Amiel
I see a new religion, founded on human trust, calling us to the pristine depths within us, and preaching that a human being can love the good without thinking of being rewarded, that the Divine Source dwells within him.
— Solter
What we need, what the people need, what our century is demanding in order to find a way out from the filth of egotism, doubt and denial in which it is submerged, is faith, a faith in which our souls could stop wandering in search of private gain and walk together, accepting a single origin, a single law, a single goal. A powerful faith, rising upon the ruins of old worn-out truths, changes the existing order of society, because every powerful faith is inevitably applied to every branch of human activity.
Humankind repeats using different expressions and in different degrees the words of the Lord’s prayer: “Let your Kingdom come. Let your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
— Giuseppe Mazzini
There are people who love only themselves, they are people of hate because to love only yourself means to hate others.
There are people of pride who cannot bear that anyone should be equal to them, and they always want to command and rule.
There are self-seeking people who demand gold, honors, pleasures, and they can never be satisfied.
There are people who are robbers who are always on the lookout for the weak to rob by force or by cunning, and they prowl by the house of a widow or an orphan.
There are people of murder who are filled with thoughts of violence. They say: you are our brothers, and they kill those whom they call their brothers the moment they suspect them acting against their schemes, and they write their laws in blood.
There are people of fear who tremble before the evil man and kiss his hand in the hope of escaping his oppression.
All these people are destroying peace, safety and freedom on earth.
But what could these oppressors of the people do if they were left to fend for themselves without the support of the people?
What if, in order to hold the people in slavery, they used only the help of those who profit from slavery—what could so few men do against whole nations?
God’s wisdom has established the world in such a way that people would always be able to resist despotism, and despotism would be impossible if people could understand God’s wisdom.
But the rulers of the world had opposed God’s wisdom with the wisdom of the worldly prince—the devil—and the devil, the king of the oppressors of humankind, had taught them a hellish trick in order to strengthen their despotism.
He said to them: “Here is what you must do. Take young men from every family, give them weapons and teach them how to use them, and they will fight their fathers and brothers because I will make them believe that this is where their glory lies. I will create two idols for them, which will be called honor and loyalty, and whose law will be called unconditional obedience. And they will love these idols and will blindly follow this law because I will corrupt their minds, and you will have nothing to fear.”
And the oppressors of humankind did what the devil told them, and the devil did what he promised the oppressors of humankind.
And now the people have raised their hands against their own, to strike their brothers and to imprison their fathers, and they even forgot about those who bore them under their hearts. And when they were told: “In the name of everything holy, think about the injustice and cruelty of what you are ordered to do,” they would answer: “We do not think, we obey.”
And when they were told about God and Christ, they would say: “Our gods are loyalty and honor.”
Truly, I say to you: there was never a temptation more terrible than this.
But this temptation is coming to an end.
Very soon the devil will disappear, along with the oppressors of humankind.
— Lamennais
One should not hope to see the advent of the kingdom of heaven, but one should not doubt that it will come. It is constantly approaching.
Do not think that even though the Christianity of the church is incomplete, one-sided and formal, that it is still Christianity. Do not think that. Not only is the Christianity of the church not Christianity, it is the most evil enemy of true Christianity. This Christianity of the church stands now in relation to true Christianity like a criminal caught in the act. He has only two ways out: he can either destroy himself, or he can continue committing more and more crimes. And, despite the hopelessness of its situation, it still continues its terrible, criminal activity.