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14 - A Confession - Leo Tolstory · Philosophy and Faith

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  Speaker 1: Chapter fourteen of a confession by Leo Tolstoit. It was
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  Speaker 1: then so necessary for me to believe in order to
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  Speaker 1: live that I unconsciously concealed from myself the contradictions and
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  Speaker 1: obscurities of theology. But this reading of meanings into the
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  Speaker 1: rites had its limits. If the chief words in the
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  Speaker 1: prayer for the Emperor became more and more queer to me,
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  Speaker 1: if I found some explanation for the words, and remembering
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  Speaker 1: our sovereign, most Holy Mother of God and all the
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  Speaker 1: saints ourselves in one another, we give our whole life
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  Speaker 1: to Christ, our God. If I explained to myself the
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  Speaker 1: frequent repetitions of prayers for the Csar and his relations
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  Speaker 1: by the fact that they are more exposed to temptations
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  Speaker 1: in other people, and therefore are more in need of
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  Speaker 1: being prayed for. The prayers about subduing our enemies and
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  Speaker 1: evil under our feet. Even if one tried to say
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  Speaker 1: that sin was the enemy being prayed against. These and
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  Speaker 1: other prayers, such as the Cherbic Song and the whole
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  Speaker 1: sacrament of oblation, or the Chosen Warriors, et cetera, quite
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  Speaker 1: two thirds of all the services either remained completely incomprehensible
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  Speaker 1: or when I forced an explanation to them, made me
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  Speaker 1: feel that I was lying, thereby destroying my relation to
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  Speaker 1: God and depriving me of all possibility of belief. I
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  Speaker 1: felt the same about the celebration of the Chief holidays.
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  Speaker 1: To remember the Sabbath, that is, to devote one day
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  Speaker 1: to God, was something I could understand. But the Chief
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  Speaker 1: Holiday was in commemoration of the Resurrection, the reality of
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  Speaker 1: which I could not picture to myself or understand. And
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  Speaker 1: the name of Resurrection was also given to the weekly holiday,
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  Speaker 1: and on those days the sacrament of the Eucharist was administered,
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  Speaker 1: which was quite unintelligible to me. The rest of the
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  Speaker 1: twelve Great Holidays, except Christmas, commemorated miracles, the things I
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  Speaker 1: tried not to think about in order to not deny
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  Speaker 1: the Ascension, Pentecost, Epiphany, the Feast of the Intercession of
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  Speaker 1: the Holy Virgin, et cetera. At the celebration of these holidays,
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  Speaker 1: feeling that importance was being attributed to the very things
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  Speaker 1: that to me presented a negative importance, I either devised
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  Speaker 1: tranquilizing explanations or shut my eyes in order not to
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  Speaker 1: see what tempted me most of all, this happened to
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  Speaker 1: me when taking part in the most usual sacraments, which
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  Speaker 1: are considered the most important, Baptism and Communion. There I
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  Speaker 1: experienced not incomprehensible, but fully comprehensible doings, doings which seemed
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  Speaker 1: to me to lead into temptation, and I was in
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  Speaker 1: a dilemma whether to lie or to reject them. Never
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  Speaker 1: shall I forget the painful feeling I experienced the day
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  Speaker 1: I received the eucharists for the first time after many years.
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  Speaker 1: The service, confession, and prayers were quite intelligible and produced
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  Speaker 1: in me a glad consciousness that the meaning of life
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  Speaker 1: was being revealed to me. The communion itself I explained
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  Speaker 1: as an act I performed in remembrance of Christ and
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  Speaker 1: indicating a purification from sin and the full acceptance of
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  Speaker 1: Christ's teachings. If that explanation was artificial, I did not
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  Speaker 1: notice its artificiality. So happy was I humbling and abasing
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  Speaker 1: myself before a priest, a simple, timid country clergyman, turning
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  Speaker 1: all the dirt out of my soul and confessing my vices.
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  Speaker 1: So glad was I to merge and thought with the
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  Speaker 1: humanity of the fathers who wrote the prayers of the office.
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  Speaker 1: So glad was I of union with all those who
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  Speaker 1: have believed and now believe that. I did not notice
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  Speaker 1: the artificiality of my explanation. But when I approached the
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  Speaker 1: altar gates and the priest made me say that I
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  Speaker 1: believed that what I was about to swallow was truly
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  Speaker 1: flesh in blood, I felt a pain in my heart.
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  Speaker 1: It was not merely a false note. It was a
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  Speaker 1: cruel demand made by someone or other who evidently had
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  Speaker 1: never known what faith is. I now permit myself to
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  Speaker 1: say that it was a cruel demand, but I did
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  Speaker 1: not then think so, only that it was indescribably painful
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  Speaker 1: to me. I was no longer in the position in
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  Speaker 1: which I had been in youth, when I thought that
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  Speaker 1: all in life was clear. I had indeed come to faith,
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  Speaker 1: because apart from faith I had found nothing, certainly, nothing
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  Speaker 1: except destruction. Therefore, to throw away that faith was impossible,
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  Speaker 1: and I submitted, And I found in my soul a
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  Speaker 1: feeling which helped me to endure it. This was the
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  Speaker 1: feeling of self abasement and humility. I humbled myself swallowed
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  Speaker 1: that flesh and blood without any blasphemous feelings, and with
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  Speaker 1: a wish to believe, but the blow had been struck,
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  Speaker 1: and knowing what awaited me, I could not go a
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  Speaker 1: second time. I continued to fulfill the rights of the
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  Speaker 1: Church and still believed that the doctrine I was following
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  Speaker 1: contained the truth. When something happened to me which I
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  Speaker 1: now understand, but which then seemed strange. I was listening
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  Speaker 1: to the conversation of an illiterate peasant, a pilgrim, about God, faith,
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  Speaker 1: life and salvation. When a knowledge of faith revealed itself
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  Speaker 1: to me. I drew near to the people, listening to
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  Speaker 1: their opinions of life and faith, and I understood the
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  Speaker 1: truth more and more. So. Also was it when I
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  Speaker 1: read the lives of holy men, which became my favorite books.
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  Speaker 1: Putting aside the miracles and regarding them as fables illustrating thoughts,
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  Speaker 1: this reading revealed to me life's meaning. They were the
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  Speaker 1: lies of Macarius the Great, the story of Buddha. They
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  Speaker 1: were the words of Saint John Chrysostom. And there were
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  Speaker 1: the stories of the Traveler and the well, the monk
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  Speaker 1: who found some gold, and of Peter the Publican. There
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  Speaker 1: were stories of the martyrs, all announcing that death does
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  Speaker 1: not exclude life. And there were the stories of ignorant,
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  Speaker 1: stupid men who knew nothing of the teaching of the Church,
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  Speaker 1: but who yet were saved. But as soon as I
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  Speaker 1: met learned believers or took up their books, doubt of myself, dissatisfaction,
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  Speaker 1: and exasperated disputation were roused in me. And I felt
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  Speaker 1: that the more I entered into the meanings of these
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  Speaker 1: men's speeches, the more I went astray from truth and
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  Speaker 1: approached an abyss. End of chapter fourteen,